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Portal

  • in System
  • 2 min read

Windows Postinstall

Things to do after Windows install.

See also The Ultimate Windows Development Environment Guide

Enable MS store and winget in Windows LTSC

Run the following command in admin rights and ignore the error. MS store will be installed after a few minutes.

wsreset -i

Click Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller to install winget.

CTT Windows Utility

The Chris Titus Tech's Windows Utility provides APP installs, fixes and tweaks.

irm christitus.com/win | iex

winget apps

winget install Romanitho.Winget-AutoUpdate
winget install Git.Git
winget install Microsoft.WindowsTerminal
winget install Microsoft.PowerShell
winget install Microsoft.VisualStudioCode
winget install qBittorrent.qBittorrent
winget install Mozilla.Firefox
winget install Brave.Brave
winget install Telegram.TelegramDesktop
winget install Bandisoft.Bandizip
winget install M2Team.NanaZip
winget install Bandisoft.Honeyview
winget install Daum.PotPlayer
winget install Nevcairiel.LAVFilters
winget install yt-dlp.yt-dlp
winget install Gyan.FFmpeg
winget install CrystalDewWorld.CrystalDiskInfo
winget install CrystalDewWorld.CrystalDiskMark
winget install Microsoft.DirectX
winget install Starship.Starship
winget install Obsidian.Obsidian
winget install GitHub.GitHubDesktop
winget install TechPowerUp.GPU-Z
winget install CPUID.CPU-Z

Chocolatey package manager

If winget does not work.

Install Chocolatey 🍫, a command-line interface (CLI) package manager for Windows.

Open the powershell prompt with admin privilege (e.g. via the Windows + X menu):

Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://community.chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))

Install packages

choco feature enable -n=useRememberedArgumentsForUpgrades
choco install -y git.install --params "'/NoShellIntegration'"

choco install -y vscode qbittorrent firefox brave telegram bandizip nanazip honeyview potplayer lavfilters yt-dlp ffmpeg crystaldiskinfo crystaldiskmark directx vcredist-all sudo starship obsidian nerd-fonts-firacode nerd-fonts-hack github-desktop
choco uninstall -n --skipautouninstaller vscode qbittorrent telegram github-desktop brave

See also the  🍫 Chocolatey package list for more packages.

Disable hibernation

Disabling hibernation saves a lot of disk space (No more C:\hiberfile.sys). Run this in powershell with admin rights:

powercfg -h off

Afterward

  • in System
  • 4 min read

Ubuntu postinstall

Things to do after installing

Make software repo point to NCHC for faster network speed

You can replace  archive.ubuntu.com with a closer mirror, e.g., tw.archive.ubuntu.com or free.nchc.org.tw in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu.sources. After you are done, run:

sudo apt clean && sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y

Install 3rd party apps

First, install required package

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl git gnupg-agent software-properties-common

Brave browser

Setup Brave browser

sudo curl -fsSLo /usr/share/keyrings/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg arch=amd64] https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/brave-browser-release.list > /dev/null
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y brave-browser

qBittorrent

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:qbittorrent-team/qbittorrent-stable
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y qbittorrent

Telegram messenger

Download and run the official binaries.

Xanmod Linux kernel

Xanmod is a general-purpose Linux kernel distribution with custom settings and new features.

curl -fsSL https://dl.xanmod.org/gpg.key | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/xanmod-keyring.gpg
echo 'deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/xanmod-keyring.gpg] http://deb.xanmod.org releases main' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xanmod-kernel.list > /dev/null
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y linux-xanmod

AMD and Intel open-source GPU library (Mesa)

Install the latest Mesa open source GPU drivers from the kisak PPA

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:kisak/kisak-mesa
sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y

Wine and 32-bit games support

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

sudo mkdir -pm755 /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo wget -O /etc/apt/keyrings/winehq-archive.key https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key

sudo wget -NP /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/dists/noble/winehq-noble.sources
sudo apt update && sudo apt install wine

Kubuntu backports

Kubuntu backports: Latest versions of KDE framework and APPs

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y

Latest kernel

Install Hardware Enablement (HWE) kernels: https://ubuntu.com/kernel/lifecycle

sudo apt install --install-recommends linux-generic-hwe-$VERSION

Where $VERSION is the Ubuntu version.

Update your system and install packages

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade -y

Ubuntu:

sudo apt install -y git git-lfs cifs-utils ssh nala gnome-shell-extension-manager parallel baobab ncdu synaptic apt-xapian-index ppa-purge ubuntu-restricted-extras ffmpeg vlc mcomix fonts-wqy-microhei fonts-wqy-zenhei fonts-open-sans ttf-mscorefonts-installer zsh btrfs-compsize

Kubuntu:

sudo apt install -y git git-lfs cifs-utils ssh nala parallel ncdu kio-extras gnome-keyring ppa-purge kubuntu-restricted-extras ffmpeg vlc fonts-wqy-microhei fonts-wqy-zenhei fonts-open-sans ttf-mscorefonts-installer zsh btrfs-compsize synaptic apt-xapian-index

System tweaks

Fix locales

Uncomment the zh_TW line in /etc/locale.gen. Then run:

sudo locale-gen

Finally, install the Traditional Chinese locale in Language Support and then set locale to Taiwan.

(Optional) Remove snap

List snap packages

snap list

Uninstall each Snap package

sudo snap remove --purge $PKG

Stop the snapd service and uninstall it

sudo systemctl stop snapd
sudo apt remove --autoremove --purge snapd
sudo apt-mark hold snapd

Terminal

Temporary files in RAM disk

Setting tmpfs (RAM disk) for /tmp folder:

sudo cp -v /usr/share/systemd/tmp.mount /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl enable tmp.mount

Disable Extended Security Maintenance (ESM)

sudo mv /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20apt-esm-hook.conf /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20apt-esm-hook.conf.disabled

Disable cloud-init

sudo touch /etc/cloud/cloud-init.disabled

Automatic updates

sudo apt install unattended-upgrades
sudo dpkg-reconfigure -plow unattended-upgrades

Gnome shell extensions

YOu can also search and install extensions via gnome-shell-extension-manager

Kubuntu System Settings

  • Double click to open files instead of single clicks: Workspace behavior => General behavior => click behavior.
  • Start with an empty session in Desktop session.

Making system more responsive

Fine-tuning the kernel

Replace the line in /etc/default/grub

Gaming:

/etc/default/grub
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash preempt=full"

Virtualization:

/etc/default/grub
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash preempt=full Nohz_full=all"

Then run:

sudo update-grub

Misc.

  • in System
  • 1 min read

Install fonts in Linux

Copy the fonts files to ~/.local/share/fonts/. Then, run fc-cache to rebuild fonts cache.

fc-cache -fv
  • in DevOps
  • 1 min read

Git submodule

Frequently used commands for Git submodules.

Add a submodule

TO add the reference to another git project as a submodule:

git submodule add $url $path
git submodule update --init --recursive

Alternatively, you can use GUI tools like or GitHub desktop. They download and initiate submodules automatically.

Add you will see the file .gitmodules with information about the submodule(s). For instance,

.gitmodules
[submodule "themes/DoIt"]
    path = themes/DoIt
    url = https://github.com/HEIGE-PCloud/DoIt.git

Track a specific branch in the submodule

With -b $branch option

git submodule add -b $branch $url $path

Or set-branch -b $branch if you already have added a submodule

git submodule set-branch -b  $branch $path

Update all Git submodules to the latest commit

From a stackOverflow post and Git docs

git submodule update --remote --merge

For automated updates by bots, see automatic dependency update.

Remove a submodule

From Git docs

# Remove submodule from config
git submodule deinit $path
# Delete submodule tracking data
git rm <submodule path> && git commit
# Complete removal
rm -rf $GIT_DIR/modules/$name/
  • in DevOps
  • 2 min read

SSH login to GitHub and GitLab

Generate a pair of SSH keys

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your_email@example.com"

The SSH agent will ask you to enter a location to save the keys. e.g. /home/user/.ssh/id_ed25519. Passphrase is optional.
Then there will be two SSH key files:

  • ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 is the private key. Protect it at all costs.
  • ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub is the public key.

Using different keys for GitHub and GitLab access is more secure. However, the same pair of keys is used for this demonstration purposes.

Add remote to the SSH settings

Edit ~/.ssh/config

mkdir -p ~/.ssh
touch ~/.ssh/config
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/config
nano ~/.ssh/config

Add the following content to set the private key as the IdentityFile.

~/.ssh/config
Host GitHub
  HostName github.com
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

Host GitLab
  HostName gitlab.com
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

Add the SSH key to your GitHub account

According to 📖 Github docs, add the SSH key here

  • Paste the content of the public key, ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub to the key field.
  • Add a descriptive label for the new key in the "Title" field.
  • Finally, click the Add SSH key green button. If prompted, confirm your GitHub password.

Add the SSH key to your GitLab account

Add the SSH key here

  • Paste the content of the public key, ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub to the key field.
  • Add a descriptive label for the new key in the "Title" field.
  • Select an expiration date.
  • Finally, click the Add key button.

Test your setup

GitHub:

ssh -vT git@github.com

Accept its fingerprint if prompted. If you see "Hi user! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access" that means login is successful.

GitLab:

ssh -vT git@gitlab.com

Accept its fingerprint if prompted.