10 Useful Things To Do After Installing Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

10 Useful Things To Do After Installing Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala: "

You’ve installed Ubuntu 9.10, now what? Here are my top 10 tips for getting a fresh install feeling your own…

1. Install Codecs, flash, Microsoft Fonts and DVD playback stuff

Ubuntu cannot – for legal reasons- ship with a lot of popular media codecs, plug-ins and other useful bits and bobs. If they wanted to, they’d have to pay and thus so would you.

The snappily titled ‘Ubuntu-Restricted-Extras’ package gives you all of this – Adobe Flash for watching YouTube videos, Microsoft Core Fonts for viewing some sites properly, Java, MP3/M4A/ACC/ETC playback, .RAR extraction, pretty much most video codec's one would likely need (.avi, .divx, .wmv, etc) and a ton more besides.

Installing all of this stuff is literally a click or so away: -

• Open Ubuntu Software Centre
• Search for ‘Ubuntu Restricted Extras’
• Click install

If you don’t mind being using the terminal then simply enter: -

• sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

Or for ultimate laziness just click the apt link below to be prompted to install: -

• Click me to install Ubuntu Restricted Extras

DVD Menu Navigation

To fully enable DVD Menu support you’ll have to get your hands dirty by opening a terminal and typing: -

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

…but that’s pretty much it!

2. Install your Graphics Card Drivers

Enabling your graphics card is really quite easy in Ubuntu. If you want to use the latest supported driver simply open up the Appearance menu and turn compiz on. This will prompt you to install any driver for your device that isn’t already installed.

3. Enable Compiz Desktop Effects

Everyone loves a bit of eye-candy and it can safely be said that Compiz Fusion (or whatever it’s calling itself these days) is the world leader is superfluous-come-useful desktop bling. For sure.

Whether you want the “Desktop Cube”, an OS X like Exposé or just some simple window animations enabling Compiz is quite easy! It already comes pre-installed so you just need to turn it on!

Open the Appearance window

• System > Preferences > Appearance
• Select ‘Desktop Effects’ Tab
• Check either ‘Normal’ Or ‘Extra’

If you don’t have your graphics card drivers installed Ubuntu will, at this point, search for available ones and install them.

Tweaking Compiz

If the default “options” don’t give you all what you want, you can tweak every aspect of Compiz to your liking.

Want to draw fire on the screen? Want to set Exposé to a ‘hot corner’? All of this and about a million further options/effects can be sorted through the Compiz Config Manager.

• Open Ubuntu Software Centre
• Search for compiz-config
• Install

You can now tweak/enable/go mad with Compiz settings via: -

• System > Preferences > Compiz Config

If you only want to use the “main” options such as the cube, wobbly windows and window animations you may prefer only install the aptly named “Simple Compiz Config Manager”.

It’s a cinch to use.

• Open Software Centre
• Search for Simple Compiz
• Install

4. Get More Themes!

Open up the appearance menu by going to:

• System > Preferences > Appearance

Here you will find a selection of themes to choose from – including the gorgeous dust theme.

For a wider selection of well designed themes install the community themes package. This will give you some gorgeous new ones

Install Community Themes

5. Get GNOME Do

GNOME Do is somewhat hard to explain unless you’ve tried it – but it’s best described as an intelligent and instantaneous launcher; you hit a shortcut key, type a few letters of what you’re looking for and et voila! It finds it instantly and you’re on your merry way.

It has a raft of great plugins that further expand it’s useful-ness, too. You can find files and folder, search the web, post to twitter, send grand-ma an E-Mail… In fact if you can think of it there is more than likely is a plug-in for it!

Dock

The most popular ‘mode’ for Gnome Do is the ‘Dock’ interface. You enable it via the preference menu of GNOME Do. It works in the same was as Do only in a Dock-like interface.

It also comes with some very very neat docklets – such as Weather, Trash, Battery & a GMail notifer.

6. Ubuntu Tweak (It makes your life easier!)

“Ubuntu Tweak is an application designed to config Ubuntu easier for everyone.” yells the official spiel on the official website and it couldn’t be truer!

It adds a ton of extra repositories to your system (such as the Chromium Browser, Banshee Development version, Gwibber daily, etc), it gives you –safe- cleaning options (unlike Computer Janitor which can literally hose your system), allow you to set preferred applications for each individual file type, quickly and easily enable some awesome nautilus scripts and even lets you change the ‘ubuntu logo’ in the panel menu! And this is only a brief over-view…

Download/Install

• 
  
  Select the correct .deb file for your system (i386 = 32bit, amd64 = 64bit (inc. intel 64bit)
  
  
  
  
• 
  
  Double click it
  
  
  
  
• 
  
  Install
  
  
  
  

Download Ubuntu-Tweak

Once you’ve installed it head straight to the Application section and enable some PPA’s and install some awesome applications!

Check out: -

7. Change The Panel Clock Appearance

The default clock set up is, quite frankly, lame. You can turn it into something of beauty with a few basic tweaks.

Run gconf-editor

• (ALT+F2 > gconf-editor)

Open up

• apps> panel> applets> clock_screen*> prefs

* this may be called something else; open up any applet until you see the correct ‘values’ in the right-hand screen.

• Double click on the format value and change it to ‘custom’

Then paste one of the ‘styles’ below into the custom_format field.

Humanity Style

This clock style matches the humanity panel set-up nicely.

• ^{<span rise="3000" font_desc="Droid Sans 7.5" color="#878787" weight="normal">%a %d %b</span>}%n_{<span font_desc="Droid Sans 7.5" color="#878787" weight="bold">%I:%M %p</span>}

Time Style

This one is great for netbooks.

• <span size="smaller" color="#c8c8c8">% a% d% b </ span> <b>% H:% M </ b>

8. Install a Twitter Client

Gwibber is the preferred choice of Twitter client for Ubuntu. Supporting a ton of social network and services from twitter, identi.ca facebook to flickr, flyakite and Digg.

You can easily keep up-to-date with your social network services – reply, tweet, message, post etc. It even integrates with the messaging applet on the main gnome panel, too!

You can install Gwibber by clicking on the apt-link below: -

• Install Gwibber

For a choice of other Twitter clients check out my review of 6 top twitter apps.

9. Empathy Vs Pidgin Vs Everyone

If the default messaging application ‘Empathy’ doesn’t do it for you, there are lots of other choices.

The previous default IM client ‘Pidgin’ is still a very worthy choice and although it can’t support webcam over MSN like Empathy it does come with an awesome plug-in framework allowing you to add to functionality and features to Pidgin.

You can add Facebook chat, now playing status updates, twitter, extra smilies, interface tweaks and more.

Install Pidgin

Why not check out my top 5 plug-ins’ for Pidgin.

Emesene

Emesene 1.5 is a solid choice for MSN users. Not only does it resemble MSN looks-wise, it is feature full! It supports, among the “usual” features you’d find,: -

• Webcam Sending/Receiving
• Nudges
• Winks
• Now Playing
• Facebook Integration (via the facebook plugin)
• Themes

Install Emesene

10. Enjoy using it!

Forget about finding new apps or tweaking some part of Karmic for an hour or so and just use Ubuntu like anyone else would.

Browse the net, chat on Pidgin, type up that letter in OOo and listen to something awesome in Rhythmbox and enjoy the awesomeness of Ubuntu 9.10.

(That was cheesy, wasn’t it?)

© omgubuntu.co.uk 2009. | Ubuntu News, Tips, Apps and more.

A Guided Tour Of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

A Guided Tour Of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala: "It's set to be the biggest and best release of Ubuntu so far and it impresses right from the get-go with an impressive installer, fast boot times, new artwork and a whole lot more.

Meet quite possibly the best operating system on the planet - Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala!

The default Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop

So what's new in Ubuntu 9.10? Let's take a quick visual over-view of what you'll find inside...

6 Step Installation
The install process has been refined for 9.10 and now requires less confused stares, less clicks and less time to get it installed and up and running.

Encryption
New options are also presented during install – such as creating an encrypted home partition.

File Transfer
The migration assistant – allowing you to transfer files from Windows or other operating system on your system – has been removed from the install process. An odd choice perhaps, but you can still access it from the main menu on the desktop.

New User Slideshow
During the installation of Ubuntu, your eye will be caught by a shiny new slideshow highlighting applications and features in Ubuntu.

One of the slides playing during an Karmic install

EX4, Grub2 and other “boring” bits
Karmic Koala sees Ubuntu move to the EXT4 file system as default.

This may not sound very interesting but Ext4 gibes you a performance – as well as security – boost. It'll even support that spare 1 Exbibyte drive you may have lying around...

Grub 2 is now used for your boot menu. This is a total rewrite of GRUB bringing with it better performance, features and even a auto-cleaner for dead entries.

Please note that existing systems will not be upgraded to GRUB 2 at this time as automatically reinstalling the boot loader is an inherently risky operation.

Other “boring” additions include:-

* AppArmor for Firefox, guest sessions, libvirt virtual machines and Evince.
* UpStart now manages the boot process ensuring an improved start-up time.

Artwork: New Bootscreen, Themes, Wallpapers and Icons & Heaps More

On your first boot up you will surely notice the new Ubuntu splash screen. A visually stunning success, it helps set the entire mood for the Koala.

XSplash; Your new boot screen

The login screen (GDM) has received an entire re-write and ties in with the theme of the splash screen: -

The Login Screen

Karmic comes with 19 of new photo wallpapers: -

New Wallpapers

As well as a bright new default one: -

The Human Theme has swapped it's colours from Orange to Brown: -

New icon set 'Humanity' becomes the default, replacing the somewhat stale Human Icon theme previously and adds very stylish notification area icons to the panel: -

User-Session-Applet
The "logout menu", as a lot of people seem to call it, gets some swish new icons for setting your IM status.

one of the new status icons; away

Shutdown Screen
Logging out shows you this gorgeous little screen, but be quick because shutting down now happens in the blink of an eye!

Software Centre Ubuntu

One of the biggest new features of 9.10, Software Centre is designed as your “one stop shop” for finding, installing and managing new applications. Choose a category, find an app, click install. Done!

In later releases the Software Store will become -the- literal one stop shop as it replaces Synaptic, Update Manager and allows developers to sell applications.

Empathy

Pidgin has been replaced as the default IM client by Gnome application 'Empathy'. Looks wise there isn't much different, but Empathy isn't quite as mature as Pidgin when it comes to themes, protocol support or other.

It does boast second-to-none integration with your Ubuntu desktop and can even support video & voice calls over MSN!

Empathy using an Adium Chat Style

Theme your chats using Adium chat skins, drag-to-arrange your contacts and even share your desktop with people using the newly integrated vino.

Geo-location support is also available for XMPP contacts.

Palimpsest Disk Utility

A little mentioned new feature in Karmic is the addition of the Gnome-Disk-Utility, also known as Palimpsest Disk Utility

Akin to Apple's Disk Utility it allows monitoring, management, creation, deletion, etc of your partitions/hardrives. If it detects an error with an installed HDD it will launch a pop up and let you know how to correct it.

UbuntuOne

How does 2GB of free cloud storage sound? It comes free with Ubuntu thanks to the installation of UbuntuOne – Canonicals' “Dropbox” competitor. Drop some files into your UbuntuOne folder, sync and then access them from any other computer - anywhere anytime!

You can pay $10/M for an increased amount of space (currently 50GB). It has a cute little icon, too!

Gnome 2.28.1

I hate reading reviews of Gnome releases because very little ever changes on the surface.

This is somewhat true of the latest Gnome version (bar the vastly improved Bluetooth module and the slightly controversial removal of icons on window buttons and certain menu's. You can re-enable them if you so wish, see my quick how-to here.)

Everything else you think/expect is still there. (Except Ekiga. Ubuntu removed that by default. Mwhaha.)

Fast start-ups & Faster shutdowns

You've heard the hype but see for yourself: Ubuntu starts up faster than ever on most systems. Shutting down takes even less time – typically just a second or two!

Network Manager

Network manager has undergone some major cosmetic surgery and now boast a cleaner and more usable interface.

Adding of new WIFI spots and security-key's has been greatly simplified, and you can even ad-hoc to your heart's content with this latest version!

Indicator Applet
Like ir or loathe it you'll be pleased to hear that the Indicator-Applet has gained some direction and now works with a greater range of applications in a much more straight forward way.

It currently supports Pidgin, Empathy, Gwibber, Evolution, Xmail, Kmail and Konversation.

Future plans will extend support from applications as diverse as Liferea, Claws Mail and Kmess to Kopete, Sylpheed and Yarsssr.

Easy Installation Of Fonts
It now takes just one click to install a font in Ubuntu.

Up until now it's been a bit more drawn out involving copying fonts to a user created directory and then manually rebuilding the font cache.

font information window with install button

Firefox 3.5.3

Karmic ships with Firefox 3.5.3 as the default browser.

Rhythmbox 12.5
Rhythmbox remains the default music management/player in Ubuntu - and rightly so! It's cleanly designed, lightweight (compared to the competition) and actually works with my iPod!

3 "main" new features over previous versions: -

• Cover Art Search now uses discogs.com and MusicBrainz – replacing Amazon, which stopped working.
• Clicking on the status icon summons Rhythmbox to the current workspace
• Updated Coherence UPnP plugin (Acts as a Mediaserver)
  

Why not install some cool extra plug-ins for it like desktop art, lastfm recommendations and an equalizer? See my post here.

Computer Janitor (AKA The Duster of Doom)
Computer Janitor has received a make over in time for Karmic, but still remains one of the most dangerous applications available to end users.

Computer Janitor will happily uninstall/obliterate/cheerfully declare war any manually installed application (those from .debs) seeing them as "unused" or un-needed.

See: "Computer Janitor too enthusiastic", "Computer Janitor is evil and must be stopped", "Yikes! Clean Up did too good a job! :("‎.

My tip is to edit this from your menu ASAP so you're not tempted to use it.

In the hands of the extra vigilant it's a great tool, but Ubuntu Tweak provides a far superior cleaner that doesn't trash your system.

Software Sources Changes
A great new user-friendly change in Karmic is the support for add-apt-ppa.

Not following?

It simply means you can add a PPA and no longer worry about fetching a key as this is done automatically.

• add-apt-repository ppa:

Or add a PPA to software sources using the new PPA "url's". Note that this method doesn't fetch the GPG Key, but you can use my script to solve that.

• ppa:/ppa

Just The Beginning

Of course this over-view is merely scratching the surface of all of the improvements, refinements and changes present in Ubuntu 9.10; a hell of a lot of work has gone on under the hood, too.

© omgubuntu.co.uk 2009. | Ubuntu News, Tips, Apps and more.

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