After you download and install Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish you may wonder what to do next or how to best customize your Ubuntu 22.04 system to make everything you do as efficient as possible.
This guide helps you to identify things to do after installing Ubuntu 22.04 that are right for your specific needs. We list below our recommendations and link to other guides that provide you with more detailed instructions on how to achieve a specific system configuration or customization.
In this tutorial you will learn:
- How to customize your Ubuntu 22.04 desktop by, for example, using GNOME shell extensions and the GNOME tweak tool
- How to configure your Ubuntu 22.04 system
- How to install software on Ubuntu 22.04
- How to take care of your system’s security by regular updates and proper use of firewall or running system backups
- How to test the connection to external devices, including webcams and microphones
- How to set up remote desktop sharing on Ubuntu 22.04 with Windows 10 client
Customize Desktop
When you install Ubuntu 22.04 it will come with the default GNOME 42.0 desktop. Gnome 42.0 is full of improvements and results in better performance and a more aesthetically pleasing graphical experience.
In this section we focus on customization of GNOME only. However, we also point you (in the last subsection) to articles that consider installation of other desktop environments which gives you even more options to chose from.
Customize your Dock Panel
GNOME is the default desktop environment for Ubuntu 22.04, and one of the first things you’ll see on your desktop is the dock panel to the left of the screen. The dock panel is highly customizable, so it’s easy to tailor it to your liking. For instance, you can move it to the bottom of the screen as displayed below.
More Customization with GNOME Extensions
The functionalities of the GNOME desktop environment can be expanded by downloading GNOME shell extensions. These are plugins written and submitted by normal users and developers that seek to improve the desktop environment and want to share their extension with other users.
Create Desktop Shortcuts
You will definitely want to add a shortcut launcher for a commonly used application to your desktop.
Access Terminal
You might like to access the command line terminal on Ubuntu 22.04. There is a variety of ways how you can do this which we explain in the guide below.
Use GNOME Tweak Tools
The GNOME Tweaks tool allows users to configure a bunch of cosmetic and behavior in the GNOME desktop environment. It can be installed on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish and used to customize things like the top bar, quick launch toolbar, etc.
GNOME Tweaks grants us more control over our GUI than what is available by default in GNOME settings. You will be able to edit fonts, title bar clicking actions, workspace settings, and much more.
Change Desktop Theme
Another thing you can consider doing is changing a desktop theme. Different theme gives you an alternative visual option like, for example, enabling dark theme. If you were a mac user in the past you may also consider installing the mac operating system theme.
Experiment with Desktops
GNOME 42.0 is the default Ubuntu 22.04 desktop environment but this does not stop you to install and use other desktop environments. In fact, you can install a desktop environment with a single command!
For example, KDE Plasma desktop is a widget-based environment which makes it very adaptable. You can move, add or remove anything you like to make it suit your style as well as possible. Plasma is fast and efficient. It uses only few resources and is full of well designed features.
Disable Lock Screen
You may not wish for your screen to lock after a period of inactivity. If this is the case follow our instructions on how to disable lock screen on Ubuntu 22.04.
Add More Fonts
Adding more fonts to your Ubuntu system is relatively straightforward. You can achieve this easily using a font manager application or installing fonts manually. Whatever your preference, we’ve got you covered with both methods in our article below.
Change System Language
It is possible to change your Ubuntu 22.04 system language if English is not your preference.
Switch Keyboard Layout
Switching the keyboard’s layout will allow you to access the characters of another language and enable switching between multiple keyboards if you’d like.
Autostart Application
If there is an application or software that you use frequently you may wish to autostart it on login to your Ubuntu 22.04 system.
Set Static IP Address
A static IP address is an IP address that never changes. Not everyone needs a static IP address but in some situations such as setting up a home file server, enabling access to a computer when away from home or sharing a printer over a network you will need a static IP address.
Install Software
The amount of software you can install on Ubuntu 22.04 is huge. You can install any software you like via the Ubuntu snap store. You can also use Software Manager or Command Line.
In this section, we also show you how to install third party codecs and extras and pay extra attention to installation of graphic card drivers.
Use Command Line and Software Manager
This section explores various software that you can install on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish in more detail.
There is a variety of things that can be installed on Ubuntu 22.04, hence we give some specific recommendations in our article Things to install on Ubuntu 22.04. We have divided all the software into such categories as desktops, browsers, email clients, communication and collaboration software, document editors, entertainment or scientific software.
We not only provide you with ideas of what can be installed but also link to tutorials that take you through the installation process.
Install Third-Party Codecs & Extras
Due to copyright issues Ubuntu 22.04 does not provide a default access to various media codecs. You can, however, easily install them by opening your terminal and executing:
$ sudo apt install ubuntu-restricted-extras
With the Ubuntu Restricted Extras package installed you will be able to play MP3, MPEG4, AVI and some other media files.
Get the Most of your Graphic Card
Some of the Graphics Drivers you may wish to install on Ubuntu 22.04 is NVIDIA and AMD Radeon. In the article How to install the NVIDIA drivers on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish Linux we discuss various ways of installing this graphic driver. These include an automatic install using standard Ubuntu repository, an automatic install using PPA repository to install NVIDIA Beta drivers and a manual Install using the official Nvidia.com driver.
AMD graphic cards are well supported on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish. The default open source AMD Radeon Driver is installed and enabled. However, since the Ubuntu 22.04 is a long term support (LTS) release the AMD Radeon graphic card users have few AMD Radeon driver installation options to their disposal.
If you’re planning on using an AMD graphics card with Ubuntu 22.04, we provide you with the install instructions in the article: AMD Radeon Ubuntu 22.04 Driver Installation.
If you are not sure you can easily check what graphics driver your system is currently using and what graphics card model is part of your system’s hardware.
You may also be interested in CUDA, which is a parallel computing platform and application programming interface model created by Nvidia. It allows software developers and software engineers to use a CUDA-enabled graphics processing unit for general purpose processing.
After installation, optionally run Nvidia graphic card test by following our Benchmark Your Graphics Card On Linux guide.
Protect System
This section’s recommendations will make sure that your system is protected against vulnerabilities that may be exploited by hackers’ malicious software.
Check for Updates
Ubuntu 22.04 contains a variety of software that are obtainable through its software repositories via mirrors accessible around the world. After installing Ubuntu 22.04 you can also install a range of tools available for Ubuntu 22.04 over the Internet. To do so, select the fastest Ubuntu repository mirror, which is the closest mirror to your current location.
To set the fastest Ubuntu repository mirror navigate to:
Software & Updates --> Ubuntu Software -->
Download from --> Other --> Select Best Server
Ubuntu will automatically test all available package repository mirrors and will let you choose from the top responding servers.
It is crucial to regularly inspect your Ubuntu system for available updates, since keeping your system updated protects your device against vulnerabilities that may be exploited by hackers’ malicious software. Some users may opt to disable automatic updates on Ubuntu 22.04 but we do not recommend this option if you are a beginner user.
You can find details on how to update Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish in our article How to Update Ubuntu packages on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish Linux. In this article we consider two ways of updating your system. That is, the command line and the graphical user interface method.
Enable Firewall
By default the UFW firewall is installed but disabled on Ubuntu 22.04. You may like to check you UFW status by using the following command.
$ sudo ufw status
To increase security of your desktop you may enable the UFW firewall from the command line or install gufw which is a graphical user interface for UFW.
Run System Backup
You can use Timeshift to create a full system backup snapshot of Ubuntu 22.04 system. Furthermore, we show you how to restore from your previously created backup snapshot.
Organize Storage
In this section we will show you how to check disk space on Ubuntu 22.04.
Check Disk Space
There are a few tools at your disposal for checking disk space on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish. These tools and commands can be used to check a hard drive’s capacity and the size of the files on it, or just to check the size of a particular directory or file.
We’ll show you how to get a visual representation of how the hard drive space is being used on your system, as well as a few commands that you can enter into the terminal to quickly find the stats you need.
Test Devices
If you are using a webcam or microphone you should test these devices before the first use.
Test Webcam
The aim of this section is to show the reader a quick-start method on how to test a webcam on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish.
Test Microphone
You can also easily test your microphone on Ubuntu 22.04. This can be done inside of the GUI or you can record a short audio from the command line in order to test the microphone.
Share Desktop Remotely
In this section we will show you how to set up a remote desktop on Ubuntu 22.04.
Windows 10 Client
We will even show you how to easily share an Ubuntu 22.04 desktop with a Windows 10 client.
Conclusion
These are all our recommendations. If you think this article is missing an important thing to do after installing Ubuntu 22.04 or you find an error please send your feedback to our forum using the comments and discussion section on the bottom of this page.