The Sundarban
Published Feb 2, 2026, 6:30 AM EST
Arol is a tech journalist who currently works as a contributor at How-To Geek since 2022. He first started writing online for the speedy-lived portal of Spanish-language gaming discussion board Emudesc in 2013. Years later, in 2017, he got his genuine begin in tech journalism working for a minute Google-centered space known as Pixel Predicament. He transitioned to a information and feature creator role at XDA Developers that same year, where he worked till 2021 sooner than making the soar to other web sites.
Arol brings virtually a decade of writing abilities, and the occasional sizzling hold, to his writings. While he’s a technology lover at coronary heart, he holds computer hardware and smartphones particularly finish to coronary heart. You’re going to in total find him covering information, though he has also written the occasional deal, purchaser’s book, how-to put up, and spherical-up. He is also written for Android Police and MakeUseOf. He is also a Political Science pupil. When he isn’t writing, you’ll want to maybe doubtless find him hitting the gymnasium, trying to ace a original hobby, reading his textbooks, or traveling. You can additionally reach him at me@arolwright.com.
Ubuntu is distinguished (it’s many individuals’s first Linux distro), and worship your ordinary Linux distro, you’ll want to maybe customize and alternate a good deal of stuff. That includes, pointless to yell, some stuff that’s became on by default that, whether or not for comfort or for in fact excessive causes, you’ll want to maybe are looking to disable.
These are the three I personally turn off on every recent Ubuntu install.
Automatic updates
Credit score: Lucas Gouveia/How-To Geek | Ubuntu
One in all the first things you’ll want to maybe scrutinize after installing Ubuntu is the operating system’s persistence regarding instrument updates. Positive, it’s advised to sustain your computer up up to now (and certainly not am I telling you to discontinuance updating your PC, sustain checking manually every so most incessantly) nonetheless the default behavior of automatically checking for and installing updates can develop into a vital disruption, particularly for these with restricted bandwidth or these that desire to arrange their system maintenance manually.
No longer only that, nonetheless it’s miles going to bask in to in fact be janky. By default, Ubuntu includes a provider known as unattended-upgrades, which runs in the background. It’s designed to automatically get and install security updates to sustain the system safe with out user intervention. Then again, this background route of can lock the classy database appropriate in the event you’ll want to maybe be trying to install a equipment manually, leading to the frustrating “Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock” error message in the terminal.
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To regain control over when your system adjustments, you’ll want to maybe alter these settings thru the graphical interface or the advise line. When you desire the graphical route, you simply navigate to the “Software & Updates” application and make a choice the “Updates” tab. Right here, you’ll want to maybe alternate the setting for “Automatically check for updates” to “Never” or “Every two weeks” in desire to the day to day default. Furthermore, you’ll want to maybe swap the behavior of “When there are security updates” from “Download and install automatically” to “Display immediately” or “Download automatically” with out installing. This ensures you’ll want to maybe be notified of patches nonetheless permits you to determine the remark 2nd to apply them, preventing unexpected shutdowns or resource usage during excessive projects.
For these that desire the terminal or are managing a server with out a GUI, this behavior is dominated by configuration information located in the /etc/aesthetic/aesthetic.conf.d/ listing. Specifically the file named 20auto-upgrades. By editing this file with root privileges, you’ll want to maybe alternate the values for APT::Periodic::Change-Bundle-Lists and APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade to “0”. This modification effectively tells the system to discontinuance polling the repositories for recent lists and to discontinuance attempting to upgrade packages in the background. Disabling this default requires you to be vigilant about running manual updates continually, as you’ll want to maybe be removing the safety get that Canonical offers, nonetheless it guarantees that your system resources are fully yours to advise.
Ubuntu Respectable ads
In recent versions of Ubuntu, particularly starting with Long Term Reinforce releases worship 20.04 and continuing into 22.04 and 24.04, customers bask in seen a original addition to their terminal output that, frankly, could maybe be controversial for some. And with genuine cause. When running ordinary equipment management commands worship aesthetic update or aesthetic upgrade, the terminal continually shows promotional text encouraging customers to tag in for “Ubuntu Pro” or “ESM” (Expanded Safety Maintenance).
While this provider offers extended improve for older packages, ads on Linux are kind of sacrilegious. These messages have to not hardcoded into the binary of the equipment supervisor nonetheless are instead generated by a particular hook configuration file. The system tests the jam of your subscription and the packages accessible, then injects the promotional message into the ordinary output movement.
Because right here is controlled by a configuration file, it’s fully doable to disable it with out breaking the system or removing important core functionality. The particular file accountable for these messages is mostly located at /etc/aesthetic/aesthetic.conf.d/20apt-esm-hook.conf. By interacting with this file, you’ll want to maybe silence the solicitations completely.
The single option to hold away these notifications is to easily rename or hold away this configuration file in mutter that the equipment supervisor not hundreds the hook. By using the mv give away to rename the file to something with a .bak extension, you bask in the file in case you ever are looking to revert the adjustments, nonetheless you discontinuance aesthetic from recognizing it as an active configuration directive. Alternatively, on some newer versions, you’ll want to maybe alter the overarching configuration for the “Ubuntu Advantage” tools to disable the information feed particularly. As soon as this alternate is applied, your terminal updates will return to the ravishing, strictly informational text logs that lengthy-time Linux customers seek information from, listing only the packages being hit, downloaded, and installed with out the accompanying gross sales pitch for Canonical’s endeavor services and products.
