The latest version of Ubuntu just came out; Ubuntu 13.04 - Raring Ringtail. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu Linux, has done a good job setting up a set of defaults for a fresh install, but there are a few things you may want to add or change on your freshly installed OS.  

1. Privacy Settings

You may want to adjust the privacy settings after you install Ubuntu. By default, Ubuntu provides online search results when you enter a search in the Dash. Each of these searches ends up running through Canonical's servers. It's a good idea to disable this function.

Click the Settings icon on the Launcher (it's the icon with a gear and a wrench on it). Then click on Privacy in the System Settings window that comes up. From that menu, turn off "Include online search results" and "Record Activity".

2. Remove Amazon Shopping Lens

This one is somewhat redundant with the item above, but still seems to be a good idea to me.  Once you've disabled online search results, you should see any items for sale from Amazon in your dash. I still prefer to remove that functionality.

Open up a terminal window and enter the following command to remove the Amazon Shopping Lens from the Unity Dash.

Log out and log back in and you shouldn't see search results from Amazon when you search the Dash. Unless you disabled online search results, you will however still see offers from Amazon in the Video Search section.

3. Select the Fastest Update Server for Your Location

This is a nice little tweak that will help you get your system updates from the fastest server. Server speed can vary based on your location and what route the data has to take to get to you. There's a utility in Ubuntu that will ping all of the available update servers and locate the fastest one for you.

To access this tool, open up the System Settings again from the launcher and then double click on Software & Updates. From there, click on the drop-down for "Download from:", then select "Other...".  On the next menu that pops up, click on "Select Best Server" and the utility will start searching for the fastest update server for you. Once it's done, it will highlight the fastest one and you just need to click on "Choose Server" to complete the task. Finally, click on "Close" in the Software & Updates menu.

4. Install Unity Tweak Tool

I wrote about the Unity Tweak Tool before. It's nice to see that it has been added to the Ubuntu repositories for Ubuntu 13.04.  Now that it's in the main repositories, you no longer need to add a PPA in order to install it. You can search for it and install it from the Ubuntu Software Center, or you can install it from the command line with:

Once it's installed, you can launch it from the Dash.

5. Install Multimedia Codecs

Most codecs you might need can be found in the ubuntu-restricted-extras package, but if you want to play encrypted DVD's, you'll need to install some packages from the Medibuntu repository. To enable the Medibuntu repository, you need to enter this long command into a terminal window.

Once Medibuntu is set up, install multimedia codecs with:

6. Install Synaptic Package Manager

The Ubuntu Software Center is a pretty nice software manager, but if you've been using Ubuntu or another Debian derivative for a while, you probably want a more fully featured package manager.  Synaptic used to be included in a default Ubuntu install, but it isn't any longer. You can find it and install it from the Software Center, or add it with:

Well, that's it for my Ubuntu post install list. What other things do you like to install after a fresh build of Ubuntu?

This content originally appeared at https://tuxtweaks.com/2013/04/6-things-to-do-after-installing-ubuntu-13-04/.