My steps to setup elementaryOS Freya

Angel Ruiz linux, elementaryOS, guide


elementary os

I have decided to give a go to the latest release of the elementaryOS Linux distribution, Freya, and see if it can become my distro of choice for software development. Main reason being that: elementary OS is essentially a Ubuntu (14.04 in this case) based Linux system that just works but wrapped in a really beautiful, smooth and minimalistic interface. All its features make the elementary os usage experience to stand out from all the other Linux distributions I have tried. Even the command line terminal has its own personality, definitely contributing as a differentiation factor.

You only have to boot the OS once and after 4 to 5 seconds (I am using a SSD) you instantly feel atracted to the aesthetics of the desktop. Then after a few minutes using it, everything: the screen transitions, the animations, the notifications, ... makes a delight to your eyes and leaves you with a pleasant sense of lightness and responsiveness. Give it a go and you'll see that the praises don't stop with the looks :-)

So far I have been using it in a VM with good results, so I am going to leave here all the steps I followed in order to get it ready for "business" in my laptop after I finished the standard installation process:

Using "oduso" to install many desktop applications automatically

They have a wide range of common used apps available like web browsers ,text editors and many others...

Just go to their website and choose the apps, icons sets, themes and options you want: https://oduso.com/

It will then generate a unique url and give you the command that needs to be executed to start the automatic installation process:

Mine for instance is:

wget -O - oduso.com/dt2r.sh | bash

Install Linuxbrew:

sudo apt-get install build-essential curl git m4 ruby texinfo libbz2-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev libexpat-dev libncurses-dev zlib1g-dev

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/linuxbrew/go/install)"

Add this to .bashrc or .profile:

export PATH="$HOME/.linuxbrew/bin:$PATH"
export MANPATH="$HOME/.linuxbrew/share/man:$MANPATH"
export INFOPATH="$HOME/.linuxbrew/share/info:$INFOPATH"

Install JDK 8

su -
echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/webupd8team/java/ubuntu trusty main" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/webupd8team-java.list
echo "deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/webupd8team/java/ubuntu trusty main" | tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/webupd8team-java.list
apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys EEA14886
apt-get update
apt-get install oracle-java8-installer
exit
  • Modify .profile to add JAVA_HOME system variable and set bin folder inside the PATH variable:
export JAVA_HOME="/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/"
export PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin

Install GVM

curl -s get.gvmtool.net | bash
source "~/.gvm/bin/gvm-init.sh"

Install Maven

brew install maven

Install Git

brew install git

Install IntellijIDEA

tar -zxvf Downloads/ideaIU-xxx.tar.gz
  • Move ideaIU-xxx folder to /opt/idea:
$ sudo mv idea-IU-xxx/ /opt/idea
  • Create symlink inside /usr/local/bin to /opt/idea/bin/idea.sh:
sudo ln -s /opt/idea/bin/idea.sh /usr/local/bin/idea
  • Create file idea.desktop with the following content:
[Desktop Entry]
Name=IntelliJ IDEA
Type=Application
Exec=idea
Terminal=false
Icon=idea
Comment=Integrated Development Environment
NoDisplay=false
Categories=Development;IDE;
Name[en]=IntelliJ IDEA
  • Install previus file:
sudo desktop-file-install idea.desktop
  • Install icon so it is displayed in the menu:
sudo cp /opt/idea/bin/idea.png /usr/share/pixmaps/idea.png

Install Applications menu editor "MenuLibre"

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:versable/elementary-update
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install menulibre

Install Microsoft fonts

  • Installation:
sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

Install Skype

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.canonical.com/ trusty partner"
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install skype
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