Here is a curated list of items that you should try after installing Linux Mint 20 Ulyana.
Linux Mint 20 is released a while back and it is one of the most major releases from the Linux Mint team.
However, if you have upgraded or done a fresh install already, there are certain post-install tweaks debugpoint.com recommends which you can try it out – right now.
Here they are.
Table of Contents
1. Update your system
When you install Linux Mint, the first thing you should do is update the system, before you do anything else. Usually, there are some updates pushed to users after release day with some immediate fixes (if any) which was missed during testing and critical for system stability. Open Update Manager from the menu and click update.
2. Install Drivers
Before you start using the system in full, make sure you have the right drivers installed as a fresh release means more driver support with updated software. From menu, open Driver Manager. It will automatically check for updated drivers and lists them for you. Click apply changes.
3. Setup Backup
Backup is important, always. In Linux Mint, you can easily take backups, create system restore points using “Timeshift”. As you just installed the fresh system, it is recommended that you should create a system restore point at this stage so that if needed you can revert back to this system state in case of emergency.
Open Timeshift from menu and follow the on-screen instruction to create system restore points.
4. Configure Redshift
Redshift is a pre-installed utility in Linux Mint which helps to control brightness, the color of your computer’s display to help your eyes. It can change the color based on the timings of the day – such as night time.
To turn it on, search Redshift from Menu and it will start automatically. To configure, you can see the options in the taskbar.
5. Configure Browser
Linux Mint comes with Mozilla Firefox latest version but it comes with Yahoo! as a default search engine. Google, the popular search engine is not readily available to choose as default.
To set, Google as a default search engine, visit this page. At the bottom of this page, click the Google icon under the ‘other search engine’ section.
In the next page, click the add button to add Google as default search engine.
Now, you can go back to the preferences page of Firefox and set Google as a default search engine in Linux Mint.
6. Turn on Firewall
You should always turn on the firewall. Because turning on the Firewall will keep you safe from malicious requests to your computer. Linux Mint comes with a built-in Firewall named ‘ufw’ or Uncomplicated Firewall. And it is disabled by default, hence you have to enable it manually. To enable ufw, open terminal and run below commands.
Linux Mint in-built firewall named as ‘ufw’ or Uncomplicated Firewall, is disabled by default. You have to enable it. Open terminal and type below command to enable firewall:
sudo ufw enable
To see the status of the firewall, run below command:
sudo ufw status verbose
To disable, run below:
sudo ufw disable
7. Change Look and Feel
Linux Mint always comes with nice themes pre-isntalled and can be configured. Linux Mint 20 bringing two new themes – Mint-Y ‘Pink’ and ‘Aqua’.
8. Install Utilities
Linux Mint always comes with all necessary utilities pre-installed for basic work. However, you can still install additional apps as per your need. And additional apps can vary in a great deal from user to user. However, here are three apps which you might consider trying it out in your fresh Linux Mint installation.
p7zip-rar: A file compression utility with ability to handle zip and rar files.
vlc: Video and Audio media player which can play anything without any separate codecs
catfish: A versatile file search utility
To install above via terminal together, run below command:
sudo apt install p7zip-rar vlc catfish
9. Enable Snap Packages
Linux Mint 20 disabled snap package installation including the snapd. If you want to install it via ‘sudo apt install snapd’ it won’t work as it is disabled. However, snap is not that fancy or good anyway in my personal opinion. It simply slows down the system and other things as well. Anyway, if you still want to enable snap then follow the below steps.
Open the terminal and delete the nosnap.pref file.
sudo rm /etc/apt/preferences.d/nosnap.pref
Now you can install snapd and associate snap apps.
Still, if you really want to install a snap application which doesn’t have any *.deb package, then you can still look for Flatpak executable here. Flatpak is in my opinion is better than snap.
10. Install Fonts
You can also give your Linux Mint a fresh look by installing some fonts. There are plenty of fonts available, and you can install them via terminal. Here are two fonts which you can install now:
sudo apt-get install fonts-crosextra-carlito fonts-crosextra-caladea
In my opinion, these are some of the important post-install items for you on Linux Mint 20. Of course, it is not a complete list and many things can be in a to-do list after installing Linux Mint. I hope it is helpful for you to experience Linux Mint to the fullest.
Like always, if you have any comments or you think that something else also should be included in the post-install checklists, let me know.
