Go into the Driver Manager then download and install all available
proprietary drivers.
Install Microsoft’s core fonts.
Install Google Chrome and possibly Chromium as well.
Set all browser home pages as required.
Set up e-mail accounts using Mozilla Thunderbird to avoid the constantly
changing user interfaces, and advertisements, that are a common feature
of webmail.
Remove one-click application shortcuts from the left of the panel.
Change the text scaling factor, perhaps to ‘1.5’, if
required.
Alter the desktop icon size if required, possibly to
‘large’.
Put the trash bin icon on the desktop.
Change the date and time format shown by the clock, if required.
Set the desktop background to whatever the user wants.
Install whatever other applications the user wants, such as LibreOffice,
GIMP, Krita, Scribus, VLC Media Player, etc.
If you’ve installed LibreOffice, set up desktop shortcuts to the
most commonly used individual components, such as Writer, Calc, etc.,
then set the default fonts to ‘Times New Roman’ and
‘Arial’ if required.
If dual-booting with Windows, set up automatic mounting of the Windows
filesystem and create a symbolic link to the user’s Windows
data.
Turn off transparency for terminal windows.
Consider reducing the system’s tendency to use swapping by
editing ‘/etc/sysctl.conf’ and adding a line like
‘vm.swappiness=15’.
Note that this change will not take effect until the system is rebooted.
Turn on the firewall.
Change the root password if necessary using ‘sudo passwd’.
Forget any Wi-Fi networks that have been used to set up the computer,
other than the customer’s own network.