Fresh Ubuntu Install, What Now?

[jack9800XT]

Alright, so I am a first time linux user. By this I mean I have never even seen a linux machine before. I figured I would give it a whirl to expand my technical knowledge yada yada and to try something new.

I have a clean install of ubuntu 5.10 (gnome) up and working great, as a matter of fact that is what I am typing this on now.

This is all great but now I have no idea what to do. I want to customize and add some of those neat widgets that I see in screen shots that display things like cpu useage etc. What other programs do I need? Could you guys give me some essential software I need? What are some neat things I could do with this new linux box?

*Also, I am still not even sure how I would go about installing a program

 

[BillLeeLee]

Hmm...

Start here:
http://help.ubuntu.com/starterguide/C/faqguide-all.html

If you want some neat desktop widgets, look into gDesklets if you're using Gnome. I'm sure there's a package for it in the Ubuntu repositories.

Want to install something? Learn about APT
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/index.en.html

Or to make it easier, use Synaptic
http://help.ubuntu.com/starterguide/C/faqguide-all.html#synaptic-whatis

Software you need? Well, I don't know what you do, so here are some basics I'm quoting from another one of my posts.

Internet browser - Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla, Opera
Instant Messenging Client - Gaim is the most popular. KDE has kopete. Both support multiple protocols.
Text editor - tons out there. vim, scite, emacs, jEdit, nano, pico.
Image manipulation - GIMP 2.0. I don't think it's at the level of Photoshop, but it's still very powerful.
Music Player - xmms is closest to winamp 2.x. Rhythmbox is like an iTunes clone with lower resource usage.
Email Client - silpheed, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Ximian.
Office app - Openoffice 2.0 - getting better and closer to Microsoft Office every release

Now as to things you can do with Linux? Well, I don't know. I program and run servers under Linux systems. Really something for you to decide.

 

[jack9800XT]

Wow, you answered alot of my questions. When viewing such monumental amounts of documentation sometimes it is difficult to know where to start.

Would I get better performance if I used a more minimalist windows manager like fluxbox? The performance in gnome is pretty good but would like it to be a tad bit snappyer.

*EDIT - is it a security risk to run synaptic (where you have to imput your password) while doing something like surfing the web, etc?

 

[MorfiusX]

Wow, you answered alot of my questions. When viewing such monumental amounts of documentation sometimes it is difficult to know where to start.

Would I get better performance if I used a more minimalist windows manager like fluxbox? The performance in gnome is pretty good but would like it to be a tad bit snappyer.

*EDIT - is it a security risk to run synaptic (where you have to imput your password) while doing something like surfing the web, etc?

A lightweight window manager will generally be faster than a full desktop environment like Gnome or KDE. Each scenario has its strengths and weaknesses.

 

[BillLeeLee]

No, it's not a security risk to run Synaptic while browsing the net.

Blatantly insecure is running Bitch-X IRC client as root.

And I do agree, if you want snappier, look into the minimalist window managers like Fluxbox, Sawfish, FWWM, Waimea, Enlightenment, or my personal fave, Openbox. You do trade off things like integration such that you would get in Gnome or KDE.

If you want a desktop environment like KDE or Gnome, there is also XFCE. There's a Xubuntu metapackage you can install in Ubuntu 5.10, which is XFCE integrated with Ubuntu tools.