Ubuntu Developer Desktop — 2022 Edition [Updated]

NOTE BEFORE YOU CONTINUE READING The intent of this article is to document the setup of my development Ubuntu 22.04 LTS virtual desktop. If you follow any of the instructions provided or advice, you do so at your own risk. All opinions expressed are my own and not the views of my employer.

On April 21, 2022, Canonical the makers of Ubuntu released version 22.04 LTS (long term support) which features, according to their blog post, “…significant leaps forward in cloud confidential computing, real-time kernel for industrial applications, and enterprise Active Directory, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, FIPS and FedRAMP compliance — raising the bar for open source from cloud to edge, IoT and workstations”.

I’ve been given an old Intel-based laptop that the user wanted to trash. Perfect to be resurrected with Linux! It has an Intel Core (TM) i5–5200U CPU @ 2.20 GHz, 4 GB DDR3 RAM and a 512 GB mechanical hard drive. I have an old Kingston 256GB SSD drive that I replaced the mechanical drive with and I’m checking the local electronics store for 4GB more of RAM. Still researching, but this PC could be set up with 16GB RAM. More memory is ALWAYS better for development, but not necessary at this point.

Ordered the following from Amazon, we’ll see what happens when it gets here:

RAM Upgrade kit from Amazon

We don’t have to wait for the memory to arrive, the laptop should adequately function using just the 4 GB RAM.

[Update]

The RAM arrive (thanks Amazon) and popped it into the laptop — removed the single 4 GB RAM module and installed to two sticks 8 GB modules for a total of 16 GB RAM! Now we’re getting somewhere! With the additional RAM, we can and should install a few more (memory-intensive) apps!

As always, after a fresh installation of Ubuntu, the first command you should run to update the included software! Launch a new Terminal window then enter the following to check for any updates:

sudo apt update -y && sudo apt upgrade -y

Perquisites

Sometimes you will find the apt (or apt-get) package manager may lag a little behind in the latest version. One way to overcome this obstacle is to compile the application from source (and because it’s fun). Let’s install some development utilities, tools, and languages to assist:

$ sudo apt-get install -y build-essential checkinstall
$ sudo apt-get install -y libncursesw5-dev libssl-dev libsqlite3-dev tk-dev libgdbm-dev libc6-dev libbz2-dev
$ sudo apt install libz-dev -y libssl-dev libcurl4-gnutls-dev libexpat1-dev gettext cmake gcc

Upgrade Linux Kernel

Ubuntu 22.04 comes with kernel v5.15 which is awesome, but I always like to have the latest so let’s download the kernel v6.0 which was released on October 2, 2022, with the following noteworthy features: chip hardware support, timer registers, and the XFS file systems.

Open a new Terminal window and move to the tmp folder. You will need to download the files to this folder to upgrade to the latest kernel:

$ cd /tmp

Next, we need to download the required installation files. Type the following commands in the Terminal window.

NOTE: It is recommended not upgrading to the latest kernel if you are a production machine. Do so at your own risk!

$ wget https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v6.0/amd64/linux-image-unsigned-6.0.0-060000-generic_6.0.0-060000.202210022231_amd64.deb
$ wget https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v6.0/amd64/linux-modules-6.0.0-060000-generic_6.0.0-060000.202210022231_amd64.deb
$ wget https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v6.0/amd64/linux-headers-6.0.0-060000-generic_6.0.0-060000.202210022231_amd64.deb
$ wget https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v6.0/amd64/linux-headers-6.0.0-060000_6.0.0-060000.202210022231_all.deb

Now, let’s upgrade using the following command:

$ sudo dpkg -i *.deb

After the upgrade has been completed, I recommend rebooting. Log back in, start a new Terminal window, then enter the following command to check the installed version:

$ uname -r

Source Control

Git is immensely popular around the world for several reasons that are not really in the scope of this article. apt provides an older version of git which is why we are going to install from source. We will switch to the temporary folder, install curl for downloading files from the Internet using the command-line. We will download the latest version of git at the time of writing which is v2.38.1.

$ cd /tmp
$ sudo apt-get install curl
$ curl -o git.tar.gz https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-2.38.1.tar.gz

Terminal output from the above commands.

Let’s unpack the downloaded compressed file by executing the following command:

$ tar -zxf git.tar.gz

Switch to the unpacked directory using the following command:

$ cd git-2.38.1/

Compile then install git (the first line of the output should show the version being compiled):

$ sudo make prefix=/usr/local all
$ sudo make prefix=/usr/local install

Once the install has completed, you can use the following command to confirm the version of Git that is installed:

$ git --version

Enter the following commands to globally configure your new git install:

$ git config --global user.name "Full Name"
$ git config --global user.email "email@domain.com"
$ git config --global init.defaultBranch main

You can check your configuration by typing:git config --list

Rust

The Rust language is becoming exceedingly popular for building all sorts of stuff usually built using C and C++. I am learning a little bit at a time (bought a few books on Amazon). It is easy to install (you can grab the script from the website). At the time of authoring this article, I used the following to install:

$ curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Python

One of the world’s most popular programming languages. You will need to build from source because the packaged version lags the latest release. At the time of writing, the current version is 3.11.0.

$ cd /usr/src
$ sudo wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.11.0/Python-3.11.0.tgz

Unpack the download using the following command:

$ sudo tar xzf Python-3.11.0.tgz

Move to the newly unpacked directory by entering the following command:

$ cd Python-3.11.0

The new flag --enable-optimizations sets the default make targets up to enable Profile Guided Optimization (PGO) and may be used to auto-enable Link Time Optimization (LTO) on some platforms:

$ sudo ./configure --enable-optimizations

I tend to overwrite and use only the latest version of Python:

$ sudo make install

You can verify the installation by checking the version with the following command:

$ python3 --version

Less typing is always better, so I tend to use alias to help me type lesspy instead of python3. Luckily, the following command makes it a reality:

$ alias py=python3

Terminal Bling!

We should install Oh My Posh, which provides a genuinely nice makeover for the Terminal:

$ sudo wget https://github.com/JanDeDobbeleer/oh-my-posh/releases/latest/download/posh-linux-amd64 -O /usr/local/bin/oh-my-posh
$ sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/oh-my-posh

Download the themes:

$ mkdir ~/.poshthemes
$ wget https://github.com/JanDeDobbeleer/oh-my-posh/releases/latest/download/themes.zip -O ~/.poshthemes/themes.zip
$ unzip ~/.poshthemes/themes.zip -d ~/.poshthemes
$ chmod u+rw ~/.poshthemes/*.omp.*
$ rm ~/.poshthemes/themes.zip

Ready To Configure

$ oh-my-posh get shell

Download Nerd Font!

According to the Oh My Posh site, it “was designed to use Nerd Fonts. Nerd Fonts are popular fonts that are patched to include icons. We recommend Meslo LGM NF”.

Oh My Posh has a CLI to help users easily install a Nerd Font (WARNING: this feature is in beta):

$ oh-my-posh font install

Reboot.

Select the hamburger menu then Preferences:

Then select the “Unnamed” option under Profiles:

Select the Melso font then click the Select button.

Bash

Add the following to ~/.bashrc (could be ~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile depending on your environment):

eval "$(oh-my-posh init bash)"

You will be prompted to save any changes to the configuration file:

Press <Enter> to confirm overwriting the file.

Once added, reload your profile for the changes to take effect:

$ exec bash

You should see something similar less the username (:)

NodeJS

Node.js is a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine. At the time of drafting this article, the latest version was 15.10.0. Node is an extremely popular framework, and you can install using the following commands in a Terminal window:

$ sudo apt install curl -y
$ curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_current.x | sudo -E bash -
$ sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

Install the .NET SDK

I’m a .NET developer. I really like the Microsoft .NET framework and related technologies. I always install the latest version even on my Linux instances. In this case, the latest version is 7, but I am leaning towards the previous version .NET 6 which is marked LTS, so has updates for the next 3 years! Luckily, to install on your Ubuntu instance, is as simple as the following command:

$ sudo apt-get install -y dotnet6

Go

Use the following command to install the Go programming language:

$ sudo apt install golang-go -y

GNOME Tweaks

Visual Studio Code

Now let’s install an IDE that works with all the languages above! My suggestion is to use the built-in software installer to get Visual Studio Code working in your instance!

Screenshot of code — Click the install button to install on your instance.

Postman

If you work with APIs, one of the best tools to use is Postman! I recommend installing the same way as the previous Microsoft Visual Studio Code app.

Screenshot of Postman installing on Ubuntu instance.

Gimp

Gimp allows users to modify images Type the following command to install:

$ sudo apt install gimp -y

Media Player

I sometimes need a good media player that can be used to open a play a variety of formats like mp4, mpeg, etc. Enter VLC:

$ sudo apt install vlc -y

Screen Recording

OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) is used for screen recording and live streaming on different social media platforms. Click here for perquisites, here is the command to install:

$ sudo apt install obs-studio -y

Video Editing

You should check out OpenShot which is another popular video editing app compatible on all operating systems including Linux. Use the following command to install:

$ sudo apt install openshot-qt -y

Gaming

Take a break — occasionally! Steam has a massive collection of games online as well as downloaded from their application after buying the subscription of the game. To install it on your Linux instance, execute the command:

$ sudo apt install steam -y

Music

I listen to music to help me stay in the zone. Spotify is an exceptionally large and popular music streaming platform which has a client for Linux:

$ sudo snap install spotify

System Monitor

htop is an updated version of top in Linux system. It is run from the command line allowing users to interactively monitor their system’s vital resources in real time.

$ sudo apt install htop -y

Screenshots

Flameshot is described as “a free and open-source, cross-platform tool to take screenshots with many built-in features to save you time”, using the link to install: Flameshot | Open Source Screenshot Software:

$ sudo snap install flameshot

JetBrains

JetBrains produces great development software and I have been a long-time fan and customer! This is paid software and well-worth the cost of a license.

JetBrains landing page

Antivirus

ClamAV is a capable antivirus application for Linux that can detect many types of malwares but can only be used from the command line. Even with Linux, you should consider some sort of virus protection, and this might be the most minimum recommendation. Type the following command to install:

$ sudo apt install clamav clamav-daemon -y

Run this command to check if installed correctly:

$ clamscan --version

Document Viewer

Evince is a simple multi-page document viewer you can use to view PDFs, PS, EPS, XPS, etc.

$ sudo apt -y install evince

Database

I’ve been using SQL Server as a developer for many years. Most recently, I have been leaning towards PostgreSQL as the open-source database of choice (previously using MySQL for a few years).

Install SQL Server

You can install SQL Server on Linux! To configure SQL Server on Ubuntu, run the following commands in a Terminal. Import the public repository GPG keys:

$ wget -qO- https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | sudo apt-key add -

Register the SQL Server Ubuntu repository:

$ sudo add-apt-repository "$(wget -qO- https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/20.04/mssql-server-2022.list)"

Learn more about configuration and setup here: Ubuntu: Install SQL Server on Linux — SQL Server | Microsoft Learn

Install PostgreSQL

Refresh your server’s local package index:

$ sudo apt update -y

Install Postgres package along with a -contrib package which adds some additional utilities and functionality:

$ sudo apt install postgresql postgresql-contrib -y

Ensure that the server is running using the systemctl start command:

$ sudo systemctl start postgresql.service

Switch over to the postgres account on your server by typing:

$ sudo -i -u postgres

Access the PostgreSQL prompt by typing:

postgres=# SELECT version();

[Update]

Nginx

I really like Nginx on Ubuntu — if you don’t know — it is a highly-popular performance web server (Apache is OK, but Nginx offers fantastic performance) and includes a reverse proxy perfect for hosting high-traffic websites!

$ sudo apt install nginx

Use the following command to verify the service is running correctly:

$ sudo systemctl status nginx

PHP

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS ships with PHP version 8.1 available in its repositories.

$ sudo apt install php8.1 php8.1-fpm php8.1-mysql php-common php8.1-cli php8.1-common php8.1-opcache php8.1-readline php8.1-mbstring php8.1-xml php8.1-gd php8.1-curl

After all components are installed, run the following command to start and configure PHP-FPM (FastCGI Process Manager), a hugely popular alternative PHP (Hypertext Processor) FastCGI implementation:

$ sudo systemctl start php8.1-fpm
$ sudo systemctl enable php8.1-fpm

Runt he fllowing command to check that it is running:

$ sudo systemctl status php8.1-fpm

Output from previous command

You will need to the default Nginx virtual-host file to configure Nginx to start using PHP.

$ sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

You config may differ, but should be similar to the following:

server {
        listen 80 default_server;
        listen [::]:80 default_server;

        # include snippets/snakeoil.conf;

        root /var/www/html;

        # Add index.php to the list if you are using PHP
        index index.php index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;

        server_name _;

        location ~ \.php$ {
             include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
             fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock;
        }
}

Verify the Nginx settings are okay using the command:

$ nginx -t

My output produced warnings of access, I like to keep the access like it is so I ignored the waning, but feel free to change your permissions to match your preference.

Restart the service:

$ sudo systemctl restart nginx php8.1-fpm

Let’s create a test PHP file to ensure we have configured everything correctly:

$ cd /var/www/html
$ sudo nano info.php

Enter the following PHP markup and save the file:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Open your favorite web browser then enter the following:

http://server-ip/info.php

You should see something similar:

Enjoy!