Knowliz

thank you for the nice tips... i'm surprise no one else has commented..
and congrats on your 100th post! :)

@naseeh:
Thanks...

Happy that you found it useful.

About people commenting on posts: Depends on people, some appreciate what other do, some don't. Some find it useful, but don't like to add anything to it. And some people read and just leave.

It is really surprising to see that one of my latest article got around 5000 visits in a day but I got just 2 comments on it.



But anyways, I appreciate your comment.



Cheers

Anurag Bansal

man, simply excellent list!


it's really a wonder why anyone hasn't dugg this yet.



dugg! ^_^

Oh thanks a lot my friend.
Cheers..

Thanks for the list Anurag.


On number 5, try instead to install RedHats fonts that match those from MS.



sudo aptitude install ttf-liberation



Then go to Firefox settings and change default font to Serif(it replace Times New Roman from MS). You also get Sans(replace Arial) and Mono(replace Courier New).

UBuntu totally rocks! Escellent tips!


Jess

http://www.privacy.mx.tc

You forgot some of the other core programs for a complete 'nix setup (or they're preinstalled with the 'buntu suites, I'm a Gentoo guy :P). Them being:


Dia - Visio-like clone for 'nix

Blender - Free 3D modelling program with easy support for render farms

GIMP - Photoshop on 'nix

XChat - good IRC client



Also, don't forget you can install *anything* that's for 'nix even if it's not in your package manager. Every 'nix person should read up on how to compile from source, I had no idea what I was missing until i learned the all important

"make config && make && make install" line.

Thanks a lot for your addition to the list.
You are absolutely right. If you start compiling, there will be numerous applications you can install on *nix.



I am really thankful for everyone digging this post.

I am feeling happy that this post has just appeared on Front page of Digg.



Cheers

Other useful applications are:
Googlizer - highlight any word/phrase, click on Googlizer and firefox will open in a new tab with the search results.

Liferea - RSS reader, a no fuss reader

Device Manager - very handy to check on your computer devices

DeVeDe - make your own DVD's

k9copy and/or dvd::rip - backup your DVD's

VLC - media player

K3b - disc burner

ConvertAll - handy unit converter, weights, length, area, volume etc, hundreds of units.

For beginners like me: your MUCH appreciated tip of having "separate partition" like HOME for example is a bit unclear. If I installed Ubuntu already; do I have to reinstall and Create this HOME or what ?


I really enjoyed your article it was an eye opener for someone like me who JUST got in !!!

Great tips. I'll be sure to use some of these.

What about GNOME Do?

No there is a way to do it after you have installed Ubuntu as well. Search Ubuntuforums.org to get that how-to. It is very well described there.
Sorry, I don't have the link right now. But I can post it later on.

But at the same time it doesn't take much time to even re-install if you want to, to create a separate Home as well.

Hope it helps.



Cheers

Anurag Bansal

How about medibuntu for media codecs?

hamachi is one of my first installs.. gotta have my private virtual network to my computers back home!


i also couldn't live without virtualbox :)

Normally I wouldn&t comment, but reading the comments...


Thanks;) Useful post!

Interesting list. I think you focus too much on prorietary downloads, which is in general something to be avoided, whenever possible.


About your site though...it almost killed my computer. You don't need this many scripts running on your site. My music literally skipped for about a second from the load this site put on the processor. And I'm running adblock. I should go install noscript just for your site.

You should think about telling people how to do the things you mention. Or at least link to other pages that do tell them, much like you did with google earth.

Good article! I would like to point out, though, that you don't necessarily have to separate /home into another partition (although that IS probably the best practice). You can simply choose not to format your root partition when you re-install Ubuntu, or when you freshly install the next version. See here: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21346507-

Samba is hardly easy to setup or use for new and inexperienced user........I think it's only fair if you would add a link to some tutorials for that.


Thank you.

Thanks for the list. I think VLC worth a mention too.


yc

What's wrong with the word "anyway"? "Anyways" is what they say in West Virginia and other hillbilly places. Are you a hillbilly? Or a hillbilly wannabe?


You're "sure you would definitely have some mp3 and all"? Is this English? I can't read any more.

Here is another overview of FOSS software, Ubuntu and other OS: http://hellebaard.nl/en/software

Didn't knew about Gizmo, looks very damn promising and i'm looking to try it out, but i can't manage to get a 64bit architecture binary for (k)ubuntu :/

Songbird 0.7? You know that v1.0 came out a week or two ago, right?

Are you serious on no.1?! Is eyecandy really the most important thing for you? Or perhaps the only thing you can do with Ubuntu is show off your funky desktop with no functionality what-so-ever. You wanna know why so few people commented? Well... there's at least one such 'article' per week on digg... I guess that they see how useless it is and leave quickly.

what about cheese and virtualbox?


also, maybe you could put something in there about upgrading to openoffice.org 3.0, since i'm pretty sure 8.10 doesn't come with it by default.



great guide.

If yo are familiar enough I would love to see a similar Kubuntu list.

My list. It is for Kubuntu, but still.


1.StarDict

2.Wine

3.FireFox

4.Krita

5.Rar, 7z

6.Krusader

7.KDiff3

8.SuperKaramba

9.compiz-kde + ccsm

10.Dvju viewer

11.Mplayer

12.aMule

13.additional codecs for Kaffeine && for Amarok

14.mc

15.lm-sensors

16.hddtemp

in ubuntu, launchy, in Kubuntu, exist Katapult

Thanks for the tips. They're useful

# Go to System ->Preferences ->Appearance ->Visual Effects and select Extra. That will activate your Video card driver. In my case it is NVIDIA. The changes will take place after you restart.


What's that? That only enables desktop effects stupids!

If you wanna install your propietary drivers, you need use the propietary driver manager.

@Spayder26:
If you read carefully, that's what it says.

"Provides more aesthetic pleasant set of effects."

As soon as you select that the first time, it will ask you to enable the propreitary driver.

I think for everyone, the steps should be the same.

Though you can enable you Proprietary video card driver first and then change this setting. In that case, it won't show that window.



Is there something I am missing here...??



@Alex:

I haven't used Kubuntu yet. So not sure about the list. But stay tuned...for similar articles on Ubuntu. The procedure should be the same I think.



To everyone:

Please do not execute any command mentioned in the comments (specially Comment # 29). To be on the safer side, I suggest never use any command which includes "rm -rf *".

If you do, please search well, what it does. It will just wipe your entire system.



Leaving 'Anonymous' comments shows the credibility of that comment. That's why NO MORE ANONYMOUS comments on this blog.



Say with 'AUTHORITY' if you wanna say something, else don't say anything. At least people won't give bad advice.



I am not an expert, but at least I don't give wrong advice.



Hope that sounds fair to everyone.



Thanks

Anurag Bansal

Nice list, I install more or less the same applications on a fresh install. Another interesting utility is 'startupmanager' which lets you tweak Grub and boot splash settings and themes.

Wow - I could not even stand your web "design" more than 6 seconds.
Are you coming from a win-turd background ?

Who needs all these "effects" ?

My eyes would get sore watching that stuff more than 10 sec.

It does not mean I am not missing something by not comparing your list to mine, but this kind of "special effects" pages make me sick.

Goof luck though ... with Ubu you are on the right track.

Some of these are no-brainers, like the codecs.. but Yahoo! Zimbra Desktop and multiple VOIP clients... no thanks :)

Sadly, several of the suggestions include mistakes -- no need to install restricted-extras AND GStreamer extra codes, for example. Also, he states that choosing extra effects will activate your GPU driver, which it won't. A for effort. C for execution.

What's wrong with the website? Who doesn't like baby-poo green on black, with impossible to read fonts?

The site still seems a bit "busy" with all the images and sidebar advertising.........


Sometimes simple is just better, like a link to an image/screenshot instead of posting the actual image....

I really wonder at many stupid comments posted above. Many of these comments really don't give credit to the author for the nice list produced. For the one who posted this article, don't worry about these arrogant comments which is really spoiling the image of digg. You can try www.dzone.com instead. People there really give useful comments unlike some useless ones posted above.

What about VLC


Or does Ubuntu come with that default these days? It's been a while for us....

ubuntu doesn't come with VLC, and installing it should have been on this list

Agreed. He missed the point in Miro's capability as a video RSS aggregator. But for a nice lightweight all-in-one video player, VLC is definitely the way to go.

Ubuntu comes with some broken media player that chokes on half the files and has like 1 or 2 options.


So the first thing to do is to install VLC. Oh, and don't try to remove the broken default player, doing so makes Ubuntu think that you're trying to install the entirety of ubuntu because the player is part of the default install.



-golfclap-

poor english. sounds like a spammer wrote the list. there is no word to describe the site design.


the list is fair. if you're new to the ubuntu scene, this would be a good list to go by.



if the site theme was a little clearer, had less ads on the sidebar and on link roll-overs, and if the english was not so 'nigerian spammer' dialect, i think they'd be on to something.

What ever the crap u install/un-install....you linux guys never forget windows and its applications... :)
Long live, wine...!!

~ramki

Not a bad list, but...


Buried for being a terribly written article on a horribly designed site.

AHhhhhhhhh! That STUPID annoying Windows Error sound is driving me insane. I can get past the crappy layout but that ridiculous, never ending pinging noise from the ad was too much.


YOUR SITE SUX!!!!

This isn't really a good list. Also the Oxygen icons are far better than the default Ubuntu ones. Ubuntu Tweak helps do a few things that make your life easier. Also installing the real OpenOffice. Google Desktop, Picasa, Google Gadgets, Dropbox, Virtualbox, Adobe Reader and Adobe Air are some great apps.

20 things to do after installing Ubuntu.....playing games is not one of them.

Only being able to play a handful of games versus an entire library of thousands of games is a huge difference. I consider the latter "playing games" while the former is more in line with "slacking off at work"

Depends on your definition of "playing games." I'm not a gaming junkie, so the games that are native, plus games which actually will run under Wine, tend to suffice for me...but you know, whatever floats your boat.

Unless you play UT2k4, or Quake 3, or Doom 3. All have linux installers.

Why are there never any articles about what to install on Windows, on the digg front page?

my eyes, it burns

Gnome-Do

Yeah. My list is completely different, naturally, because everyone's different. Gnome-Do, awn trunk, Banshee from the dev branch, Zen kernel, ALSA drivers from alsa-project.org, downgrade Wine to 1.1.3 off of WineHQ, install Ruby from source, install DVD Styler and tovid, install all the blasted codecs to work with the file formats the rest of the world insists on using, install VLC and set GNOME's file associations to use it instead of the stupid movie player, and I'm leaving out the mundane things like installing lame from the official sources (they have a debian folder so you can dpkg-buildpackage it) and mp3gain, grip, and so on.


On my wife's laptop, there's also editing xorg.conf to make sure it doesn't freeze when trying to use the UniChrome hardware, patching ALSA to work with the headphone and mic jacks, and replacing Metacity with xfwm4 so we can run awn. Thankfully, on Ubuntu it's no longer necessary to build separate wireless drivers for her laptop, so...good times.

Already did most those of those, but some good ones there

Thought I would like to have different wallpaper on each workspace, but no easy access to desktop contents killed that for me!!!

Hi There,
Feedback from so many people helped me to find out there was some issue with the site.

I am not a web guy though I was able to tweak a little bit here and there.



Instead of screwing it up even more, I have changed the theme.

I will appreciate, if you can provide me the feedback now. If it loads faster or the site still Sucks.



Thanks

Thanks for this very interesting and useful tips.. this really helped me out..!


Escoofield -

http://alotofit.com



Have Fun!

Great tips...i am looking to install linux,need some guide.but this will help me something...

One program that every linux installation should come with standard is kdocker. Kdocker doesn't have an interface, so it "fits" in any theme, and it helps your favorite apps that aren't quite at their peak of maturity yet by allowing you to create an icon at the top of your screen that they can minimize to.


Try it! (sudo apt-get install kdocker)

It would have been great if you wrote down how to actually add/tweak the programs you mentioned.

@Neil:
If you follow the links provided in the article, you will get directions for some of them.

Whatever doesn't have a link are available in Ubuntu Synaptic. Just search with the name mentioned by going to Applications -> Add/Remove... after you have installed Ubuntu.

I think it is just about selecting the package and hit apply to install it.



In case, more details installation instructions are required, please drop me a mail.



Thanks

Hi Obrigado pelo post, muito simples e fácil de entender. Obrigado Novamente.

Muito obrigado meu amigo. Eu realmente aprecio o seu comentário.


Using Google Translation..



Cheers

Anurag Bansal

Using Ubuntu for the first time today.
Found this very useful, thanks. :)

- Essential:
VLC

gparted



- Fun:

Celestia



- For economists (and other disciplines):

texlive

kile

Gretl (econometric software)

Why SAMBA and not NFS? What about MC? Gotta have Midnight Commander.