An Ultimate Guide for installing Ubuntu 22

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Ma finally abandoned her old laptop and purchased a new one. After getting that outmoded HP, I found that the computer is such behind the times that it cannot even run Windows 11.

However, what surprised me is that the laptop has 1.0TB of HDD and 256GB of SSD. Thus, I decided to install Ubuntu 22 acompanied with Windows 10 on that computer.

Actually, I were to install Elementary OS, Ubuntu 24 and Manjaro on that PC. However, it turns out that the old laptop cannot run these OS properly (cannot boot Elementary OS, not fluent while running Ubuntu 24, and I don’t even know how to use an arch Linux system qwq).

Anyway, Ubuntu 22 has become my overall decision. And this article will be focusing on installing Ubuntu 22 and its subsequent prettification.

Download and Install

  1. Download the ISO image of Ubuntu 22 from the official website.
  2. Download Rufus to create a USB drive. Remember to choose the “Partition Scheme” to be “GPT”.
  3. Insert the USB drive and start the computer. Madly press F10 key to enter the BIOS (Noting that this key may vary in different computer. The key for entering BIOS on HP computer is F10).
  4. Boot the computer with USB Drive.

Install Ubuntu onto your PC

There is nothing notable during the installation process except for the partitioning. To install Linux system aside with Windows 10, we would need to manually assign each partition with their size.

I will list my settings for a reference.

  1. Boot Dictionary /boot: should be around 100MB to 500MB
  2. Swap Partition: an extension of physical RAM, offering virtual memory that helps maintain system stability and performance. It should be 1 or 2 times of physical RAM.
  3. Root Dictionary root: The topmost directory in the filesystem, containing all the files and directories of the operating system. I assigned the rest of my SSD space (around 90GB) for this partition.
  4. (Optional) Home Dictionary /home: Containing user data. I assigned 90GB of HDD for this.

Setup your Ubuntu Desktop

Install Chrome

Like how every Windows user would do when they first got their new computer, installing Chrome is always the very first process. Download the .deb package from the official site of Chrome. Double-click or run

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sudo apt update
sudo apt install ./google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb

to install Chrome.

* Install GNOME Tweak

Execute the commands below,

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sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak
sudo apt-get install chrome-gnome-shell # Support for chrome

Then, open Gnome Extensions to install User Themes and Dash to Dock

Download theme pack

The theme pack is gained from the Gnome look wesite

The package I’m using is:

Theme pack: WhiteSur Gtk Theme

Cursor pack: McMojave cursors

Icon pack: WhiteSur icon theme

Install theme pack

Enter commands below to create /.icons and /.themes folder under the home directory,

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cd ~
mkdir /.themes
mkdir /.icons

Then, extract the theme package to /.themes. The cursor and icon pack would need to be extracted to /.icons folder.

Having your theme, cursor and icons pack ready in correct path, you would be able to use them by Gnome Tweak Tool.

(Optional) Stop being prompted to unlock the ‘default’ keyring on boot

See also Ask Ubuntu - How can I stop being prompted to unlock the ‘default’ keyring on boot?

Install Chinese pinyin input method

See also Ask Ubuntu - Ubuntu 22.04 Chinese (simplified) pinyin input support

Turn on Asterisks While Typing Sudo Password

Firstly, install Vim to edit file through terminal,

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sudo apt-get install vim

Modify the configuration file,

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sudo cp /etc/sudoers /etc/sudoers.bak # Make a backup for configure file
sudo visudo

Find Defaults env_reset. Add ,pwfeedback to it,

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Defaults env_reset,pwfeedback

Get a Clean Desktop

There are several ways to achieve this prupose,

Disable Display of Personal Folder

This would be the most easiest method. Just need to toggle Settings - Appearance - Show Personal folder off.

Other methods

See also 5 Ways to Hide Desktop Icons in Ubuntu

Beautify the Terminal

Installing Zsh

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sudo apt-get install zsh

Change the default shell to Zsh

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cat /etc/shells # To check for shells already installed
chsh -s /bin/zsh # Change default shell

Install Oh-My-Zsh

See also Oh My Zsh

Or run,

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sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

Configurate Oh-My-Zsh

Edit ~/.zshrc,

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sudo vim ~/.zshrc

Then set ZSH_THEME to the name of the theme you prefer. The detailed information about themes could be found on Oh-My-Zsh Themes. For me, I use ZSH_THEME="agnoster"

Issue about rendering special characters in Zsh

Run commands below,

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cd ~/Downloads && git clone https://github.com/powerline/fonts.git	# Install Powerline fonts to /Downloads

cd fonts && ./install.sh	# Install Powerline fonts

cd && rm -rf ~/Downloads/fonts	# Delete fond folder

See also Oh-my-zsh主题乱码解决办法

The issue should be fixed by now. If not, try right clicking the terminal window, find “Preference”. Modify “Profiles - Unnamed - Text - Custom font”.

That’s it. These process takes you from installing Ubuntu to subsequent prettification. By following instruction above, You will be hoping to get a “fancy” (lol) Ubuntu PC.