Make sure you have Ubuntu Desktop 21.10 or Ubuntu Budgie 21.10 installed.

A quick guide on how to configure your Linux machine with *all* important tools for academic work.

Open a terminal and update your installation

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Command line tools

Install zsh

on macOS using Homebrew

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"
brew install zsh

on Linux using aptitude, curl and git

sudo apt install curl git zsh

Install oh my zsh, zsh-autosuggestions, zsh-completions and zsh-syntax-highlighting

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions
git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-completions ${ZSH_CUSTOM:=~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-completions
git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting

configure it using nano (or vim) 

nano ~/.zshrc

make it look like this

for Linux comment brew and osx and uncomment debian

# Which plugins would you like to load?
# Standard plugins can be found in ~/.oh-my-zsh/plugins/*
# Custom plugins may be added to ~/.oh-my-zsh/custom/plugins/
# Example format: plugins=(rails git textmate ruby lighthouse)
# Add wisely, as too many plugins slow down shell startup.
plugins=(
  brew
  composer
  # debian
  gem
  git
  bundler
  docker
  dotenv
  macos
  pip
  python
  rake
  rbenv
  ruby
  rsync
  zsh-autosuggestions
  zsh-completions
  zsh-syntax-highlighting
)

Install

sudo apt install -y aspell-de aspell-es aspell-fr bat exfat-fuse exfat-utils fd-find htop imagemagick ocrmypdf poppler-utils ripgrep  shellcheck tesseract-ocr-all texlive-full 
wget -O ~/Downloads/Pandoc.deb "https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/releases/download/2.17.1.1/pandoc-2.17.1.1-1-amd64.deb"
sudo dpkg -i ~/Downloads/Pandoc.deb
rm ~/Downloads/Pandoc.deb

Python 3 is already is bundled with Ubuntu Desktop. If you need specific Python Versions get inspiration from this tutorial

Install the latest version of Docker

sudo apt-get remove docker docker-engine docker.io containerd runc

sudo apt-get install \
    apt-transport-https \
    ca-certificates \
    curl \
    gnupg-agent \
    software-properties-common
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-key fingerprint 0EBFCD88

sudo add-apt-repository \
   "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
   disco \
   stable"
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-compose

Install Node 16 and TLDR pages

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_16.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

PS: If you want to learn more about Bash check out Introduction to the Bash Command Line. 

Desktop environment

I am a great fan of the desktop environment Budgie. You can add it to your Ubuntu Desktop installation 

sudo apt install -y ubuntu-budgie-desktop

Install 1Password, Keypass or Lastpass (or another good password manager)

Install privacy first browser Brave

sudo apt install apt-transport-https curl
sudo curl -fsSLo /usr/share/keyrings/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg arch=amd64] https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/ stable main"|sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/brave-browser-release.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install brave-browser

Add CC Search, Decentraleyes, Open Access Button, Wayback Machine, Zotero Connector to your Brave installation

Add CC Search, Decentraleyes, Privacy Badger, uBlock Origin, Zotero Connector to your Firefox installation

Install GitHub gist editor Lepton

sudo snap install lepton

Install Spotify

curl -sS https://download.spotify.com/debian/pubkey_5E3C45D7B312C643.gpg | sudo apt-key add - 
echo "deb http://repository.spotify.com stable non-free" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/spotify.list

Install the code editor Visual Studio Code

curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | gpg --dearmor > packages.microsoft.gpg
sudo install -o root -g root -m 644 packages.microsoft.gpg /usr/share/keyrings/
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/packages.microsoft.gpg] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/vscode stable main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vscode.list'
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install code

Add Beautify, Docker, DotENV, Git History and Python to your VS Code installation

Install the text editor Zettlr

wget -O ~/Downloads/Zettlr.deb "https://github.com/Zettlr/Zettlr/releases/download/v2.2.4/Zettlr-2.2.4-amd64.deb"
sudo dpkg -i ~/Downloads/Zettlr.deb
rm ~/Downloads/Zettlr.deb

Install the citation management tool Zotero

wget -O ~/Downloads/Zotero-5.tar.bz2 "https://www.zotero.org/download/client/dl?channel=release&platform=linux-x86_64"
sudo tar -xf ~/Downloads/Zotero-5*.tar.bz2 -C /opt
rm ~/Downloads/Zotero-5*.tar.bz2
sudo bash /opt/Zotero_linux-x86_64/set_launcher_icon
sudo ln -s /opt/Zotero_linux-x86_64/zotero.desktop /usr/share/applications/
sudo ln -s /opt/Zotero_linux-x86_64/zotero /usr/bin/zotero

Add Better BibTex and Zotfile to your Zotero installation

Install multimedia tools

sudo apt install -y gimp inkscape okular trimage vlc

There you go!

more basic configurations

macOS 10.15, Linux Ubuntu 21.10 & Windows 10