Opengender

Which software to use for what and how to install it is another big headache when migrating from Windows to Ubuntu.

Ubuntu comes pre-installed with the basics for office users:

• Open Office is the free Office suite including word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and database applications. All the applications in the Open Office suite will import data from their Windows equivalents (but won't always import scripts, macros, queries etc)
• Evolution is the PIM (email, calendar and contacts applications). It will import data (mails, addressbooks, calendars) from Outlook.
• Firefox is Ubuntu's default browser — you might already be using this on Windows. It'll import your bookmarks from MSIE or you can copy over your entire profile if you're already using Firefox on Windows.
• There are also some basic image and pdf viewers, TWAIN, media player, an instant messager, and some accessories.

This probably isn't going to be enough for everyone — especially home users. You might also want HTML editing packages, more versatile media players, VoIP and chat, desktop search, and fun toys like GoogleEarth.

Before looking at what software you might like to install. It's important to note that Ubuntu does not install software in the same way as Windows but you can still use GUI to install software.

Installing software on Ubuntu

Ubuntu offers you a choice of several different ways to install software:

• Ubuntu calls a piece of software a package. Information and instructions are called 'documentation'.
• In order to prevent beginners from installing potentially destructive software, Ubuntu keeps 'repositories' of 'approved' software packages which are tried and tested. Ubuntu includes a GUI 'package manager' called Synaptic so the user can install these packages easily. Illustrated tutorial on using Synaptic
• Ubuntu is based on another Linux 'distro' called Debian. Debian's commandline package manager, apt-get, is also included in Ubuntu so you can manage your software on a commandline if you prefer. How to use apt-get. It's good to learn as it's very quick and easy once you learn it.
• If there isn't an Ubuntu package available you can also install packages built for Debian onto your Ubuntu system. Debian packages are called 'debs'. Ubuntu comes with a GUI deb installer. Download the deb file (it will have a .deb extension and will be labelled on download sites as the right software for Debian), right click on the downloaded file and select 'open with GDebi package installer' to start the automatic installation dialogue.
• Ubuntu has another, older, package manager called dpkg. You'll find a guide to using dpkg here
• If you absolutely positively can't find an Ubuntu package, or even a deb, you can compile a programme from source for Ubuntu. This is not for the fainthearted or inexperienced.
• If you encounter something you're not sure what to do with, there's a guide to installing anything on Ubuntu here but be careful, some of it is out of date
• Finally, you'll sometimes find software which isn't built for Ubuntu but can easily be installed on Ubuntu by following the makers' instructions.
• Always make sure you've got hold of the right package for your system. If at all possible, use synaptic or apt-get. If you download it from somewhere else, make sure it's for the right version of Ubuntu. If there's no Ubuntu package, look for a deb. If there are both Windows and Linux versions, make sure you've got the Linux version
• Occasionally, a package's instructions will tell you it will only work with a particular kernel. To find out which kernel you have, open a terminal, type this command at the $ prompt:
  uname -r
• If you're not sure which version of Ubuntu you've got, type this command in a terminal:
  cat /etc/lsb-release
• If you need to know which sound or video or wireless card you have (a list of your PCI hardware), run this command:
  lspci
• This command will tell you if you already have a package installed and what state it's in:
  dpkg -s packagename
• you can also use the locate command to find installation files.
• You can also remove, reinstall or purge (remove everything, including config files) using Synaptic, apt-get or dpkg (see their man pages or their user guides above).

Enabling extra repositories

You will probably want to enable extra repositories to get a wider choice of software packages. I've found these some of the more useful:

• You'll find a guide to adding and using Ubuntu repositories here
• I find the medibuntu (Multimedia, Entertainment & Distractions In Ubuntu) repository very useful as it contains proprietary runtimes, codecs and applications you might need
• If you're feeling fainthearted, you'll find an easy way to enable playback of the popular formats here.

A few popular applications you might want to install:

Music and media

• Ubuntu's default media application really isn't much good. For a simple, all-round media player, I like mplayer or xine-ui which uses the totem-xine libraries.
• For GNOME (the standard Ubuntu desktop) I like Exaile to manage music libraries but it can be buggy. A lot of people prefer Amarok. The trouble is Amarok is designed for KDE so it's fine if you have Kubuntu but can be slow on GNOME as it needs to load the KDE libraries as well — but you probably won't notice much if you have a powerful machine. For streaming, VLC is the best. All of these can be installed with synaptic or apt-get.

Graphics and pictures

• For graphics editing, the standard choice is gimp, which can be installed using synaptic or apt-get
• F-spot is a photo album application which can be installed with synaptic or apt-get.

HTML editors

• For HTML editing, bluefish is the most powerful application. It can be installed using synaptic or apt-get. It doesn't have wysiwyg though.
• Kompozer is the best wysiwyg HTML editor

FTP and Download managers

• The excellent GUI FileZilla FTP client can be installed using synaptic or apt-get
• There's a GUI download manager available for Ubuntu called D4X which can be installed using synaptic or apt-get — I've found it buggy but if you want a graphical download manager it's probably the best.
• I like wget, a commandline download manager which comes preinstalled. Find out how to use it by typing 'man wget' into a terminal window or the wget manual is here.

Chat and VoIP

• Skype can be installed on Ubuntu. Download a Skype deb here and install it with Gdebi. I prefer OpenWengo, a competitor to Skype which has a much better Linux client and which allows you to add your instant messenger accounts (MSN, YIM, Jabber etc) into the same interface. It also offers calls to landlines on a pay-as-you-go basis. The only drawback is that very few people know about it and so your have to load Skype as that's where your friends are. Unless you can educate your friends, of course. Wengo also has a Windows version.
• Xchat is a good IRC client and can be installed with synaptic or apt-get
• Pidgin multi-protocol instant messenger is pre-installed on Ubuntu. You can add all your MSN, YIM, ICQ, AOL and Google chat accounts into a single interface

Misc

• I like GoogleEarth! You can download the GoogleEarth Linux version here, the installation instructions are here
• One of the things I like about Linux is that there's excellent and free bibliographic software called Bibus. Instructions for installing Bibus on Ubuntu here. It has a reputation for being difficult to install but I had no problems following the instructions and Bibus works fine.

That should be enough to be going along with. You can browse all the packages available for Ubuntu via synaptic or apt-get here. If you want to find out quickly whether a package is available for Ubuntu via synaptic or apt-get, go to the quicksearch box in Firefox, select 'Ubuntu package search' and enter the name of the package — it's quicker than waiting for synaptic's awesomely slow search and you can just quickly install it with apt-get. If you don't mind using a terminal, try 'apt-cache search'.