Linux Mint Installation¶

Set Linux Swap Space to Zero¶

During the Installation type step, select Something else.
Click New Partition Table….
1. Set Type for the new partition to Primary.
2. Set Use as to Ext4 journaling file system.
3. Select / for Mount point.
Make sure the Format box is checkmarked before continuing with installation.

After finishing the installation, run

sudo sysctl -w vm.swappiness=0
echo 'vm.swappiness=0' | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf

Linux Mint Cinnamon as VMware Workstation Player Guest OS¶

open-vm-tools is required to make the UI more human-usable.

sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools open-vm-tools-desktop

In order to access the VMware shared folders, VMware Tools needs to be patched.

sudo apt-get install git
git clone https://github.com/rasa/vmware-tools-patches.git
cd vmware-tools-patches
sudo ./patched-open-vm-tools.sh

After rebooting, the shared folders should now appear under /mnt/hgfs.

If the back mouse button is not working, shut down the VM and modify <path-to-virtual-matchine>/<virtual-machine>.vmx to include

mouse.vusb.enable = "TRUE"
mouse.vusb.useBasicMouse = "FALSE"
usb.generic.allowHID = "TRUE"

preload¶

Behdad Esfahbod’s preload program records statistics about the usage of programs using Markov chains. Files of frequently-used programs are loaded into memory when the computer is idle; this results in faster startup times.

sudo apt-get install preload

cURL¶

cURL is compute software project providing a library and command-line tool for transferring data using various protocols.

sudo apt-get install curl

DjView¶

This is a DjVu viewer with search capability.

sudo apt-get install djview4

Meld¶

This is a visual diff and merge tool for developers.

sudo apt-get install meld

xclip¶

This command enables piping to the system clipboard.

sudo apt-get install xclip
cat <file> | xclip -selection clipboard

Autocomplete Terminal Shell¶

To add command-line history auto-completion to the terminal shell, add the following to ~/.inputrc (which has been copied from here because it is that important):

"\e[A": history-search-backward
"\e[B": history-search-forward
"\e[C": forward-char
"\e[D": backward-char

RAM Drive¶

The default Linux Mint settings mounts /run as a ram drive, which greatly enhances the performance of the system. The following achieves the same thing with /tmp.

echo 'none /tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

Change Default Linux Directories¶

If the following are not done, the default Linux settings will wipe out any changes to ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs each time the computer restarts.

cat /etc/xdg/user-dirs.conf > ~/.config/user-dirs.conf
sed -i 's/enabled=True/enabled=False/g' ~/.config/user-dirs.conf

Enable Secure Shell (SSH)¶

sudo ufw enable
sudo apt-get install openssh-server
sudo apt-get install gufw

Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition as VirtualBox Guest OS¶

After a system update and restart, the login may take a really long time; when it does finish, the following error message may appear

Cinnamon just crashed, you are currently running in Fallback Mode Restart Cinnamon?

One fix is to disable 3D Acceleration under Display, install Guest Additions, and re-enable the 3D Acceleration.

Miscellanea¶

If apt-get fails to locate any packages, rebuild the package index cache.
```
sudo rm -rv /var/lib/apt/lists/*
sudo apt-get update
```
Enable Do Not Track in browsers and install Privacy Badger.
Change preferences of xed.
Change background image.
Adjust power settings and screensaver.
Configure the clock %I:%M:%S %p.
Specify System Settings ‣ Preferred Applications.
Add or remove programs from the start menu’s Favorites Bar.
Check All Settings ‣ Sound ‣ Hardware if there are no sound when playing a video.