It has become a tradition with my to do lists. This time, its for
Lucid Lynx, the new Ubuntu release from Canonical. And yep its
better than the previous version Karmic Koala. There have been some
drastic changes in the UI and under the hood. Lucid Lynx, out of box,
is faster, more social, cloud integrated basically it feels like an
operating system you would want to use today. So without wasting any
more word lets get on with the list :
1 Expand the Software Repository List
First of all, lets make Ubuntu see more packages. Go to the terminal and edit your sources.list with :
sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
Here is the content of my sources.list which I think is quite
complete to have all the necessary applications you could ever need. So
delete the whole content of your sources list and replace it with the
content of mine
Save it. Now import the necessary repositories keys to avoid
aptitude crying about some missing keys, go to the terminal and type:
Ubuntu 10.04 comes with compiz fusion effects OOTB but doesnt offer a way to customize them.
In a terminal copy/paste this:
sudo aptitude install simple-ccsm
Now navigate to System → Preferences → Simple CompizConfig Settings Manager .
8 Missing Windows software?? Run Windows softwares in Linux!!!
Run Windows Applications such as 7zip, Google Sketchup, AutoCAD,
Dreamwaver, Flash MX, Fireworks MX, IE6, IE7, Safari, Itunes, Windows
Media Player and many more
Play Windows Games in Linux like Age Of Empires, Call Of Duty,
Diablo, Fear, Fallout, Far Cry, Grand Theft Auto, Half Life, Halo,
Hitman, Max Payne, Need For Speed, Prince Of Persia, Sim City Star
Wars, The Simsworld of warcraft , Tomb Raider, Warcraft, World Of
Warcraft, Counterstrike and many other can be played.
Install Playonlinux. Its based on wine. Wine is a compatibility layer for running Windows programs in Linux.
sudo aptitude install wine playonlinux
9 Clipboard Management
By Default in ubuntu when u copy something from an application and
closes the application u will not be able to access it from the
clipboard. And also when u copy severals text in serial u only have the
last on available to you in the clipboard. To solve that install either
of the following but Glipper is better because it supports plugins.
Glipper
sudo aptitude install glipper
Then right click ur panel → Add to Panel then drag Clipboard Manager to ur panel
Parcellite
sudo aptitude install parcellite
10 Archiver/ Packing software
Windows equivalent : winrar, zip, 7zip
Ubuntu equivalent : tar, unrar, p7zip, arj, unace
Its bad when you dont have Internet on your computer/notebook, but
you have to pack/unpack something but the file format isnt recognized
by the system. To prevent from this bad situation, you can install a
bunch of packing software by typing this on the terminal:
MultiGet is a http/ftp downloader with a nice GUI for linux desktop
users. It can run on almost all desktops without any configuration. It
has many powerful functions comparing to others.
sudo aptitude install multiget
Access it through Applications → Internet → MultiGet .
13 Graphical Email client
Windows equivalent : Outlook
Ubuntu equivalent : Evolution, Thunderbird
Evolution (installed by default in lucid)
sudo aptitude install evolution
Access it through Applications → Internet → Evolution Mail .
Thunderbird
sudo aptitude install thunderbird
Access it through Applications → Internet → Mozilla Thunderbird Mail/News .
Add the related launchpad repository : sudo add-apt-repository ppa:telepathy/ppa && sudo aptitude update
Then install it by running the following : sudo aptitude install empathy telepathy-mission-control-5
telepathy-gabble telepathy-butterfly telepathy-haze telepathy-idle
telepathy-salut telepathy-sofiasip libtelepathy-farsight0
python-tpfarsight galago-eds-feed python-galago python-galago-gtk
msn-pecan
Access it through Applications → Internet → Empathy IM Client .
Pidgin
Pidgin is an easy to use and free chat client used by millions.
Connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and more chat networks all at once.
Supported chat networks: AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk,
Groupwise, ICQ, IRC, MSN, MySpaceIM, QQ, SILC, SIMPLE, Sametime, XMPP,
Yahoo!, Zephyr
Then install it with the following command : sudo aptitude install amule-dlp amule-dlp-gnome-support amule-dlp-utils-gui amule-dlp-daemon
Access it through Applications → Internet → aMule.
31 Programs for CD burning with GUI
Windows equivalent : Nero, Roxio Easy CD Creator
Ubuntu equivalent : K3b, Brasero
K3b
Nero is available for linux,but its not free.A trial is available
for 1 month usage and later it asks or activation code.But K3B is as
good as Nero.Have a good feature set as Nero.
sudo aptitude install k3b k3b-data libk3b6
Access it through Applications → Sound & Video → K3B.
Brasero (installed by default in Lucid)
sudo aptitude install brasero
Access it through Applications → Sound & Video → Brasero Disc Burning .
32 Mountings ISO files
Windows equivalent : Alcohol
Ubuntu equivalent : acetoneiso
Acetoneiso
The best one for linux ACETONEISO, which is similar to ALCOHOL in windows
its supports almost all formats. AcetoneISO is CD/DVD image
manipulator for Linux.Using this tool it is very easy to Mount and
Unmount ISO,MDF,NRG Images . I dont think its available in ubuntu
repository.
Now press Alt+F2, and type ggl-gtk to start them. You should see a
small icon show up in your system tray, and a sidebar. Right click on
any of them and select Add Gadgets to show a menu. If youd like to
have Google Gadgets start automatically, go to System Preferences
Session, click Add, paste Google Gadgets for the name and ggl-gtk
for the command. Click OK and Close, and youre good to go.
34 Google Desktop
Google Desktop allows one to full text search of a users e-mail,
computer files, music, photos, chat, and Web pages viewed,OpenOffice
documents , PDF files and more .
Now similar tools already existed on Linux like beagle (supported by
novell ) , meta tracker etc . However Google Desktop search is not
based on any of these tools and uses its proprietary algorithms to
search for files on the computer ,also being 1.0 release and more
stable then these products it could be preferred over tools like beagle
.
To install Google Desktop Search type the following command in the terminal window : -
sudo aptitude install google-desktop-linux
Access it through Applications → Google Desktop → Google Desktop
Now after choosing appropriate option through Applications → Google
Desktop → Google Desktop Preferences, you would find Google Desktop
icon in the bar at the top of the screen , now it would automatically
scan and index files on computer and store it in local database which
could be searched using web browser .
35 Photo Management
Google Picasa
Google Picasa is an extremely professional good looking photo
management application available on Windows ,Linux and Mac OS. Now
Google Picasa has a number of features that many photo management
software on Linux dont have further Google Picasa looks very user
friendly as compared to similar open source application available on
linux . Now Google Picasa for Linux is not a native linux application
but runs on Linux thru application layer called wine which allows many
windows application to run flawlessly on Linux.
Now to install Google Picasa type the following command in the terminal window
Access it through Applications → Graphics → Picasa → Picasa
36 Map Viewing and Management
Google Earth
To install Google Earth type the following command in the Terminal Window.
sudo aptitude install googleearth
After downloading is over you will get a screen like this press
¨Yes¨ to accept the license agreement and complete software
installation.
Now you can launch Google Earth from Application → Internet → Google Earth
37 Gmail Notification
Checkgmail
If you would like to get notified when you have a new mail in your
google mail account, checkgmail is for you. To install Checkgmail type
the following command in the Terminal Window.
sudo aptitude install checkgmail
Now you can launch it from Application → Internet → CheckGmail
38 Configure Firewall
If you are concern about your security, then it is pertinent that you
activate the firewall and prevent any unauthorized access to your
computer.
UFW is installed by default, but if you need a graphical interface, install GUFW.
sudo aptitude install gufw
39 Gnome Do
Gnome Do is a small application that allows you to search and do
things faster and more efficiently in your Ubuntu machine. It is
similar to QuickSilver in Mac and Launchy in Windows. For those who
have not tried Gnome Do before, it might take some time for you to get
used to it. But once youre hooked to it, there will be no turning back
for you.Gnome Do also comes with a dock interface that you can use it
like any other docks.
sudo aptitude install gnome-do
Now you can launch it from Application → Accessories → Gnome Do
40 Ubuntu Tweak
Ubuntu Tweak allows you to tweak your system settings, all in one
place. You can install new applications, customize your desktop
settings, configure your startup applications, changing the system
filetype association and many more tweaks in this single application.
Then install it with the following command : sudo aptitude install ubuntu-tweak
Then access it through Applications → System Tools → Ubuntu Tweak
App Runner
App Runner is a small open source utility that makes it very easy to
run any type of program/executable/script on any distro/OS that uses
the nautilus file manager: Debian/Ubuntu/Super OS/Fedora/etc
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