Recommended Packages

To be productive in your new workspace, you will need a few more packages. For a simple word processor, spreadsheet and viewer, install Abiword, Gnumeric and Evince.

d$ sudo su

Password:

d# apt-get install abiword gnumeric evince

The default appearance of Abiword and Evince is rather ugly. To improve their appearance, install (and use) the Clearlooks-Phenix theme:

d# apt-get install clearlooks-phenix-theme gtk2-engines

For fonts that are metrically equivalent to Microsoft fonts (i.e. Times New Roman, Arial) install:

d# apt-get install fonts-liberation

For a more complete office suite, install LibreOffice:

d# apt-get update

d# apt-get install libreoffice libreoffice-style-crystal libreoffice-help-en-us

If you're an economist like me, you will want Emacs, R, standard R packages and wxMaxima:

d# apt-get install emacs ess r-recommended wxmaxima

Finally, free some valuable storage space by cleaning out all those DEB packages that you just downloaded, then exit:

d# apt-get clean

d# exit

time zone, language and more

Now that your desktop is ready, it's time to optimize it. If you notice that your time zone is not properly configured (you can check the time and date with the date command), you can correct it by running:

d# dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

To configure language support, install and configure locales:

d# apt-get install locales

d# dpkg-reconfigure locales

For a nicer prompt (the next time you login):

d$ echo "export PS1=\"[ \\\$(date +'%k.%M') \u ] \W $ \"" >> ~/.bashrc

And give the root user a nicer prompt too:

d# echo "export PS1=\"[ \\\$(date +'%k.%M') \u ] \W # \"" >> ~/.bashrc

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