Thursday, September 23, 2010

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! 

60 comments:

  1. I recommend Geeqie or Comix as a comic book reader. You've already got Mnemosyne in there... hmm, how about Minecraft as a game? It's not free, but it's as popular as WoW and runs on GNU+Linux. Also, the Humble Indie Bundle produced a bunch of free software games.

    ReplyDelete
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  2. i think gmusicbrowser by shimmer is a pretty cool thing.also has a ppa for lucid and maverick.

    it's a lot more lightweight than banshee or even exaile and a lot more customizable. i have worked at the default layout to make it more accessible for first-time users, but basically everyone can whop up their own layout pretty quickly and easily. it's also an advantage that you can choose playback backends (mplayer, gstreamer and mpg321), gstreamer has features like gapless but consumes more cpu.

    it's under active development (both the upstream project and our spin of it) and we're open for ideas/feedback.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous4:54 AM

    https://launchpad.net/gmailwatcher

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous8:30 AM

    A pretty good SSH GUI Connections Manager for Linux: PAC Manager (the equivalent to SecureCRT and similar for linux)

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/pacmanager/

    ReplyDelete
  5. Screenshot application "Shutter"

    ReplyDelete
  6. Definitely Hotot as an amazing Gwibber-Alternative.
    http://hotot.org/
    http://code.google.com/p/hotot/

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous1:16 AM

    Zim Desktop Wiki
    Basenji
    Shotwell
    Reminna

    ReplyDelete
  8. As soon as I end instalation I apt-get the following packages
    ubuntu-restriced-extras
    vim
    vlc

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous1:32 AM

    For people that need to work with subtitles (translating), I would recommend Gnome Subtitles v1.0. It has a lot of great features, high-def video playback support, all of the common subtitle formats as well as encodings and a neat interface with all the required functions.

    It's simple, lightweight and powerful.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous1:33 AM

    Ubuntu Tweak is essential.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Elementary theming. So much great work is being done by the Elementary project, including themes, icons, nautilus-elementary and now rhythmbox-e.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hi :-)

    1- First things first: enable missing icons...
    Here's how: http://ubuntuguide.net/add-missing-icons-under-system-menu-in-ubuntu-10-04-lucid-lynx

    2- Parcellite: a clipboard manager

    3- Htop: a top command with a better GUI

    4- AllTray: to minimized any applications

    5- Bleachbit: secure clean clean your applications / system

    6- Keep a close look at your connections: wireshark

    :-)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Uget download manager, it's very good! simple, easy-to-use and lightweigh.
    : )

    ReplyDelete
  14. Equinox theme and Faenza Icon set

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  15. Fotoxx is a must to easily modify pictures.
    Ubuntu-Tweak helps cleaning .deb cache

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anonymous3:39 AM

    Getting things gnome is pretty cool

    ReplyDelete
  17. Easystroke - something like gnome-do, but for your mouse http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/easystroke/

    Granola - save energy, save the planet http://grano.la/

    Geeqie - superfast image viewer http://geeqie.sourceforge.net/

    Inkscape - vector graphics http://inkscape.org/

    font-manager - http://code.google.com/p/font-manager/

    gpick - advanced color picker http://code.google.com/p/gpick/

    Bluefish - edit html, CSS and much more http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/

    Darktable - photo editor for professionals http://darktable.sourceforge.net/

    ReplyDelete
  18. File browser - Nautilus-elementary http://www.webupd8.org/2010/01/nautilus-elementary-simplified-nautilus.html
    Batch renaming - GPRename http://gprename.sourceforge.net/
    FPS Game - Warsow http://www.warsow.net/
    Photo editing - GIMP http://www.gimp.org/
    Vector graphics - Inkscape http://www.inkscape.org/
    3D - Blender http://www.blender.org/
    Mail checker - CheckGMail http://checkgmail.sourceforge.net/
    Video downloader (Youtube etc.) - ClipGrab http://clipgrab.de/start_en.html
    File sync & online storage - Dropbox https://www.dropbox.com/
    Feed reader - Liferea http://liferea.sourceforge.net/
    Music player (Like Amarok) - Clementine http://code.google.com/p/clementine-player/
    Music player (Like iTunes) - Rhythmbox-e http://www.elementary-project.com/
    Music player (Like Winamp) - Audacious http://audacious-media-player.org/
    Music files tag editor - EasyTag http://easytag.sourceforge.net/
    Audio converter - Sound Converter http://soundconverter.berlios.de/
    Audio editor - Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
    DJ software - Mixxx http://www.mixxx.org/
    Video player - VLC media player http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

    ReplyDelete
  19. cheese. a lot of new users want to see their build-in cameras actually work without any witch hunt for the drivers

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anonymous8:04 AM

    I would recommend:
    - Easystoke (already suggested but really efficient and also allows you to show off (-; ) It's a simple mouse gesture recognition program where you record gestures and link them to a command or combination of key. And it's already in Ubuntu Repositories. http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/easystroke/

    - Kupfer. It's an applications launcher, like gnome-do but written in python. It's also very light and useful especially for laptops. http://kaizer.se/wiki/kupfer/

    ReplyDelete
  21. PDXTITO9:38 AM

    Devede - DeVeDe is the best program to create video DVDs and CDs (VCD, sVCD or CVD), suitables for home players, 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, VCDImager and MKisofs (well, and Python, PyGTK and PyGlade), so its dependencies are really small.

    Download version 3.6 of DeVeDe -

    http://www.stchman.com/tools/DeVeDe/devede_3.6-0%7Egetdeb1_all.deb

    ReplyDelete
  22. Anonymous10:55 AM

    pyrenamer
    remmina

    ReplyDelete
  23. You should definitely include Gnome Do! It's awesome! Other programs to include should be:
    VLC Player
    Emesene
    Compiz Config Settings Manager
    Gloobus Preview
    and the Nautilus-Elementary hack (it makes things so much easier)
    I think they should all be included anyway :)
    x

    ReplyDelete
  24. Anonymous2:18 PM

    Pinta is a casual image editor/paint program that is a simple alternative to The GIMP.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Anonymous5:31 PM

    Hardinfo - great device manager and more
    redshift - changes screen color temperature based on the time of day
    Pithos - pandora player that doesn't use flash
    Multiboot - live usb creator

    ReplyDelete
  26. mmmmm, I wonder why my comment deleted! :\

    ReplyDelete
  27. Anonymous8:16 AM

    Clementine has become my favorite music player by far. I love the tree view on the left.

    Also, even though songbird doesn't officially support Linux, it's still available to download and install. I'm using the newest build 1.80 as of today. It works great and is still awesome!

    If you would like to use your PS3 controller with any games or emulators, check out QtSixA. Works awesome with ZSNES.

    A better bluetooth manager than the default is Blueman. Very awesome and nice gui.

    I'm still a big fan of Cairo dock - the OpenGL version that is. The newest version has custom dock items for Pidgin that work like Adium does on Mac.

    TeamViewer is the best replacement for LogMeIn. It's not as good as LogMeIn yet, but it's getting there. Previous issues with dual monitors and mouse pointers have been fixed now. The worst things about TeamViewer for Linux is that it runs through wine somehow, and the other is that it doesn't start at the login screen, so you have to be logged into a session already and have TeamViewer running before you can control it.

    One of the best programs you could ever get for Ubuntu right off the bat is Ubuntu Tweak. Install tons of software and restricted extras, tweak your system, etc. with one app.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Anonymous1:55 PM

    Cool applications that may already be in your list.

    Calibre - ebook handling
    Pigdin + OTR plugin
    Radical codex - comic viewer
    7zip
    Boinc - crunching for good cause
    I2P - anon net
    gmount - mount isos
    numpty physics - crayon physics clone
    frozen-bubble
    Dosbox + gui - running wingames
    x2go - remote desktop client

    ReplyDelete
  29. I second Shutter and Remmina, both are awesome apps. Since your guide doesn't have a personal finance app (and none come preinstalled), wxBanker could be a good fit; its motto is "simple personal finance" (disclaimer: I'm the author :) Posting links usually causes problems, but omgubuntu did a nice write up of it recently.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Anonymous11:10 AM

    Would it be possible to include a fix for the resolution of Plymouth when using proprietary video drivers. It defaults to a very ugly 800x680 and the old fix (set gfxpayload=keep) no longer works in Maverick.

    ReplyDelete
  31. I just upgraded to Maverick Meerkat. The first programs I installed were:

    awesome
    mnemosyne
    gnome-do
    vim-full
    java-6-sun (you have to use lucid partner repositories - boo!)
    eclipse se & pdt (subversion; java-hl)
    svn
    git
    vimclipse
    gimp/gimpshop
    keepass-x
    firefox addons(vimperator, noscript, adblock, firebug, yslow)
    supercollider-vim
    processing
    lamp stack
    wmname
    tree
    chromium/chrome

    ReplyDelete
  32. Anonymous7:09 PM

    Radio Tray - Lightweight app for online radio feeds etc.
    Nautilus-Elementary - Simple tweak for Nautilus
    VLC - It plays everything I need with simply gui and loads of options if you want them.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Anonymous11:57 PM

    Xara Xtreme
    XCFA - for converting music to other formats. I use this tool so much!
    playdeb - For downloading games that aren't already in the repositories e.g. OpenTyrian
    OpenTyrian - Requires playdeb to download it, but is an amazing vertical shooter.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Anonymous2:32 PM

    Maverick is out! So where is the post-install guide?

    ReplyDelete
  35. Something new I just found is nautilus elements... it's a must upgrade for nautilus. I found it here: http://www.techdrivein.com/2010/10/nautilus-elementary-in-ubuntu-maverick.html

    ReplyDelete
  36. Let see
    1- Agave for color choosing
    2- GTG for tasks
    3- Chromium (of course)
    4- Shutter for easy screen and/or windows capture
    5- Parcellite
    6- Dropbox

    ReplyDelete
  37. Shutter - feature-rich screenshot program. You can take a screenshot of a specific area, window, your whole screen, or even of a website

    ReplyDelete
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  39. Great post. I love this post. Keep on posting.

    ReplyDelete
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