For outdoor lighting I remember the first thing I tried was surreal lighting. I've done many things since, but seem to remember it looking pretty good in itself, once eye adaptation was removed.
You might want more of a weather mod such as obsidian or cathedral. Better textures also make the whole world easier to look at, such as smim and maybe some kind of rock texture mod (I can't even remember which one I have installed) for a place to start. Better trees and water were also high priorities for me.
Apparently it's possible to get a minimap, but I don't know about that. The only thing I have that helps navigation rather than hindering it (such as by removing the compass and the "you are here" arrow on the map) is a map that shows the roads, which makes it much easier to use.
PS everything works on linux, the only thing I've had trouble with is Nemesis and that barely works on Windows too. Beware of case-insensitive filesystem problems though. I have a script to change capitalization of every file name in a mod so that it doesn't disagree with what's already installed, if you want it.