03 First Boot & Basic Settings

First Commands!

“sudo”, which means “super user do”, will prompt for the admin password since it’s an elevated command, like changing a system file. Meant to prevent other users from breaking things.

This will update the repositories, but doesn’t download or install anything!

sudo apt update

This will install (upgrade) all packages that have available updates.

sudo apt upgrade

You can combine commands! The -y automatically answers “yes” to the prompt.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

What about removing / cleaning? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For removing specific packages, I recommend Synaptic Application Manager, to make searching apps easier.

sudo apt install synaptic

For cleaning up old installs and leftover pieces, this combo command takes care of it:

sudo apt autoclean && sudo apt autoremove

I enjoy making scripts, like this updater & cleaner: ~~~~~~~

1. Make file

sudo nano /usr/local/bin/bondate

2. copy this into empty file:

#!/bin/bash

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y ; \
sudo apt --purge autoremove -y ; \
sudo apt autoclean -y ; \
sudo apt clean ; \
flatpak update ; \
sudo needrestart ; \
echo Also, ; \
echo Consider: sudo rclone selfupdate ; \
echo Consider: sudo winetricks --self-update

3. save file; then make executable:

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/bondate

4. and now entering ‘bondate’ in any terminal runs all the updates!
   • also runs ‘cleaners’ that remove obsolete files
   • also updates flatpak
   • ’need restart’ tells you if you should reboot - this is installed later in guide!
   • comments to remind me to occasionally update other 3rd party apps

Random audio cracking issues: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of the things that can make you want to go back to Windows.
This config location is specific to current Pop_OS version:

sudo nano /usr/share/wireplumber/main.lua.d/50-alsa-config.lua

• [“api.alsa.period-size”] = 128,
• [“api.alsa.headroom”] = 1024,

systemctl restart --user pipewire.service

Go here for more detailed reasonings, or for other distros: Audio Troubleshooting
This issue is NOT unique or specific to Pop!_OS

Remove repository: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There’s several ways, but just deleting a file seems easy:

ls -l /etc/apt/sources.list.d/

then, if there’s something to remove:
To type file name, type a few letters until unique, and hit [tab]

sudo rm [filename]