if your use kubuntu 8.04 ( Ubuntu with the KDE Desktop) Environments this guide is perfect for your. introduces you to all you need to know to have a perfect desktop.
http://www.howtoforge.com/the-perfect-desktop-kubuntu-8.04-lts

If your are running Ubuntu 8.04 ( Ubuntu with the Gnome Desktop Environments)
http://www.howtoforge.com/the-perfect-desktop-ubuntu-8.04-lts-hardy-heron

For more Ubuntu guide you can check out the following sites.

http://www.howtoforge.com/howtos/linux/ubuntu

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/

http://www.ubuntu-unleashed.com/

Happy Hacking

Yes i admit that things has been quite here for a while. Not because we have abandon the Ubuntu Nigeria project. yes we have been busy with other aspect of our lives but we are still working on bringing the virtue of free and open source software to Nigerians. My biggest challenge is the lack of internet connections in many Nigerian homes which makes it difficult to use a free OS like Ubuntu to its full potentials. To get round this problem. i made some package cd media which contain most softwares that any one would need to have a reasonable experience on Ubuntu. I used aptoncd. a tool for creating repositories on dvds and cds. i was able to make 4 cd media packaged with the best applications that free software has to offer for everyday use. I decided to base the packages on Ubuntu hardy heron and linux mint 5 because their much more stable compared to current offers and are also LTS which means it would be supported for a longer period.

I have been getting lots of calls asking me to send copies of ubuntu cds to them. although i try to send once in a while. it has become overwhelming and i can longer cope with the numbers. hence am proposing that if you need a copy of the freedom package which include an ubuntu 8.04 (of any favour you indicate -kubuntu -ubuntu -or xubuntu or linux mint) just send 3 empty cds and and one empty dvd with a return address plus a note indicating which flavor of Ubuntu or linux mint would would like. you can send your request to
African University of Science and Technology
P.M.B 681,
Garki,
Abuja F.C.T,
Nigeria.

This way we all share the burden Together open source style

Two days from now i should be  in Lagos. and with no Internet plan at home, my best bet is to buy a 3G express card which would allow me to be connected during the festive period. I settled for the starcomms 3G service which is called Izap. and hope to pick up their Merlin X720 3G ExpressCard . I friend of mine confirms that it does work fine on Ubuntu. we were able to get it working on his ubuntu laptop by following this guide. http://www4.sprint.com/pcsbusiness/downloads/Sprint_Mobile_Broadband_Setup_Guide.pdf . you have to be sure to follow every step. for it to work. It a breath of fresh air to see a company openly supporting Linux in this way. even though setting up on Linux is not as easy as it is on windows. At least they released a guide on how to get their product working on Linux. which for me is better than groping in the dark.

For many moons ever since i started using Linux i have always wanted an easy way to share my internet connections between two computers. anyway i finally found a way to get it to work. Now i can share internet connection between my work laptop and my personally laptop.

Please while it might be possible on some other laptops. my laptop came with the PRO/Wireless 3945ABG and its impossible to share my internet over wireless because the current driver for my device doesnt support master mode which is what is needed for this to be possible. But with this guide it would be possible to share intenet via Lan. so if you get your intenet connection over wlan or a 3g modem or anything modem. it would be possible to share that same internet over Lan. Note if you got your wifi to work through ndiswrapper then we are also in the same shoes and sharing via wifi wont work. Infact this post is not about sharing your internet via wifi period.

Ok enough talk. To get started we would need tool packages. Firestarter and dhcp both can be installed with this command

sudo apt-get install firestarter dhcp3-server

Next we need to configure the internal Network Card that other computers get their internet from. In my case since the shaing computer gets internet from Wifi my internal network card (i.e the card other computers would be getting their internet from) would be eth0. we need to configure the card and assign a static IP address in a range that you will use for your internal network card. so rightclick on the Network manager applet and select edit

click the wired tab and select Auto eth0 (or the card of the particular card you want to coonfigure as the sharing interface) and click edit.

now select IPv4 Settings and choose Manual. now Add

and set it up to your preference. for example i set like this IP address to 192.168.0.1, and the subnet mask to 255.255.255.0. Leave the gateway empty.

Now we need to fix a problem where firestarter cannot locate the DHCP daemon script

so we open a terminal and run this command

sudo ln -sf /etc/init.d/dhcp3-server /etc/init.d/dhcpd

Next we configure the interface that DCHP will be listening to.

To do this we need to edit this file /etc/default/dhcp3-server

gksu gedit /etc/default/dhcp3-server

only variable in there by default is “INTERFACES”, which will have a null value. Set it to your internal network interface. For example:

# Defaults for dhcp initscript
# sourced by /etc/init.d/dhcp
# installed at /etc/default/dhcp3-server by the maintainer scripts

#
# This is a POSIX shell fragment
#

# On what interfaces should the DHCP server (dhcpd) serve DHCP requests?
# Separate multiple interfaces with spaces, e.g. “eth0 eth1″.
INTERFACES=”eth0″

save and exit

Now we run Firestarter Applications/Internet/Firestarter

A wizard should appear Select your Detected Device (Internet-connected) if your sharing computer gets its Internet via wifi then your external device would mostly be wlan0. if you are connected via a modem then it would be ppp0 device when it asks, and make sure to specify whether or not the address is obtained via DHCP. Click the “Forward” button, check the “Enable Internet connection sharing” box, select your internal network card,”Start firewall now” box, Then click on Preference and and Network settings.

“Enable DHCP for local network”. Drop down the “DHCP server details” and enter the range of IPs you would like for it to dynamically assign. Make sure they are in the same range as the static IP you set for your internal network card. You can leave the DNS field as “” Click “Forward”, check the “Start firewall now” box, and click “Save”.

“Enable DHCP for local network”. Drop down the “DHCP server details” and enter the range of IPs you would like for it to dynamically assign. Make sure they are in the same range as the static IP you set for your internal network card. You can leave the DNS field as “” Click “Forward”, check the “Start firewall now” box, and click “Save”.

At this stage am able to ping the from the other computer but am unable to access the internet. to fix this we need to add “net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1″ to /etc/sysctl.conf

to /etc/sysctl.conf

so
gksu gedit /etc/sysctl.conf

and add this at the bottom

net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1
save and close.

now if all goes well you will be able to share your Internet to another laptop or computer. hope this helps some body

Multimedia

Ubuntu is very rich when it comes to playing multimedia formats like Videos ,Music ,Photo Editing,Video Editing etc .The default Music player for Ubuntu is Rhythmbox Music player for playing Videos the default is Movie Player .. But You would find some other cool Multimedia programs like Banshee,Amarok,VLC etc.

Multimedia Codecs

But before i start introducing some of the cool multimedia tools available for the Ubuntu Linux Desktop lets start by first installing important codecs that would make it possible to play many of the popular Multimedia formats on our Linux box. ( Ubuntu Ships with only free and open source software. hence some popular formats like mp3,avi,mp4 wont work out of the box. because their are not free and open source format. but you are allowed to always install the codecs to play these extra formats.)

In other to make the process easy and because we would be installing a large number of packages its better to use the commandline. dont worry all you have to do is open terminal (Application/Accessories,Terminal) and copy and paste the commands enter and wait till you are returned to your prompt.

First we enable the Medibuntu Repositories because its contains some important codecs which we would need to play DVDs

Hardy Heron

echo 'deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ hardy free non-free' | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list

Intrepid Ibex


echo 'deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ intrepid free non-free' | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list

Then you have to add the GPG Key to authenticate the packages
In a terminal type:

wget -q http://packages.medibuntu.org/medibuntu-key.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add - && sudo apt-get update

Once done we would now need to install the multimedia codecs

Download the DVDs playback packages
In a terminal type:

sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2 libdvdread3

Now to install the rest of the codec packages including Win32 packages and FFMPEG for audio and video encoding

sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg libxine1-ffmpeg libdvdread3 w32codecs ffmpeg

Now we have all the Codecs we would need to play most popular medias on Your Ubuntu.

Let me give you a brife introduction to some of the cool Multimedia Tools available on the Linux Desktop

Music Player.

They are like a bigilion of Music players for linux all have their plus and minuses. By default Ubuntu comes with Rhythmbox which is a very simple and stable music player.There is also Amarok which is the must feature filled music player in the world but its not known for its stability. Personally i prefer Banshee so that is what i will talk about

- Banshee

Banshee has been under the shadow of amarok and Rhythmbox for a long time. not anymore. ever since the project went 1.x its been redesigned and in my opinion the best music player there is now for linux. here are some of its features.

* Video Support Video
All the power of Banshee, now for your videos

* Device Support Device Support
Sync your music and videos to your G1, iPod, or other device

* Podcast Support Podcast Support
Download or stream podcasts and video podcasts

* Last.fm Streaming Radio Last.fm Streaming Radio
Listen to favorites and discover new music with free, streaming music from Last.fm

* Play Queue Play QueueNew!
Queue up songs, videos, and podcasts on the fly

* Album Art Album Art
Artwork is automatically fetched as you listen

* Artist/Album Browser Artist/Album BrowserNew!
Filter your library or playlist by selecting artists or albums

* Powerful Search, Smart Playlists Powerful Search, Smart Playlists
Find exactly what you want, fast

Installation

Although banshee is in the Ubuntu repositories. the version there is old. to get the latest version you have to add this to your sources.list.

Intrepid-Ibex
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/banshee-team/ubuntu intrepid main

Hardy Heron
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/banshee-team/ubuntu hardy main

once added. you can install via terminal
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install banshee

or via synaptic by searching for banshee and installing it

Video Player

There are also quite a handful of Video players available for linux. by default ubuntu ships with Totem. which is cool and gets the job done. but i prefer VLC which is a no nonsense video player that just about plays any file i throw at it.

- VLC

Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex 8.10,
Ubuntu Hardy Heron LTS 8.04

Open Synaptic (System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager). In Settings -> Repositories, make sure you have a “multiverse” repository activated.

Search for vlc and install it. You should also install vlc-plugin-esd, mozilla-plugin-vlc (and libdvdcss2).

or from commandline

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install vlc vlc-plugin-esd mozilla-plugin-vlc

Audio Editing

I don’t do much audio editing. just the basic editing to allow me get by. fortunately most average Desktop users are like me. There are quite a large number of tools that can me used for audio editing on Ubuntu here are some popular ones.

– Audacity

Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. You can use Audacity to:

* Record live audio.
* Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.
* Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files.
* Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together.
* Change the speed or pitch of a recording.

Installation
Audacity is in the Ubuntu Repository and can be downloaded via synaptic
System/Administration/Synaptic and search for Audacity

or from terminal

sudo apt-get install audacity

– Sound Converter

This is perhaps the simplest audio converting tool in the world. It very easy to you and just gets the job done. It reads anything the GStreamer library can read (Ogg Vorbis, AAC, MP3, FLAC, WAV, AVI, MPEG, MOV, M4A, AC3, DTS, ALAC, MPC, Shorten, APE, SID, etc…), and writes WAV, FLAC, MP3, AAC, and Ogg Vorbis files.

Installation

Open synaptic and search for soundconverter

Terminal
sudo apt-get install soundconverter

NB If you are using kde Desktop its soundkonverter

– Mp3Splt

I think the name of this app is self explanatory its an utility to split mp3 and ogg files selecting a begin and an end time position, without decoding. It’s very useful to split large mp3/ogg to make smaller files or to split entire albums to obtain original tracks

Installation

Mp3Splt the deb packages can be downloaded from here http://www.getdeb.net/app/Mp3splt double click to install

Video Editing

Video Encoders
Unfortunately this is an area that is still young in Linux. Although there some cools tools that can be used for video editing like Kino,Avidemux,Pitivi,Kdenlive (all in the repositories and can be installed from synaptic) however must are basic tools for simple video editing.

– Kdenlive

Project is quite cool but its crashes a lot (at least from my experience) although there is a new release in the horizon that looks quite promising however as at the time of writing this there is yet to be an Ubuntu package. the older out dated version is in the Ubuntu repository but there are binaries for other versions of Linux can be downloaded here http://www.kdenlive.org/user-manual/downloading-and-installing-packages . and can be installed from synaptic (although i do not recommend it because of its frequent crashes)

– The kdenlive 0.7
Video Editors Unfortunately this is an area that is still young in Linux. Although there some cools tools that can be used for video editing like Kino,Avidemux,Pitivi,Kdenlive (all in the repositories and can be installed from synaptic) however must are basic tools for simple video editing. Kdenlive Project is quite cool but its crashes a lot (at least from my experience) although there is a new release in the horizon that looks quite promising however as at the time of writing this there is yet to be an Ubuntu package. the older out dated version is in the Ubuntu repository but there are binaries for other versions of Linux can be downloaded here http://www.kdenlive.org/user-manual/downloading-and-installing-packages . and can be installed from synaptic (although i do not recommend it because of its frequent crashes)

The Latest kdenlive 0.7

Video Encoding

Once in a while we are always faced with the need to encode video from from format to another. maybe for our ipods or mobile phone . Linux has quite a handful of tools that can be used for video encoding.There is Avidemux which is in the repository and can be installed from synaptic. Cool tool that can be used for everyday audio encoding is WinFF

– WinFF

WinFF is a GUI for the command line video converter, FFMPEG (FFmpeg is a powerful Free and Open source program that can record, convert and stream digital audio and video in numerous formats. It is commandline based). It will convert most any video file that FFmpeg will convert. WinFF does multiple files in multiple formats at one time. You can for example convert mpeg’s, flv’s, and mov’s, all into avi’s all at once. WinFF is available for Windows 95, 98 , ME, NT, XP, VISTA, and Debian, Ubuntu, Redhat based GNU/Linux distributions. WinFF is available in Brazillian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Chinese Traditional, Danish, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Turkish.

Installation

Ubuntu

you need to add a third party repository to your sources.list.
First we had a verification key. open terminal and copy and paste this

wget --quiet --output-document=- "http://winff.org/ubuntu/AAFE086A.gpg" | sudo apt-key add -

Then we had the repo to your sources

Intrepid Ibex
echo "deb http://winff.org/ubuntu intrepid universe" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winff.list

Hardy Heron
echo "deb http://winff.org/ubuntu hardy universe" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winff.list

Then we install with this command

Intrepid ibex
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install winff && libavcodec-unstripped-51

Hardy Heron
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install winff

*Make sure that you have the medibuntu repository enabled this has been discussed in an earlier guide

You can read more about winff installation here http://code.google.com/p/winff/wiki/UbuntuInstallation

For windows and other Linux Distribution
http://code.google.com/p/winff/downloads/list

DVD Ripping

They are quite a handful of tools that can be used for Ripping dvds videos from the Disk to your computer. however there are two tools that i find very easy to use and very stable to use. one is more of a DVD backup utility the other is a tool for converters DVD videos to other format.

– K9Copy

K9Copy is a program that allows you to copy DVDs in Linux. It is similar to DVDShrink, and has the following features:

* The video stream is compressed to make the video fit on a 4.7GB recordable DVD
* DVD Burning
* Creation of ISO images
* Choosing which audio and subtitle tracks are copied.
* Title preview (video only)
* The ability to preserve the original menus.

* You can read more about K9Copy here

Installation

From Terminal
sudo apt-get install k9copy

GUI
open synaptic and search for k9copy install from there

– Handbreak

HandBrake is a software application that can convert MPEG video (including DVD-Video) into a MPEG-4 video file in .mp4, .avi, .ogm, or .mkv containers.

Handbreak supports the following input files
* Any DVD-like source: VIDEO_TS folder,
* DVD image or real DVD,
* some .VOB and .TS files

Outputs:

* File format: MP4, MKV, AVI or OGM
* Video: MPEG-4, H.264, or Theora (1 or 2 passes or constant quantizer/rate encoding)
* Audio: AAC, MP3, Vorbis or AC-3 pass-through (supports encoding of several audio tracks)

Installation
A deb package can be downloaded from here
Download the Ubuntu package. Double click to install

DVD Authoring

Devede

there are quite a number of tools that can me used to make dvd/vcd videos for home use. out of the lots the best in my opinion is devede. its very easy to use and intuitive. DeVeDe project creates video DVDs, suitables for home players.
DeVeDe can create video DVDs from any number of video files, in any of the formats supported by Mplayer.

The big advantage over other utilites is that it only needs Mplayer, Mencoder, DVDAuthor y MKisofs, so its dependencies are really small.

Devede

Installation

The latest Version of Devede (At blogtime) is available in the in the Intrepid repository so if you are in Ibex just do
sudo apt-get install devede

devede is also available in the Hardy Repo but am not sure if its the latest one. in any case you can download the latest version here
http://www.getdeb.net/app/DeVeDe

Thats it. while most of the tools i have writting about are tools that i use. and are not a reflection of what is best (which is actually subjectives really) Hope this helps some body.

Zimbra is a Web Client is a full-featured collaboration suite that supports email and group calendars using an Ajax web interface that enables tool tips, draggable items, and right-click menus in the UI. Also included are advanced searching capabilities and date relations. Online document authoring, “Zimlet” mashups and a full administration UI are also included. It is written using the Zimbra Ajax Toolkit.

It exposes a SOAP application programming interface to all its functionality and also is an IMAP and POP3 server. The server runs on many distributions of Linux as well as on Mac OS X.

ZCS is compatible with proprietary clients such as Microsoft Outlook and Apple Mail, both through proprietary connectors, as well as the open-source Novell Evolution, so that mail, contacts, and calendar items can be synchronised from these to the ZCS server. Zimbra also provides native two-way sync to many mobile devices (Nokia Eseries, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, iPhone with 2.0 software).

source: wikipedia

One thing i love about gmail is its free pop mail service that allows me to use a mail client like Thunderbird to receive and send my emails. However i have an old yahoo account which i still maintain for old contacts sake and it is usually a pain to have to do the traditional web browser thingie just to check my emails.

Along came a Zimbra

Then i stumbled upon zimbra (no pun intended) and my life has been easier. with it i can check my yahoomail without opening Firefox and although its not as integrated has Thunderbird and evolution it still does the job for me.

Installation

Dead easy just make sure that you enble the partner repository by going to System/Administration/Software Sources then go to the Thirdparty Software Tab and Tick/Check the http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ hardy partner repositories.

when you are done close the the software tool. it would prompt you to reload.do what it says. when you are done. open synatic System/Administration/Synaptic, search for Zimbra right click,install and apply. once installed you will find the program under Application/Internet/Zimbra Desktop Installer . From there its easy just follow the prompt. and provide what ever information its asks email,name etc. when it prompt you if you want an icon on your desktop say yes. once installation is complete. it would sync with your yahoo mail and download all your mails into the program which can be lunched by double clicking its icon on your desktop.

NB this was tested on Ubuntu Hardy Heron. am quite confident that it should work with latter versions of ubuntu. i cant however guarantee or conform if it would work on older ubuntu releases .

I was going to write a guide on how you can pimp up your ubuntu to give it blings and make it look sexy. then i can across a well written detailed guide on one .hence in other not to reinvent the wheel i decided to just post the linky to it

enjoy

http://linuxowns.wordpress.com/2008/06/16/guide-to-customizing-ubuntus-look-and-feel/

I was giving a new laptop at work some weeks back so i decided to try another Linux distro on it .i use Ubuntu hardy heron on my home computer so i wanted something different on the work computer. my choice wasn’t too difficult because i have been hearing a lot of cool things about some Mint Linux which was suppose to be based on Ubuntu but comes preinstalled with a lot of things i user would have to install by hand on Ubuntu . so i stayed at office late into the night . went to www.linuxmint.com. downloaded it and installed it on my work laptop. It was to be the best decision i have ever made since switching to Linux . Some have called it Ubuntu made right. and its not had to see why,must of the things that i have personally wanted to have on Ubuntu out of the box came out of the box with MInt. Multimedia Codecs,Thunderbird mail clients,and a cool mint menu which some  legend says vista ripped off Mint . other cool things about mint is its simplicity for example i love the fact that you could uninstall a program just by right clicking it on the menu and choose uninstall . ndiswrapper is installed by default for those whose wireless card depend on it to work . that is one less thing to worry about.

Overall Mint is still very much like Ubuntu its 100% compatible with any application that works with Ubuntu and because mint is based on Ubuntu .every mint release is based on the most recent Ubuntu release . the latest version is Elyssa which is based on Ubuntu Hardy Heron . and yes it uses Ubuntu repository in combination with Mint’s own repository . i personally would recommend Mints to new users who wants to try Linux for the first time. it would be a pleasant experience

This is is an attempt to bring some of the basics of Ubuntu desktop to a user completely new to Ubuntu Linux. I ‘ll try to introduce some of the basic software which you might need in other to have a an enjoyable Desktop experience with Ubuntu.

Please note: Every thing in this guide was done using the 32bit version of Ubuntu, not the 64bit version. Most of the things in this guide should work on the 64bit version, but I can’t guarantee it. (it doesn’t really matter if you don’t know what this means)

Also I have a limited experience with some set of hardware drivers like some versions of ATI and Nvidia cards, Broadcom and  Antheros Wlan card and lots of other hardware. my knowledge has been limited somewhat to what I have been exposed to since using Ubuntu. but I will try to give a general Guide that would also help those using other version of Ubuntu like Kubuntu which uses the

KDE Desktop, and Xubuntu which uses the Xfce Desktop  environment.etc.
The System I will be using for my guide is a Sony Vaio FZ 21e. and I would be using the Gnome Desktop which is what comes by default with Ubuntu.

You will almost certainly need to have a good Internet connection so that you can download those extra packages ( software – drivers ) that are needed to have an awesome experience with Ubuntu. If You don’t have an Internet connection. Don’t feel bad I have made a DVD which contains some Basic packages you might want like Multimedia codecs (you need these for watching movies and listening to music),some cool open source Applications for Video and Audio Editing, some packages you might want to install to your system Plus some Vital Kernel updates. The DVD is currently available in Lagos but we Hope to Distribute it to some our members in other part of Nigeria (we currently have members in Lagos, Ogun State, Enugu  Ibadan, Abuja and Makrudi.

If you would like a copy of the DVD please call me at 08022982697 or you can send me an email .. bigbrovar@gmail.com

Things You Should Know About in Ubuntu.

Synaptic package manager

Synaptic package manager is an advanced package management application that can install and remove every package available to your system. The interface is graphical like Add/Remove tool  on windows, but it presents much more information and gives you complete control over the software on your computer.
To launch Synaptic, to go System ▸ Administration ▸ Synaptic Package Manager.
You need administrative access to use Synaptic – which generally means that you will need to type in your password. (The one you set when you installed. Ubuntu.)

*** Most Applications in Linux are referred to  as Packages ***

To Install a package in Ubuntu all you have to do is click on it, and click mark for installation. That is easy enough, but what if you don’t know the name of the package you want to install? Well, synaptic has a search feature as well, all you have to do is click on search, (or press ctrl+f) and enter the package name or a short search term. You can also search for packages by description (for example, you can find all packages mentioning “Music” or “Video Codecs”).

Use the categories on the left to filter the list of packages. To return to the list of categories after doing a search, click Sections.

To install a package, click the box next to it and choose Mark for installation. If you change your mind, choose Unmark.

To remove a package that is already installed, choose Mark for Removal.

When you have finished, click Apply and Ubuntu will download and install any packages you marked for installation, and remove any you marked for removal. If you have changed your mind, and you don’t want to make any changes, close the window instead.

However Synaptic is more than a tool for installing or removing applications.

Synaptic Package Manager can do all of the following things:

- Install, remove, configure, upgrade and downgrade single and multiple packages.
- Upgrade your whole system. (Upgrade to a new version of Ubuntu, this is like going from XP to Vista, except that new versions are better than the old ones )
- Manage package repositories.
- Search packages by name, description and several other attributes.
- Select packages by status, section, name or a custom filter.
- Sort packages by name, status, size or version.

What Else you should know about Synaptic.

Synaptic download packages (software) from so called repositories or repo for short . a repo is like the Link to an on-line Packages Database or CD/DVD where a package can be downloaded.  for example  if windows worked like Linux then you would be able to add a link from adobe into your add and remove tool in windows so that when you open it and refresh  you would see all adobe applications in your add and remove tool and you can easily install any of them by just right clicking and installing . wouldn’t it be cool if windows came with a tool like that. well it doesn’t – that in a way is how synaptic works on Ubuntu. there is what is called a source list which contains links to where all the packages for Ubuntu can be downloaded .. you can add more source lists to Ubuntu and a source.list can be a CD/DVD or a web-link… the important thing to know is that synaptic downloads packages from repositories using the link provided in the source lists.

When you first install Your system the First thing you do is go to synaptic click reload which would then allow it to refresh and sort of sync with the all the repositories in the source list for updates.. Where there is an update you should see a notification icon on your panel. click on it and all the updates would be displayed

Terminal

The terminal is just like the command prompt in windows, only that this one is much more powerful.

Linux is basically a command based Operating System , But a GUI (graphical user interface) was written to make.It is quite possible to use Ubuntu without ever resulting to command .. I can say that almost every terminal command has a GUI equivalent. However should any one like me want to use the command line then that is what the terminal is for .. its an emulator for the real Command line which the GUI is sitting on. note : although almost every command based application as a GUI equivalent.. the real power of Linux can  better be can be seen through the command line,hence in some instances I prefer to use the terminal especially when trouble shooting a problem or trying to fix one. The Terminal can be found in Applications/Accessories/Terminal.

Multimedia
Ubuntu is very rich when it comes to playing multimedia formats like Videos ,Music ,Photo Editing,Video Editing etc .The default Music player for Ubuntu is Rhythmbox Music player  for playing Videos the default is Movie Player .. But You would find some other cool Multimedia programs like Banshee,Amarok,VLC etc.

You can get them by either opening a terminal and typing

sudo apt-get install banshee

to get banshee.

sudo apt-get install amarok

to get amarok

sudo apt-get install vlc

to get vlc

(you could open synaptic package manager, and then manually search for these packages, click them, click apply, and wait for it to install the programs, but this is much faster, and that is why some people use the terminal)

Pidgin
Pidgin is a very simple Messenger Client for Linux . supports , yahoo Messenger ,MSN,Google Talk,IRC, AIM, MySpaceIM and a host of others. Its Support multiple accounts being logged in at once and has a wide range of plug-ins  Pidgin can be found Under Applications/Internet/Pidgin

OpenOffice.org
Openoffice is a  comprehensive  suite that provides a near drop-in replacement for Microsoft(R) Office. it comes with

* openoffice.org-writer: Word processor (this is like microsoft word)
* openoffice.org-calc: Spreadsheet (this is like microsoft exel)
* openoffice.org-impress: Presentation (this is like microsoft power point)
* openoffice.org-draw: Drawing
* openoffice.org-base: Database (this is like microsof access)

It support Microsoft Office formats (.doc .ppt etc) and has the ability to save Documents in these formats, as well as saving as PDF’s.

Openoffice.org can be found in Applications/Office/

Brasero
Brasero is a CD/DVD burning Utility for gnome it very easy to use and with it you can
* Burn, Copy and Erase CD/DVD
* On-the-fly burning of CD/DVD
* Append data to multisession CD/DVD
* Burn Audio CD
* CD-Text writing for Audio CD

Brasero can be found in Application/Sound & Video/Brasero

Getting Started With Ubuntu

Now i can assume that you are now familiar with some of the cool tools that comes pre-installed with Ubuntu out of the box. Ubuntu only ships with Free software

***free here don’t mean price.. it means the application is open source and does not restrict the end user in any way**

However, you might need some non-free or closed source software in order to have an awesome desktop experience on Ubuntu. Some of this packages include Multimedia codecs (mp3,avi,mp4 etc) drivers (Nvidia,ATI) Runtime (java) hence we are going to get about installing this extra packages on Ubuntu

Multimedia

Out of the box Ubuntu can play free media codecs like ogg, oggtheora, etc. for you to get it to play mp3,wmv,avi and other non-free media you have to install extra codec.To make our Job easy we would have to do some of the installations through terminal.. yeah! i know we can always use synaptic. but over time i have come to realize that some installation are easier when done from the command-line especially when installation of multiples packages are involved… don’t worry all you have to do is copy and paste the command into terminal and hit enter .. yeah its that easy

*** Most Gui tool in Linux is actually a front end to a Command-line version .. hence Synaptic is a front-end for a tool called apt-get which is used for installing  packages .. to install using apt-get all you have to do is type   sudo apt-get install package name (-package name should be replaced with the name of the package u want to install).. To uninstall its sudo apt-get remove package name u can learn more about installing packages on Ubuntu http://monkeyblog.org/ubuntu/installing/ ***

Lets get to work )

open Terminal and run this

sudo apt-get update

this would check for updates on your system when you are done you will be returned to your prompt

then run this

sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse
gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg libxine1-ffmpeg libdvdread3

hit enter when you are done run this

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

Now you have  most of the codecs needed to play most of multimedia you may own.

Installing DVD Support

At the terminal, type (you can copy and paste)

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Αnd paste at the buttom of the text file the below:

## Medibuntu – Ubuntu 8.04 “hardy”
## Please report any bug on https://bugs.launchpad.net/medibuntu/
deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ hardy free non-free

save the document and close it and then in the terminal type:

wget -q http://packages.medibuntu.org/medibuntu-key.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

in order to receive the appropriate key.

Finally, at the terminal, type:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2 w32codecs

*** if all the commands freaks you out alternatively go to System–>Administration–>Software Sources click on the third-party software tab and add

deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ hardy free non-free

reload .. when you are done open synaptic and search for libdvdcss2 and w32codec, Check the box next to the software.
# Click the “Apply” button.
# It will show you a list of the software packages that it will install. Click OK.

Nvidia and ATI Driver

Ubuntu ships with the open source driver for ATI and Nvidia however they don’t have support for 3d acceleration .. to get this you have to install the closed source driver provided by both and Nvidia and ATI respectively

Navigate to:

System –> Administration –> Hardware Drivers

and there you’ll see your Graphics Card and an option for installation of its drivers.

Choose it and the press “Apply”. It shall install the  driver – a reboot may be required.

(Applicable for both ATI/AMD and Nvidia)

You will need to do this if you have an NVIDA, ATI or many other brands of graphics card, This will then give you 3D acceleration, enabeling you to use your hardware to its full potential for things like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTOSDkRV_AM

and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QyyC4LRoYI

Java

Lots of things depend on you having some Java stuff, so in order to use those things, you will need to

Open Terminal and run this

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin sun-java6-fonts
* During the installation you would be asked to agree to the java end user agreement .

alternatively you can open Add and remove Under Applications/Add and Remove .. Set it to all Available applications .. then type Java on the search field amongst the search results you would see  Sun Java 6 Runtime and Sun Java 6.0 Plugin check both and and apply changes

*** The add and Remove is a package Manager Just like synaptic.. although its much more user friendly making it easy to search for and install packages.. but it is less powerful and can not be used to replace synaptic as a package manager.***

-Now Let me take you through some of the cool  software available on Ubuntu Which you might want to install on your system-

P2P

If you are quite a lot of Peer2peer programs that are available on Ubuntu here are just a few of them

- Deluge

Deluge is a full-featured BitTorrent client for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. Deluge features a rich plugin collection; in fact, most of Deluge’s functionality is available in the form of plugins.
Deluge was created with the intention of being lightweight and unobtrusive. Deluge is not designed for any one desktop environment and will work just fine in GNOME, KDE, XFCE and others.Deluge is Free Software and is licensed under the GNU General Public License. Deluge has a wide-array of features, including:

* Web UI
* BitTorrent Protocol Encryption
* Mainline DHT
* Local Peer Discovery (aka LSD)
* FAST protocol extension
* µTorrent Peer Exchange
* UPnP and NAT-PMP
* Proxy support
* Web seed
* Private Torrents
* Global and per-torrent speed limits
* Configurable bandwidth scheduler
* Password protection
* RSS
* And much more!

Deluge is in the Ubuntu repository (meaning you can install it through synaptic or add and remove) although the one there is old you can get the latest version here http://deluge-torrent.org/downloads.php

KTorrent

KTorrent is a BitTorrent program for KDE. Its features include speed capping (both down and up), integrated searching, UDP tracker support, preview of certain file types (video and audio) and integration into the KDE Panel enabling background downloading.although it meant for the KDE Desktop Environments . It works quite well under the gnome Desktop. and its quite fast. its actually my favorite P2P due to its speed and stability.

Frostwire

If you ever used a program on windows called limewire .. well this is the open source version of limewire.. whats more .. its faster and more stable than the limewire ..some of its features include:
BitTorrent Support

Turbo-Charged Download Speeds

Absolutely NO Spyware or Adware

Connects to more sources

Creative Commons license support

Max. speed network connections

Junk Result Filters

Community Chat Rooms

Firewall-to-firewall transfers

Proxy Support

I hope this guide was useful to you, and that you have a great time with UBUNTU

(this guide is a work in progress, and was edited by Harry Allington http://mynameistux.blogspot.com/ He is known as barbedsaber on the ubuntu forums, and is known as mynameistux everywhere else on the internet)

The latest installment of the ubuntu success story is now here in Nigeria.. for those who dont have poor or no internet connection at all .. you can get in touch with the following ubuntu nigeria members on how u can get your oown copy

Lagos-Bigbrovar 08022982697

Abuja-Ralph 08033735087

Ibadan-Afolabi 08025426934

Ogun State-Esquire 0802882963

If you have a good internet connection u can download Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon from here http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

Major additions in Gibson include:

Hardware management improvements with improved plug-and-play configuration for printers, as well as automatic firmware installation for Broadcom cards
Improved support for display systems – For laptop users, full support external VGA (projector) support is available out-of-the-box with easy reconfiguration when hardware is switched. For power users this release includes the ability to manage multiple monitors
Windows compatibility – Users with a dual partition can read from and and write to files that are on located in a Windows partition (including NTFS)
Enhanced user interface – Simple 3D screen effects and graphics to enhance the user experience
Desktop search – gives users the ability to search their entire desktop, whether for files, folders, chat logs or photos. This capability includes the deskbar applet, a central location on users’ desktops for all local and web search operations
Firefox plugins – automatic installation of popular Firefox plugins validated by Ubuntu.