commit ddd7a4172a0951867615c535e76c380d8e464f8a
parent 974c051b10a0e336d888196cb93b12bacda84a8c
Author: Chris Bracken <chris@bracken.jp>
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2020 19:33:49 -0700
Add minimal Ubuntu desktop install instructions
Describes setup of a Sway window manager based minimal ubuntu desktop
built up from an Ubuntu server image.
Diffstat:
| A | ubuntu_install.md | | | 275 | +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ |
1 file changed, 275 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
diff --git a/ubuntu_install.md b/ubuntu_install.md
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+Ubuntu install with UEFI boot
+=============================
+
+This provides a basic rundown of process of a minimal Ubuntu Linux install with
+the following setup:
+
+ * UEFI boot
+ * LVM filesystem
+ * Sway WM using Wayland
+
+Rather than using the Ubuntu Desktop install media, we start with Ubuntu server
+to generate a more minimal installation. By default, Ubuntu installs GDM and
+the Gnome desktop, which makes using non X-based desktops more difficult.
+
+This guide assumes a wired ethernet connection and a working DHCP server.
+
+
+Create USB boot disk
+--------------------
+
+Download an install image from https://ubuntu.com/download/server, then write
+it to a disk using `dd`. Reboot the machine to be imaged and use the machin's
+BIOS features to boot from the USB drive in UEFI mode.
+
+
+Walk through the Ubuntu installer
+---------------------------------
+
+Rough notes for installer (TODO: fill this out):
+* When prompted for whether to download the updated installer, download it.
+* When prompted to partition the disk, select to use the whole disk with LVM.
+* When prompted to verify the LVM partitioning, adjust the space allocated to
+ each volume, partition, as necessary.
+* When prompted for which service to install, select none. Install the OpenSSH
+ server if desired.
+
+Reboot the machine.
+
+Verify the machine booted into UEFI mode:
+
+ ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
+
+If the directory does not exist, the system is likely booted in BIOS mode. You
+will want to enter BIOS and enable UEFI boot, then reboot from the USB drive in
+UEFI mode and restart installation.
+
+Next, we'll apply any immediate updates and remove any leftover unnecessary
+packages from the install process.
+
+ sudo apt upgrade
+ sudo apt autoremove
+ sudo apt clean
+
+Next we'll purge any leftover config files from any removed packages:
+
+ dpkg -l | grep '^rc '| awk '{print $2}' | xargs sudo dpkg -P
+
+
+Configure the system
+--------------------
+
+### Generate localisations
+
+Edit `/etc/locales.gen` and uncomment locales that we care about.
+
+ en_AU.UTF-8
+ en_CA.UTF-8
+ en_GB.UTF-8
+ en_US.UTF-8
+ fr_CA.UTF-8
+ ja_JP.UTF-8
+
+Then, regenerate the localisation files.
+
+ sudo locale-gen
+
+
+### Set the system time zone
+
+To get a list of available time zones:
+
+ timedatectl list-timezones
+
+Next, let's set the time zone then restart the `timedatectl` service:
+
+ sudo timedatectl set-timezone America/Vancouver
+ systemctl restart systemd-timedated
+
+Finally, we'll verify the time zone is set correctly:
+
+ timedatectl
+
+
+### Install zsh
+
+Next we'll install zsh and set it as our default shell.
+
+ sudo apt install zsh zsh-doc
+ chsh -s /usr/bin/zsh
+
+
+### Install vim
+
+We're not going to live on a system that doesn't have a reasonable text editor.
+
+ sudo apt install vim
+
+
+### Get audio working
+
+First, we'll install ALSA:
+
+ sudo apt-get install libasound2 libasound2-plugins alsa-utils alsa-oss
+
+Then, we'll install PulseAudio:
+
+ sudo apt-get install pulseaudio pulseaudio-utils
+
+Next, we'll add ourselves to the audio groups.
+
+ sudo usermod -aG pulse,pulse-access,audio chris
+
+Next let's check the state of audio devices.
+
+ pacmd list-sinks
+
+At this point things will be broken until you reboot. So reboot.
+
+ sudo shutdown -r now
+
+When you log back in, run `alsamixer` and use the arrow keys to navigate to the
+master channel and unmute it, then increase the volume. Press ESC to exit.
+
+Audio should work at this point, but the easiest way to confirm that is with a
+web browser, so next we'll get a window manager, terminal, and browser
+installed.
+
+
+Install the Sway window manager and useful apps
+-----------------------------------------------
+
+Next let's install the Wayland-based Sway tiling window manager and
+suckless-tools for the dmenu launcher.
+
+ sudo apt install sway sway-backgrounds swaybg swayidle swaylock \
+ suckless-tools
+
+We'll want a security daemon that works to cache ssh keys, such as
+gnome-keyring:
+
+ sudo apt install gnome-keyring
+
+For a terminal emulator, rxvt is lightweight and works well. We'll install the
+256-colour unicode variant:
+
+ sudo apt install rxvt-unicode-256color
+
+For a Wayland-native terminal emulator, Alacritty is a good choice. The one
+major downside as of March 2020 is that it doesn't have IME support for
+inputting Japanese text under Wayland. Alacritty relies on the FreeDesktop
+xdg-utils package to launch URLs from the terminal.
+
+ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mmstick76/alacritty
+ sudo apt install alacritty
+ sudo apt install xdg-utils
+
+
+### Install Firefox
+
+Next, we'll install Firefox. Since we want to be able to decode media, we also
+install the non-free ubuntu-restricted-extras package.
+
+ sudo apt install firefox ubuntu-unrestricted-extras
+
+On high-resolution displays, Firefox can look pretty tiny. You can change the
+scale factor by going to `about:config`. Then change the logical to physical
+pixel ratio.
+
+ layout.css.devPixelsPerPx = 1.3
+
+To reset this value to the default, change it to -1.0.
+
+
+Get Japanese working
+--------------------
+
+First we're going to need fonts. IPA Font and IPAex Font are produced by the
+Dokuritsu Kyousei Houjin's Information-technology Promotion Agency (IPA) and
+distributed under a permissive licence.
+
+ sudo apt install fonts-ipafont fonts-ipaexfont
+
+Next, we'll get an input manager installed. Input managers have two parts, the
+input system (ibus, uim, fcitx) and the converion engine (anthy, mozc). As of
+March 2020 uim nor fcitx are unsupported on Wayland, but ibus works well. Anthy
+development has effectively been dead since 2009, so instead we'll use mozc.
+
+ sudo apt install ibus-mozc mozc-utils-gui
+ ibus-setup
+ /usr/lib/mozc/mozc_tool --mode=config_dialog
+
+Add the following environment variables in `.zshenv`.
+
+ # Use ibus for Japanese IME.
+ export GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus
+ export XMODIFIERS=@im=ibus
+ export QT_IM_MODULE=ibus
+
+And on Sway startup, we'll want to launch `ibus-daemon` from the Sway config in
+`~/.config/sway/config`.
+
+ exec ibus-daemon --xim
+
+
+Install developer tools
+-----------------------
+
+Next, let's install some software development tools.
+
+### Basic developer tools
+
+First, we'll start with the essentials.
+
+ sudo apt install make
+ sudo apt install clang lldb lld
+ sudo apt install git tig
+ sudo apt install universal-ctags cscope
+
+Next, we'll pick one or more languages you want to develop in.
+
+ sudo apt install nasm
+ sudo apt install python3
+ sudo apt install golang
+
+It's likely, at least in 2020, that some tools still depend on Python 2.7. If
+it's not installed, but turns out to be required, we can install a minimal
+install.
+
+ sudo apt install python-minimal
+
+Rust install instructions exist at https://www.rust-lang.org/tools/install. As
+of March 2020, these look like:
+
+ curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
+
+Then customise the install to not alter the PATH, since any sane person would
+prefer to hand-maintain their dotfiles themselves. If you haven't already, go
+add `~/.cargo/bin` to your `PATH` environment variable.
+
+Ninja is used by a bunch of build systems these days.
+
+ sudo apt install ninja-build
+
+If we need gn (generate ninja), we can build from source:
+
+ git clone https://gn.googlesource.com/gn
+ cd gn
+ ./build/gen.py
+ ninja -j8 -C out/
+ ./out/gn_unittests
+ mkdir -p ~/bin
+ cp ./out/gn ~/bin
+
+If we need bazel, we can pull from the upstream repository. Bazel wants zip and
+unzip installed too:
+
+ curl https://bazel.build/bazel-release.pub.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
+ echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://storage.googleapis.com/bazel-apt stable jdk1.8" | \
+ sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/bazel.list
+ sudo apt update && sudo apt install bazel
+ sudo apt install unzip zip
+
+Bazel also likely wants gcc and g++ installed:
+
+ sudo apt install gcc g++ gdb
