# A document describing my personal Ubuntu post-install precedure
# 2007-04-12. The latest version of this file may or may not be available at
# http://42.thrashbarg.net/pub/ubuntu
#
# Please keep in mind that this includes bunch of unofficial repositories that are very
# likely to give you a not very dist-upgradeable system. If you use this, please accept that
# #ubuntu@FreeNode will not be able (and willing) to help you properly, and that your machine
# will be infected with even more binary-only, non-free feces in order to make your system
# Ready for The Enterprise Desktop.
#
# If you want genuinely Free Software (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html),
# a new Ubuntu based GNU/Linux distribution called gNewSense might be worth taking a look at.
# See http://www.gnewsense.org/
#
# Only the main Ubuntu repositories provide timely security updates!
#
# I am neither competent or willing to help you with any problems these istructions may cause,
# but if you know of any new, useful unofficial Ubuntu repos/stuff not mentioned here,
# I wouldn't mind being informed about them.
#
# Thomas Nybergh
# apecat [at] gmail [dot] com
# http://www.thrashbarg.net
#
#

For Ubuntu 7.04

after install:

uncomment all default repos in /etc/apt/sources.list. 

add nice extra repos like
deb http://getswiftfox.com/builds/debian unstable non-free
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu feisty-commercial main
deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ stable non-free
deb http://wine.lowvoice.nl/apt edgy main

(the edgy repo should work with feisty)

apt-get update - activates changes
apt-cache search keyword - searches package names and content
apt-cache policy packagename - displays package versions

apt-get remove packagename
dpkg -i packagefile.deb

apt-cache search swiftfox display and locate the package (e.g. swiftfox-athlon-xp) for your own cpu and add it to the next command 
if your goal is to make an easy to use desktop available for other users, edit the default firefox launcher on the menu bar to launch the command swiftfox instead of firefox 


aptitude install ubuntu-restricted-extras vlc konqueror konqueror-nsplugins gxine msttcorefonts mplayer mozilla-mplayer lynx links2 elinks epiphany gtk-gnutella kaudiocreator jokosher wine gnome-alsamixer openoffice.org-voikko voikko-fi tmispell-voikko libvoikko1 wfinnish aspell-fi aspell-sv comix kamera gwenview amsn

LAME: always get and compile the latest recommended lame version by checking here first:

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=LAME

for voikko (finnish spell checking) specific details, see http://www.lemi.fi/voikko/asennus-deb.html

To activate/deactivate compiz and restriced drivers, try the Desktop Effects menu item under Preferences (or whatever the user-specific settings menu is called in gnome)


Further tweaking you might want to do is to disable the non-informative, non-interactive, boring default bootsplash (what on earth were they thinking? 
compare this one with what you see in distros like OpenSUSE or pretty much any other distro that includes a bootsplash ("press f2 to display 
details")). Additioanlly, this will give the grub boot menu pretty colors

edit with sudo/as root: /boot/grub/menu.lst

activate: 
# Pretty colours
color cyan/blue white/blue

# defoptions=quiet splash
defoptions=

and remove quiet splash from lines like:

kernel                /vmlinuz-2.6.17-11-generic root=/dev/hda5 ro quiet splash