So, Gutsy Gibbon has arrived (It’s an operating system for those of you who don’t follow ubuntu – and it’s a "computer thingie" for the rest of you), and I’m going through the ritual initial setup tonight. Here are my notes for all the things I do initially when setting up a fresh Ubuntu box.
Give it a name. I like to name my computers after things from Star Trek. Commence geek jokes now. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
In the past, I have had machines named Piccard, Geordi, LaForge, TenForward, MainEngineering, Borg, and Holodeck. This one will be named Bridge.
One of the first things I always do after installing a fresh Ubuntu is update the apt repository source list file. This lives in /etc/apt/sources.list, and I add in all the extra repositories (Multiverse, Partners, etc) that are not on by default, and remove the source repositories (I rarely need them, and get annoyed when I refresh the repo list and have to wait for the source repos to update) Here is what my sources.list file looks like now.
After a quick apt-get update, I’m now ready to start installing the junk I know I’ll need. A few utilities come to mind immediately:
- iftop – excellent way to visualize network traffic in the terminal
- lshw – awesome utility to look up and report hardware installed
- nmap – port scanner
- webmin – web-based server config tool
So, I get started with:
apt-get update
apt-get install iftop lshw nmap webmin
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
lshw is already the newest version.
Package webmin is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
E: Package webmin has no installation candidate
Thus, it appears that webmin is no longer maintained in the repository – I seem to remember this happened back with Feisty, so I’ll just have to install it manually later.
Removing webmin from my apt command gives me this:
apt-get install iftop lshw nmap
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
lshw is already the newest version.
The following NEW packages will be installed:
iftop nmap
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 782kB of archives.
After unpacking 2810kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/universe iftop 0.17-4 [31.9kB]
Get:2 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/main nmap 4.20-2 [750kB]
Fetched 782kB in 10s (75.7kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package iftop.
(Reading database ... 19830 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking iftop (from .../archives/iftop_0.17-4_i386.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package nmap.
Unpacking nmap (from .../archives/nmap_4.20-2_i386.deb) ...
Setting up iftop (0.17-4) ...
Setting up nmap (4.20-2) ...
So, I’ve got those tools installed now. Next, make sure ssh is ready to go (this did not used to be turned on by default in Feisty)
apt-get install ssh
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
ssh
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 1096B of archives.
After unpacking 32.8kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/main ssh 1:4.6p1-5build1 [1096B]
Fetched 1096B in 1s (890B/s)
Selecting previously deselected package ssh.
(Reading database ... 19857 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking ssh (from .../ssh_1%3a4.6p1-5build1_all.deb) ...
Setting up ssh (1:4.6p1-5build1) ...
So that brings me back to webmin. I’ll just grab the .deb from www.webmin.com, and use dpkg -i to install it. One quick note: You will have to add a few extra packages in order to have webmin install correctly:
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