Ubuntu Apps by Eduardo Llaguno

Available in Paperback http://www.ubuntuapps.org Available at the following online stores:

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide ÂŠ 2009 Kevin Prag

All rights reserved. No parts of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means - graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems - without the written permission of the publisher. Products that are referred to in this document may be either trademarks and/or registered trademarks of the respective owners. The publisher and the author make no claim to these trademarks. All product names and logos are trade and service marks of their respective companies. The Ubuntu logo is a registered trademark of Canonical Ltd and is used with permission. UbuntuÂŽ is a trademark of Canonical Ltd and is used under license from Canonical Ltd. Points of view or opinions in this publication do not necessarily represent the policies or positions of Canonical Ltd or imply affiliation with Ubuntu or www.ubuntu.com. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this document, the publisher and the author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained in this document or from the use of programs and source code that may accompany it. In no event shall the publisher and/or the author be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage caused or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by this publication. Produced: July 2009

Contents 1 Introduction

Acknowledgements .................................................................. 8 Benefits .................................................................. 9 Cons of .................................................................. Linux 13

2 Applications

Prerequisites .................................................................. 21 Sources .................................................................. 22 Getting the Applications .................................................................. 27 Installing.................................................................. the Applications 29 Desktop .................................................................. Environment 35 File Tools .................................................................. 38 CD & DVD .................................................................. 45 Games .................................................................. 57 Office

.................................................................. 91

Graphics .................................................................. 101 Other .................................................................. 125 File Sharing .................................................................. 130 Sound & Video .................................................................. 139 Chat

.................................................................. 178

Security.................................................................. 194 Internet.................................................................. 200 Text Editor .................................................................. 212 Accessories .................................................................. 219 Auctions .................................................................. 244 Removing Applications .................................................................. 246

3 Customizing

249

OS X

.................................................................. 249

Vista

.................................................................. 256

Terminal Shortcuts .................................................................. 281 Fonts .................................................................. 284

4 Tips

287

Duplicating Packages .................................................................. 287 Troubleshooting .................................................................. 293

Index

295

Chapter 1

Introduction Today, it is possible to do pretty much everything using free software. This starts at the operating system level with Linux. Linux is free, stable, and has lots of free software available for it. One of the most popular Linux distributions today is Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu's user community is so large that most questions will be answered within a day or less when posting to their forum. This large user base makes Ubuntu the most popular Linux distribution and the distribution that Ubuntu Apps is written for. In addition to the OS, many different free applications are readily available for almost any need, without paying a cent. Ubuntu is currently good enough for most people, allowing users to browse the web, check email, play games, use the printer, sync iPods, play videos and many other things. About this book Ubuntu Apps is about how to run your computer completely on free software. Some of this software in the book is open source while some is not. This book is written from a different perspective from most other Linux or Ubuntu books in that it focuses on using the GUI to do almost everything and not the terminal. Ubuntu Apps is written to be as easy to use as possible and is especially aimed at those using Windows who wish to explore Linux. This book provides the reader with the applications needed to get work done or for leisure and entertainment. Not all of the applications are listed, just the ones that are the best or most useful. Most of the programs listed in this book are GUI based programs.

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Throughout this book, instructions on how to do configurations through the GUI are used as much as possible. Throughout the book are links to the application project pages, and instructions on how to install the applications. Why I wrote this book I noticed that most of the books on the shelves were either written for one particular application, or were far too technical for the average Windows user. I've also seen many top Linux applications lists on the internet that show every software applications for a particular category or offer a list of nearly every application created, while not providing installation instructions. I've looked through virtually every top free applications list on the web as well as going through nearly all of the software projects listed in Sourceforge.net while compiling the list. The applications provided in this book are not meant to be comprehensive for every special occupation. Rather, the applications listed are for general purposes. This book is about combining some of these aspects into a larger list, showing how to install the applications with screen shots, repository install names and links to the projects.

Acknowledgements Thank you to the wonderful people at ubuntuforums.org for the great contributions and answers to my questions. Whenever I had an an issue, there was always someone there to help with my problems. I'd also like to thank Debian for their great package manager for Linux along with Ubuntu for packaging together one of the greatest Linux distributions. Without the help of these great people, Ubuntu Apps would not be possible. --Kevin Prag, June 2009

Acknowledgements

Benefits The benefits of Linux may not be readily apparent to first time users. I will highlight some of them below: 1. Stability 2. Customizable 3. Ease of software installation 4. Low cost (free) 5. Upgradability 6. Security 7. Support The stability of Linux is similar to Unix. Unix has been used in mainframes and high end servers for over thirty years now. Many of the very high end enterprise servers still run on Unix and many now run on Linux. Linux servers can run for years without needing to be rebooted. Linux on the desktop is very stable also and requires reboots much less often than Windows XP or Vista. Linux is open source making it very easy for programmers to figure out how to change things. If you want to move your start menu around, change the file manager, have transparent menus or special effects, it is all easily done in Linux. The ease of software installation may seem easy in Windows, but try it in Ubuntu and you will be wishing Windows were so easy. What am I talking about here? The software management system in Ubuntu essentially manages the updates for all of your software. To install, all you do is search for the software you want; it downloads the software, installs it and even puts it in the right category in the start menu. Whenever a software update comes out for a particular product, the software will be updated automatically along with any other software that has gotten out of date. This is essentially like Microsoft Windows Update except it does it for all of your software and not just Microsoft software. Ubuntu does timeline based distribution updates every six months. This means that bug fixes will be fixed on a timely basis. The cost of Ubuntu is zero. It can be re-distributed and used as many times as needed. There are no per user fees, per computer fees or anything else. If you change the hardware on your computer drastically, you don't have to call Ubuntu to re-activate your software.

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

If you take your hard drive to another computer it is fine also. This makes upgrades a breeze because licensing issues don't come into play. With a Windows based computer, for instance, if you purchased the computer from a retailer and you decide to upgrade to a new computer that you built, there will be problems. First, the software license agreement would prohibit moving the old hard drive with Windows to a new system. Secondly, doing so would break Windows where it would not boot up properly. With Windows, moving to new hardware requires a new license and a new Windows installation. With Linux, it is often as simple as taking the hard drive out of the old computer and putting it into the new computer. No software re-installation is necessary. Any new software drivers will usually be detected on boot up and installed automatically. No one person can control Linux. It Ubuntu decides to focus on commercial projects or tries to start charging fees to develop software for Ubuntu, then others can create a fork of Ubuntu and make it free. There are already projects that are based on Ubuntu. Linux Mint is a project based originally on Ubuntu. Centos is an OS based on RedHat Enterprise Linux. Nearly every major Linux vendor has another distribution based on it. Security is a major issue as a result of broadband and 24/7 internet connections. In a typical Windows system, all it takes is simple user error or the lack of proper updates to have a virus or spyware taking over the computer. A few clicks on the wrong link can unleash viruses or trojans that can steal or destroy valuable data on the computer. Linux is far less likely to get viruses and spyware than a Windows based PC. There are so many different distributions of Linux that it makes it very difficult for viruses to penetrate. Also the security settings in Ubuntu keeps the user from being a "root" user. Since root is disabled by default, it is hard for the user or a virus to destroy data. By default Windows based systems are set in root mode making it possible for users or viruses to destroy data with much greater ease. Windows users are very familiar with anti-virus programs and spyware programs. They are some of the most downloaded programs for Windows. Linux systems have yet to be hit by a major virus. With a free operating system one might think that support would be lacking; however, this is not the case. There is a large user community forum where users can find answers to their questions free of charge. In my opinion, it is organized much better than Windows support site which makes user interaction quite hard to find.

Benefits

Software update life cycles for both paid and free software end after several years. Microsoft stopped providing updates for Windows 98 in July 2006. So after this date if you had a Windows 98 system and a new security hole was found, you would be out of luck because the updates stopped. With a Linux based system, someone would have most likely found a patch or a fix for it. The open source nature of Linux allows developers to look deep into the code to fix things. Another option is you just simply keep upgrading free of charge to newer, supported versions of Linux. This isn't an option for a paid OS such as Windows or Apple OS X without paying money for the new OS version.

Examples Sharing: You have a friend that just loves your system and the applications you have installed. Since you are running Linux and open source applications, you can copy the hard drive to your friends drive and give it to your friend. Or, you can even generate a list of the applications you have installed and email the file to your friend. Then with simple cutting and pasting, the programs will be downloaded and installed on your friend's computer

Upgrading You have run out of hard drive space and need to install a new hard drive. When a Windows system runs out of hard drive space, most people simply add a secondary hard drive because to move Windows to a new drive would be too difficult to do. With Linux, this is easy and you won't run into any licensing issues.

Managing Updates You have a computer and need to update all of the software on your system. When you need to update your software, you can update about 95% of the software using the Update Manager. With a Windows system, probably less than 5% of the software can be updated through the

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Microsoft's Windows Update because most of the other software is outside of the repository.

Maintenance Jason routinely shuts down his Windows computer the first of every month to defragment, run a full virus scan and do spyware scans. Linux runs on a different file system from Windows. Windows based systems use FAT or NTFS based file systems which are prone to fragmentation over time. Even the latest, rumored Windows 7 is said to be using the same fragmentable file system as previous Windows versions. The EXT3 file system used by Ubuntu and other Linux distributions rarely gets defragmented, so no defragmenting is needed. Spyware and viruses are not very common in Linux systems either. As a result, very little maintenance work is needed, saving hours of time each month. For servers this is crucial. Many websites that have ".asp" in the URL are often Windows based servers using the NFTS file system. Often these servers are unavailable late at night as maintenance is being done. Could it be that they are defragmenting the hard drive or scanning for viruses? Linux is free from these problems.

Freedom Jim is a programmer and wants to modify some of his applications. GPL (General Public License) and open source software licenses permit the user to share, change and redistribute the software. The software can be freely modified to fit the needs of the user. All of the source code is available, so the software can be checked for back doors, and any security holes. The user is not kept hostage to the manufacturer of the software for updates. When a new software update comes out, the user isn't forced to pay what the manufacturer demands. The development progress of GPL software isn't secret like with most commercial software development. Users are free to contribute to the development of GPL software and to download the latest snapshots

Benefits

or "nightly builds". Not all of the software included in this book is open source or GPL software. Some of the software is commercial software that is offered for free or a different type of license. For some, having GPL only software is a very strong issue that takes precedence over any other benefits such as functionality and ease of use. This book doesn't follow this philosophy because there are some programs that provide the user with benefits, are free, and have no GPL alternatives.

Cons of Linux Linux has some great things about it but it also has some negative things about it. Here are some of the negative things. 1. Unsupported hardware 2. Software availability 3. Learning curve 4. Some things just won't work right 5. No long term leader 6. It is easier to get a PC with Windows

Unsupported Hardware Without software drivers, most hardware will not work. In the past hardware support from hardware manufacturers for Linux has been non-existent. Today, it is getting much better. ATI and Nvidia provide drivers for most their video cards. Many printer manufacturers provide drivers as well. Some hardware manufacturers such as Microsoft don't provide any drivers for Linux so it is up to the user community to create the drivers. Many of the drivers that are provided by the manufacturer for Linux have limited functionality when compared to their Windows counterparts. For instance, ATI's control center for Linux does not allow the monitor to be rotated, yet the Windows version does allow this. Looking at the ATI control center shows a minimalist functional driver when compared to the feature rich Windows drivers. I recently experienced the same thing with a new multifunction Samsung laser printer. The driver was provided by the manufacturer and the printer now works but not everything works. The scanner required an extra community provided patch to fix the problem with the original driver not working with the scanner. The installation

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

process for Linux drivers is much more time consuming also. To install a printer driver, for instance, required several commands that were executed from the terminal. Windows users simply use their mouse and let the installation GUI do all of the work. Some hardware manufacturers provide no drivers whatsoever for Linux. Such is the case for many webcams. Since the manufacturers are not providing the drivers, one lone French physician wrote the drivers for over 352 webcams. - http://www.siliconvalleysleuth. com/2007/05/frenchman-crown.html The Microsoft keyboard that I use has no manufacturer provided drivers so the user community created some drivers. Now with Ubuntu 8.04 the Microsoft keyboard 4000 will work out of the box except for the scroll knob.

Software Availability Software availability is also a major issue with Linux. Lots of software is available for Ubuntu for free but sometimes the quality is not up to that of the commercial products. And, if you are looking for a commercial software solution for Linux, most of the commercial software is written for Windows or OS X, not Linux. Much of the software is freely available through the software repositories to install via Synaptic or apt-get. However, sometimes it is a few months old compared to what is available through Windows. For example, Open Office 3 was recently released on Oct 11. It is now Oct 15 and if an update is run in Synaptic or apt-get, it doesn't show Open Office 3 updates. Most likely it will be available in a few months as an update. Linux users must to have patience when it comes to software releases. When software is lacking, a great alternative is to try and run the Windows software on Linux. Using a program called WINE will do exactly this. However, it will not work with all Windows programs. Some programs run fine in WINE while others do not. Some programs appear to work but then have all sorts of weird issues. The user experience with Windows apps in Linux is far from perfect. An alternative to WINE is to access Windows applications on Linux remotely via a Windows based system which contains the application. Virtualization products such as VMware will allow Windows applications to be accessed but legally requires a Windows license in

Cons of Linux

order for it to work. A project exists called ReactOS which attempts to emulate the Windows environment without having to pay for the license fees. The project, however, still has a way to go before it is stable. Also, the program is very minimalist compared to Windows XP and lacks many features.

Learning Curve The learning curve for Linux is higher than Windows. If you want to make your Ubuntu based system look and work similar to a Windows one, it will take time learning how to change and customize different things. Some things are completely different from Windows and it takes time to learn the tricks.

Some Things Won't Work Some things just won't work right in Linux. I have several monitors I wanted to set up in Ubuntu and wanted the ability to rotate the monitors. Well, this isn't possible with the ATI card that I have. ATI cards also cause problems with flickering in certain programs while running Compiz. I have a webcam that will not work in Linux also because it has no drivers available from the manufacturer or from the community. The great thing about all of these problems is that they can all be fixed with time. As Linux continues to grow and market share increases, these problems will quickly go away. The drivers will become available, the software will become available, the problems will decrease as the software matures, and the learning curve will decrease as well

No Long Term Linux Leader The current Linux desktop leader is Ubuntu. However, whether this company will be around for a long time is questionable. Ubuntu founder, Mark Shuttleworth has stated recently that Ubuntu's desktop distribution is not cash flow positive and that he would continue to finance it for up to 5 years. -http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_310075890-92.html Until Ubuntu becomes profitable or finds a long term financial solution, its days may be numbered. Many Linux distributions that were once popular are now almost forgotten. Mandriva, for example, used to be

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

one of the top three Linux distributions with it's Mandrake Linux product. The company is now a publicly traded company and has yet to become profitable. Quarter after quarter shows financial losses. At some point in the future investors may stop investing in Linux projects if losses continue. The alternatives to this is to find rich benefactors to continue to fund the projects or to find another way. Perhaps, Ubuntu Linux may be better off as a non-profit organization that seeks donations from people and organizations. Linuxfund.org is a sort of example of this. The company is a non-profit company and donations are tax deductible. The donations are used to fund open source software projects such as the LiVES project. Debian, the Linux distribution that Ubuntu is built on is a non-profit company that allows tax deductible donations to be made. The total amount of the donations is not known. In order to continue to advance Linux and application development at a rapid pace, more full time developers are needed. This requires more money. More donations from individuals and corporations would definitely help with this. A problem with donations is that many people probably don't understand that they can give tax deductible donations to Linux & open source projects. To many the only sort of charities that come to mind are The Red Cross, The Salvation Army and The United Way. People need to be educated that many open source donations are tax deductible. The organizations need to be focused on raising money and growing. This means accepting more donations from the website and/or through outside fund raisers. Donations need to be easier to make through the website and the community of people message needs to be louder. The transformation of open source projects from small volunteer run organizations to large non-profit organizations has yet to take place. The primary competitors to Linux, Apple and Microsoft have billions of dollars in profits. Their development budgets run in the billions of dollars. These companies will not be going away anytime soon.

It Is Easier to Get a PC With Windows For people looking for a new computer system, most will buy

Cons of Linux

manufactured PC's rather than building from parts. When buying a manufactured PC, when it comes to selecting an OS, there is generally one choice, Microsoft. If it is retail computer, it is nearly 100% Microsoft operating systems. For online manufactured PC's it is probably 98% Microsoft. When customizing a PC online, the customization of the OS is only between different versions of Microsoft OS's such as Vista Home, Vista Premium, XP, etc. One PC vendor is now offering other operating systems in addition to Microsoft ones. However, the choices are limited. Dell does offer Ubuntu and FreeDOS based systems now but they only make up two systems. The Ubuntu system is nearly identical to the Windows based system. The Ubuntu system is the Dell Inspiron 530N which basically is the same as the Inspiron 530 except it has limited customization. The Ubuntu system doesn't have a, "no monitor option" and has fewer processor choices when compared to the Vista one. The Vista one has eight processor choices compared to five processor choices for the Ubuntu one. Microsoft based systems come in a variety of colors and models while the Ubuntu one comes in one color. When comparing the system with Vista Home Basic, with the same hardware specs: (Intel Core 2 Quad processor Q6600, 320GB hard drive, 19" monitor) the Vista system costs $649 vs $608 for the Ubuntu one for a difference of $41. For Vista Home Premium the difference is $81. When figuring the cost of the monitor which many may not need, the cost of the Microsoft system comes down to $549. When playing around configuring other Dell systems further, I managed to get the price down to $489 for the Microsoft system without the monitor. So the difference in this case is $119 more for the Ubuntu system with the monitor. A new, 19" LCD monitor can be purchased directly from Dell for exactly the same price with free S&H. In this case, that basically means that the Microsoft Vista OS cost zero. We know that is not the case. What this means is that Ubuntu users are paying more for less options. What some have done is purchase a PC with a Microsoft OS, decline the terms of the agreement when starting up the PC, remove the OS, then request a refund for the cost of Windows from the PC manufacturer.

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

People from all over the world have done this from Germany, France, Israel, to the United States. The way this is done, is the person calls the manufacturer, tells them they don't agree with the terms of the Microsoft Windows agreement and that they have found another OS that they want to use. The PC manufacturer then tells them that it is attached to the hardware and is non refundable. The person then states that in the terms it states it is refundable and that the user must call the hardware vendor for a refund. The manufacturer may state that the OS is free and cannot be refunded without returning the PC. With enough effort and several calls one person from the US stated that he received a refund of $53 for Windows. The price that PC manufacturers pay for Windows is said to be confidential. As a result, no one really knows how much PC vendors such as Dell or HP pay for Windows. Some have taken this further and went to small claims court. The plaintiff then usually requests a refund for the price of Windows using the price directly from the Dell website such as $199 for a retail copy of Vista Home or for the price of an OEM copy of Windows Vista from Newegg.com, $89. Now that Dell has a Ubuntu based PC, they may try to use the difference in price to determine how much Windows costs and how much the plaintiff should be given. Since it is in small claims, the process is generally fairly fast. When it all is settled, generally they get the price they asked for plus court fees. Feel free to do a search online for "windows refund" for more information on this. For most people, this is simply too much work. The other option besides doing this is to build your own PC from parts or buy a used PC. When pricing out PC parts from sites such as Newegg.com, the price may often come out to be more than if one purchased a computer directly from Dell. The reason for this is economies of scale and the price companies such as Dell pay for processors and components. Building your own PC (including S&H and stock fans):

Intel Quad Core Q6600 Processor 2GB RAM DVD-RW 320GB HD Motherboard Computer Case & PS Keyboard & Mouse Total

$189 $32 $20 $50 $50 $68 $28 $437

Cons of Linux

Dell System Total

$489 - $53 Windows Fee = $436

This is the price found for the lowest priced Dell system with Windows Vista Home. One person online claimed to have settled for $53 for his Windows fee which would bring this down to about the same cost as the build your own PC plus it comes with a 1yr warranty vs a 30 day warranty for the do it yourself system. In addition, the build it yourself system will most likely be noisy with the stock Intel CPU fan and or have a noisy power supply fan. To make it as quiet as the Dell system may cost another $30 for the CPU heatsink/fan and possibly more for a new power supply. This makes the build it yourself system more expensive than a Dell one. In addition, there are deal sites that frequently post specials from Dell and HP. Using coupon codes from sites such as Fatwallet.com or Slickdeals.net can bring the costs of the manufactured systems down even further making them the clear winner for the frugal buyer. For users with existing systems, if the PC already has Windows XP on it, there isn't a really compelling reason to switch to another operating system. Features can be added to Windows XP relatively easily just like with Linux. Dock bars such as Rocketdock can provide an Apple OS X like dock feel. Vista Inspirat can give XP a Vista like look and feel. And both of these things don't slow the system down as much as a full fledged Windows Vista OS. Yet, Linux is growing rapidly and the features are expanding at a fast rate. While Microsoft has basically been polishing the look of Windows since Windows 2000, Linux has grown up from something only nerds messed with to something that even your grandma or kids can use. The features that Linux now have are comparable to XP, Vista and OS X with the community playing a much stronger role in shaping Linux than with Microsoft or Apple's OS X. The strength of the community helps to build a great package management system for Linux. When a new feature or look comes out for a competing operating system, the community can often quickly duplicate it onto Linux. There is no need to wait five years and spend $200 for each upgrade. The upgrades with Linux are free.

Chapter 2

Applications

Prerequisites Before installing all of the applications listed in this book, you will want to make sure that you have enough disk space. If you want to install all of the applications listed in this book, you will want to have at least 60GB of hard drive space. All of these programs plus Ubuntu requires about 40GB of hard drive space. When upgrading from one version of Ubuntu to the next, it may add a couple of gigabytes as well. If you have media such as movies or music this will take up space as well. Internet based games use lots of hard drive space also because of map graphics and sounds need to be downloaded for different game servers. The hardware requirements I have listed below are my own personal recommendations. These recommendations are greater than what is officially required to run Ubuntu.

Minimum Hardware Recommendations CPU: Intel Celeron 1.7GHz RAM: 512MB RAM Video: 64MB Video Card Hard Drive: 60GB Hard Drive Resolution 1024X768 Sound card Internet connection

Disclaimer This book was written specifically for Ubuntu 8.10 and 9.04. The

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

installation may or may not be the same for different Ubuntu or Linux versions but that is beyond the scope of this book.

Sources The great thing about Ubuntu is it uses the Debian package management system which is one of the best package management systems available. Nearly all of the applications listed in this book can be downloaded from free using the package manager. The package manager that Ubuntu comes with is called Synaptic Package Manager. The difference between using the Ubuntu Add/Remove which is found under Applications and Synaptic is that Add/Remove is only for Ubuntu certified applications. Synaptic covers this and other third party software. Before you try to download something through Synaptic Package Manager, you will need to add some sources so that you will have more software to choose from. The more sources you have, the more software you will be able to download. Where do you get these sources? You can get them in the forum or on a website or from others who send you the links from the Ubuntu forum. Google, for instance, has its own repository of software for Ubuntu. After searching for software that you want in Synaptic, if you aren't getting any results back then you can search the internet for a Ubuntu package or a .deb package. In many cases you will get back a path to a url which looks something like: deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ stable non-free The example above provides access to Google software for Ubuntu. When a new version of Google Earth, or Google Gadgets comes out, this URL will point to it and it can be installed. The Ubuntu update system will routinely check these source URLs for new software and will automatically install updates for this. To add a new source, go to Settings > Repository while in Synaptic or go to: System > Administration > Software Sources.

Sources

Next, add a source by selecting the "Add" button and typing something in below as shown.

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

You can alternatively add all your sources directly into the sources file. You can do this by going to the terminal and typing: gksudo nautilus This will load up Nautilus. Then go to /etc/apt/sources.list and open in a text editor by right mouse clicking and selecting "Open with Text Editor". Add the urls and save. You may want to create a backup copy of the original just to be safe.

For Ubuntu 8.10 Here is the bottom part of the sources.list file. This includes all of the repository with the exception of the Ubuntu ones. You can simply cut and paste this into the bottom of the sources file making sure that you don't already have these sources in your file. Another alternative is to copy the sources file from http://www.mediafire.com/?gmmtzvhmnmm (source.list file used for this book) and overwrite /etc/apt/sources.list with this one (8.04 & 8.10). deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ intrepid free non-free deb http://blognux.free.fr/ubuntu hardy main deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ stable non-free deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/spring/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt intrepid main deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ stable non-free deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/spring/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu intrepid universe deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt intrepid main deb http://ubuntu.org.ua/ getdeb/ deb http://hydr0g3n.free.fr/ubuntu/ intrepid main deb mirror://www.getdeb.net/playdeb-mirror/hardy/// hardy/ deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/openoffice-pkgs/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/handschuh/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/galaxium/ppa/ubuntu hardy main deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ssakar/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc-intrepid/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc-intrepid/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/xbmc-addons/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/xbmc-addons/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main deb http://apt.boxee.tv intrepid main deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/corenominal/ppa/ubuntu hardy main deb http://akirad.cinelerra.org akirad-intrepid main deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid-proposed restricted main multiverse universe deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid-backports restricted main multiverse universe

Sources

Note: if you use the following above, you may want to search for the authentication code for them if you get an "authentication error" while trying to install something. You can then import the key file or cut and paste the code you find into a terminal. Most people cut and paste the code into the terminal. See http://www.google.com/linuxrepositories/ ubuntu704.html The way to get rid of this error is to download the authentication keys and or copy and paste the "trusted.gpg" file over the one in etc/apt/. This file can be found here: http://www.mediafire.com/? gmmtzvhmnmm (In order to do this you will need to have special permissions so run, "gksudo nautilus" in the terminal then copy the downloaded file and paste over the one in etc/apt) You can also download the authentication key files here individually: https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/Scott Ritchie.gpg http://packages.medibuntu.org/medibuntu-key.gpg Run the following command for the mediabuntu key: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get update sudo wget http://hydr0g3n.free.fr/qbittorrent.asc -O- | sudo aptkey add Now, simply hit "reload" in Synaptic and all the new sources will be loaded and available for searches.

For Ubuntu 9.04 The 9.04 repository info is shown below. It has been cleaned up considerably as many of the packages are now in the Ubuntu repositories. Below is the repository information take from the bottom of the file after the Ubuntu repository info. This can be cut and pasted into the /etc/apt/sources.list file by opening the file using gksu nautilus. For the authentication for the sources, simply copy the trusted.gpg into the /etc/apt/ directory. Both files can be downloaded here: http://www.mediafire.com/?1mwmfzqyzzn #Mediabuntu deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ jaunty free non-free # deb http://blognux.free.fr/ubuntu jaunty main #Google Picasa

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

# deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ stable non-free #Spring Engine deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/spring/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main #Wine Beta # deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt jaunty main #Hydrogen Drum Machine # ! Not needed for Jaunty # deb http://hydr0g3n.free.fr/ubuntu/ jaunty main #Jaolt eBay Tool deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/handschuh/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main #Galaxium Messenger # "galaxium-svn" for Jaunty, "galaxium" for all previous deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/galaxium/ubuntu jaunty main #IPlist deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ssakar/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main #Boxee deb http://apt.boxee.tv jaunty main #Startup Manager deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/corenominal/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main #Cinelerra Image Program # "cinelerracv" for Jaunty and "cinelerra" for others deb http://akirad.cinelerra.org akirad-jaunty main #XBMC # deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc/jaunty-ppa/ubuntu jaunty main # deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/xbmc-addons/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main #AWN deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/awn-testing/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main #Google Chromium Development Builds # deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main #Moblock deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/jre-phoenix/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/jre-phoenix/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main #GYachI deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/loell/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/loell/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Getdeb Sources Getdeb.net is a site that has the latest games and software for Ubuntu. The only problem is that they aren't in the repository. Well, this is no problem because there is a workaround for this. What we will do is add one of their mirrors to the sources list.

Sources

deb http://ubuntu.org.ua/ getdeb/ (Note: this is already in the list above, so no need to add it to the list. This isn't working in 9.04) After this is done, it is possible to install software from getdeb.net either through Synaptic or through apt-get.

Ubuntu Distribution Updates When updating to a new version of Ubuntu, your repositories will need to be updated manually afterwards. Most of the time, this is simply changing the name of the build. Ubuntu 8.04 goes by the code name "hardy". Ubuntu 8.10 goes by the code name "intrepid". So, all of the entries that say "hardy" will need to be changed to "intrepid". Generally, the upgrade process will change this automatically, but if for some reason it doesn't, it can be done manually. An easy way to do this is to go open your sudo enabled Nautilus icon or type "sudo nautilus" in a terminal to load it. Then go to /etc/apt/ sources.list and open with the text editor. Next, simply do a search and replace for "hardy" and replace with "intrepid". Save the file, then do an update.

Getting the Applications Using Add/Remove First after logging into Ubuntu, you will want to start adding the programs that you want and removing the programs that you don't want. This is done by going to Applications > Add/Remove.

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

After you have finished checking all the programs you want to install, select "Apply Changes" and they will be installed. (Note: Make sure that you have "All available applications" selected from the top of the Add/Remove menu or the application choices will be less numerous.)

Synaptic Synaptic can be found by navigating to the menu and going to System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager. Under the "Quick Search" field, put in the text for the application and hit return.

If the application searched for is not appearing, that probably means that the program is not in the sources file. If this is the case, an entry will need to be added to the file. This can be done by going to Settings > Repositories while in Synaptic and adding the entry. The

Getting the Applications

source entries can be found on the project homepage.

Third Party Websites Websites such as http://www.getdeb.net and http://www.appnr.com provide links to packaged .deb based files making it easy to install applications. Appnr includes one click installing using the Firefox's built in application installer in Ubuntu.

The Web Searching for an application on the web can provide source file information for the software or there may be other info such as a direct download link to a Ubuntu / Debian based file or a .tar based file. The installation instructions for these are provided in the next section of the book.

Installing the Applications There are several different ways to install Ubuntu applications. The first, and easiest is to use the software repository (sources) list. If it is in the list, it can be installed using the Ubuntu Add/Remove program, Synaptic or using the command "apt-get install" in the terminal. If an application isn't showing up in a search while trying to install using Synaptic or "apt-get install" it is possible that another sources url needs to be added to the main "sources.list" file. If there is no source link available to add to the "sources.list" file, then it is possible that there is a Debian package (.deb) available to install. The last option is an option to use when the application is not available from sources or as a .deb file. In this case, downloading and installing a .tar or .tar.gz file is what most likely has to be done. Throughout the book, installation names are used for the applications so that they can be easily installed using apt-get or Synaptic. Project URLs are also shown next to each application.

Installing Using Synaptic To install Skype, click "Search" put in "skype" without the "", then select "Search." The search results will be displayed. Check the box "mark for installation" and select apply.

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

After hitting "Apply" you should see a box popup showing that it is downloading and installing skype.

Installing From the Terminal (apt-get install) (Note: an alternative to using Synaptic Package Manager is to install using "sudo apt-get install". To install Skype using the terminal the following would be typed as:)

Installing the Applications

sudo apt-get install skype Next, enter the user password, and hit the "Enter" key to install. The terminal is probably the fastest way to install, especially when installing many different packages. To install many different programs, type: sudo apt-get install skype freemind gimp firefox This example would install skype, freemind, gimp and firefox along with their dependencies. (Note: "sudo apt-get install" can be shortened to just "install" using terminal shortcuts. See Terminal Shortcuts)

Installing .deb Files Sometimes some programs are outside of a repository which means they are not installable via Synaptic or apt-get. If so, the next best thing is a .deb file. If you find a .deb file for the application, it will be easy to install. Look for one that is made specifically for Ubuntu. If this isn't available, the others will most likely work also. Simply download the .deb file, save to your Desktop or somewhere else and double click on the file with your mouse. A window will pop up with a green check mark button "Install Package" or "Reinstall Package" (if already installed). Simply click this button and it will be installed.

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Now if you do a search for it in Synaptic you will see it in the search results. You can then choose to remove it easily via Synaptic if you want later on. However, since this example is outside of a repository, there is no source file to update it. So if there is a new version out there, you will have to get it manually. It won't update by itself like the ones found in the sources file

Installing a Non .deb File Some applications don't have a Ubuntu or .deb version but offer a uniform version that will work with most Linux distributions. The 3d animation program Blender offers a uniform package. Here is a snippet from their website:

So, next we search for python in Synaptic and see which version we have and download the one on the right. Save the file to the Desktop or downloads folder and open up a terminal. Double click on the icon and the following window will appear:

Installing the Applications

Right click on the folder as shown above and extract. It will extract it to a newly created folder on the desktop. Open the new folder and double click on "blender." The program will start running.

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Other programs may require the use of the terminal or creating shortcuts manually.

Troubleshooting While installing, there may be issues that come up where packages aren't being found or installed. Most of these problems can be installed by running one of the following commands: sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get dist-upgrade The first one "update" should be run after adding a new repository source. This is very similar to running "Reload" in Synaptic. If that command doesn't fix it, then the other two commands should be used. These commands will most likely solve 95% of the installation issues. The Ubuntu community forums are a great place to search for help when running into problems.

Installing the Applications

Desktop Environment The GUI interface in Ubuntu is similar to Microsoft Windows but is not limited to only one as with Windows. The two most popular GUI interfaces are Gnome and KDE. Gnome is the GUI installed by default with Ubuntu Linux. Linux, has a variety of GUI interfaces or desktop environments as they are commonly referred to. They can be easily switched without the need of re-installing the operating system. It is possible to have multiple GUI interfaces in Linux and boot up to the one of your choice. Many applications are written for Gnome or KDE but they can usually be installed on either environment and will run without problems.

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

KDE KDE is an alternative to Gnome that features an advanced file manager and many desktop applications written specifically for it. KDE's file manager, Dolphin features undo support while Gnome does not. In the past KDE has been known to be less stable than Gnome. KDE is its own environment, so there is no location to run it from. It must be run outside of Gnome via the session manager. Simply logout, select KDE from the "Session" link and login again. Location: NA Install Name: kde Project Page: http://www.kde.org/

Desktop Environment

XFCE XFCE is a lightweight desktop environment that focuses on providing a minimal environment for older or slower systems. Location: NA Install Name: xfce4 Project Page: http://www.xfce.org/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

File Tools File Manager Nautilus is the default file manager in Ubuntu but there are others available as well. Many of the others are quicker than Nautilus and use less memory. (Note: one of the negatives I've found with Linux file managers is that they don't support "undo." If a folder is accidentally moved, it cannot be undeleted unless you manually undo it. Also if you delete a file, you can't undo it but have to find it in the trash can and drag and drop it back to where you deleted it from.)

PCMan An extremely fast and lightweight file manager. Location: Applications > System Tools Install Name: pcmanfm Project Page: http://pcmanfm.sourceforge.net/

File Tools

Thunar Thunar is another file manager. It is made for the XFce Desktop Environment and focuses on using very little memory. This one won't put an icon in the menu so you will need to type "thunar" in a terminal for it to load. Location: NA Install Name: thunar Project Page: http://thunar.xfce.org/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Krusader Krusader is a feature rich file manager for KDE. It can be found under "krusader" in the repositories. Location: Application > System Tools Install Name: krusader Project Page: http://www.krusader.org/

File Tools

Dolphin Dolphin a file manager for KDE that has some advanced features such as the ability to undo after deleting or making a change to a file. Location: Application > System Tools Install Name: dolphin Project Page: http://dolphin.kde.org/

Bulk Rename Bulk rename allows multiple files to be renamed easily. This program is available via Add/Remove under then name "bulk rename". Location: Applications > Accessories Install Name: NA Project Page: http://thunar.xfce.org

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

File Tools

GPRename Many of the file managers don't have the ability to bulk rename files. This program does exactly that. Location: Applications > Accessories Install Name: gprename Project Page: http://gprename.sourceforge.net/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

FSLint This is a duplicate file finder. The program will find duplicate files and mark them for removal. Location: Applications > System Tools Install Name: fslint Project Page: http://www.pixelbeat.org/fslint/

File Tools

CD & DVD Asunder Asunder is a simple tool for ripping music CDs. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: asunder Project Page: http://littlesvr.ca/asunder/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Acidrip Acidrip is a GUI for converting a DVD directly to an avi file. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: acidrip Project Page: http://k3b.plainblack.com/

CD & DVD

DeVeDe DeVeDe is a program to create video DVDs and CDs (VCD, sVCD or CVD), suitable for home players, from any number of video files. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: devede Project Page: http://www.rastersoft.com/programas/devede.html

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

DVD Movie Backup This application duplicates DVDs or shrinks them to fit onto a DVD. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: shrinkta Project Page: http://shrinkta.sourceforge.net/

CD & DVD

Gnomebaker GnomeBaker is a CD/DVD burning application for the Gnome desktop. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: gnomebaker Project Page: http://gnomebaker.sourceforge.net/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Gnome CD Master Gnome CD Master is a GUI frontend for creating audio CDs and burning them using cdrdao. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: gcdmaster Project Page: http://cdrdao.sourceforge.net/gcdmaster/index.html

CD & DVD

Grip Grip is a cd-player and cd-ripper for the Gnome desktop. It has the ripping capabilities of cdparanoia built in, but can also use external rippers (such as cdda2wav). Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: grip Project Page: http://nostatic.org/grip/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

K3b This application is designed for KDE. It supports CD / DVD burning and ripping. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: k3b Project Page: http://k3b.plainblack.com/

CD & DVD

Brasero Brasero is a application to burn CD/DVD for the Gnome Desktop. It is designed to be as simple as possible and has some unique features to enable users to create their discs easily and quickly. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: brasero Project Page: http://projects.gnome.org/brasero/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

K9Copy This tool allows DVDs to be copied, backed up or extracted into another format. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: kdcopy Project Page: http://k9copy.sourceforge.net/

CD & DVD

Disc Wrapper DiscWrapper is a cover designer for home-made discs. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: discwrapper Project Page: http://discwrapper.sourceforge.net/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

DVD Styler DVDStyler is a cross-platform DVD authoring application that makes it possible for video enthusiasts to create professional-looking DVDs. It is focused on creating menus and the interactive portion of the DVD. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: dvdstyler Project Page: http://www.dvdstyler.de/

CD & DVD

Games Not all of the games listed here can be installed from the repository. Some of them have to be downloaded from a .tar file, extracted and installed. Most of the games listed here are larger, more complex games. Simple chess games and other games are readily available through Ubuntu sources and other places. If you would like to see videos of the games first before you download and install them, checkout http://gaming.gwos.org/doku.php. There are videos of the different games and screenshots here. (Note: if you are using Synergy, it may not work properly inside of games. You may need to use a connected keyboard and mouse. You may also want to turn off Compiz using Compiz Switch to avoid flickering in some games.)

Assault Cube This is a fast action, multiplayer game that has pretty good graphics and doesn't require a very fast computer. It can be installed by searching for "assaultcube". Location: Application > Games Install Name: assaultcube Project Page: http://assault.cubers.net/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Alien Arena This game can be downloaded from the repository under the name, "alien-arena". It is a multiplayer shooter game. Location: Applications > Games Install Name: alien-arena Project Page: http://icculus.org/alienarena/rpa/

Games

America's Army The Linux version of this game is no longer officially supported but the game can still be found and installed. https://help.ubuntu.com/ community/AmericasArmy. This game is a realistic training and promotional game that takes you through the training of an American Army soldier. Location: NA Install Name: NA Project Page: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AmericasArmy

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Planeshift Location: Applications > Games Install Name: NA Project Page: http://www.planeshift.it This game is similar to the "World of Warcraft." It is a role playing 3d fantasy world which has several different players to select from. This game isn't in the repository but is available via bittorrent on the company's website. After downloading, you must register in order to play. Simply download, extract the downloaded file, then run the following commands: cd /directory_where_downloaded chmod +x PlaneShift-v.0.42-x64.bin This will launch the installation. It will install in the /opt directory. Change it to /home/<your_username>. After it is done installing, it will install an icon in the menu under "games". Turn off Compiz by using the "Compiz-switch" icon to avoid problems. If this program doesn't run as it did with me, it can be easily fixed by going to the menu icon and putting a "sudo" in front of the command. Go to System > Preferences > Main Menu

Games

Select "PlaneShift Client", for Type change to "Application in Terminal" and type "sudo" in front of the command. You should do the same to the other PlaneShift icons as well.

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Games

Battle for Wesnoth This game can be installed by doing a search for "wesnoth." This is a strategy based where you are free to build up a great army of humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, trolls or any of the other races and beat those who dare to oppose you. Location: Applications > Games Install Name: wesnoth Project Page: http://www.wesnoth.org/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Frozen Bubble This is a simple game where you have to try and match colors. It can be installed by going to the Ubuntu Add/Remove and searching for "frozen bubble" or in Synaptic as "frozen-bubble". Location: Applications > Games Install Name: frozen-bubble Project Page: http://www.frozen-bubble.org

Games

Glest Glest is a fun, multiplayer strategy game. Location: Applications > Games Install Name: glest Project Page: http://glest.org/en/index.php

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Mania Drive This is a fun stunt driving game where you can practice jumping and going through odd tracks. This one can be installed by searching for "maniadrive." (Note: this one isn't installing properly in Ubuntu 8.10.) Location: Applications > Games Install Name: maniadrive Project Page: http://maniadrive.raydium.org/

Games

Nexuiz This is a fast paced, multiplayer shooter game. Location: Applications > Games Install Name: nexuiz Project Page: http://www.alientrap.org/nexuiz/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Open Arena Open Arena is based off of Quake 3. This is a fun, multiplayer, shooter game. Location: Applications > Games Install Name: openarena Project Page: http://openarena.ws/

Games

Sauerbraten This is one of my favorite Linux games. It is a fast action, multiplayer shooter game with a large user base and many different player maps. It can be found under Add/Remove > Games or in the repositories as "sauerbraten." Location: Applications > Games Install Name: sauerbraten Project Page: http://sauerbraten.org/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

TORCS This is a fun little racing game that can be installed by searching for "torcs" and installing. Location: Applications > Games Install Name: torcs Project Page: http://torcs.sourceforge.net/

Games

Tremulous In this game the player can be either on the side of humans or spiders. It is a spiders vs humans game where the object is to kill the other team. Location: Applications > Games Install Name: tremulous Project Page: http://www.tremulous.net/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Urban Terror This is one of my favorite Linux games. The graphics are very good in this game and the game plays fast. Location: Applications > Games Install Name: urbanterror Project Page: http://www.urbanterror.net

Games

Warsow Warsow is a cartoon like multiplayer shooter game. It can be installed by searching for "warsow." Location: Applications > Games Install Name: warsow Project Page: http://www.warsow.net

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Widelands Widelands is similar to the game Settlers II. This game can be installed by doing a search for "widelands." Location: Applications > Games Install Name: widelands Project Page: http://xoops.widelands.org/

Games

World of Padman This is one of my favorite games. This is very similar to the game, Team Fortress. It is very cartoon-like with a wide range of weapons to use against others. It can be installed by searching for "worldofpadman". Location: Applications > Games Install Name: worldofpadman Project Page: http://www.worldofpadman.com/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory Enemy Territory is a fast action, first person shooter game. This can be installed via the repository or by searching for it on the internet. A port to this game is available called True Combat: Elite (shown below). It requires that Enemy Territory be patched in order to run, so you may want to install the .tar version if you intend to run both games, otherwise simply install from the repository. Location: Applications > Games Install Name: enemy-territory Project Page: http://www.planetwolfenstein.com/enemyterritory/

Games

True Combat: Elite This is mod of the game Enemy Territory above. It isn't in the repository, so will have to search for the files on Google. This was working with Ubuntu 8.04 but haven't been able to get this working with 8.10. Location: Applications > Games Install Name: NA Project Page: http://www.tcelite.net/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Second Life This game is a virtual reality world where users have created their own environments and characters. This game can be installed by doing a search for "secondlife-install." Location: Applications > Games Install Name: secondlife-install Project Page: http://secondlife.com/

Games

KTuberling (Potato Guy) This is a kids game that is similar to Mr Potato Head. It allows changing different eyes, faces, noses, etc. The name of the objects are spoken out as they are selected. It is a really fun game. Location: Applications > Games Install Name: ktuberling Project Page: http://games.kde.org/game.php?game=ktuberling

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Google Earth Google Earth allows the user to pull up different satellite images of different areas. It can be installed by doing a search for "googleearth". Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: googleearth Project Page: http://earth.google.com/

Games

Wormux This game is similar to the game Worms where the object of the game is to destroy the others using a variety of different weapons. It can be installed by doing a search for "wormux". Location: Applications > Games Install Name: wormux Project Page: http://www.wormux.org/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

BattleFree This is a multiplayer, shooting game that is mostly focused on shooting opponents from a long distance. It can be found at the project page URL. Simply download, extract, and then run ./ BATTLEFREE-LINUX.bin. Location: NA Install Name: NA Project Page: http://www.courageousgames.com/

Games

Postal 2 This is a very fun game with characters such as Gary Coleman. This is a first person shooter game which allows throwing fire bombs, grenades and shooting guns. Grand Theft Auto style humor is present throughout the game. There are mods available for this game such as the "Dirty Pervert Mod," along with weapons & lifespan mods. This game can be downloaded by searching on Google for "Postal 2 Linux download" and by downloading from a site such as: http://linux. softpedia.com/ Download, extract the contents, double click on the file "postal2" and select "Run in Terminal". Location: NA Install Name: NA Project Page: http://gopostal.com/postal2/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Freeciv This game is similar to the commercial game, Civilization. Do a search for "freeciv" to install. Location: Applications > Games Install Name: freeciv Project Page: http://freeciv.wikia.com/

Games

Freecol This game is similar to Colonization but is free. Do a search for "freecol" to install. Location: Applications > Games Install Name: freecol Project Page: http://www.freecol.org/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Frets on Fire This game is similar to Guitar Hero. The goal is to play along to the notes as they appear using your keyboard. This can be installed by searching for "fretsonfire." This game is pretty graphics heavy, so you will want to have a fast computer. Location: Applications > Games Install Name: fretsonfire Project Page: http://fretsonfire.sourceforge.net/

Games

Lincity-NG This game is similar to Sim City. This one is an improved version of the existing "Lincity" game. Search for "lincity-ng" to install. Location: Applications > Games Install Name: lincity-ng Project Page: http://lincity-ng.berlios.de/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Steam Powered Games For these games, you will need to install Steam. Do this by downloading Steam from the website http://store.steampowered.com. Next. open up your terminal program and type "wine msiexec /i Steaminstall.msi" It will then complete the download and installation of the program. An alternative is to install PlayonLinux and install Steam via PlayonLinux. If you are using an Nvidia graphics card or a ATI Radeon card, games such as Half-life are provided for free and can be downloaded directly through Steam.

PlayonLinux This application is sort of front end for Wine. It allows games and related packages to be installed automatically. Without this, some applications like DirectX may have to be installed manually via Wine which can be difficult. Location: Applications > Games Install Name: playonlinux Project Page: http://www.playonlinux.com

Games

Steam Steam is a popular program for managing internet based games. It allows users to buy, download, and run games through the interface. This program can be installed by opening PlayOnLinux and selecting Steam to install.

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Track Mania Nations Forever This is a multiplayer racing game where you can race against people from all over the world. This one works in Wine. It can be downloaded from Filefront and set up in PlayOnLinux. In PlayOnLinux go to Install > Games > Track Mania Nations For Ever. The installer will start and when it asks for the installer file, browse to the installation file that you downloaded from Filefront. An icon will be created on the desktop for Track Mania. (Note: this game was really slow going in Ubuntu for me with poor graphics. Higher end, Nvidia cards may have better results.)

Other Steam Games Other Steam games are available for free and have worked for some in Steam. Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, Half-Life: Deathmatch and Portal (Nvidia only) are available for free for ATI and Nvidia card owners. For ATI Owners: http://www.steampowered.com/ati_offer1a/ For Nvidia Owners: http://www.steampowered.com/nvidia/#

Games

Office Adobe Reader By far the most feature rich PDF reader is Adobe Reader, by Adobe, the company that created the PDF format. To install this simply go to the URL listed below in your Linux based browser and download the Linux (.bin) file. Next right click on the downloaded file, "Properties" > "Permissions" and check the box "Execute Allow executing file as program". Then open up a terminal and navigate to the downloaded file. Then do: sudo ./AdbeRd...bin This will run the installer and install the program. Location: Applications > Office Install Name: NA Project Page: http://get.adobe.com/reader/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Office Suite Open Office Open Office is a office suite similar to Microsoft Office 2003. It offers backward compatibility to MS Office files and is a standards based office suite. Location: Applications > Office Install Name: openoffice.org Project Page: http://www.openoffice.org

Office

KWord KWord is a frame-based word-processing and desktop publishing application. KWord is capable of creating demanding and professional looking documents. Location: Applications > Office Install Name: kword Project Page: http://www.koffice.org/kword/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

KSpread KSpread is spreadsheet program which provides both table-oriented sheets and support for complex mathematical formulas and statistics Location: Applications > Office Install Name: kspread Project Page: http://www.koffice.org/kspread/

Office

Desktop Publishing Scribus This is a desktop publishing application similar to MS Publisher. It is designed for creating brochures, hand-outs and flyers. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: scribus Project Page: http://www.scribus.net/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Personal Finance Personal finance is probably one of the weakest application areas in Linux. There are a few free programs, but they look nothing like MS Money or Quicken.

GNUCash Simple financial based application for Linux. Location: Applications > Office Install Name: gnucash Project Page: http://www.gnucash.org/

Office

Grisby Grisbi can manage multiple accounts, currencies and users. It manages third party, expenditure and receipt categories, as well as budgetary lines, financial years, and other information that makes it quite adapted for associations (except those that require double entry accounting). Location: Applications > Office Install Name: grisbi Project Page: http://www.grisbi.org/

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

HomeBank A simple, financial application for Linux. Location: Applications > Office Install Name: homebank Project Page: http://homebank.free.fr/

Office

KMyMoney A slightly more advanced financial application for Linux. Location: Applications > Office Install Name: kmymoney2 Project Page: http://kmymoney2.sourceforge.net/index-home.html

100

Ubuntu Apps - application directory, tips, and customization guide

Mint This is a web based service that combines all of your financial accounts into one place. It categorizes all of your credit card expenses and other data. It isn't meant to be an accounting program but is rather used for tracking expenses and budgeting. Location: NA Install Name: NA Project Page: http://www.mint.com

Graphics

101

Graphics Photo Management Picasa Picasa is one of the best photo manager programs out there. It is multi-platform, sleek and indexes images very quickly. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: picasa Project Page: http://picasa.google.com/

GThumb GThumb is an image viewer and browser for the GNOME desktop. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: gthumb Project Page: http://gthumb.sourceforge.net/

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Gwenview Gwenview is a KDE based graphics application that makes photo management very easy. It allows images to be quickly rotated, resized or deleted. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: gwenview Project Page: http://gwenview.sourceforge.net/

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KPhotoAlbum This application sets itself apart from the others in that it is focused on located and displaying images based on a specified criteria such as date, location or by person. This allows images to be located quickly that are tagged by location, person or other criteria. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: kphotoalbum Project Page: http://www.kphotoalbum.org/

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3d & Animation Blender Blender is a 3d drawing program. Make sure to disable Compiz first by clicking on the Compiz-Switch icon. Blender has even been used in creating the animations for the short film, Big Buck Bunny. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: blender Project Page: http://www.blender.org/

Graphics

Ktoon This program is made for 2d drawings and animation. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: ktoon Project Page: http://developer.berlios.de/projects/ktoon/

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Drawing Programs Skencil This is a vector based drawing program that allows saving as Adobe Illustrator, PDF, and SVG formats. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: skencil Project Page: http://www.skencil.org/

Graphics

Synfig Studio This is a vector program made for 2d animation. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: synfig Project Page: http://synfig.org/

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Inkscape Inkscape is an advanced, general purpose vector based program. It can save as .svg and .pdf files among others. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: Inkscape Project Page: http://www.inkscape.org/

Graphics

Karbon 14 Karbon is a vector-based drawing application for KOffice. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: karbon Project Page: http://www.koffice.org/karbon/

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Screen Capture Wink This is a screenshot motion capture program. This program is a screenshot capture program that allows image frames to be captured then saved as an animated Adobe Flash file or as a .exe. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: wink Project Page: http://www.debugmode.com/wink/

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Gimp Gimp, primarily an image editor program also has a screen capture utility built in. Location: Applications > Accessories Install Name: gimp Project Page: http://www.gimp.org/

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Shutter Formerly known as Gscrot. This is one of the best screenshot programs available for Linux. Most of the screen shots in this book were captured using Shutter. Shutter has a delay feature that allows capturing seconds later as well as a mouse cursor capture feature. Location: Applications > Accessories Install Name: shutter Project Page: http://shutter-project.org/

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General Purpose Bitmap Drawing Xara Extreme This program supports layers, and can export in most major formats such as .jpg, .gif, .png, and .psd. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: xaralx Project Page: http://www.xaraxtreme.org/

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GIMP This one has been around a while now, and is very popular. It supports layers and most major formats. GIMP can also capture screenshots. Most of the screenshots captured for this book were by using GIMP and Shutter. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: gimp Project Page: http://gimp.org/

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Krita Krita is also a general purpose bitmap program that supports layers. It will export as .png, .jpg. or .gif. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: krita Project Page: http://www.koffice.org/krita/

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Basic Drawing Programs The programs below are similar to MS Paint and lack layers.

Kolour Paint Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: kolourpaint Project Page: http://kolourpaint.sourceforge.net/

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MyPaint This program has all sorts of brushes to choose from. It doesn't include layers and is a very simple program. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: mypaint Project Page: http://mypaint.intilinux.com/

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gLabels gLabels is a program for creating labels and business cards for the GNOME desktop environment. It is designed to work with various laser/ink-jet peel-off label and business card sheets that you'll find at most office supply stores Location: Applications > Office Install Name: glabels Project Page: http://glabels.sourceforge.net/

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Hugin Hugin is an image stitching program that turns multiple images into one single, panoramic image. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: hugin Project Page: http://hugin.sourceforge.net

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Diagram Editors Many people may be familiar with Microsoft Visio. There are two alternatives to this for Linux.

Dia Diagram Editor Dia is a gtk+ based diagram creation tool that can create many different diagrams and shapes. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: dia Project Page: http://projects.gnome.org/dia/

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Kivio Kivio is part of the KOffice project. It offers an easy to use interface for creating diagrams. Location: Applications > Office Install Name: kivio Project Page: http://www.koffice.org/kivio/

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Sweet Home 3d This program is for interior design. It allows the designing of different rooms in the house along with the furniture or items that go with them. This is a java program so it will have to be installed manually from the website. Location: NA Install Name: NA Project Page: http://www.sweethome3d.eu/

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CAD There are several Autocad style programs for Linux. Blender is said to also be able to render CAD type drawings with a special plugin script.

QCad This is a fairly advanced CAD program for Linux. It is available as a free community version as well as a paid version. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: qcad Project Page: http://www.ribbonsoft.com/qcad_downloads.html

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SagCAD SagCAD is a very nice CAD program also. It is a Japanese project, so you may run into some translation errors in the program. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: sagcad Project Page: http://sagcad.sourceforge.jp/

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Other Font Viewers Font viewers are typically used for those active in web development, graphic artists and theme builders.

FontMatrix This program is a simple font viewer. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: fontmatrix Project Page: http://fontmatrix.net/

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Fonty Python Fonty Python is a Python based font viewer. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: fontypython Project Page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/fontypython/

Other

Brainstorming Freemind Freemind is a Java based mind mapping program. Location: Applications > Graphics Install Name: freemind Project Page: http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/ Main_Page

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View Your Mind (VYM) VYM is a tool to generate and manipulate maps which show your thoughts. Such maps can help you to improve your creativity. You can use them for time management, to organize tasks, to get an overview over complex contexts, to sort your ideas etc. Location: NA Install Name: vym Project Page: http://www.insilmaril.de/vym/

Other

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Kdissert Kdissert is an application for using mind maps. Mind maps are helpful for arranging thoughts and brainstorming essays and similar projects. Location: Applications > Accessories Install Name: kdissert Project Page: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Kdissert

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File Sharing The top Linux based file sharing applications are Deluge, Ktorrent, Qbittorrent, Frostwire and AMule. If you use Wine, Utorrent is a great BitTorrent client that will work in Ubuntu also.

Amule Amule is an eMule like client that will work on the eDonkey network. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: amule Project Page: http://www.amule.org

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Vuze Formerly Azureus, this BitTorrent client is now a client and a content delivery system. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: vuze Project Page: http://www.vuze.com/

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Deluge This BitTorrent client offers full encryption and a plugin system. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: deluge-torrent Project Page: http://deluge-torrent.org/

Transmission This light weight BitTorrent client has a web interface, and a block list. It is built to run on Mac OS X and Linux. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: transmission Project Page: http://www.transmissionbt.com/

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Ktorrent This client is designed for KDE but it works fine in Gnome also. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: ktorrent Project Page: http://ktorrent.org/

QBittorrent This lightweight BitTorrent client is made for KDE but it works fine in Gnome also. It offers encryption support and IP filtering. It can be controlled remotely via a web interface. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: qbittorrent Project Page: http://qbittorrent.sourceforge.net/

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Frostwire This one is similar to Limewire. It offers BitTorrent support, junk filters and proxy support. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: frostwire Project Page: http://www.frostwire.com/

Utorrent This one is made for Windows but it works fine in Ubuntu using Wine. This is one of the most polished BitTorrent clients to date. Location: NA Install Name: NA Project Page: http://www.utorrent.com

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IPblock This application is similar to Peer Guardian 2. It provides privacy by blocking the IP addresses of known anti P2P organizations and groups. The IP addresses are updated regularly. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: iplist Project Page: http://iplist.sourceforge.net/

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Moblock This application is similar to IPlist and blocks IP addresses. It requires several packages so is probably best installed from the terminal. It can be run with or without the GUI but the GUI is available as the package "mobloquer". "Moblock" is the blocking program. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name 9.04: moblock blockcontrol mobloquer Project Page: http://moblock-deb.sourceforge.net/

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Torrent Episode Downloader (TED) This is an application that allows television or cable shows to be downloaded automatically as soon as new ones are available. This one isn't in the repository but can be downloaded from: http://www.ted.nu/download.php Location: NA Install Name: NA Project Page: http://www.ted.nu/ 1. Select the Linux file, download and extract the .zip file. 2. Next, navigate to the file ted.jar, right click on it and select "Open with Sun Java 6 Runtime." 3. The program will load up and it is ready to go.

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File Sharing

139

Sound & Video Audio JAMin JAMin is the JACK Audio Connection Kit (JACK) Audio Mastering interface. JAMin is an open source application designed to perform professional audio mastering of stereo input streams. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: jamin Project Page: http://jamin.sourceforge.net

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TerminatorX TerminatorX is a realtime audio synthesizer that allows you to "scratch" on digitally sampled audio data (*.wav, *.au, *.ogg, *.mp3, etc.) the way hiphop-DJs scratch on vinyl records. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: terminatorx Project Page: http://www.terminatorx.org/

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141

JuK An audio jukebox that supports collections of MP3, Ogg Vorbis and FLAC files. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: juk Project Page: http://developer.kde.org/~wheeler/juk.html

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Kaffeine Kaffeine is a media player created for KDE. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: kaffeine Project Page: http://kaffeine.kde.org/

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143

Kdenlive An open source video editor which supports DV, AVCHD and HDV editing. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: kdenlive Project Page: http://www.kdenlive.org/

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Totem Player Totem is a movie player for the GNOME environment. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: totem Project Page: http://projects.gnome.org/totem/

Sound & Video

Qtractor Qtractor is an Audio/MIDI multi-track sequencer application. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: qtractor Project Page: http://qtractor.sourceforge.net/

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OrDrumbox OrDrumbox is a java based drum beat editor. It comes with many sample drum beats. The java file can be downloaded from the site and then run. Location: NA Install Name: NA Project Page: http://www.ordrumbox.com/

Sound & Video

VideoCut VideoCut is an application that captures image files from videos. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: videocut Project Page: http://code.google.com/p/videocut/

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Stop Motion This program is made for creating stop motion animation movies. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: stopmotion Project Page: http://developer.skolelinux.no/info/ studentgrupper/2005-hig-stopmotion/index.php

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VLC Media Player VLC is one of the most popular media players. It supports a large number of digital formats, will play DVDs, VCDs and more. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: vlc Project Page: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

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Media Center Applications XBMC XBMC has been around for a long time. This media center will handle pretty much any file format out there. If you have a remote look for LIRC in the Accessories section of this book for installation instructions to get the remote working. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: xbmc Project Page: http://xbmc.org/

Sound & Video

151

Boxee Boxee is one of the most promising media center applications to date. It has the ability to play Hulu.com streams as well as Youtube.com clips. This one is still alpha so expect some stability problems. An account must be created in order to use it. Boxee is based on XBMC code. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: boxee Project Page: http://www.boxee.tv/

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Elisa Media Center Elisa is a modern media center that is similar to XBMC (Xbox Media Center) or Windows Media Center. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: elisa Project Page: http://elisa.fluendo.com/

Sound & Video

153

Helix Player Helix is an open source media player that supports a variety of formats.. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: heliX Project Page: https://helixcommunity.org/

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DJPlay DJPlay is a DJ application for mixing music. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: djplay Project Page: http://djplay.sourceforge.net/

Qsynth Qsynth is a fluidsynth GUI front-end application. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: qsynth Project Page: http://qsynth.sourceforge.net/qsynth-index.html

Sound & Video

155

BMPX This application is a media player, playlist editor and stream browser. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: BMPX Project Page: http://bmpx.backtrace.info/site/BMPx_Homepage

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Quod Libet Quod Libet is a media player based around organization of media. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: quodlibet Project Page: http://code.google.com/p/quodlibet/

Sound & Video

157

Ardour Ardour is a multi-purpose digital audio workstation. It allows recording, editing, and mixing of audio files. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: ardour Project Page: http://ardour.org/

Amarok Amarok is a program written for KDE. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: amarok Project Page: http://amarok.kde.org/

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Audacity Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder. Many podcasters apparently use this tool. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: audacity Project Page: http://audacious-media-player.org/

Sound & Video

159

Banshee Banshee is a very popular, heavily developed media player that supports many formats as well as syncing up with Apple's iPod. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: banshee Project Page: http://banshee-project.org/

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Audacious This program is similar to Winamp. It is compact, doesn't use up too much RAM or desktop space. Several plugins are available for this program as well as visualizations. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: audacious Project Page: http://audacious-media-player.org/

Sound & Video

161

Exaile Exaile is a program similar to Amarok, but for GTK+. It includes iPod support also via a plugin. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: exaile Project Page:Project Page: http://www.exaile.org/

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ITunes Itunes isn't available for Linux, but that doesn't mean it won't work on Linux. One of the easiest ways of installing ITunes is to install "PlayOnLinux" and to install Itunes from there. Make sure not to run any of the updates in ITunes or expect issues. The PlayOnLinux version has problems displaying the Itunes store. A fix for this is to install a script that will do the Itunes installation. http:// www.huanix.com/2008/11/07/itunes-8-running-natively-in-ubuntu-810with-wine/ This script takes approximately one hour to install and almost 500MB of space. After it is done, simply go to Applications > Wine > Programs > Itunes and the store will work. Location: Applications > Wine > Programs > Itunes Install Name: NA Project Page: NA

Sound & Video

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Songbird This one works great and is by far the most polished audio application I've seen for Linux. It also recognizes and syncs up to an Apple iPod. Several plug-ins are available including a Shoutcast plug-in. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: songbird Project Page: http://getsongbird.com/

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Rhythmbox This audio application is designed for Gnome. It allows for playlists, album art, and CDs to be burned or ripped. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: rhythmbox Project Page: http://projects.gnome.org/rhythmbox/

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165

Mixing Avidemux Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF. This program is no longer installable in Ubuntu 8.10 using the "avidemux" version in the getdeb repository. This one will have to be manually installed or else wait for someone to fix it. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: avidemux Project Page: http://avidemux.berlios.de/index.html

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Hydrogen Hydrogen is a drum machine application that allows different drum beats. It's main goal is to bring professional yet simple and intuitive pattern-based drum programming to Linux. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: hydrogen Project Page: http://www.hydrogen-music.org/

Sound & Video

167

Rosegarden Rosegarden is a well-rounded audio and MIDI sequencer, score editor, and general-purpose music composition and editing environment. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: rosegarden Project Page: http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/

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Jokosher Jokosher is a simple and powerful multi-track studio. Jokosher provides a complete application for recording, editing, mixing and exporting audio, and has been specifically designed with usability in mind. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: jokosher Project Page: http://www.jokosher.org/

Sound & Video

169

LMMS LMMS stands for Linux Multimedia Studio. This program is an editor for producing music and is similar to commercial programs such as FL Studio速 which allow you to produce music with your computer. This includes the creation of melodies and beats, the synthesis and mixing of sounds, and arranging of samples. You can have fun with your MIDI-keyboard and much more; all in a user-friendly and modern interface. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: lmms Project Page: http://lmms.sourceforge.net/

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Video Istanbul Desktop Session Recorder Istanbul is a desktop session recorded that records the desktop. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: istanbul Project Page: http://live.gnome.org/Istanbul

Sound & Video

171

Lives-Video Lives is a video editor that can edit most video formats. It has the ability to encode 50+ output formats (e.g. mjpeg, mpeg4, mpeg1/2, h264, VCD, SVCD, DVD, ogg/mp4 ogm, Matroska mkv, dv, swf, Ogg Theora. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: lives Project Page: http://lives.sourceforge.net/

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PiTiVi PiTiVi is an open source video editor. It has several effects available as well as the ability to create new effects. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: pitivi Project Page: http://www.pitivi.org/wiki/Main_Page

Sound & Video

173

Kino Easy and reliable DV editing for the Linux desktop exportable to many usable formats. Kino is a non-linear DV editor which captures video to raw video and .avi. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: kino Project Page: http://www.kinodv.org/

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Open Movie Editor Open Movie Editor is a free and open source video editing program, designed for basic movie making capabilities. It aims do be powerful enough for the amateur movie artist, yet easy to use. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: openmovieeditor Project Page: http://www.openmovieeditor.org/

Sound & Video

175

Cinelerra Cinelerra is an advanced non-linear video editor and compositor for Linux. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: cinelerra Install Name 9.04: cinelerracv Project Page: http://cinelerra.org/

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MediaCoder (WINE) This program converts all sorts of audio/video formats and compresses them to a smaller size or a different format. This program can be found on Sourceforge. Download the Windows version and run in Wine. Location: NA Install Name: NA Project Page: http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/

Sound & Video

177

WebcamStudio This is a fun webcam utility which allows special effects to be added to webcam output. It also allows playing videos and showing the video as though it were a webcam. This one isn't in the repository but a debian version is available. Location: Applications > Sound & Video Install Name: NA Project Page: http://webcamstudio.wiki.sourceforge.net/

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Chat Coccinella A free jabber based chat program with a built in whiteboard for collaboration and sharing. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: coccinella Project Page: http://www.emesene.org/

Chat

179

Emesene This is a MSN Messenger clone that only works with MSN/Hotmail users. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: emesene Project Page: http://www.emesene.org/

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AMSN This one is an MSN only client that has been around for a while. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: aMSN Project Page: http://www.aMSN-project.net/

Chat

181

Galaxium This IM client is based on Google code. It aims to be a multi protocol client but right now it only works with the MSN protocol. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: galaxium Install Name 9.04: galaxium-svn Project Page: http://code.google.com/p/galaxium/

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Mercury Messenger This one is a java based MSN IM client. It isn't in the repository but a . deb package is available. This one doesn't use much memory by itself, but loads java along with it using approximately 40MB of RAM on idle. Many other apps use less RAM. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: NA Project Page: http://www.mercury.im/

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Pidgin Pidgin is one of the most popular IM clients. It is like Trillian but is free. It allows users to instant message via Yahoo, MSN and AIM protocols. Plugins are available for Pidgin also. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: pidgin Project Page: http://www.pidgin.im/

Kopete Kopete is an instant messenger supporting AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, IRC, Gadu-Gadu, Novell GroupWise Messenger, and more. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: kopete Project Page: http://kopete.kde.org/

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GYachI GYachI is one of the most feature-rich Yahoo IM chat program available for Linux. GYachI supports Yahoo Chat rooms, photo sharing and has webcam support. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name 9.04: gyachi Project Page: http://gyachi.sourceforge.net/

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Skype Skype is a VOIP application that allows users to IM or call other Skype users. It supports video calls, voice only calls and conference calls. Skype is a closed system, so users outside of the Skype network are closed off from the network. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: skype Project Page: http://www.skype.com/

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Twinkle Twinkle is a softphone for VOIP and instant messaging. For 8.04 and 8.10 users, download from the getdeb link and install. Download: http://www.getdeb.net/release/3535 Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: twinkle Project Page: http://twinklephone.com/

Chat

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Google Talk Google Talk is a chat application that allows text messages to be sent to other Google Talk users. This application can be installed by going to Add/Remove and selecting "Google Talk". Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: NA Project Page: http://www.google.com/talk/

Empathy Similar to Pidgin but a new project. Empathy requires installing empathy and telepathy. Doesn't support file transfers yet. I'm not sure if any plugins can be installed. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: empathy Project Page: http://live.gnome.org/Empathy

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Instabird Based on Mozilla technology. This one is another Pidgin sort of project that aims to be an all in one chat client. This one is still new so not many features are not available yet. This one isn't installable from the repository, so you will have to download the .tar file, extract it, then double click on the "instabird" icon to run it. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: NA Project Page: http://instantbird.com/

Chat

189

Ekiga Ekiga (formerly known as GnomeMeeting) is an open source VoIP and video conferencing application for GNOME. Ekiga uses both the H.323 and SIP protocols. It supports many audio and video codecs, and is interoperable with other SIP compliant software and also with Microsoft NetMeeting. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: ekiga Project Page: http://ekiga.org/

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Gizmo Project Gizmo Project (Gizmo5) is a VOIP application that allow free calls to be made to other SIP users. IMs can be sent to Yahoo and other IM users as well as SMS text messages. Gizmo gives each user a free SIP phone number in addition to free voice mail. Gizmo can also be set up to receive calls on a regular telephone using and ATA device. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: gizmo5 Project Page: http://www.gizmo5.com

Chat

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Spark This chat program is for business communication inside a company. This one isn't in the repository so the .tar file will need to be downloaded from the web site. Location: NA Install Name: NA Project Page: http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/spark/index.jsp

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IRC Only Some of the other programs have IRC built in but some people prefer a IRC only client.

XChat-Gnome Gnome version of Xchat. It is very similar to XChat. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: xchat-gnome Project Page: http://xchat-gnome.navi.cx/

Chat

193

XChat XChat is one of the most popular IRC chat programs for Linux. It has many plugins available for it also. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: xchat Project Page: http://www.xchat.org/

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Security AVG AVG doesn't require a license code like Avast does so AVG is the pick for this category. There is a debian based package which is downloadable on the project page. Location: NA Install Name: NA Project Page: http://free.avg.com/download?prd=afl

Security

195

TimeVault TimeVault is a simple backup program that will make snapshots of specific directories. To install, download the debian based file form the project page and install. Configuration instructions can be found http://www.howtoforge.com/snapshot-backups-with-timevault-ubuntu7.10 Location: NA Install Name: NA Project Page: https://launchpad.net/timevault/+download

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Firestarter Firestarter is a GUI to help in configuring the firewall. It is similar to Zonealarm for Windows. Location: System > Administration > Firestarter Install Name: firestarter Project Page: http://www.fs-security.com/

Security

197

Motion Motion is a home security motion detection application for webcams. It captures image screenshots whenever there is movement and saves the images as .jpg while making them available via port 8081 through the web browser. This program uses very little CPU and works simply by typing "motion" in the terminal. To make it so that it starts up after booting, a start-up item will need to be added to System > Preferences > Sessions. Location: NA Install Name: motion Project Page: http://www.lavrsen.dk/twiki/bin/view/Motion/WebHome Related: http://infectedproject.wordpress.com/2007/06/26/set-up-awebcam-security-system/

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A startup item will need to be added to sessions to get this to start up automatically after boot-up.

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ZoneMinder This is another security camera software. It is more complex than motion and requires MySQL and Apache. It allows the monitoring of multiple cameras simultaneously via a web interface. It supports video, USB and network cameras. Location: NA Install Name: zoneminder Project Page: http://www.zoneminder.com/

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Internet Internet Browser Internet Explorer Although this isn't the best browser, it is important in some cases with some Windows applications when running through WINE. For developers IE is important for maintaining compatibility with IE users. Microsoft doesn't provide Internet Explorer for Linux but some people have found a way to make it work in Linux. It isn't in the repository so will need to be installed using an alternative method. The easiest way to install IE is to install "PlayOnLinux" then select "Internet Explorer 6" from the list of applications to install. The program will install IE for you. To run the program go to Applications > Other > Internet Explorer 6.

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Google Chrome Chrome is a great browser that won't crash like other browsers. It also is very fast and allows the user to execute searches inside the URL bar area. . Although not officially out for Linux, it can be installed easily. Search for "PlayOnLinux" in the repositories and install this application. The program will appear under Applications > Games> PlayOnLinux. Open the program, under Internet, select "Google Chrome" and it will install it. Next under "Other", select "Microsoft Fonts" and install. To run the program, simply go to Applications > Other > Google Chrome. Location: Applications > Other > Google Chrome Install Name: NA Project Page: http://www.google.com/chrome

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Firefox Firefox has set the standard for web browsers with a large user base and with a large community of add-ons. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: firefox Project Page: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Plugins: The Firefox plugins or add-ons can be installed in several different ways. They can be installed directly through the repository or by downloading from the Firefox add-on web page. To install via the repository, search for "firefox-extension name" or "mozilla-extension name." For example the grease monkey plugin is called "firefox-greasemonkey." To install from the add-on page, go to https://addons.mozilla.org/enUS/firefox/ browse or search for the add-ons, and select "Add to Firefox" to install.

Search Status and Forecastfox

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Here you can see the Search Status plugin that gives the Google PageRank and Alexa traffic stats for the page. Also shown is the Forecastfox weather plugin which will give up-to-date weather info and warnings for your region.

Colorful Tabs The name says it all, the add-on changes the tab colors

Disablemenu This add-on disables the text from the menu until the cursor is moved over the area.

Download Statusbar Moves the downloads into an easy to find location at the bottom of the screen.

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Firebug This is a must have for web designers and developers. It allows modifications of source code to be made on-the-fly without making any permanent changes to the files.

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GooglePreview This one adds image thumbnails to the search results from Google.

NoScript No script shows up at the bottom of the screen and keeps javascript from loading unless you authorize it first. This is good to keep random pop-ups from happening. This add-on is very popular.

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Tab Sidebar Provides an alternative to horizontally aligned tabs.

Tab Scope Provides web page preview of the tabs when the mouse cursor is placed over the tab.

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Last Pass A password manager and form filler similar to Roboform. This is an add-on for Firefox and can be installed by doing a search for "lastpass" from the Firefox Add-ons page.

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FTP Filezilla This is the best ftp program I have found. It has versions available for other operating systems besides Linux and is very actively developed. This application supports ftp or sftp. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: filezilla Project Page: http://filezilla-project.org/

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HTML Editor KompoZer This is the best WYSIWIG editor that I have come across for Linux that is similar to Adobe Dreamweaver. This one can be found by searching for "kompozer". Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: kompozer Project Page: http://kompozer.net/

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Email Client Thunderbird Although Ubuntu comes with Evolution, Thunderbird has a larger user base, is more feature rich and has many plugins. Thunderbird is in the repositories under "thunderbird". Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: thunderbird Project Page: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/

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Plugins Lightning Lighting is a add-on for Thunderbird that gives it calendar functionality and a daily task editor.

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Text Editor Notepad++ This is my favorite text editor so far. It runs via WINE and includes many different options. This program can handle all sorts of file formats and has a variety of plugins. It can be downloaded from: http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/. 1. Save to the Desktop 2. Right mouse click on the file and open with Wine. 3. Install. 4. The program will appear under Applications > Wine > Programs > Notepad++

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Tomboy Notes This is a note-taking application. It is similar to 3M's Post-it Notes. Location: Applications > Accessories Install Name: tomboy Project Page: http://projects.gnome.org/tomboy/

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Scribes Scribes is a compact Notepad like application that has many features such as line by line text display and a plugin system. Location: Applications > Accessories Install Name: scribes Project Page: http://scribes.sourceforge.net/

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Celtx Celtx is a all-in-one media pre-production software. It is designed for writing movie scripts. This one isn't in the repository so you will have to go to the site to download it. Location: NA Install Name: NA Project Page: http://celtx.com/

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Gedit This application appears under Applications > Accessories > Text Editor. This program provides tabbed text file viewing along with available plugins. This program is installed by default in Ubuntu. Location: Applications > Accessories Install Name: gedit Project Page: http://projects.gnome.org/gedit/

Bluefish Bluefish is an editor for experienced web designers and programmers. It supports many programming and markup languages, but focuses on editing dynamic and interactive websites. It can be found in the repository under "bluefish." Location: Applications > Programming Install Name: bluefish Project Page: http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/

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JEdit jEdit is a text editor designed for programmers. Location: Applications > Programming Install Name: jedit Project Page: http://www.jedit.org/

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Accessories Administration Webmin When you need to do stuff with a webserver, MySQL, or general administration Webmin is great. It provides a GUI for those who don't want to mess with the terminal. You will need to go to the webmin. com to install this one. Install the .deb one. Webmin lets you configure all sorts of things such as which services start up at boot time, ftp server configuration and much more. Location: NA Install Name: NA Project Page: http://www.webmin.com/

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Samba Samba is a file mapping tool that allows you to create shared folders between Linux to Linux and Windows PCs. (Update: Ubuntu 8.10 now comes with an auto install samba file sharing feature where samba will automatically be installed after sharing a folder.) Location: NA Install Name: samba Project Page: http://us6.samba.org/samba/

Next, check the box "Share this folder."

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Select the button, "Create Share" and the share will be created. Below is an example of a shared Ubuntu folder as seen in Windows XP.

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Putty If you are using Ubuntu and Windows, you may want to install Putty on your Windows PC so that you can manager Ubuntu through your Windows PC. Do a search for "putty" in Google and install this on your windows PC. Do a search for "openssh-server" on your Ubuntu PC and make sure it is installed. Go to Webmin > Servers > SSH Server and start the server. Next, open up putty on your Windows PC and type in the IP of your Ubuntu system to log in. This is a remote access terminal program not a remote desktop application. Putty can also be installed on Linux to manager other remote computer systems. A regular terminal program will allow connections to ssh servers, however, putty makes it easier to save the connections. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: putty Project Page: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

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Synergy Location: NA Install Name: synergy Project Page: http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/ Synergy is software based KVM. What this does is it allows you to use two computers with only one mouse and keyboard. It uses the network to send info from one PC to another to emulate the mouse and keyboard. For example, I'm using the same keyboard and mouse to control my Ubuntu PC even though the mouse and keyboard aren't connected to the Ubuntu system. It requires Synergy to be installed on both computers. On the system you are sharing your keyboard/ mouse it is the synergy server and on the one you want to share with it is the client. Do a search for "synergy" to install. Installation instructions can be found on Lifehacker or through the Synergy website. You will need to have the Linux computer monitor next to your Windows one for this to work. If you want to learn how to set up a boot-up script for Synergy, https:// help.ubuntu.com/community/SynergyHowto has a great article on how to do this. When it is all done, it should boot-up automatically so that you can use your shared keyboard and mouse right away even before logging in. On thing I discovered in Synergy that is really cool is that you can cut and paste URLs or text from computer to computer. So if you found a URL on your Windows computer, you can copy it, move the mouse over to your Ubuntu system, and paste it into Firefox. Synergy doesn't create any icons and is run from the terminal. To connect the computer that lacks the mouse and keyboard to the one that has the keyboard / mouse requires running something like the following in the terminal: synergyc 192.168.1.2 Then, create a start up item for this so that it will done automatically each time after logging in. Go to System > Preferences > Sessions and add the following: (Note: The IP address is the IP address of the synergy server computer that has the keyboard and mouse that you will be using. Synergy server will have to be set up on this computer.)

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Enabling Synergy on Pre-Boot The instructions above show how to get Synergy working after logging into Ubuntu. This means you will have to have a mouse and keyboard physically connected to Ubuntu so that you can login to Ubuntu first. There is a way around this so that you can use one keyboard & mouse on your master machine, in my case Windows to control your Ubuntu system. This will allow the synergy client to run on Ubuntu right on startup so that you can login using your Windows keyboard and mouse. (Thanks to the ubuntuforums poster for this one) (Note: <address of server machine> means putting something like 192.168.1.2 without the brackets or the hostname of the Windows / master synergy server machine) sudo gedit /etc/gdm/Init/Default Added the following lines in the middle of the file BEFORE the

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"sysmodmap=/etc/X11/Xmodmap" line: SYNERGYC=`gdmwhich synergyc` if [ x$SYNERGYC != x ] ; then $SYNERGYC <address of server machine> fi The only problem with that is once you log in it kills off the client, so you need to make it start again for you. sudo gedit /etc/gdm/PreSession/Default Added the following lines in the middle of the file BEFORE the "XSETROOT=`gdmwhich xsetroot`" line: SYNERGYC=`gdmwhich synergyc` if [ x$SYNERGYC != x ] ; then $SYNERGYC <address of server machine> fi Then reboot and you will be able to login using your other keyboard & mouse. To set a static IP on a Windows Machine If you don't know what the IP address is on your Windows machine, a static IP is probably not set up. To set up one is relatively easy. For Windows XP, go to My Computer > Network Connections > Local Area Connection. Right mouse click on it, select Properties, navigate down to Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). Then, change from Obtain an IP address automatically to Obtain the following IP address: It should look something like the following: (Note: I've selected an IP address 192.168.1.2 to use for my Windows machine, the 192.168.1.1 for Default Gateway is the router and the DNS info is the Preferred DNS info for the free OpenDNS service and the Alternate one is for my Cox Internet Services DNS)

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Remote Desktop UltraVNC Ubuntu has a nice Remote Desktop tool that can be found under System > Preferences > Remote Deskop. Once this is enabled other computers including Windows computers can access it. UltraVNC is a free program that will do this from WIndows. UltraVNC Viewer is the VNC client for Windows. You will use this program to view the remote Desktop. Below is the Remote Desktop tool in Ubuntu:

This box will pop-up while trying to access the remote system:

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Next, in Windows after installing UltraVNC Viewer: (showing is the remote desktop).

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VNC Clients for Ubuntu Vinagre Has several features such as the ability to snap screenshots and take bookmarks. You have to run this from the command line or create a menu item for it. Simple type "vinagre" from a terminal window, the program loads, then put in the IP and password info of your server. Location: NA Install Name: vinagre Project Page: http://projects.gnome.org/vinagre/

XtightVNCviewer Xtightvncviewer is a VNC viewer that seems to use less CPU on the server end than some of the other ones. It needs to be run from the terminal or have an icon created for it. Location: NA Install Name: xtightvncviewer Project Page: NA

Sysvconfig This app can be installed via Synaptic. What this app does is it gives a Redhat/Centos style service commands to Ubuntu. For example if you want to restart Apache webserver in Ubuntu you would have to navigate to /etc/init.d then run "apache2 stop". This shortens it so that you can type "sudo service apache2 stop" anywhere in the terminal. Location: NA Install Name: sysvconfig Project Page: http://packages.ubuntu.com/intrepid/sysvconfig

Boot-Up Manager Ubuntu already has a Session Manager installed under System > Preferences > Sessions. However, this only manages the programs that load while inside the GUI (Gnome). There are many other applications that are being loaded while the system is booting up before the GUI comes up. For this, I've found that Boot-Up Manager helps. This can be installed by searching for "bum". Once installed, it can be found under Administration > Boot-Up Manager. Webmin

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has a similar feature which can be found under System > Bootup and Shutdown in Webmin. Location: System > Administration Install Name: bum Project Page: http://www.marzocca.net/linux/bum.html

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Gnome Do Gnome Do is a searching and launcher tool in OS X called Quicksilver. It also allows the sending of emails, IMs, playing music, searching the web, and launching applications too. As the user types, Gnome Do starts to search for applications and files. Gimp can be launched by typing "gim" and then by hitting "Enter" on the keyboard. Gnome Do can also dock itself and make itself a OS X style dock. Location: Applications > Accessories Install Name: gnome-do Project Page: http://do.davebsd.com/

Launchy Launchy is an application, search and file launcher program. It has skins and plugins available for it. Get the .deb file and install. Location: Applications > Accessories Install Name: NA Project Page: http://www.launchy.net/

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VirtualBox OSE Not all Windows applications will work in WINE. If this is the case, then running Windows applications inside of Linux is an alternatives. VirtualBox will allow Windows or Mac OS applications to be run while using Ubuntu Linux. VMware will also work for this but VirtualBox works right away without any issues and offers excellent performance and an easy to use GUI interface. Location: Applications > Accessories Install Name: virtualbox-ose Project Page: http://www.virtualbox.org

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Peazip Peazip is a archiver utility. It will open over 79 types of compressed files create: 7Z, ARC, BZ2, GZ, PAQ/LPAQ, PEA, QUAD/BALZ, TAR, UPX, ZIP. open: ACE, ARJ, CAB, DMG, ISO, LHA, RAR, UDF + 71 other formats. This program isn't in the repository but is available as a debian download. Simply download the debian package from Sourceforge and install. Location: Applications > System Tools Install Name: NA Project Page: http://peazip.sourceforge.net/

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Hot Babe This fun, little application sits on your computer and will graphically show CPU usage represented by the amount of the clothing on the woman. As the CPU usage goes up, the clothes come off. Location: Applications > Accessories Install Name: hot-babe Project Page: http://www.dindinx.net/hotbabe/download.php

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Ubuntu Tweak Ubuntu Tweak is a tool for Ubuntu that makes it easy to configure your system and desktop settings. Location: Applications > System Tools Install Name: ubuntu-tweak Project Page: http://ubuntu-tweak.com/

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Tilda Tilda puts the terminal window directly under the application menu. To do this, simply load Tilda, load a terminal window, press F1 and it will appear under the menu. To minimize, press F1 again. (Note: disable Compiz first using the Compiz Switch icon or it most likely won't work!). Location: Applications > Accessories Install Name: tilda Project Page: http://tilda.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Check Gmail This little app puts an icon on the menu showing when new Gmail comes in and gives a preview of the email. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: checkgmail Project Page: http://checkgmail.sourceforge.net/

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Nautilus-gksu This is a Nautilus plugin that adds super user (administrator) privileges to Nautilus. After it is installed, Nautilus will display an "Open as administrator" menu item upon right mouse clicking on a folder or file. Location: NA Install Name: nautilus-gksu Project Page: http://packages.ubuntu.com/feisty/nautilus-gksu

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Nautilus-open-terminal This Nautilus plugin allows particular folders to be opened in a terminal while right mouse clicking on an item. Location: NA Install Name: nautilus-open-terminal Project Page: http://packages.ubuntu.com/intrepid/nautilus-openterminal

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Nautilus-image-converter This plugin allows Nautilus to rotate and resize multiple images. Location: NA Install Name: nautilus-image-converter Project Page: http://packages.ubuntu.com/intrepid/nautilus-imageconverter

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LIRC LIRC is a remote control application that makes using a remote control possible in Linux. A large number of remotes controls are covered. Install as usual and follow the instructions on the screen to select your remote. To test out the remote, open up XBMC or Boxee and try out the remote. It should work right away after installing LIRC and running through the installation GUI. Location: NA Install Name: lirc Project Page: http://www.lirc.org/ Below is a picture of the MCE Remote that I am using with LIRC.

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Advanced Gnome Menu This application provides a Windows Vista-like menu. The menu doesn't replace the existing menu location but is instead run by clicking on the program icon in the main menu area or if it is added to the panel. To minimize the menu, click on the icon again. Location: Applications > Accessories Install Name: advgnomemenu Project Page: http://code.google.com/p/advancedgnomemenu/

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Google Gadgets Google Gadgets is very similar to the Screenlets application. It installs small apps on the desktop such as calendars, flower post, weather and more. Although this one is in the repository, it seems to have problems installing unless you download and install the .deb file directly from getdeb.net. Location: Applications > Accessories Install Name: NA Project Page: http://www.getdeb.net/app/Google+Gadgets

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GParted Gparted is a partition editor tool that is very handy, especially for cloning disks or setting up dual boot configurations. GParted is a GUI based tool that is easy to use and CD bootable. Location: System > Administration Install Name: gparted Project Page: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

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Auctions Sniping Applications Jbidwatcher This program allows the user to automatically bid for an auction at a specific price near the end of the auction, such as the last 30 seconds. Rather than having to wait through the last thirty minutes of an auction bidding, this program does the work for you so that you can spend time doing other things. There is also a Firefox add-on that does eBay sniping. However, Firefox can be unstable. By having a stand alone program such as Jbidwatcher reduces the risk that your browser would crash at the most critical time when you want to bid for an item. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: jbidwatcher Install Name 9.04: NA use .jar file Project Page: http://www.jbidwatcher.com/

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Jaolt This is a eBay TurboLister alternative. It allows the creation of auctions offline with the ability to upload them to eBay later. Location: Applications > Internet Install Name: jaolt Project Page: http://code.google.com/p/jaolt/

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Removing Applications There are several ways to remove applications. The three most common ways are:

Add/Remove Ubuntu provides an Add/Remove utility that is similar to the package manager available in Microsoft Windows. The way it works is if an item is unchecked, it is not installed. If an item is installed it will have a check mark next to it. To remove a program select an item with a check mark next to it and uncheck it.

Select "Apply Changes" and the program will be removed.

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Synaptic To remove applications in Synaptic, simply search and check mark the program you want to remove and select "Apply".

Select the program to be removed, "Mark for Removal" then select "Apply".

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Terminal From the terminal it is easy to remove an application. Simple type: sudo apt-get remove application name The example below shows a application called "aMSN" being removed.

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Chapter 3

Customizing

OS X Apple OS X Look OSX Dock Bar Effect If you want to delete the bottom menu bar and replace it with a Mac OSX looking one, right click on the bottom of the menu and select "Delete This Panel." (You can add it back later if you want it back.)

Then go to Applications > Accessories > Avant Window Navigator . (If you don't have Avant Window Navigator you will need to install it.) It can be installed by searching for "avant-window-navigator". Then to add it to the boot startup, go to System > Preferences > Session. If there isn't a startup entry for Avant Window Manager add one. Select "Add" , put in a name, and for command type "avantwindow-navigator" and select "Ok." Then make sure that a checkmark is next to it showing "Enabled." (Note: In recent versions, an alternative to this to check mark the box, "start on boot-up" in the program)

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Close the Session Preferences. Here is what it looks like:

To get back the old dock If you want to get rid of the Mac OS X like dock, right click on the Avant dock and select "Close". Then, right click on the far left or right on the top menu and select "New Panel."

The new panel will be added to the bottom of the screen. Next, right click on the bottom panel and select "Add to Panel."

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Next, select "Window List" from the list and select "Add." You may want to also add "Show Desktop."

Mac4Lin Mac4Lin is a great project that provides the files needed and the installer to make Linux look and operate like Apple's OS X. Simply download the documentation from the site and the latest Mac4Lin version.

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(Note: also download version 0.3 version of Mac4Linx icon pack if you want the Apple logo icons. Versions after 0.3 don't have the Apple icons. The icons will need to be copied over or the icon theme will need to be re-applied.) Location: NA Install Name: NA Project Page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mac4lin/ Below is a screenshot of what Ubuntu looks like after applying this program.

The Mac4Lin documentation is well written. However, there are some things that I have done in addition what is in the documentation.

Stacks The stack feature allows contents to be shown quickly. Items or files can be dragged to the stack dock and they will display when clicking on the icon. To enable this feature: Right click on the Avant Windows Manager at the bottom of the screen and select preferences.

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Select the "Applets" menu, then select the "Stacks Applet" and click the "Activate" button. It will appear in the menu. Feel free to do this with other applets such as the "Showdesktop Applet" or others.

Now, once the stacks applet is installed it will show the files in a side by side. If you want the vertical fan list, then some changes will have to be made. Right click on the stacks icon from the menu and select "Preferences".

Select "Curved gui" from the Layout settings. This will display the fan view.

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Other Avant Windows Manager Plugins To get all of the latest plugins, make sure that "awn-extras-appletstrunk" is installed. This one give the latest plugins including the Pandora and Dilbert plugins.

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Vista Making Ubuntu Look Like Windows There are some features that Ubuntu has hidden or missing. Much of this functionality can be added back or fixed.

The missing trash can The trash can is hidden by default in Ubuntu. The trash can is useful in case you delete something and want to undelete something from the trash can. Here is how I got it back. (Note: this step can be bypassed if you choose the trash can item from the "Screenlets" application.) Go to System Tools > Configuration Editor (Note: if you don't see the Configuration Editor in the menu, go to System > Preferences > Main Menu > Select Applications from the Main Menu tool on the left and then select System Tools ). On the right side, put a check mark next to Configuration Editor and close. Now go back to the Application menu and you will see the Configuration Menu under System Tools. Go to Configuration editor > apps > Nautilus > desktop > trash_icon_visible and check the box.

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While you are there you can also add the Computer icon to the desktop similar to the "My Computer" icon in Windows. Check "computer_icon_visible" and it will show up on your desktop. Here is what the desktop will look like afterwards:

Creating items while right clicking on the desktop

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By default Ubuntu only has the action "create Empty File" active when you right click on the desktop. If you want to add applications to it as shown below, you will need to do some things first.

To add other ones such as Open Office Writer, Calc, and other programs you will need to open each application and save a blank document to your home /Templates folder. You can name them whatever you want but naming them something like Database, HTML, Image, Writer, Spreadsheet will make them easier to figure out what they are.

Make Control Alt Delete go to the System Monitor

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Windows users are familiar with the three keys, control + alt + delete. However, by default in Ubuntu it doesn't load the system monitor. To fix this: This one can be done through the Configuration Editor or through the terminal. Through the terminal type or paste: (you may need to cut and paste one line at a time then hit "Enter") gconftool-2 -t str --set /apps/metacity/global_keybindings/ run_command_9 "<Control><Alt>Delete" gconftool-2 -t str --set /apps/metacity/keybinding_commands/ command_9 "gnome-system-monitor" Or, the above commands can be done through the GUI Configuration Editor. Go to System Tools > Configuration Editor. Then select apps > metacity > global_keybindings. Make sure it says "<Control><Alt>Delete" next to run_command 9. Change it if it isn't there already.

Next, scroll down one to "keybinding_commands" and make sure next to "command_9" it says "gnome-system-monitor."

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There is no need to save because it is automatically saved. Now close the Configuration Editor. Then, go to System > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts Search for "Logout" action and press backspace to disable it.

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Now when you hit control + alt + delete, the System Monitor will appear.

Create an Advanced File Manager

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If you have to rename a folder or change file permissions to a folder outside of your home directory, you won't be able to using the current file manager (Nautilus). This may be very annoying to most Windows users. However, there is a way around this. To get Nautilus to have full root access, Nautilus must be run using the proper commands. Go to System > Preferences > Main Menu or use the command "alacarte". Click on "New Item" to create a new menu item. Then put in "gksu nautilus" for the command and "Root Nautilus" or whatever you want for the name. This will allow you to change permissions of files outside of the home directory, and allow you to change permissions for a file or folder as well as allow to delete files. This will create an icon for Nautilus with root access. This will let you delete or change anything on your system, so be careful!

Adjust Date & Time The time on the menu bar is a little bit too long for my tastes. Right

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click on the time in the Menu > Preferences > Select 12 hour format > Uncheck "show the date" and "Show seconds".

If you would like to have your weather info displayed, select the Locations Tab and put in your location and time zone.

Widgets If you want to go with a Vista or OS X look, you can do so in Ubuntu. In Ubuntu, gDesklets or Screenlets will let you create widgets. They can both be downloaded via Synaptic Package Manager. Below is an example of how to set up Screenlets. Make sure you have Screenlets installed. Type "screenlets" in Synaptic and install if you

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need to. Go to Accessories > Screenlets

Move the cursor over a screenlet that you want to use and double click on it. Notice on the bottom left hand side of screen "Auto start on login." You will have to check this box for each one that you want to start up on reboot. Otherwise it won't show up after rebooting. Move the screenlet to where you want it on your screen and right click on it to select more options. You may want to lock it to the current location or move the screenlet behind. Below is an example of a widget on top and below the window. (Note: If the screenlets lose position after reboot, make sure they are set to "auto start on login" and also make sure that you have enough RAM in your system. Adding more RAM fixed a troublesome issue I had with the screenlets not keeping position after rebooting.)

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Control Panel By default, Ubuntu has most of the system settings and preferences under System > Preferences and System > Administration. This is fine for some, but many may find in annoying, especially since it is all in a long vertical list that may go off the bottom of the screen. Some items are under Administration, while others are under Preferences. This is problematic for me because many times I can't tell the difference between what is a preference and what is under administration. A quick fix for this is to enable a menu item called "Control Center" that puts both sections on one screen similar to Microsoft Windows Control Panel. Go to System > Preferences > Main Menu and under System check the box "Control Center".

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Select "Close". Now, under the "System" main menu there will be a "Control Center" entry.

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Advanced Desktop Effects Advanced desktop effects can be set up using a program called Compiz. Compiz allows you do all sorts of creative things such have the desktop as a rotating cube, wobbly windows and many other things. Your video card will have to be set up properly in order for Compiz to work. If you are using the wrong video card drivers, it won't work. Download a script called "Compiz-Check" if you want to test to see if your video card is ready for Compiz. It isn't in the repository so you'll have to search for it on Google or in the forums. When you install and run the script it will give a result back such as this:

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This shows a green "OK" for all of the items which means the system is ready for Compiz. The next thing you will want to check for Compiz is that you actually have it installed. Do a search for "compiz" in Synaptic and install if it isn't already installed. The next thing you will want to do is to download "Compiz-Switch" and from http://forlong.blogage.de/entries/pages/Compiz-Switch install the .deb file. This is a icon that you can put in your menu that will allow you to turn Compiz on or off. It also makes auto booting into Compiz easy. Once "Compiz-Switch" is installed, you should see an icon under Applications > Accessories > Compiz-Switch. Double click it and it should start. You may not know if it is started. Now, to make it more convenient, drag and drop the "Compiz-Switch" icon from the Application menu and move it next to your desktop menu next to the Firefox icon.

Now Compiz can be turned on or off simply by double clicking on the

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icon. Now on to the settings. To see a video example of the effects go to: https://help.ubuntu.com/ community/CompositeManager/CompizFusion 1. Install Compiz Settings Manager (in 9.04 it is called "compizconfig-settings-manager") 2. In 8.04 to 8.01, go to System > Preferences > Advanced Desktop Effects Settings 3. In 9.04, go to System > Preferences > Compizconfig Settings Manager

Select Effects and check mark "Wobbly Windows" Select Close and open a window for Firefox or another program. Move the window around and see if it wobbles. If so, then you know it is working. Now, you need to add Compiz to your startup. Go to System > Preferences > Sessions

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Click "Add" and input the text shown about. Then click "Ok" and put a check mark next to Compiz-Switch under "Enabled." This will make it so that Compiz starts on boot up.

Useful Effects There are several effects in Compiz. Many of them are more entertaining than practical. One that I like that is practical is called "Window Preview" and is under the extras section of the Settings Manager. What it does is it creates an image thumbnail of a window that is open when the cursor is moved over it.

This effect can be activated by going to System> Preferences > CompizConfig Settings Manager and putting a check next to "Window Previews" under the "Extras" section. Now when you move

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the mouse cursor over a menu item in the bottom bar, you will see an image preview of it.

Vista Look The Vista theme is a little different to set up from the Mac4Linux one. It requires installing several different things. 1. Theme 2. Emerald Theme 3. Wallpaper 4. Screenlet The theme I used is called Aero-clone. It can be found at http:/// gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Aero-clone?content=57352 To install, right mouse click on the desktop and select "Change Desktop Background". Next, select the "Theme" tab and click the Install button. Find the location of the theme's .tar.gz file and select the "Open" button. Next, install the icon theme the same way you installed the theme. This time, find and download "nuoveXT-aero" from gnome-look.org and install it. Now that these themes are installed, they can be customized. Select the custom theme from the Theme Manager and select Customize

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Theme. Select the icons, and window border that you want to use Next, remove the top "Menu Bar" from the menu bar by right clicking on it and selecting "Remove from menu". This removes the menu along with the text, "Applications, Places and System". Next, right click on the menu and select "Add to Panel" and select "Main Menu". The removed items, Places & Systems will automatically be integrated into a the new single menu system. Change the panel size to 32 pixels by right clicking on it, "Properties" then for "Size" 32 pixels. For the Emerald Theme, open the Emereld Theme Manager located under System > Preferences > Emerald Theme Manager. Install the emerald theme by selecting the "Import" button and navigating to the folder of the downloaded theme to the "Emerald Theme" folder and selecting a theme. The wallpaper can be easily changed by right mouse clicking on the desktop and selecting "Change Desktop Background". Select Background, click the "Add" button and select your wallpaper. Most wallpaper is stored under /usr/share/wallpapers. Most wallpaper can be found on the site http://www.gnome-art.org. Simply download them, copy to the /usr/share/wallpapers folder and add. The Microsoft Vista orb is the round logo that replaces the Ubuntu logo for the menu. This logo isn't included in most of the themes, so a search will have to be done for it. Below is a picture of the MS Vista orb image. The screenlet is the bottom portion of the circle that goes below the black part of the menu.

Here is the Orb screenlet inside the Screenlet application. (Note: Two themes are available for the screenlet. The screenlet can be positioned by moving it using the mouse to menu area).

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Further Instructions Here: http://gnomestyle.blogspot.com/2007/05/ make-ubuntu-look-like-vista.html

Here is another screen shot showing a different icon theme.

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Below is a picture of a Vista style menu icon look with the orb Screenlet and a transparent background.

The transparent background can be easily created by right mouse clicking on the menu and selecting "Properties" and then the "Background" tab. Next select "Solid Color" and make sure the style bar is to the left near "Transparent".

This menu item looks nice but what about the actual menu? The

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menu is still the same old thing. To improve this further to give the look of the actual menu and not just the icon, there is a package called "GnoMenu" that will help with this.

GnoMenu GnoMenu is by far the slickest looking menu for Ubuntu. The program features search functionality along with a Vista like menu. To install, download and install the following files (The 1.9.9 version isn't stable yet, so use the 1.6 version links below): 1. http://launchpad.net/gnomenu/trunk/1.6/+download/gnomenuthemes-gnomelook_0.1-2~20081214_all.deb 2. http://launchpad.net/gnomenu/trunk/1.6/+download/ gnomenuthemes_1.6-1_all.deb 3. http://launchpad.net/gnomenu/trunk/1.6/+download/gnomenu_1.62_all.deb Next go to the menu panel and delete the main menu item. By right mouse clicking on it and selecting "delete from panel". Then right click on it and select "Add to Panel" and select GnoMenu from the list.

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1. Next, right mouse click on the GnoMenu icon and select

"Preferences". 2. The Gnome Menu Settings item will open up as shown below.

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For the Menu Theme select "Vista". For the Icon Theme select "Vista". For the Panel Button select "Vista". For Program Widgets select "Classic". 1. Next select the "OK" button. The Menu Settings will close and a new window will pop-up asking to restart. 2. Select "Yes" restart. Another window will load asking to reload. 3. Select "Reload". Below are some screenshots of the "Vista" and the "Glass" menu theme. (Note: The panel may need to resized to make the orb look symmetrical. Do this by right clicking on the panel, "Properties" and changing the size to 28pixels.)

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(Note: The large "orb" type panel buttons only look nice while on the bottom portion of the screen. If the panel is moved to the top of the screen, the "orb" may have a horizontal line running through it and/or the menu may not respond after rebooting. For top screen panel button icons, select the non orb types or make your own custom one.)

Custom Panel Button It is relatively easy to make your own panel button icon for GnoMenu. There are two types of buttons, the single image types and the multiple image types (orb types). Short rectangle like images, are typically just one image, while the "orb" types typically have two images; the image that spans the height of the panel and another smaller image that goes above the panel. Shown below is the Vista orb which is made up of two images. Next to it, is a rectangular style Ubuntu panel button which is just one image.

Vista

279

Each of these shows just one state in the life of the panel button. The first is the depressed state; how it looks when it hasn't been clicked on. The second is a mouseover one which is when the mouse moves over it. The third is when the menu is opened. To create a custom panel icon, go to /usr/share/gnomenu/Themes/ Button and copy the theme you want to a new folder and rename the folder to your theme name. The next step is to create the images for the button and to modify the theme file. Below is an example of a button I've created. Notice the different images for the different states.

By using one image and using different brightness levels, the menu button appears to glow or get dark when depressed. This can be done by opening an image up in Gimp or another image program and adjusting the brightness levels. The image size should be about the same as the panel, in the case above, it is 28pixels tall, so the vertical height of the images above are 28pixels or less. To adjust the brightness in Gimp, open the image and adjust the brightness / contrast levels by going to "Colors" and "BrightnessContrast". Select different levels for each of the three images and save them.

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Next, the "themedata.xml" file needs to be modified. Below is the example from the above theme. <?xml version="1.0" ?> <content type="Button"> <theme Top="0" id="HasTop"> <ContentData Name="Custom" Author="Prag" Copyright="GPL -" id="Contentdata"/> </theme> </content> Notice that theme Top="0". This "0" represents "no" meaning the item does not have a top image. Because the theme above is a single image, this should be left "0". The "orb" style ones should be "1". Next, the ContentData Name="Custom" which is the name of the new theme. The Author has been changed also. Make the changes and save the file. Now the new theme should show up in the "Panel Button" list along with the other themes.

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Simply select it, select "Ok", restart and reload GnoMenu. Below is a picture of the new panel button.

Terminal Shortcuts Although this book focuses mostly on the GUI, there are times when you may want to use the terminal. If you are running a webserver or MySQL, it is probably easier to manage these applications using the terminal. Also, if you are installing or removing software over the terminal, you can speed things up even more with a few simple tricks.

.bashrc This is a file that is located in your user home directory (/home/ <username>). Go to your file manager and select View > "Show

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Hidden Files." Next find the file,".bashrc" and open it. Feel free to add the following inside the file and save: alias update='sudo apt-get update' alias install='sudo apt-get install' alias dist-upgrade='sudo apt-get dist-upgrade' alias upgrade='sudo apt-get upgrade' alias autoremove='sudo apt-get autoremove' alias clean='sudo apt-get clean' alias autoclean='sudo apt-get autoclean' alias check='sudo apt-get check' alias remove='sudo apt-get remove' alias search='apt-cache search' What these entries do is they create shortcuts to commonly typed items. For example, normally to install something through the terminal, you would need to type: sudo apt-get install appname The first two items, sudo and apt-get are rather repetitive. So what the entry in the file does is shortens it to: install appname So when you type "install appname" it will automatically put in the "sudo apt-get" first. This will save time from having to type unnecessary words.

Stop Entering "sudo" and Password One thing that is annoying for many is having to type "sudo" and the password all the time. This is for done for security reasons but can be damaging to productivity. A way of reducing the typing of "sudo" is to create an alias in the .bashrc file of the user as shown in the section above. A way of reducing the entering of the password is to run a terminal window as root or superuser. This can be easily done by enabling the "Root Terminal" menu icon which is disabled by default. To enable this icon, go to System > Preferences > Main Menu and check the "Root Terminal" item which is unchecked by default.

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283

Another alternative to this is to run the command "sudo su" in a terminal window. Doing so will give super user rights indefinitely until the session is closed. (Note: If using any of these two methods, alias shortcuts will not work unless the shortcuts from the user's .bashrc file are copied to /root/. bashrc. This has to be done while running Nautilus as gksu. After logging out and back in, the changes will be effective.)

Terminal Shortcuts to GUI Items GUI Applications Main Menu File Manager System Monitor Terminal Calculator Character Map Text Editor Configuration Editor Monitor Settings

Terminal alacarte nautilus gnome-system-monitor gnome-terminal gcalctool gucharmap gedit gconf-editor gksu gddccontrol

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Remote Desktop Screen Resolution Sessions Firestarter Firewall Disk Manager Boot Up Manager

vino-preferences gnome-display-properties gnome-session-properties gksu firestarter disk-manger-root gksu bum

Fonts There are several font options that can be installed on Linux. One thing that new Linux users complain about is that fonts don't look as good in Linux as they do in Windows. There are ways to change this.

Adding Fonts Below are 465 free open source fonts. They can be installed using the install name below. Location: NA Install Name: ttf-aenigma Project Page: http://www.aenigmafonts.com/

Others Below are a list of several other fonts that are freely available. Just run the command in the terminal and they will be installed. sudo apt-get install ttf-gentium ttf-dustin ttf-georgewilliams ttfsjfonts sun-java6-fonts ttf-larabie-deco ttf-larabie-straight ttflarabie-uncommon

Improving the Font Looks Fonts can be improved for LCD monitors by changing the font rendering. To do this: 1. From the desktop right mouse click and select, "Change Desktop Background" 2. Select the fonts tab and select "Subpixel smoothing (LCDs)" under Rendering

Fonts

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Chapter 4

Tips

Duplicating Packages Mirroring a Hard Drive There are several ways to mirror a hard drive. The drive can be copied to a new drive using copy commands or it can be copied using a program such as Gparted. Gparted must be installed on a CD then booted into. Simply download GParted Live CD from http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ and burn Gparted to a CD. Next, connect the drive that you would like to duplicate to into the PC with the master drive, insert into the CD drive and start the computer. It will boot into Gparted, then the partitions can be copied, or resized. In this example, a larger drive that has Ubuntu installed on it will be copied to a smaller drive. The large drive needs to have the partition resized to a smaller size so that it can be copied to the smaller drive. Select the large drive from the drive list, select the main partition (/ dev/hda1) and select the button, "Resize/Move" and put in a size such as 33225 which is about as small is it can go. Select "Apply" and the program will resize the partition. This may take ten minutes or more to complete.

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When done, the /dev/hda1 partition will show as 33.25GB. Move the cursor over it and select the "Copy" button. Next, select the smaller drive from the drive menu, and select, "Paste". Gparted will start copying the partition to the new drive.

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After this is done, the both drives will show the same partition size for the main partition. Next, the large drive will need to be resized back again to make the partition larger. Select the large drive from the drive menu, select the /dev/hda1 or main partition and select, "Resize/ Move". Then put in the maximum size for the drive, and select, "Apply". The partition will be resized. Resize the small drive to the largest size also.

Next, power the system down, disconnect the old drive and connect the new drive in place of the old one. Power up and the system will boot up on the new drive. Now the drive is successfully cloned. (Note: If setting up a dual boot setup with Windows, the hard drive must be defragmented first before trying to use GParted.)

Copying Packages

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If you want to move packages from one computer to another but don't want to do a drive to drive copy, it can be done by downloading the packages from the internet and installing. This method is good if you can't or don't want to do a drive to drive copy. For instance from a regular computer to a notebook hard drive or when the computers are miles away. This is done by generating a package list on the computer that you want to duplicate, then taking that package list and installing it on the new system. The difference between this method and the cloned hard drive is that the cloned drive will install everything exactly the same including themes, start up items, etc. The package list method will only install the applications. It won't copy customized applications, or personalized settings. This means items that are set to start up on boot on one machine most likely won't start up on boot on the new system. They will have to be manually customized to start up on boot.

Generating a package list From the computer that is being copied from do the following: From the terminal, run: dpkg --get-selections > ~/my-packages This will save a "my-packages" in your home directory with the list of all installed applications (except those installed using deb files). Then you can copy it to another machine or back it up, so when you reinstall Ubuntu you just have to put this file in the home directory and run the command below. However, before doing this, the sources file and authentication file must be copied over. Type, "gksudo nautilus" in the terminal in the old machine and copy "sources.list" and "trusted.gpg" from /etc/apt over to a shared folder or external media drive. Then pull this info up on the new machine, and type "gksudo nautilus" in the terminal and copy these files over the original ones in /etc/apt. Next, run: sudo apt-get update Then do:

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sudo dpkg --set-selections < my-packages && sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade This will automatically download and install all of the applications you have from your computer to the new one. If applications have been removed from the other computer, they will be included in the list also. For example, if you have removed the email application "Evolution", then when you generate the list and run it, it will remove evolution from the new computer also. (Note: Before you run the command on the new system, you should remove the video card entries from the list if different. For example, if the first system has an ATI video card and the second one has Nvidia, it will try and install ATI video drivers which will most likely cause problems. Doing a search for "ati", "nvidia", "fglrx" or "xorg" inside the 'my-packages' file and removing these entries should eliminate the problem). This is a very nice way of replicating the applications from one system to another. This will work for anything in the software repository. It will not work on manually installed .deb files or apps that were installed via extracting from a .tar file. These files will have to be installed manually. Ubuntu Apps 9.04 package list can be downloaded from: http://www. mediafire.com/?3junxlogzqz Then, simply navigate to the directory the my-packages file is in and run: sudo dpkg --set-selections < my-packages && sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade

Changing the Username & Home Directory If doing a complete drive to drive clone using Gparted, the username and home folder will be the same as the original. This is fine if you are dealing with a person with the same name. However, it may be for someone other than this name such as family, friends, or employees. The username and home folder can be changed to a different one with a few steps. Reboot the system into recovery mode. To do this, while the computer is rebooting select "Recovery Mode" from the menu list. From the Recovery Menu select "root Drop to root shell prompt" and select "Ok". Then issue the following commands. The example below is changing the username from john to monica. Replace these names

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with the names of your users. mv /home/john /home/monica chown -R monica:monica /home/monica Now, you need to change the word john to monica in both /etc/ passwd & /etc/group. nano -B /etc/passwd nano -B /etc/shadow nano -B /etc/group Next do: sudo rm $HOME/.gnome2/keyrings/login.keyring This will prevent the old password prompt from coming up when trying to connect to a wireless access point. shutdown -r now Now reboot as normal and it should all be changed. Next, login with the new username and change the password by going to Applications >System > Administration > Users and Groups and changing it from there.

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Troubleshooting There were a few problems that I discovered while working with Ubuntu. Many of these are minor, some have fixes and some don't.

Repetitive Keystroke While holding a key down on the keyboard, the key should repeat itself so that if the letter "t" is typed, it will display "ttttttttttt". This doesn't appear to be working properly until after going to the System > Preferences > Keyboard then disable repetitive keystrokes and then re-enable.

Stuck Keys After enabling repetitive keystrokes, exxtra charactters may appear while typing normally. This can be fixed by increasing the delay time before the key is set to repeat. Simply go to System > Preferences > Keyboard and increase the delay.

Screen Flickering While Using Compiz While running certain applications in Ubuntu, the screen may flicker. This is a problem with many ATI brand cards. The way to fix this is to replace the ATI card with an Nvidia one or live with the card and disable Compiz via the "Compiz-switch" icon when it becomes a problem.

Pidgin Not Saving Account Info After adding a Yahoo account to Pidgin and rebooting the information

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is not saved. This is a permission issue that gives root permission to a file that needs to be written to by another user. This can be fixed by going to the folder and changing the permissions to the user. Then after adding an account and rebooting Pidgin, the information will be saved. To fix this: 1. Type "gksudo nautilus" in the Terminal 2. Navigate to /home/user/.purple 3. Right click on .purple folder and change permissions from "root" to the username then select the button "change permission for enclosed files"

Index

Bluefish 212 BMPX 139 Boot-Up Manager 219 Boxee 139 Brasero 45 Bulk Rename 38

-..bashrc .deb Files

281

-C-

Celtx

-AAcidrip 45 Add/Remove 246 Adding Fonts 284 Advanced Desktop Effects 256 Advanced File Manager 256 Advanced Gnome Menu Alien Arena 57 Amarok 139 America's Army 57 AMSN 178 Amule 130 Apple OS X Look 249 apt-get 29 Ardour 139 Assault Cube 57 Asunder 45 Audacious 139 Audacity 139 AVG 194 Avidemux 139

BattleFree 57 Blender 101

219

212

Changing the Username Check Gmail 219 Cinelerra 139 Coccinella 178 Compiz 256 Control Panel 256 Copying Packages 287 Custom Menu Items 293

-DDate & Time 256 Deluge 130 DeVeDe 45 Dia Diagram Editor Disc Wrapper 45 DJPlay 139 Dolphin 38 DVD Movie Backup DVD Styler 45

101

-E-

-BBanshee 139 Battle for Wesnoth

295

Ekiga 178 Elisa Media Center 57

Emesene Empathy Exaile

178 178

139

287

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Gwenview

-FFilezilla

101

-H200

Firefox 200 Firestarter 194

HeliX Player 139 HomeBank 91

Fish 139 FontMatrix

Hot Babe 219 Hugin 101

125

Fonty Python Freeciv 57

125

Hydrogen

-I-

Freecol 57 Freemind 125 Frets on Fire 57 Frostwire 130 Frozen Bubble FSLint 38

139

Inkscape Instabird

Installing a Non .deb File 29 Installing From the Terminal 29 Internet Explorer 200 IPblock 130 Istanbul Desktop Session Recorder ITunes 139

-GGalaxium 178 Gedit 212 Generating a package list Getdeb.net 22 Gimp 101 Gizmo Project 178 gLabels 101 Glest 57 Gnome CD Master 45 Gnome Do 219 Gnomebaker 45 GNUCash 91 Google Chrome 200 Google Earth 57 Google Gadgets 219 Google Talk 178 GPRename 38 Grip 45 Grisby 91 GThumb 101

101 178

287

-JJamin 139 Jaolt 244 Jbidwatcher JEdit 212

244

Jokosher 139 JuK 139

-KK3b 45 K9Copy 45 Kaffeine 139 Karbon 14 101 KDE 35 Kdenlive 139

139

Index

Kdissert 125 Kino 139 Kivio 101 KMyMoney 91 Kolour Paint 101 KompoZer 200 Kopete 178 KPhotoAlbum 101 Krita 101 Krusader 38 KSpread 91 Ktoon 101 Ktorrent 130 KTuberling (Potato Guy) KWord 91

-NNautilus

Nautilus-open-terminal Nexuiz 57 Notepad++

212

Open Arena 57 Open Movie Editor 139 Open Office 91 Orb screenlet 256 OrDrumbox 139 OSX Dock Bar Effect Other Steam Games

Lincity-NG 57 LIRC 219

-P-

Lives-Video 139 LMMS 139

PCMan

Peazip 219 Peer Guardian 2

-M-

Mirroring a Hard Drive Motion 194 MyPaint 101

219 219

-O-

219 200

Mac4Lin 249 Mania Drive 57 MediaCoder (WINE) Mercury Messenger Mint 91

Nautilus-gksu 219 Nautilus-image-converter

-LLaunchy Lightning

297

Picasa Pidgin

139 178 287

101 178

PiTiVi 139 Planeshift 60 PlayonLinux 57 Postal 2 57 Putty

219

-QQBittorrent 130 QCad 101 Qsynth 139

130

249 57

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Qtractor 139 Quod Libet 139

-T-

-R-

Terminal Shortcuts

TerminatorX 140 TerminatorX 139

remove applications

246

Repetitive Keystroke Rhythmbox 139

293

Rosegarden

139

256

200

TimeVault 194 Tomboy Notes 212 TORCS 57 Torrent Episode Downloader (TED)

SagCAD 101 Samba 219

Stuck Keys 293 Sweet Home 3d 101 Synaptic 22, 246 Synergy 219 Synfig Studio 101 System Monitor 256 Sysvconfig 219

The missing trash can Thunar 38 Thunderbird Tilda 219

-SSauerbraten 57 Screen Flickering 293 Scribes 212 Scribus 91 Second Life 57 See Terminal Shortcuts shrinkta 45 Shutter 101 Skencil 101 Skype 178 Songbird 139 Spark 178 Stacks 249 Steam 57 Steam Powered Games Stop Motion 139

281

Totem Player 139 Track Mania Nations Forever Transmission 130 Tremulous 57

Troubleshooting 293 True Combat: Elite 57 Twinkle

178

-UUbuntu Tweak 219 UltraVNC 219 Urban Terror 57 Utorrent 130 57

-Vvertical fan 249 VideoCut 139 View Your Mind (VYM) Vinagre 219 Vista Look 256 VLC Media Player VMware Server

139 219

125

130

Index

Vuze

130

-WWarsow 57 WebcamStudio

139

Webmin 219 Widelands 57 Widgets 256 Window Preview

256

Windows 256 Wink 101 Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory World of Padman 57 Wormux

-XXara Extreme 101 XBMC 139 XChat 178 XChat-Gnome 178 XFCE 37 XtightVNCviewer 219

-ZZoneMinder

194

299