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Setting Up Linux For Development

I like hate Ubuntu as the best Linux distribution. Download (hands down) the best operating system ever here.

LMDE is Debian with Cinammon desktop on top. Ubuntu have a habit of undermining my sudo by sneakily installing an ugly package of Firefox. Au revoir Ubuntu. Salut, Debian !

Update the system:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Install tools:​

  • git
  • gcc
  • vim
  • openssh

Always run apt update first before installing any software; otherwise, your Linux machine might become Windows, and you'd regret it. Just kidding. In fact, Windows is a great OS, not only for games. Visual Studio is an excellent IDE for developing a variety of applications for all platforms, and it can only be installed on a Windows device, if I'm not mistaken.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Then install the tools:

sudo apt install git gcc vim

openssh apparently is already installed. If not,

sudo apt install openssh

Configure the tools:​

git​

You can change the name that is associated with your Git commits using the git config command1.

This guide assumes that you already have a Github account set up and ready.

  1. Set up a Git username:
git config --global user.name ""

To confirm that you have set the username correctly,

git config --global user.name

The enclosing quotations marks are empty intentionally. You should type your username in between.

  1. Set an email address:
git config --global user.email ""

To confirm that you have set the email address correctly,

git config --global user.email

ssh​

  1. Next is to set up and configure ssh to be able to connect and push your codes to your Github repositories. This is also true when using Sublime Merge. Generating ssh keys on Working Copy is easier.
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C ""
  1. Copy the contents in the generated .pub to your Github's SSH and GPG keys tab or section:
cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

vim​

Much of the changes I want to make for my toolbox could most probably be automated. I should learn how to do that someday.

For now, I'll just make a repository for all my config files so I can easily find them all in one place2.

  1. Create a .gitignore containing only *.
  2. Initialize home and set up git repository.
cd ~
git init
git remote add origin git@github.com:knznsmn/dtfls.git
git fetch
git checkout -f main
note

Found this page. Should read this later.

Adding files/directories:

git add -f <filename>

Install oh-my-bash​

Make bash a lot prettier for eyescream experience using oh-my-bash.

bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmybash/oh-my-bash/master/tools/install.sh)"

Download other tools:​

  • Obsidian --- A nice note-taking app. I add and edit contents of this website with Obsidian.
  • Sublime Text --- A text editor for text editing done right, they said. Please don't shoot the messenger.
  • Sublime Merge --- An actually decent git GUI client for editing text.
  • Zotero --- It is a free tool to help organize, annotate, cite, and share research.

Encountered Problems and Tried Fixes​

Installing Nvidia driver​

To install the official NVIDIA driver instead of the default graphics driver "nouveau".

sudo apt install nvidia-driver

Disable grub delay​

Modify the grub file:

sudo vim /etc/default/grub

Broken libdvd-pkg​

I don't understand most of the errors (and even the fixes) of Linux system. But this fix works:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure libdvd-pkg

Fonts​

  • fonts- install fonts at ~/.local/share/fonts

Footnotes​

  1. Github Inc. (2024). Generating a new SSH key and adding it to the ssh-agent ↩

  2. deVault, D. (2019, Dec 30). Managing my dotfiles as a git repository) ↩