10 Things To Do After Installing Ubuntu 16.10 'Yakkety Yak'

Ubuntu 16.10 was recently released with some improvements. According to the poll 53% conducted on LinuxAndUbuntu, 53% of users will upgrade to Ubuntu 16.10. But what to do next after you’ve upgraded to Yakkety Yak. In this article, I’ll walk you through the 10 Things to do after installing Ubuntu 16.10.

This article will help you configure your new Ubuntu. If you’ve any problem following this tutorial, please don’t hesitate to comment in the comment section below this post.

First of all, check out what’s new in Ubuntu 16.10. There are some minor changes and improvements, so do check them out.

Update your system for the first time. It’ll install any bug fix that has been fixed since the release. To update your system either open graphical update manager from unity dash or type the following command in the terminal –

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

As hackers are always trying to hack vulnerable systems through open ports. Install a firewall to protect your system from harmful incoming/outgoing connections. We have the most uncomplicated firewalll for Ubuntu named ‘UFW’. UFW is by default installed but not enabled. To enable UFW, type the following command in the terminal –

sudo ufw enable
sudo ufw status

sudo apt install gufw

Our brand new distro needs some tweaks. I am happy that this time we have some of these tweaks in the universal settings manager. We don’t have to install Unity tweak tool at least to set menu visibility always in the window. To show menu in the window’s title bar, goto settings >> Appearance >> click ‘In the window’s title bar’

To set menu visible always,  goto settings >> Appearance >> Always displayed

An option is available in the Unity tweak tool to move the unity launcher in the bottom. For this Install Unity tweak tool –

 I am still confused as to why Canonical does not provide options to tweak a couple of things in Ubuntu’s settings manager. We need to install Unity tweak tool to tweak the system. After installing Unity tweak tool, open it and goto Launcher >> Click left or bottom under appearance

The next step is to enable minimize the window on click. It’ll allow you to minimise or maximise window on launcher icon click.

Though Ubuntu comes with Firefox, one of the most popular Web browser. But, if you want to install any other then follow our article top 4 web browsers for Linux with Good And Bad.

Media codecs are very useful if play a lot of media. Your system will be able to play most media after installing Media codecs.

Email clients are very useful. It keeps you updated with your latest emails. There are so many email clients for Linux and Ubuntu comes with the most popular open source email client ‘Thunderbird’. But if you don’t want thunderbird, here are a couple of couple open source email clients that I have covered in my article, ‘Top 4 Open Source Email Clients For Linux‘.

Nowadays most major cloud services provide an official client for Linux (Except Gdrive and OneDrive :). You don’t have to worry if you love Gdrive, you can use Grive, an un-official Gdrive client. But you don’t have to use GDrive. There are many other cloud services that provide official Linux client. So check out our article on the 5 Google Drive alternatives cloud storage for Linux.

To enhance your new Ubuntu, install from hundreds of free themes for Ubuntu. We have a collection of themes in our Theme Section.

Most Linux distros come with open source drivers that support most modern devices. In Ubuntu 16.10, you’ve open source drives but if you want you can also use proprietary drivers.