Ubuntu 21.04 desktop review and apps to install

Ubuntu 21.04

This new version of Ubuntu installs without a glitch in my Yoga 920, I setup this device with dual boot with windows 10, see install ubuntu on yoga 920

On this version of Ubuntu the touch screen works flawless, the screen goes black before it rotates but it works without a glitch. Both my Logitech K810 keyboard, M557 and M720 mice work great with Ubuntu. On the M557 even the mouse windows key works.

Fn+Space - turn on the keyboard light with 2 levels

Track pad, Track pad lock button, Windows Key, Vol Mute/Up/Down , Airplane plane mode, WiFi, Bluetooth, Camera button, Lock Screen, Brightness buttons, PrtSrc, Power button, Camera recording works all works out of the box.

I normally install Signal, Spotify and Chromium all available on Ubuntu software store app installed by default.

 

I also normally install Slack, Zoom, Skype to allow me to work, these apps are great if you work on a corporate environment and you needed it for your work.

I never took time to setup the finger print scanner on the Yoga 920, but out of the box is not working.

This new version Ubuntu feels really fast on the Yoga 920, notifications improved, Ubuntu now shows apps icons on gnome desktop.

The "Gnome Boxes App" that allows you to run virtual machines in Ubuntu is a lot more user friendly to use in this version, you can create a VM in seconds, it downloads the Operating system for you and boots right into the OS.

For Windows you need a ISO image and some drivers but is also pretty easy too, I have a blog-post describing the process here.

Touch Screen

Gnome is a great interface for touch screens, it works really well, if you use a mix between keyboard mouse and touch screen actions the default setup works really well.

Firefox the default browser is great when using the mouse and keyboard, but is terrible when using a touch screen, so if are finger friendly you need to install chromium. Chromium works really well while using your fingers.

If you use laptop in tablet mode, you need also need to install chromium and enable the screen keyboard in accessibility mode.

With Chromium and the on screen keyboard, you can consume content from websites like YouTube, Twitch, Facebook watch in tablet mode and all works great out of the box.

HIDPI

If you have a HIDPI laptop like the Yoga 920 that can do 4k in 14 inches of screen, the new Ubuntu supports  fractional scaling. This allows you to tune the fonts and windows scaling a bit more at the expense of CPU/battery.

I normally run my Yoga 920 at 1080p which is great for 14 inches screen, to save battery, but some times I change it to 4k, it I'm editing images or watching some videos in 4k, since you get more pixel area for the images.

Things todo after install is finished

Open "Ubuntu Software" App and select the applications you like the best.

Here is a list of Apps that I like to install in my laptop

Video/Images

obs-studio - screen recorder

kazam - screen recorder

peek - screen recorder

mypaint krita pinta gimp - Image editors

blender - 3D modeling

kdenlive - Video editor

pitivi - Video editor

flowblade - Video editor

handbrake - multi-threaded video trans-coder.
flameshot - take a screen shot
shotcut - Video Editor

Rawtherapee - Image Editor

Sound

audacity - Sound editor
audacious - Audio player

soundconverter - Sound Converter

Tools

stacer - System analysis

htop - System analysis

Games

steam - game engine, game store tons of games available.

For codecs needed for Video and Sound Install

sudo apt install ubuntu-restricted-extras

To run other Linux Instances or windows vms [and see my other blog post how to setup windows].

sudo apt-get install virt-manager gnome-boxes

Install Apps command line

sudo apt install mypaint krita pinta shotcut blender kdenlive pitivi flowblade audacity kazam stacer htop flameshot gimp steam audacity audacious handbrake soundconverter obs-studio peek

Open Ubuntu Software

Configuration:

Install GNOME Tweaks

Messenger:

Install Spotify

Install Signal

Install Slack

Install Skype

Video Calls:

Install Zoom

Firefox Plugins

To enable touch screen support: simply edit /etc/security/pam_env.conf and add MOZ_USE_XINPUT2 DEFAULT=1 then reboot.

 

Disable all tracking Cookies - https://privacybadger.org/

HTTPS only - https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

Firefox private Network VPN - https://fpn.firefox.com/vpn

References:

https://linuxhint.com/top_screen_recorders_ubuntu/