ubuntu desktop configuration

Ubuntu versions supported: 20.04, 22.04

Aim

Sometimes there are PCs/Notebooks available but without an up-to-date operating system. The aim of this notebook is to find the balance between data protection and a “somehow managed" device running a free-of-charge open-source system.

This repository is the counterpart to the homeschooling server stack, that allows to easily set up a server with different collaborative open-source tools.

Youtube

• Installing an Ubuntu system.
• First startup and update of a WeG Ubuntu installation.
• (Re)Install WeG Ubuntu on any Ubuntu installation.
• Just showing some random features of Ubuntu.

Usb-installation-stick

First download a fresh Ubuntu image. Then you proceed to create a bootable usb-installation-stick:

Tutorial for Mac

Tutorial for Windows

If you have prepared your installation-stick, you install Ubuntu on the PC/Notebook.

Installation

When everything is done, you log into your Ubuntu account and open a terminal (shortcut Ctrl+Alt+T). Copy the whole content of the box beneath, paste it into the console and press enter. This will download the setup-skript and install all basic packages including firewall configurations. For this setup you must enter again your password in the console - don't be confused that there is not shown anything when typing.

wget -qO- https://github.com/raw/tna76874/hdhweg-ubuntu/master/install | bash

OPTIONAL: When you want to install additional software packages execute:

bigupdate

Custom commands

With this configuration a few custom console commands are defined. These will be initialized within the .bashrc of every user. Check the details here .

Automatic pulls and updates

By default automatic pulls from this git repository gets triggered 10 minutes after each system startup. 15 minutes after every reboot, the base role will be run once. To customize this behavior just edit vars.yml to your needs.

sudo nano /root/.config/vars_sysconfig.yml

Package management

This repository uses apt, snap and flatpak as package management systems. If possible, a flatpak version is preferred.

Updates and maintenance

With this setup two cronjobs will be installed. One gets triggered 10 minutes after every startup and updates the git-repository containing the playbooks. The second runs the main.yml playbook 15 minutes after every startup. Please check the content of main.yml carefully and disable automatic pulls (described above) if you do not want this role to be kept up to date with this repository. Disabling automatic pulls is recommended if you have experience with linux systems! In any case, every other role except main.yml have to be triggered manually. To pull and install the latest software of this repository you have just to type in the terminal and confirm with your password:

update

The update process for the bigger software bundle gets tiggered with bigupdate.

TL;DR --> Follow the ubuntu pop-ups to upgrade your system or type update in command line to trigger a system upgrade including latest update of this repo manually.

Uninstall

To remove the playbook from the system, just execute uninstall. Please note, that this command will not remove installed programms and apt-sources but only the playbook and the cronjobs.

uninstall

Documentation of hardware components

Sometimes it is mandatory to document the hardware components of the system. For this purpose you can generate a pdf file with a short overview of the components with the tool inxi. You find the document in the downloads folder.

hwpdf

If it is mandatory to wipe the harddrive, you can use another function. With this command, you first select a harddrive to wipe (e.g. sda) and the wipe process will be added to the overview of the system components. This command can only be executed from within a ubuntu-live system (username "ubuntu").

shreddrive

Preparing a custom installation image

If you have multiple devices to set up with this configuration, it might be handy to prepare a custom preconfigured Ubuntu image. If you use a ubuntu operating system, one way to do this is to use Cubic (Example). In the big software bundle cubic is already included.

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:cubic-wizard/release
sudo apt update
sudo apt install cubic

Once loaded the original Ubuntu image into Cubic, you will be logged into a root console. Proceed with the installation process of the ansible playbook and further customize the image to your needs. When finnished, you create a boot-installation-stick with your custom image.

There might be problems with the DNS of the chroot environment of cubic running on ubuntu 18.04. As a workaround you can try:

mkdir /run/systemd/resolve/
echo "nameserver 127.0.0.53
search network" | tee /run/systemd/resolve/resolv.conf
ln -sr /run/systemd/resolve/resolv.conf /run/systemd/resolve/stub-resolv.conf

Miscellaneous

TeamViewer

By default TeamViewer gets installed. Every time the playbook runs (e.g. 15 min after startup) it will be ensured, that the TeamViewer daemon ist disabled! So if you start TeamViewer there will be reported "a problem with your internet connection". Actually it is just the switched-off daemon.

If TeamViewer is needed, you have to enable the daemon manually by typing in the terminal:

sudo killall /opt/teamviewer/tv_bin/TeamViewer; sudo teamviewer daemon enable

An alias for this command is twstart.

Fritzbox

Roger Router is an excellent addition if you already run a Fritzbox.

install_fritzbox

Check the documentation on wiki.ubuntuusers.de.

• Dial with your DECT Phone: #96*3*
• Dial with your DECT Phone: #96*5*

pi-hole

If you care about your privacy using pi-hole as an local DNS-server is recommended. A pi-hole Docker-container will handle and filter all DNS-requests.

install_pihole

The pi-hole server can be customized and administrated via the web interface http://localhost:8008/admin/index.php . To remove pi-hole execute uninstall_pihole .