Notes on updating my desktop Optiplex 980 from Xubuntu 14.04 LTS to 16.04 LTS, after being unable to compile OpenSCAD, Slic3r, and GNU Radio from source. Blowing three days on reconfiguration & tweakage after a clean install is the price one pays to get rid of a few years of cruft; the old version remains bootable and lootable on another partition, Just In Case.

Install:

• nfs-common
• xfce4-goodies
• xubuntu-restricted-extras
• hp2xx
• xsane, xscanimage
• kate (which hauls in a big hunk of wayland, alas)
• digikam
• chromium-browser
• devilspie2
• dropbox (from site)
• remmina

Apply:

• tweak GRUB_GFXMODE=1280x720 to make the initial menu less imposing
• XFCE wide border hack, increase window title contrast in themerc
• copy ssh keys
• kensington & wacom button swaps in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/
• firefox: media.autoplay.enabled=false, click_to_play=true
• fix still-broken dropbox indicator
• discard extraneous fonts, install custom fonts
• copy autostart script

The hacks required to ensure NFS mounts happen before signing in seem to be obsolete. Given that systemd now controls everything, I have NFI how to proceed if that’s not the case.

The Xubuntu load progress display looks like it’s scaled up from 640×480.

There seems no way to disable on-screen notifications without deep hackery; some of the collateral damage involves the death of the volume control applet in the indicator panel thingy, so I didn’t try very hard.

The aforementioned volume control now fires up the Pulseaudio control dialog. That display explained why the audio came out of the 980’s crappy internal speaker, but switching it to the HDMI output produced only silence. After blowing away ~/.config/pulse and rebooting that sucker, it’s all good: Linux audio remains a slow-motion train wreck.

The initial sign-on dialog appears on the portrait monitor, minus rotation, because the dialog box follows the mouse pointer: the initial mouse position sits one pixel beyond the landscape monitor. Blind-type the password, whack Enter, and it’s all good.

FWIW, I’ve installed the XFCE flavor of Mint Linux on the laptops, but that’s basically Xubuntu with (some of) the ugly sanded off and really doesn’t buy much for somebody who pays no attention to eyecandy.