Matthew Bluteau's Configuration Files

New System Installation Steps

1. Install git and clone this repo:

   sudo apt update && sudo apt install --yes git
   git clone https://github.com/bielsnohr/configs.git

2. Run dotbot to put configuration files in place:

   cd configs && ./install

3. Install ansible:

   sudo apt update && sudo apt install --yes python3-pip pipx
   pipx ensurepath
   pipx install --include-deps ansible

4. Launch a new terminal for path changes and new configs to take effect.

5. Run ansible playbook:

   # Add `--check` argument to see what the effects will be before actually
   # executing them
   ansible-playbook --ask-become-pass --verbose playbook.yml

If the default terminal application isn't set by installing terminator as part of the above, then it can manually be set through this interactive command:

update-alternatives --config x-terminal-emulator

SSH Keys

The best balance between security and convenience on Ubuntu appears to be to let the built in Passwords and Keys application (also called seahorse) to manage things. It will link the SSH key to the session login and therefore unlock the key when you login to the machine, meaning you won't have to repeatedly enter a passphrase when connecting by ssh or using git.

Open the Passwords and Keys GUI and under the SSH Keys folder, click the button to add a new one. Be sure to add a passphrase and save that to KeePass for good measure.

Upon the first time the key is used, you will be prompted to enter the passphrase. The should be the one and only time you need to do this, as long as you click the check box "Automatically unlock this key upon login" (or something to that effect).

Copy the public key to GitHub, GitLab, etc.

Syncthing

There doesn't seem to be a good ansible role for this available, so just manually go through the steps at https://apt.syncthing.net/. To get auto-start working, see the Makefile.

AppImages

KeePassXC and Obsidian rely on AppImages. The Ansible install step will install the appimaged service that integrates AppImages into the system, such as being available from the general search.

AppImageUpdate should also be installed to keep the AppImages on the system updated. These updates need to be done manually.

Obsidian

Download the AppImage from the website to ~/Applications.

KeePassXC

Download the AppImage from the website to ~/Applications.

Font

The fish prompt and other programming tools use patched / extended fonts that require some glyphs not usually in system fonts. It doesn't appear to be easy to automatically install these, so manually do it with the following:

mkdir -p ~/Downloads/fonts/Meslo
cd ~/Downloads/fonts/Meslo
curl -OL https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/releases/latest/download/Meslo.tar.xz
tar -xvJf Meslo.tar.xz

Then, click on MesloLGSNerdFontMono-Regular.ttf and Install.

Finally, rebuild the font cache: fc-cache -f -v. And probably restart any app you are using that might depend on the fonts.

Android Studio

Download tar file from https://www.jetbrains.com/toolbox-app/ to ~/Applications/. Extract it and then run the executable (it is an AppImage). This should auto-add the executable to relevant locations and make a desktop entry.

GSConnect / KDEConnect

To allow my Android phone to control this machine, install the GNOME shell extension GSConnect. Simply click flick the "switch" to on. The local host manager, chrome-gnome-shell, should have been installed by the Ansible step. Then, from the KDE Connect Android app, link with this device. If you run into trouble, consult the wiki for the extension.

Local LLMs

To run some LLM models locally, ollama is installed through the ansisble playbook. This will set up a service that runs in the background, but it first needs a model to actually serve. Run the following to pull a model down:

ollama pull MODEL_NAME:TAG

Currently, I am using the following models with success:

1. deepseek-r1:7b: quite slow to execute on a machine without a GPU, but gives nice explanations.
2. llama3.2:3b: more compact and runs quicker. Probably better for coding stuff?

TODO

• A default Python environment with some base packages installed
  • pipx
  • probably want to move to something like uv or pyenv for this
• Move away from using omf because it is no longer maintained
• Move AppImage setup to ansible
• automatically add key shortcut for Keepass autocomplete
• additional shortcut for opening terminal is set in dconf org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys="['<Primary><Alt>t', '<Primary><Alt>n']"
• UKAEA specific config
  • VPN script, clone it into my user space
  • Network configuration
• implement interim solution for keyboard in Makefile
  • the command line way per-user: gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.input-sources xkb-options "['ctrl:swapcaps']"
  • edit the file /etc/default/keyboard to have the line XKBOPTIONS="ctrl:swapcaps"
  • be careful that there might be options already set, so this should be appended rather than overwriting the whole line
• use of ukaea_mount.sh requires creation of ~/linux_{home,work}, so put this in makefile as well