What programs do you install? What customizations do you make?
Off the top of my head, here are some of mine:
Settings /Customizations
- Mouse and Touchpad > Tick “Tap to click”.
I have to do this first because not having tap-to-click working on a laptop drives me nuts! “Why the hell is nothing happening?!?” - Windows, Themes & Icons etc
But now I can’t remember exactly all I did. Neofetch says I’m using “Arc-Darker” theme and “Papirus-Dark” icons. - Wallpaper
I tend to change to something simple/plain and dark. E.g. at the moment I just have plain dark blue, no image. Boring AF, but then what I want to look at is the programs and files, not the wallpaper.
Programs to install:
Mostly GUI programs, because I’m useless at the command line.
- Wine
Runs Windows software. For that one program I absolutely need for work. In my case, WeChat. Which is the second thing I install. - Ksnip
For taking & annotating screenshots, and other basic image editing. Handy for tech support on a new installation. - Floorp
Firefox-based web browser. Finally, a free-libre browser that allows me to be free-libre too! For example, free to put the tabs at the side of the browser to maximize vertical viewing space, no dodgy extensions or config trickery required. - KeepassXC
Password manager - Dropbox
App for file sync service. One of these days I’ll switch to something more libre, I promise! - QCalcFileHash
Gives the hash/checksum for a file. Handy for making sure that download is correct. - QBittorrent
Bittorrent filesharing. So that you can get that Lubuntu ISO without increasing their server costs, or needing to hash the ISO to verify its checksum. - Neofetch
Command line program that sums up your basic computer system details in a pretty way. - Some voice recording program
To check my sound setup/quality re online meetings & calls. I have used a Flatpak app called Reco, but now some online reviews say there are privacy problems with apps from that developer. (Yes I know I could probably use VLC to do it, because you can do almost anything in VLC… if you’re willing to pull your hair out at the convoluted user experience for anything other than simply playing a file. Sometimes you just want a plain knife, not a 73-tool Swiss Army Knife.)
Extensions to install in the browser
The browser is so important to many, installing several extensions to it is also one of the first things I do with a new installation.
- uBlock Origin
Ad blocker.
Re ad blocking ethics
Re the ethics of ad blocking, I have recently tried reading some articles from the Google news feed on my Android phone, which by default open in (unmodified) Chrome. It was my first experience browsing without an ad blocker in years, and it was… truly horrific! Multiple pop-ups, auto-playing videos, jiggling images, all distracting from or covering the barely viewable article. Yes, most of them provide an “x” to close the ad, but all in different places, tiny (heaven help you if your finger strays ever so slightly from the precise location) and when I saw no fewer than 6 "x"s on the phone screen at the same time, I noped out and closed the page, trying again in Firefox with uBlock Origin. If websites don’t want me using an ad blocker, don’t make sites that are an absolute nightmare without one. (Kudos to Inverse, for making webpages with a non-horrific ad experience.)
- Privacy Badger
Stops advertisers tracking you across the different websites you visit. - Dark Reader
Makes web pages dark, easier on the eyes, especially at night.
And finally…
Things to uninstall
Sorry to those who made them or chose to include them, but then everyone’s needs are different.
- Quassel
IRC client. I mean, I suppose if I really wanted to download the latest Sopranos episode TV capture in .avi format from a bot in a Dalnet channel… (not that I ever did that
)
But nowadays we have much better options than IRC, like Matrix. (Ooh, maybe a Matrix client should go on my install list… although it seems to work just as well in the web browser.) - 2042 or something like that.
A game that provides no explanation of what the game is, and which I still don’t understand how to play even after DuckDuckGoing it.
- Unwanted fonts
In programs like Libre Office Writer, I hate having to scroll through a gazillion fonts I will never use just to find the few I am interested in. In my case, I want Latin fonts, and a few CJK ones. (And maybe Wingdings!)
“Discover” allowed me to uninstall many Indic fonts, but I still have to scroll through Khmer, Arabic, Coptic etc.