Why Switching to Ubuntu Boosted My Development Focus – A Practical Guide

Ubuntu Desktop Setup

The author migrated a Windows workstation to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS for everyday software development.

Motivation

The Linux desktop provides a quiet environment without intrusive pop‑up ads, which improves focus and productivity.

A disruptive e‑commerce pop‑up on Windows triggered the switch about six months ago; after half a year most development tasks run smoothly.

Choosing a Distribution

Ubuntu is recommended as the most desktop‑friendly Linux distribution. The latest LTS release (18.04 at the time) offers strong hardware support and a polished UI out of the box.

Other distributions (e.g., CentOS) can be used for terminal‑only workflows, but they lack the integrated desktop experience.

Replacing Common Windows Tools

Software sources : Switch the apt update mirrors to Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun) via the “Software & Updates” GUI or by editing /etc/apt/sources.list.

Locale : Set the system language to English to avoid Chinese locale defaults. sudo update-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8 Input method : Install the Wubi‑Pinyin input method.

sudo apt install fcitx-table-wbpy fcitx-config-gtk

After installation, add “Wubi‑Pinyin” in the fcitx-configtool UI.

Desktop shortcuts : Install the GNOME panel utilities and create custom launchers.

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends gnome-panel
gnome-desktop-item-edit ~/Desktop/ --create-new

Office suite : Use WPS Office (available as a .deb package) or Google Docs via the browser.

Music player : Edit the NetEase Cloud Music desktop entry to disable the sandbox.

sudo sed -i 's|Exec=netease-cloud-music.*|Exec=netease-cloud-music --no-sandbox %U|' /usr/share/applications/netease-cloud-music.desktop

Note: the application may require a manual restart after modification.

PDF viewer : Install the default Document Viewer (Evince) from the Ubuntu Software Center. sudo apt install evince Instant messaging : Run QQ and WeChat through a Deepin‑customized Wine build.

git clone https://github.com/wszqkzqk/deepin-wine-ubuntu.git
cd deepin-wine-ubuntu
./install.sh

The Deepin App Store can also be installed to obtain additional Linux clients.

Code editors and IDEs : Install Sublime Text, Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ IDEA, and Eclipse via their official .deb packages or Snap.

sudo snap install --classic code   # VS Code
sudo snap install intellij-idea-community --classic   # IDEA Community
sudo snap install eclipse --classic   # Eclipse

Web browser : Google Chrome (download the .deb from google.com/chrome and install with dpkg -i).

FTP client : FileZilla is available in the Ubuntu Software Center. sudo apt install filezilla MySQL tools : Install MySQL Workbench for database design. sudo apt install mysql-workbench Host file manager : SwitchHost helps manage multiple /etc/hosts configurations.

sudo snap install switchhost

Problems Encountered

Modifying the lock‑screen background by editing a CSS file broke the display manager; the system became unbootable and required a fresh OS reinstall.

Replacing the system‑provided Python interpreter with a custom build caused numerous tools to fail (e.g., apt, pip). Restoring the original Python version or reinstalling the OS resolved the issue.

Recommendations

Avoid unnecessary tinkering with desktop configuration files, especially those that affect the display manager or lock screen.

Do not replace system‑critical dependencies such as the default python3 interpreter; use virtual environments ( venv or conda) for project‑specific Python versions.

Allocate ample space to the root partition during installation to prevent storage shortages later.