Ubuntu Maverick Post-install Guide is late, but on the way.

I've felt bad about not having the post-install guide ready really early on, so i decided to not post anything until i do. It turns out this is an ineffective technique for pressuring myself into getting things done. I've done the same thing with the Noam Chomsky interview which should've been posted 9 months ago, but a tiny little bug in PiTiVi has been blocking me, and i'm just about ready to throw money i don't have at someone to fix it. Anyway.

What should you do if you're looking for the new post-install guide? Use the last one. It hasn't been completely obsoleted by the new version of Ubuntu! 

But why is it so late?

• Lame reasons: 
• Because i've been busy. I'm just finishing up two computer science classes at Harvard Extension (one of which was not only the "intensive" version, but also a prerequisite of the other). 
• These guides are a ton of work. I have to go through an installation of Ubuntu from scratch, test a ton of software, take and edit screenshots, and write up the whole guide.
• Better reasons:
• The list of software i'll be featuring has probably doubled in size, maybe more, and that doesn't include the many new apps i try but decide not to feature. So, hopefully all the new stuff will make up for it's lateness!
• It can take a bit of time for PPA's and other repositories to catch up to the latest version of Ubuntu. There's lots of cool new software and i'm still finding out about more! Surely you'd want me to be able to provide you the repos for them, wouldn't you?
• I was hoping to make the new guide available in nice downloadable formats, and allow for nice typesetting (which is not my area of expertise). This should also make the work of translators much easier.

So, how much is done, and more importantly, how long do we have to wait? A lot has been done, but there's still lots to do. I'd estimate having about half the work done at this point. Half the software tested and screenshots taken, and most of the guide written. After those are all done, i still have to edit, format, add links, and do all the things i'm surely forgetting. I really don't know how long it will take, and i can't make a promise. A rough estimate is two months, and i will aim for less than one month, but there's a lot of others things i need to worry about!

All new videos uploaded to YouTube in WebM will be viewable in WebM

YouTube has slowly but surely been expanding the availability of WebM in their HTML 5 open video beta, but uploaders have so far had no control over whether their videos would be available in a free format. Videos deemed popular enough by Google would be made available in WebM, but other than that, only videos which happened to be HD (720p or greater) would definitely be viewable in WebM. Scaling up the resolution of a video was simply not an acceptable workaround. Back in June, i posted to the WebM Discussion list suggesting that all videos uploaded in WebM be made available in WebM, regardless of resolution or popularity.

Things got pushed back a few times, but now, as announced in a new thread, all new videos uploaded to YouTube in WebM will be available in WebM, finally giving uploaders the ability to make sure their videos can be viewed in a free format using HTML5. This is an important step, and hopefully it will serve to increase the use of free formats for video offline as well. Towards that end, perhaps they can also make sure videos uploaded in other free formats like Ogg Theora are viewable in WebM too.

If you're a YouTuber, make sure your your videos don't use annotations,don't display ads, and are uploaded in WebM to ensure they will be viewable in without Flash or h.264. Additionally, it may take a while after the video has reportedly finished processing before the WebM version is available.

Beyond Diaspora: Another Facebook alternative has a head start

I just wrote a piece for Google Blogoscoped about Facebook and the problems with it, Diaspora and the obstacles it's created itself, and another effort that probably deserves some more attention. Please check it out and let me know what you think!

Here are a couple of teasers. On Facebook's battle for complete control over our online lives:

In the mind of Facebook, locking in users by holding their data captive is equally legitimate to actually making them want to stay, and it means more power for them. The problem is very simple. They own every piece of information about you that either you or your friends knowingly or unknowingly submit to them. They control who can see every bit of it, and they control how you can access it. You can bet when you delete something, it isn’t actually gone, that when you set something to private, there’s nothing to keep it that way, that when you want to see anything on Facebook, you’ll have to do it the way Facebook wants.

...and this on a promising alternative:

There are many such projects, but thus far Diaspora seems to be the only one to garner widespread attention. The developers were able to achieve instant popularity and raise twenty times their initial goal of $10K because to most people, Diaspora is the only project working towards this goal. It’s main asset right now seems to be mindshare, but it’s uncertain how much promise it holds beyond that. With the recent release of their pre-alpha source code, it immediately became apparent just how many security holes and problems are blocking the project. It will take a lot of work to fix and will almost certainly be impossible to make their public release as planned. Still, that isn’t to say the project isn’t worth supporting. It absolutely is, but it is not the only one you should know about.

What if there was another effort underway to create a federated social network, but based on a project that has already successfully been incorporated into the business of a Fortune 500 company, implemented in multiple public instances with tens of thousands of users, received funding which totals at a cool $2.3 million, and most importantly, already works with federation?

Know of a cool app that deserves more attention? Nominate it for the next Ubuntu post-install guide!

A year ago i saw a lack of easy to understand yet comprehensive getting started guides for new users, so i decided to make one. I spent hours reviewing software, taking screenshots, and other exciting stuff in order to make a post-install guide which helps new users get used to and understand Ubuntu, and also recommend all sorts of apps that may be of interest to users of any level of experience. Please subscribe if you want to catch my next one!

My guides for Karmic and Lucid have gotten way more attention than i could've anticipated, and while some people have shown great appreciation with donations (thanks for the support!), nothing makes me happier than the hundreds of comments and even private thank yous about hear how these guides have helped them spread free software, or open source as you may have it, to their friends and family. Here are some of my favorites:

"Danny, you're a marvel. I'm going to try out some of those suggested apps this weekend and have some fun. I read this article just in time to share it with a friend who's trying out ubuntu on his new laptop. Thanks!"

- Anonymous

"Thanks for posting this guide! I've been thinking of getting my parents off Windows for a while and this is the ammunition that I needed. Thanks!"

- Carlos Rodriguez

"Awesome post, I installed most of them. I converted an old Dell Inspiron 8600 to a Ubuntu box because my Mother-in-law has a old PC from her job with Ubuntu on it. I have to be able to support her and it's been years since I lived in linux\unix since my Unigraphics & CATIA days in Automotive. This story rocks, thanks for sharing."

- Carl Brooks

"Really brilliant well done :)

So many apps and methods that I had no clue about and I've been using Linux for 6 years!"

- Mike

"Wow. This is what a release post should look like."

- Anonymous

"So as pretty much everyone else said, this writing is quite excellent and entertaining! I've bookmarked this as you've pretty much reviewed every other application I've never heard about before"

- sergiusens

"Awesome. Been using ubuntu since the start, and you introduced me to a heck of a lot of new things. Rock On!"

- Anonymous

Now it seems only appropriate to let all of you to nominate your favorite apps to be featured in the next iteration of my Ubuntu post-install guides. Just post a comment with as much information about the app(s) as possible: name, link, description, your opinion, etc. and i'll check it out! 

I'm back!

Sorry for leaving you all hanging for so long! Between working at the FSF and making friends with awesome people in free software, i hadn't made much time for writing. If you haven't already seen it, please check out the relaunched LibrePlanet project. LibrePlanet is an effort to establish local teams around the world promoting free software. If you're in Massachusetts, join us!

Now, i will be helping out with OpenHatch, applying to schools, and finding some ways to generate an income (suggestions welcome). I started a site for my sinister business: http://libreops.com/. I'm also taking two insanely overpriced courses at Harvard University's Extension School: Intensive Introduction to Computer Science, and Building Dynamic Websites. A new version of Ubuntu is coming out soon, so i'll be working on my next even more kickass post-install guide, with more delicious free software~ yum.

I spent all my the money i earned last summer on my first laptop (which wasn't borrowed or lent to me), a Thinkpad x201 Tablet with multi-touch. I'm hoping this could enable me to do some design stuff later on, and if you have any suggestions on awesome apps for touch-screens, do post a comment!

Here are some links to satisfy you (you may have seen these if you're in the related Reddit communities, or are subscribed to me on identi.ca):

• Free software needs free tools
• Great analogy: Free software will make Facebook the next AOL
• The four freedoms of free culture
• In defense of free knowledge: "I see no system of moral philosophy generated by the economy of the past that could evolve a principle to explain the moral legitimacy of denial in the presence of infinite profusion."
• The Debian FreedomBox project
• The talk which inspired it: We can use technology to fix politics, or we can wait forever for politics to fix technology. On freedom, privacy, and net neutrality
• Life is not read-only

My first day at the FSF!

I'm writing to you now from the Free Software Foundation headquarters! Today is my first day on the job as a campaigns intern. I've had my first experience with Trisquel (a purely free OS), played around with GNU Emacs, and made a quick blog post about the new anti-DRM sticker from Defective By Design. I even have a sweet little bio page:

Danny is an FSF campaigns intern and free software advocate from Newton, Massachusetts.

During high school he worked to raise interest in free software and successfully made GNU/Linux and other software like OpenOffice.org available on public computers as well as gained the support of a number of educators.

He has compiled a comprehensive free software activism guide available on LibrePlanet to help individuals and teams work effectively to spread free software.

For years Danny has worked with the Ubuntu community to make it more freedom friendly and bring more people to free software, gaining lots of experience in community organizing. Now he's working to establish a state LibrePlanet team for Massachusetts and encourage the formation of more local groups.

He is also an outspoken free culture supporter, as an extension of the free software movement, and is generally interested in issues concerning the control and distribution of information.

Today was mostly about getting settled in, but tomorrow, we'll have have a campaigns team meeting and Steve DuBois, the other intern, should be in the office as well. Two projects of mine i'll be able to work on while i'm here is getting the LibrePlanet Massachusetts Team fired up (please join!) and making FSF members eligible to join a credit union.

I'll keep you posted! 

10 Killer Improvements YouTube Needs

YouTube's recent new look has brought on some great usability improvements, and their adoption of VP8/WebM video codec/format released by Google is even better. Still, there is much more to be done to increase YouTube's openness, foster a respectable community, more fairly promote quality content, fill the remaining gaps of missing features, and further improve and clean up the interface.

1. Do not be like MySpace

• Nobody misses that atrocious monstrosity. Firstly, do not push this "new" bulletins feature back out. Spamming is not a feature. 
• Secondly, stop covering the homepage with advertising, especially all the deceptive sponsored content with fake video players, "close" buttons, and other misleading imagery. If more ads are needed, the partner program shouldn't be so exclusive (mentioned below). Take a look at this screenshot of a common occurrence, labeled with YouTube's #1 most popular comment, which leads us to the next idea. 
2. Fix commenting
• Promote better comments through a cleaner user interface. YouTube has improved slowly since being acquired, but still isn't what would be expected from Google. Site designs that waste space and don't make efficient use of screen real estate encourage short mindless posts. 
• Repeated comments could be filtered based on their length and uniqueness in the same vein as ROBOT9000. Short and common posts like "GAY" could be prevented entirely or at least made very inconvenient by requiring a captcha and displaying a prominent warning. Perhaps a minimum comment length should be adopted, at least temporarily. 
• Posting URLs should be allowed, but requiring a captcha would prevent spam. 
3. Specify copyright
• Allow publishers to specify their level of copyright with licenses like Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-BY-SA), GNU FDL, Kopimi, Creative Commons Zero (CC0), which is a "stronger" Public Domain dedication that functions even in countries without a public domain, etc. 
• Allow us to search for such videos by what we want to be able to do with them: share, remix, and/or use for commercial purposes
• Provide a directory of music for publishers to use in their videos, perhaps partnering with Jamendo
4. Sensible accounts, contacts, and messaging
• Now that YouTube uses Google Accounts, there is no excuse to separate channels and users. The current system is like if Blogger limited a each account to one blog. One should be able to have multiple channels and channels should support multiple admins. Another Google Account shouldn't be needed to create another channel for a different purpose.
• It is entirely redundant to import contacts from GMail instead of simply using Google Contacts to begin with. 
• At the very least, YouTube's messaging interface needs to be fixed and cleaned up. It might even be better off eliminated. Neither Blogger or Picasa Web Albums have a special messaging interface, and YouTube's inbox seems to mainly collect spam. Instead, a contact form could be used much like on Google Profiles. 
5. Automate featured videos
• Replace the hand-picked "featured videos" system with something automated. Featured videos are unfair, impractical, and against the Google way. You can do much better to promote quality content from lesser-known YouTubers with algorithms.
6. Expand monetization
• Let viewers easily donate to producers they like on YouTube using Google Checkout without forcing them to pay to download or rent the video. This will be especially useful for free culture works or anyone using the pay-what-you-want model.
• Most people who apply to for the YouTube Partner Program get an email which opens with this: "Thank you for your interest in the YouTube Partner Program. Our goal is to extend invitations to as many partners as we can. Unfortunately we are unable to accept your application at this time. The current level of viewership of your account has not met our threshold for acceptance." If YouTube really wanted to extend this program to as many partners as possible, why is there even a viewership threshold? Anybody eligible for an AdSense account should be able to make money off of ads displayed with their videos. It's mutually beneficial. 
7. Live streaming

• YouTube has done a few live video streams for the past couple years but it hasn't been a standard feature available to anyone. It looks like that might finally change as an image on the Moderator help page shows a "Live Stream" button at the end of the bar (not the circled button towards the middle). When this feature become available, it would be cool to be able to broadcast to YouTube live from Jabber (Google Talk) with a video call. 
8. Downloads and video blogging
• If a publisher wants to allow free video downloads, this should be allowed. For videos where downloading is allowed, they should be available to download in WebM but also whatever the original file was. 
• Viewers should be able to subscribe to channels using RSS and Atom feeds like blogger. These should be easily accessed instead of requiring any special knowledge of how to find them.
• Video files should be linked to directly as enclosures in channel feeds to enable proper video blogging. I understand YouTube may begin allowing audio uploads, so this would be an absolute must for podcasts, but it should be added now for videos to enable videocasts that can be listed on Miro for example.
• If Blogger's reading list could by moved to Google Reader or some independent social subscription management site, then YouTube subscriptions might be better moved there so that people could follow channels using Google Friend Connect. 
9. Publishing options
• A video should not be published upon upload. The uploader should be given the chance to add captions, change video settings, allow encoding to finish in HD, wait for monetization approval, set a future publish date, etc, before having it pushed to their subscribers. Publishers are currently forced to set a video to private and change it to public once all the changes are made which pushes based on upload time, resulting in videos being buried in users' subscriptions.
• Lift the ten minute limit which forced longer videos to be broken into segments. 
10. Edit: Make HTML5 with VP8/WebM default
• A number of you have pointed out that basic counting skills reveal that there were only 9 ideas here, so i'm adding a tenth. YouTube should work on making sure that all of the features used in their flash interface (ads, annotations, etc), are also supported by their HTML5 interface. 
• The HTML5 interface should then be defaulted to with Google's free and open video codec and format, VP8 and WebM, respectively. The proliferation of a free video standard for the web is damn exciting, and this will help make VP8 and Ogg Theora dominate video and audio offline as well.

Edit: Add your support here

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/youtube/thread?tid=3177f94981a8ec05

Is Ubuntu committed to free software?

Of course we are! At least according to our philosophy.

Still, many people don't think that Ubuntu is truly committed to free software in practice. I raised an interesting debate which took place on the Anarchism Reddit about whether it is better to be a purist or not. It started out by talking about Facebook and moved on to Ubuntu. The purist side made a very good argument with this:

If Ubuntu made a point of saying how non-free software was bad, and offered ways to easily purge all non-free software from one's system, that would be different. But they don't.

This sentiment seems very reasonable to me, and people who feel this way can and should be our allies. The concerns are valid and not difficult to appease, so to act in accordance with our philosophy, we should make a couple simple changes to Ubuntu:

1. Offer a way to easily purge all non-free software from one's system. 
• This would require supporting the Linux-libre kernel (it doesn't have to be default, but the option should be available)
2. Make a point of saying why and how non-free software was bad, but also why the option is given to install it
• This would need to be shown every time Ubuntu recommends proprietary software like restricted drivers

Simple as that! I'm sending an email to the devel-dicuss list now.

For those interested in the "to be or not to be a purist" debate, the crux of the argument for me, as someone who does support Ubuntu, is here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchism/comments/c7vfw/to_be_or_not_to_be_a_purist/c0qunme

Why Ubuntu LoCo's should move to LibrePlanet

In the debate over whether it is worth supporting projects like Ubuntu which are not purely free software, my opinion thus far remains that Ubuntu does help further the free software movement. Arguments against this are welcome, but that is a discussion for a future post. The reason that Ubuntu's local community teams should move to LibrePlanet is because having one of the worlds strongest FLOSS advocacy networks centered around one piece of software and sponsored by one company is a disservice to the greater free software community.

I have been heavily involved in Ubuntu advocacy for years, but for a while now, i've been considering the prospect of local teams operating independent of Canonical. This would not be a move to abandon Ubuntu, but simply to open up more possibilities and reach our full potential. Most people in LoCos are not loyal to Ubuntu, but to free software (aka open source). We are united by a set of ideals and work together to promote software which helps further these ideals. Why then, must all of our advocacy revolve around one GNU+Linux distribution? There are two main reasons for why it currently does.

Firstly, because Ubuntu is seen by most people as the best way to introduce new people to a (mostly) free desktop environment. It is certainly much easier to simply promote one operating system than a family of them. Still, this is no reason to limit ourselves. A team not entirely exclusive to Ubuntu can just as easily choose to promote Ubuntu exclusively for events aimed at the general public. Ubuntu may be the best now, but if something better came along or if Ubuntu went downhill, we should be able and ready to adapt. Being an Ubuntu LoCo does not provide this flexibility.

Secondly, because the infrastructure is there. Canonical provides a wiki and mailing lists to their teams and in exchange, the teams work for them, albeit loosely, as part of the Ubuntu LoCo project, under its name and banner. Canonical also provides printed install discs to officially approved teams, but there is no reason why Canonical should not provide sponsorship to any team of people who will be promoting Ubuntu. It's mutually beneficial. In the meantime, to continue receiving materials only provided to officially approved teams, LoCo's can continue to operate alongside LibrePlanet groups. This isn't all to say that Canincal has been working to actively lock teams in, but this is the effect it now has. Creating the LoCo project, providing the structure needed to establish global network of local advocacy teams, was a great service, but the time has come to grow beyond its current scope.

LibrePlanet is inspired by Ubuntu's LoCo Project, but it's instead organized around ideals, not any particular piece of software. Surely there are some who only care about what tools work best, but let's not forget the ideals which made these better tools possible. Most of us imagine a world where these ideals are universal and see an incredible amount of potential in that. LibrePlanet isn't yet another social group for GNU+Linux users, but a team of activists. These groups are more open to users of any free software who may be interested in advocacy. Sponsorship could come from Canonical, Mozilla, or whoever. Isn't this much more in line with the nature of FLOSS?

Being a LoCo does in many ways lock you in to promoting Ubuntu. You may promote other software and welcome users of other distros, but by their very title, LoCo teams exist for Ubuntu. The very reason i began taking this idea seriously is because some non-Ubuntu users wanted to get involved with an event organized by my local community team, but did not want to work under an Ubuntu banner (literally). I don't blame them. I went on to discover many people who lurk on our mailing list and even IRC channel simply hadn't gotten involved because they were put off by the exclusive nature of the group even though they do happen to use Ubuntu themselves. There is an incredible network of people out there who want to help, and we shouldn't box them out.

Many people have some badly tainted perceptions of the FSF, but being a LibrePlanet team does not require strict adherence to FSF rules. Teams could work on would be creating a voice for free software that doesn't have the (in my opinion mostly wrong) reputation of the FSF to be too extreme, and this is coming from someone who often doesn't agree with their approach. To provide an example and get the ball rolling, i'd like to announce the LibrePlanet Massachusetts Team.

Mailing list: http://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-us-ma
IRC: #libreplanet-us-ma on FreeNode

The LibrePlanet Massachusetts Team is a group of volunteers and activists organized around furthering the ideals of free software and related issues concerning digital rights and free culture.

This group is working towards a free society through free software, but we are not a local Free Software Foundation team. We share the same end goals as the FSF, but some of us may find it necessary and more effective to make some temporary compromises with proprietary software in order to better spread free software. Some of us may not necessarily say GNU+Linux or always say "free software" instead of "open source", and some of us may use pragmatic benefits to advocate free software with the understanding that freedom is the underlying concern and principle which makes it all possible. We are open to people of all levels of interest in free software and welcome new participants. We are all united in the fight for software freedom as an important and necessary means for the prospect of a free society.

You can start your own LibrePlanet chapter here: http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/Form:Group

Free culture projects need a ubiquitous funding system

The free culture movement, which is of a whole with the free software movement, has made a lot of great progress but is still struggling to prove itself to be economically viable in the mainstream. I might even go so far as to say that a lack of a better funding system is the single biggest thing holding back many existing and many more prospective free culture projects. Imagine if Add/Remove Applications and the Ubuntu Software Center prompted downloaders with a "Donate" button that enabled users to easily support projects. Imagine if last— ahem— libre.fm displayed the same button for artists. Imagine if the idea of giving in order to support the production of work you appreciate went from public appeal to the public's expectation.

Currently the Software Freedom Conservancy exists as a fiscal sponsor for free software projects which "provides member projects with free financial and administrative services, but does not involve itself with technological and artistic decisions." In short, member projects get the protections of a corporate entity without actually having to form and maintain one.

By joining the Conservancy, member FOSS projects obtain the benefits of a formal legal structure while keeping themselves focused on software development. These benefits include, most notably, the ability to collect earmarked project donations and protection from personal liability for the developers of the project. Another benefit of joining the Conservancy is that projects can use it to hold assets, which are managed by the Conservancy on behalf of and at the direction of the project. The Conservancy is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization, so member projects can receive tax-deductible donations to the extent allowed by law. 

The grander vision that is needed for free culture would require the infrastructure to scale plus provide more features. The primary motivation for this system would be more broad: to support free culture by providing free financial and administrative services to projects. This pay-what-you-want app store of sorts would differ from what the Software Freedom Conservancy offers in two ways.


Firstly, it would not be exclusive to software, but any free cultural works. It might even make sense to welcome non free culture projects to join, but perhaps only provide full benefits to verified free culture projects. For example, donations to non free culture projects may not be tax deductible, and/or a 10% fee on donations could apply to donations towards unverified projects while verified and approved free culture projects receive the full benefits of the program for free. Then again, an approval system might be hard to scale, and this being a funding system project, it could of course be used to fund itself.

Secondly, and this is the ambitious part, the platform would need to make the process streamlined so that any project could join. It should be developed as a free and, if possible, federated service. This service should allow projects to collect donations through a variety of means. Projects should be able to display buttons or widgets on their own website, and it should be possible, as mentioned at the beginning of this post, for desktop applications like Add/Remove Applications and the Ubuntu Software Center to display "donate" buttons. Beyond basic one-time donation functionality, support could also be added for fundraising campaigns with a set goal (think Kickstarter) and repeating contributions for subscriptions.

If such a system were in place which provided programmers, writers, and artists a platform to easily accept donations directly from their followers, free culture projects will be able to expand and prove viable on a much, much larger scale. So, who do you think has the resources for such a project? Which organizations would be interested in contributing? We need this yesterday, so let's get started.

In related news, the reason i was compelled to finally write up this post, is because i recently received my first donation to this blog! It was a nice token of appreciation from Ketil Nordstad, so thank you and thanks to any future donors i may have. I added the Google Checkout widget without displaying it prominently just as an experiment to see if anything would happen. Now that something has happened and i am more determined to prove that people will want to contribute to works they appreciate, i am taking the idea more seriously. I have added Paypal buttons as well, one of which enables subscriptions (repeated donations), but sadly doens't support pay-what-you-want. There are also Flattr buttons on all of my posts, but i can't throw 100% support behind it because it's a non-free service. Still it's very useful, and i'm happy to see someone trying to shake up the market. I have three free Flattr invitation codes for whoever wants them, but be aware that you can't use it unless you put at least €2 ($2.46) in your account each month which will be distributed evenly to the things you "flattr". Please do not use these invites unless you are ready to spend money!

Three free Flattr invites:

• 36c9206e7cfba696b
• b9775863e193437a8
• 824ce1901ba161593

Ubuntu 10.04 Post-Install Guide: What to do and try after installing Lucid Lynx!

Now that you've installed Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid Lynx, a kickass GNU+Linux based free desktop operating system, there's a lot of fun stuff waiting for you to try! This guide lists good things to do after installing Ubuntu, explains new concepts for beginners, and doubles as a very complete list of great software to use aimed at Ubuntu's GNOME desktop environment. Feel free to pick and choose; enjoy!

Table of Contents

Managing Applications
Basics
Eye Candy
Desktop Functionality
Web Browsing
Multimedia Creation & Editing
Multimedia Playback
Learning
Time Management
Donating CPU Power
Images and Publishing
Games
Filesharing
Communication
System Utilities
Security & Privacy
Proprietary & Restricted Software
Explore, Customize, Personalize!

Managing Applications

Repositories

Ubuntu uses directories of available software called repositories (repos) which are read by your system to make it easy for Ubuntu to keep all of your software updated, allow you to easily install applications from a convenient catalog of all available apps, and provide a high level of security. You can say, "Good riddance!" to the days of searching the web for programs and downloading questionable executables. Ubuntu has a few default repos, but you may want to add others for one of two reasons: either the software you want isn't (yet) in Ubuntu's repos, or you want newer versions of software without waiting for the next version of Ubuntu.

Repositories can be added in Software Sources (System ⟶ Administration ⟶ Software Sources) simply by clicking the "Add..." button in the "Other Software" tab and entering the provided APT line. This guide will provide APT lines for repositories, referred to as Personal Package Archives (PPA) if hosted on the Launchpad website, when available or required.

Ubuntu Software Center

The main place to manage your installed apps and add or remove programs is the Ubuntu Software Center (Applications ⟶ Ubuntu Software Center). It's very easy to find what you need and with one click you can download and install it!

Simply type into the search bar in the upper-right corner, and you'll see the results update live as you type. You can double click on a result or hit the "More Info" button for a description of the application and a screenshot if available.

Clicking the install button does exactly what you'd expect.

Then you should be able to access the program in menu under the most logical section. A select few apps may appear under (System ⟶Preferences) or (System ⟶ Administration) like backup utilities.

Alternatively you may install any package via Synaptic Package Manager (System ⟶ Administration ⟶ Synaptic Package Manager), or Terminal (Applications ⟶ Accessories ⟶ Terminal) with this simple command:

sudo apt-get install example-package

APT links and package names will be provided for everything in this guide.

Now, let's get started!

Basics

Download Mirror & Updates

After every major Ubuntu release (beta, release candidate, and especially the final), the official servers may get sluggish. To select an alternative server, just launch Software Sources (System ⟶ Administration ⟶ Software Sources) and click the drop-down menu next to "Download from:" and select "Other..." at which point the "Choose a Download Server" window should pop up. If you know of a fast local server you may select it from the list, or you can try clicking the "Select Best Server" button to launch a tool that will test all the servers for the fastest connection and hit the "Choose server" button when it's done.

Optionally, jump to the "Updates" tab. If you'll always be running the newest version of Ubuntu and are using third-party repos, which we will be, then leaving the defaults should be fine. "Unsupported Updates (lucid-backports)" gives you, as the name implies, newer but unsupported versions of packages which you probably don't need or even want. Packages may contain new features, introduce new interfaces, and not be sufficiently tested for inclusion in the 'proposed' repository. "Pre-released Updates (lucid-proposed)" is just the testing area for updates, recommended only to those interested in helping to test updates and provide feedback. Check that Ubuntu is scheduled to automatically find available updates daily and to download all updates in the background if you want to save yourself some time when it comes time to install them. You should also change "Show new distribution releases" to "Normal releases" to be notified when the next version of Ubuntu comes out instead of waiting for the next Long Term Support (LTS) release.

Before you go, head over to the "Statistics" tab and check it if it isn't already. This anonymously sends the list of software you have installed and how often you use them to help collect statistics on which apps are the most popular.

When you click close, you will likely be prompted to reload the list of available software. Click reload. If you're prompted with available updates when it finished reloading, follow the instructions to install them. If not, you can always manually check for updates and install them via Update Manager (System ⟶ Administration ⟶ Update Manager). You should always keep your computer up-to-date.

Folder and Printer Sharing

If you want to be able to share files, folders, and printers with Windows machines, you'll need Samba. You can set it up graphically by right clicking on any folder and selecting "Properties" and going straight to the "Share" tab. Check "Share this folder" and you should be prompted to install the Windows networks sharing service. After that's installed, you'll need to restart and you can click "Create Share" to be able to view the folder and it's contents from other machines through the network.

Click here to install samba

Time Synchronization

Ubuntu can keep your computer's time accurate by syncing up with atomic clocks through tiers of servers while factoring out communication delays, and adjusting the time without upsetting the other processes that are running. The protocol for this is called Network Time Protocol (NTP). To set up NTP time synchronization graphically, launch Time &Date (System ⟶ Administration ⟶ Time & Date). Click the keys to unlock settings. Now, you can select your time zone, and configure it to "Keep synchronized with Internet servers", at which point it will prompt you to Install NTP support.

Click here to install ntp

After that, click "Select Servers" and go to http://www.pool.ntp.org/zone/@ to find the address for your country zone (or just use the continent zone if there isn't a specific one for your country) and enter that into the empty field and hit the "Add" button. Make sure it is checked and you can hit close.

Eye Candy

GNOME Shell

The upcoming version 3.0 of the GNOME desktop environment uses GNOME Shell which is a new interface for interacting with your desktop. If you'd like to try it, there is a version in the Ubuntu repos. Launch it by hitting Alt+F2 to open the "Run Applicatoin" dialog and enter "gnome-shell --replace". Switch back by doing the same thing but enter "metacity --replace" instead. 

Click here to install gnome-shell

Simple Compositing

Some of you may not need or want superfluous Compiz visual effects running when you're not making it a point to show them off. Perhaps you lack the hardware or restricted drivers for accelerated graphics necessary for Compiz or maybe you just don't want to use as many system resources but still want basic compositing which some applications depend on. In that case, Metacity, the default window manager for GNOME, works great! You can enable it graphically, or with a simple command, but make sure to disable Compiz effects in Appearance first.

To enable it graphically, hit Alt+F2 to open the "Run Applicatoin" dialog and enter "gconf-editor" to launch the GNOME Configuration Editor. In the left-hand sidebar, navigate to Apps ⟶ metacity ⟶ general and in the main box check "compositing_manager" which will go into effect instantly. If you prefer the Terminal, you can run this quick command:

gconftool-2 -s  '/apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager' --type bool true

Advanced Desktop Effects

If you want a Custom option in Visual Effects settings in Appearance (System ⟶ Preferences ⟶ Appearance) for some fancier features to play around with and show off, you'll want extra Compiz-Fusion plugins and need a settings manager like Simple CompizConfig Settings Manager or, if you want some extreme customization, Advanced Desktop Effects Settings.

APT Line: ppa:compiz/ppa
Click here to install compiz-fusion-plugins-extra
Click here to install simple-ccsm
Click here to install compizconfig-settings-manager

Extra Themes

If you want more themes, there are several packages you can install. Hopefully many of these packages can be merged in the future and have a more refined selection. The themes from the Bisigi Project requires the PPA. You can download individual themes from various websites like GNOME-Look and install them in Appearance.

APT Line: ppa:bisigi/ppa
Click here to install bisigi-themes community-themes gnome-backgrounds gnome-colors gnome-themes gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more metacity-themes shiki-colors

Fractal Screensaver

Electric Sheep displays fractal frames as a screensaver, but on top of that it downloads new popular ones through a distributed computing network so that the "gene pool" of animations, or "sheep" as they're called, is constantly evolving. You can download a starter pack from here and just extract them into ~/.electricsheep

Click here to install electricsheep

Desktop Functionality

Dock

For a beautiful dock inspired by Mac OS X, try Avant Window Navigator (AWN). It has support for launchers, task lists, and third party applets.

Click here to install awn-settings

Application Launcher

For a simple and lightweight launcher heavily inpired by Quicksilver, Kupfer should do the trick quite nicely.

APT Line: ppa:kupfer-team/ppa
Click here to install kupfer

For something a little prettier with plugins and a dock, you can also try GNOME+Do.

APT Line: ppa:do-core/ppa
Click here to install gnome-do

Clipboard Manager

There is an annoying bug from 2004 in which copy/paste doesn't work if the source is closed before the paste. Parcellite is a clipboard manager that works around that problem along with providing some other useful features.

Click here to install parcellite

Universal Applets

After the death of Screenlets and gDesklets, a promising new widget framework called Universal Applets was born with the goal of producing applets that can be dynamically "plugged" into any application. Sadly, the main developer doesn't have time to work on it right now and is currently looking for a new owner. You can still try the early version which is available in a third party repository.

APT line: deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/some-guy:/screenlets/xUbuntu_9.10/ ./
Click here to install universal-applets

Web Browsing

Epiphany

Mozilla Firefox feels to heavy for many people. If you want something faster and more standards-compliant, WebKit browsers are the way to go. Webkit is the layout engine that Epiphany and Chromium use to render pages faster than Gecko which is used by Firefox. If you prefer something that integrates more with GNOME, and is in fact the default web browser for it, try Epiphany. You may also add the Epiphany and WebKit PPAs to keep them up-to-date.

APT Line: ppa:webkit-team/epiphany

APT Line: ppa:webkit-team/ppa

Click here to install epiphany-browser

Chromium

Google Chrome is based off of the free software (aka open source) Chromium project. For those of you who need more than what Epiphany currently offers, plugins being a major thing, go with Chromium.

APT Line: ppa:chromium-daily/beta

Click here to install chromium-browser

Desktop Webmail

This is going here for lack of a more appropriate section. For those of you who use webmail and prefer that interface over using a desktop application, Desktop Webmail is for you. Now, when you click on email links, you don't be directed to configure your desktop client; you'll be directed straight to your webmail.

Click here to install desktop-webmail

Multimedia Creation & Editing

Audio Recording & Editing

Jokosher is a simple yet powerful non-linear, multi-track audio editor. The interface, which was designed from the ground up, provides an integrated environment to create and record music, podcasts and more.

Click here to install jokosher

Video Editing

PiTiVi is an intuitive and featureful movie editor that was actually designed with the user interface in mind instead of just slopping on one feature after another. It is able to import and export video files in any format supported by the powerful GStreamer framework. It's now included with Ubuntu by default, but you may still want to add the repository for updates.

APT Line: ppa:gstreamer-developers/ppa

Video Screen Capture

If you want to make screencasts to show off your awesome desktop, Instanbul is a nifty desktop recording tool which, unlike gtk-recordMyDesktop, uses GStreamer. You can install it through Synaptic or Terminal.

Click here to install istanbul

Webcam

If you have a webcam, you need Cheese. It's a Photobooth-inspired application for taking pictures and videos from a webcam also based on the GStreamer back-end.

Click here to install cheese

Multimedia Playback

Media Center

Moovida is a beautiful media center which is perfect for setting up a Home Theater PC (HTPC) or TVPC like the Neuros Link and it uses the GStreamer multimedia framework to support playing almost any kind of file.

APT Line: ppa:moovida-packagers/ppa
Click here to install moovida

Video Feeds

Miro is an Internet television application developed by the Participatory Culture Foundation whose mission is to "enable and support independent, non-corporate creativity and political engagement."

APT Line: ppa:pcf/miro-releases
Click here to install miro

Media Player

Most people are satisfied by Rythmbox, the default music manager for Ubuntu, but if you're not, you may want to try Exaile or Banshee.

APT Line: ppa:exaile-devel/ppa
Click here to install exaile

APT Line: ppa:banshee-team/ppa
Click here to install banshee

Learning

Brainwave Entrainment

As seen in Linux Journal, you can synchronize your brainwaves to that of an external stimulus like pulses of sound in order to easily induce brain states like sleep for example. Think of it as assisted meditation which is effective at treating conditions like ADD, insomnia, and much more. Gnaural is brainwave entrainment software available through the GetDeb repos. GetDeb can be added to your sources by installing the GetDeb package.

Click here to install gnaural

Flash Cards

Digital flash cards are even more effective because they can accurately use spaced repetition to help you more efficiently retain information. Mnemosyne and Anki are two programs worth giving a try. Anki is not in the Lucid repos but a .deb installer can be downloaded from here.

Click here to install mnemosyne

Time Managment

Getting Things GNOME!

Playing on "Getting Things Done", Getting Thing GNOME (GTG) is a simple yet powerful organization tool built on a very solid set of design principles.

APT Line: ppa:gtg/ppa
Click here to install gtg

Time Tracking

The Hamster Time Tracker applet helps you track and analyze how much time you spend on different tasks and activities with a graphical overview to make you feel bad for all that time you waste. It can only be installed through Synaptic or Terminal.

Click here to install hamster-applet

Alarm Clock

If you keep your computer on at all times and want to toss out your boring alarm clock, or even if not, Alarm Clock provides a lot of nifty scheduling and alert options.

Click here to install alarm-clock

Donating CPU Power

Distributed Computing

You can volunteer to participate in grid computing and donate your computer's spare CPU power to charitable projects like protein folding. Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) is a great way to use your computer to give.

Click here to install boinc

Images and Publishing

Photo Management

Sadly, F-Spot was not replaced in Lucid, but on the bright side you get this wonderful section of the guide to let you know of the alternatives. The most promising of which is Solang. It lets you manage your collection of photos by tagging them and searching through them based on various criteria: tags, EXIF data, dates, etc; and offers a limited set of editing functionalities. Solang uses Tracker which allows it to automatically detect all the photos on your computer and publishes the tags all across the desktop. Sorry to tease, but Solang is not packaged for Ubuntu anywhere yet! Will update when available. In the meantime, try gThumb and Shotwell.

APT Line: ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8

Click here to install gthumb

Click here to install shotwell

Vector Graphics

Inkscape is an awesome vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X. It supports many advanced SVG features and puts them into a well-designed interface. Anybody working with vectors needs this tool.

APT Line: ppa:inkscape.testers/ppa

Click here to install inkscape

Bitmap Graphics

While GIMP was previously included with Ubuntu by default, it was a bit overboard for what the average user needs. It's still a very useful tool so many of you will probably still want it. 

Click here to install gimp

3D Graphics

Not exclusive to still imagery, Blender is an amazing 3D imagery creation suite that has already been used to create films such as the Open Movie Projects.

Click here to install blender

Desktop Publishing

Scribus is a desktop publishing (DTP) application designed for flexible layout and typesetting and the ability to prepare files for professional quality image setting equipment like writing small newspapers, brochures, newsletters, posters and books.

APT Line: ppa:scribus/ppa

Click here to install scribus

Games

PlayDeb

What good are games when you're stuck with the same versions for 6 months? PlayDeb is a repository of games which provides you with the latest and greatest that are either not at their newest version in the Ubuntu repos, or not included at all. Installing games is extremely convenient by searching through the PlayDeb.net website and installing games with just a click. You can add it to your sources automatically by installing the PlayDeb package.

Nexuiz

For those of you who prefer fast-paced first-person shooters, Nexuiz is a very decent Free game every Linux gamer should try at least once. GameStop even held a Nexuiz "PC gaming challenge" in which interactive kiosks were set up in 10 different stores in 8 US cities and users were given 2 minutes to earn the high score for a $100 gift card by doing the most damage possible to their AI opponents.

Click here to install nexuiz

Yo Frankie!

While it runs quite heavily, this is a beautiful and important Free game— that is, free software and free content— which was created with very limited time and resources to show off what can be produced using free software. It was made using Blender, mentioned above, as part of the Blender Institute's first Open Game Project, and based off of the film, Big Buck Bunny, which was the foundation's second Open Movie Project. It validates the viability of free games and is now in the official Ubuntu repos!

Click here to install yofrankie

PlayOnLinux

If you desire proprietary games that only run natively on Windows, PlayOnLinux is a front-end for Wine which enables you to easily install many such games.

Click here to install playonlinux

Filesharing

Secured P2P

Gnunet framework for decentralized, secure, peer-to-peer networking for anonymous, censorship-resistant file-sharing. You may have heard of Freenet, but you probably haven't seen how they compare.

APT Line: ppa:teamgnunet/ppa
Click here to install gnunet-gtk

Direct Connect

A great way to share files for students in college networks is using direct connect; sadly, there is no DC client designed for GNOME, nor is there an available port of Shakespeer from Mac, so it seems like the best option is DC++

Click here to install linuxdcpp

Usenet

Although it isn't free, Usenet downloads are crazy-fast and files show up there first. Possibly even more noteworthy, however, is that for whatever reason it remains unregulated by pirate hunters. Read this guide for more info, but install LottaNZB for your client instead— they're working to replace HellaNZB with SABnzbd for their back-end.

APT Line: ppa:lottanzb/ppa
Click here to install lottanzb

BitTorrent

I once recommended Deluge without ever having given Transmission a fair shot. After doing so, it has quickly become my client of choice. If you haven't already, give it a try and you should see how it packs a lot into a clean and simple interface. You may add the repos for updates.

APT Line: ppa:transmissionbt/ppa

Deluge is always still an option if you still prefer it.

APT Line: ppa:deluge-team/ppa
Click here to install deluge

Communication

Instant Messenger

Horray! Empathy is now included with Ubuntu, but if you want the latest version with additional features like geolocation and audio/video chat for MSN, you'll need to add the Telepathy repos to your software sources.

APT Line: ppa:telepathy/ppa

Microblogging

Gwibber is a cute little microblogging client for those of you who frequently use sites like Identi.ca, Twitter, Jaiku, Facebook, Digg, and more. It's now included with Ubuntu as well, but you can add the repos for updates.

APT Line: ppa:gwibber-team/ppa

System Utilities

Backup

I don't have any strong feelings as to which backup utility you should use, but take it from someone who learned the hard way, you should always have a backup. Back In Time should do everything you need.

Click here to install backintime-gnome

Partition Editor

You can partition you other storage drives, your external hard drive, you USB drive, your iPod, and basically any other writable storage drive you can plug into your computer using the GNOME Partition Editor. 

Click here to install gparted

Virtual Machine

If you want to be a good user and get testing on the next version of Ubuntu, that's 10.04 LTS, the Lucid Lynx, but you want to do it safely, get VirtualBox. There's version that is fully open source (vboxgtk), but you'll likely want the proprietary features too. It's installable via Synaptic or Terminal.

The repos requires that you add the security key with this command:

wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/sun_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

APT Line: deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian lucid non-free

Click here to install virtualbox-3.1

Security & Privacy

Firewall

If you feel the need to have a firewall, Firewall configuration is a graphical front-end for Uncomplicated firewall (ufw).

Click here to install gufw

Antivirus

You generally don't need antivirus with Linux, but if you'd like to play it safe, you can install the ClamTK Virus Scanner, a graphical front-end to ClamAV.

Click here to install clamtk

On-The-Fly Encryption

Many people use TrueCrypt believing that it's FOSS, but although the source code is available, it's development is kept secret and it isn't considered Free Software by the FSF nor Open Source by the OSI. ScramDisk for Linux (SD4L) is a great OTFE alternative that also supports TrueCrypt containers. Unfortunately, it is not yet included in the default repos, and there isn't a PPA either, but you can download a .deb to install from their website.

http://sd4l.sourceforge.net/

Onion Routing

If you don't wan't to pay $5 a month for a VPN like IPREDator but still want to be able to use the web anonymously, you can try The Onion Router, more commonly referred to as TOR, but it is significantly slower and requires additional setup. It's available from their repository.

Their repos requires that you add the security key with this command:

gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv 886DDD89 && gpg --export A3C4F0F979CAA22CDBA8F512EE8CBC9E886DDD89 | sudo apt-key add -

APT Line: deb http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org lucid main

Click here to install tor-geoipdb

Proprietary & Restricted Software

Nonfree Chromium Codecs

Many HTML5 sites are still using h.264  instead of Ogg Theora, including YouTube. Hopefully this will change soon since Google has acquired On2 and their VP8 codec, but in the meantime, if you'd like to avoid Flash on YouTube with HTML5 video, you'll need to install the codecs.

Click here to install chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-nonfree

DVD Playback

Most commercial DVDs are encrypted with Content Scrambling System (CSS), which attempts to restrict the software that can play a DVD. You'll need to install libdvdcss if you want to play them. You can do so by first installing the libdvdread4 package via Synaptic Package Manager or Terminal.

Click here to install libdvdread4

Then, within a Terminal window, enter:

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

Restricted Extras

The ubuntu-restricted-extras package includes a bunch of things Ubuntu isn't legally allowed to ship with, namely unrar for unarchiving .rar files, Microsoft TrueType core fonts, Sun Java Runtime Environment (JRE), restricted codecs, and finally Adobe Flash Player. Like the rest of the packages and applications in this list unless noted otherwise, it's available in the new Ubuntu Software Center (Applications ⟶ Ubuntu Software Center).

Click here to install ubuntu-restricted-extras

Adobe Flash Player

While it is included in the restricted extras package, you should give a fair chance to Gnash, an open source flash player on the list of high priority Free software projects. To install, you'll first have to make sure you don't have Adobe's flash player installed. You can do this in the Ubuntu Software Center, Synaptic Package Manager, or Terminal with this command:

sudo apt-get purge flashplugin-installer nspluginwrapper

Then you can install the Gnash plugin.

APT Line: ppa:gnash/ppa
Click here to install mozilla-plugin-gnash

For those of you running 64-bit Ubuntu who need the proprietary flash player, Adobe has released the only 64-bit version for Linux! It currently isn't in the repositories because it's still in alpha, but it's still easy to install. Just download the .tar.gz file at the bottom of this page, extract the file to your home folder, and enter this into a terminal window:

sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

Explore, Customize, Personalize!

Now it's time to play around with all the new apps you have and make your desktop, well, yours. You can try experimenting with a cool panel-less desktop; you can explore with all your new apps; you can try different themes and modify them in Appearance; you can set your preferred applications and explore all your system preferences. My desktop background comes is by David Revoy of Sintel, the Blender Foundation's latest Open Movie Project.

Don't forget to show off your shiny new Ubuntu installation to your friends, spread Ubuntu, and contribute to your favorite projects!