***Since a few people have messaged me asking how my desktop looks (because I discuss customization options) check it out here..

I was going to write more but I got bored....this guide was originally written for a friend who needed some help, I modified it so that it
would be more helpful for the Warez community...it will cover general tools you need to get the most out of Ubuntu. This will be a bit longer when I finish it, I simply got tired of writing

*NOTE* Anything that is BOLD AND GREEN is a command that you should run in terminal!

Ok , I'm going to make this simple as hell, just copy the commands I give you and voilah, you'll be fine.

Ok, so let's break down the BASIC system you'll receive when you first install Ubuntu:

1. You will NOT receive any codecs, mp3 support, wmv support, etc.
2. You will have limited media tools at your fingertips (Rhythmbox and Movie Player and Brasero)
3. You will receive Open Office, which is really ALL you need for MOST office related things you need to do
4. You will receive Gimp which (while slightly painful to learn...for new users) is a great little program...pretty much all you need unless you are hardcore into GFX.
5. That's it...so let's expand on the base system


For compatibility of MP3's, AVI, MKV, etc extensions you will need to run the following command in terminal (if you can't find the terminal, kindly shut off your computer, bang your head against the wall, and go play in traffic as you are useless :P):

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

*screenshot below* I already have the package, so obviously I can't install it, so your box will look slightly different...it will ask for confirmation to install the package, hit "Y" on your keyboard then enter and it'll install.



That's really all we have to do...it will take a few minutes to download (or less, depending on your connection) and then it will autoinstall the package. Now, click on any mp3 you currently have and listen to whatever crap you enjoy...congrats, step one is complete. All your movies will now play as well!

*IMPORTANT TO NOTE* If you plan on playing MKV files (from the 300mb movie teams, or wherever you get them) YOU MUST install mplayer or a similar player, as Movie Player will NOT play them properly...they will skip all over the place. So let's go ahead and install smplayer as it's my favorite. Once again, if you use terminal it will autoinstall it. *screenshot and terminal command below*

sudo apt-get install smplayer



Ok, now that we can play MKV's let's move on to FLV's....while most of us don't use flv's much, some of us *cough cough* like porn...and some porn comes in FLV format, now doesn't it? So let's go ahead and use Wine (Windows Compatibility software)...we are going to download FLV Player

Once we have that downloaded we are going to RIGHT click the install icon and click "run with WINE" It will then install into your wine folder which you can access by clicking Applications -> Wine -> Programs

Now whenever we run across an FLV that will for some reason not play in movie player or smplayer we now have a proper player for them. *NOTE* Most FLV's will play perfectly in the media players that come with linux but sometimes the speed is way off, and in that case we need a proper player for them.

Ok, now that we can play ALL movie types let's go ahead and move on....

I HATE VLC...it's ugly as ~love~, but if you must have it then run this command

sudo apt-get install vlc



*no more terminal screenshots as I am sure you have the hang of it by now*

it will then autoinstall. So anyways, I hate it...but some people like it!

Let's move on to music players...*NOTE* Rhythmbox is absolutely EPIC...it is one of the best media players I've ever used, but some people like Songbird and other players, so I should at least show you how to install those (it's easy)!

At the moment I am using Songbird as I just love the interface, but you really can't go wrong with Rhythmbox. To install Songbird (or similar apps) you would follow these instructions below...

**I am showing you how to install Songbird as an EXAMPLE...as this is how you will install similar programs, it's just a base on how to do it, most websites will have detailed instructions as to what you need to do**

First you would download Songbird from

Songbird_1.2.0-1146_linux-i686.tar.gz is the current build (if this changed just modify the build numbers to install it)

sudo mv Songbird_1.2.0-1146_linux-i686.tar.gz /opt

Which will move the tar.gz file to /opt

Now let's go to opt section in terminal, all we need to do is

cd /opt

now that we are in /opt
*note you will know you are in opt because your terminal will look like this..with your username of course...
linux@linux-desktop:/opt$*

let's run the following command

tar xzvf Songbird_1.2.0-1146_linux-i686.tar.gz

which will unrar the file into the opt directory (you cannot unrar into this directory unless you use the command as stated above)

Now if we visit the /opt directory via the file browser we will now see a Songbird directory, woot

Now before we exit terminal let's run the following command which will unlock the directory for us!

sudo chown -R linux:linux Songbird

*replace linux:linux with your username:username*

now if we stay in terminal we can run cd Songbird which will bring us into the Songbird folder
*your terminal will look like this
linux@linux-desktop:/opt/Songbird$*

Now if we have the terminal open at any time all we have to do is run

'/opt/Songbird/songbird'

and now we have the finished product! Screenshot below
and we can start songbird...but honestly that's a pain in the ass, so let's use a little trick and add Songbird to the Applications -> Sound and Video section of the topbar.

Right click applications, click edit menus...when the main menu editor opens up navigate to Sound and Video then click New Item

Make sure you input everything as I did in the screenshot below and you are set to go



Easy easy, now we have it in our menu as opposed to running the terminal commands to get to it...

--------------------

ONE THING that will annoy the piss out of you is that RAR files don't have a dedicated manager from which to extract, so you need to install a handy little program called Unrar

sudo apt-get install unrar

Once that installs you are perfectly fine! You can install Winrar via Wine if you like, but it's not really necessary.

--------------------

BROWSERS:

1. Arora
*simple webkit based webbrowser using Qt toolkit. Originally based on the Qt demo browser to show the possibilities of Qt Webkit. Arora is a very basic browser that supports history and bookmarks.*

sudo apt-get install arora

2. Conkeror
*Conkeror is a highly-programmable web browser based on Mozilla XULRunner. It has a sophisticated keyboard system for running commands and interacting with web page content, modelled after Emacs and Lynx. It is self-documenting and extensible with JavaScript.
It comes with builtin support for several Web 2.0 sites like several Google services (Search, Gmail, Maps, Reader, etc.), Del.icio.us, Reddit, Last.fm and YouTube. For easier editing of form fields, it can spawn external editors. For this feature the recommended conkeror-spawn-process-helper package needs to be installed.
Despite its very similar sounding name, Conkeror is not related to the KDE web browser and file manager Konqueror in any way.*

sudo apt-get install konkeror

3. Elinks
*ELinks is a feature-rich program for browsing the web in text mode. It is like enhanced Lynx and Links. The most noteworthy features of ELinks are:
* Lots of protocols (local files, finger, HTTP(S), FTP, IPv4/6 etc.)
* Internationalized domain names
* Persistent cookies, HTTP authentication and proxy authentication
* Tabbed browsing, good looking menus and dialogs, and key-binding manager
* History browsing and typeahead searches
* Forms history and completion, and history in commonly used input dialogs
* CSS support and support for browser scripting (Perl, Lua, Guile etc.)
* Tables and frames rendering, and configurable color support
* Compressed and background (non-blocking) downloads, and download resuming*

sudo apt-get install elinks

4. Epiphany
Epiphany is a simple yet powerful GNOME web browser targeted at non-technical users. Its principles are simplicity and standards compliance.
This dummy package installs Epiphany with the Gecko backend by default.

I really like Epiphany, very easy browser, quite fast, and not very heavy

sudo apt-get install epiphany-browser

5. Galeon ---
*A standards compliant web browser, which integrates well with the GNOME desktop environment. It does not include an email client, irc bot, website designer etc., therefore has a moderate resource usage. Internally the program uses Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine to display the web pages so is fully feature complete and standards compliant, as well as rendering pages quickly.*

I love Galeon, it's seriously pimp

sudo apt-get install galeon

6. Midori
*Midori is a lightweight web browser based on WebKit.
Its features include:
* Full integration with GTK+2.
* Fast rendering with WebKit.
* Tabs, windows and session management.
* Flexibly configurable Web Search.
* User scripts and user styles support.
* Straightforward bookmark management.
* Customizable and extensible interface.
* Support for extensions (written in C).
* Custom context menu actions.*

Decent browser, I've used it a bit, seems to crash at random intervals, does not work well lol

sudo apt-get install midori

7. Firefox
----Firefox is, of course, pimp...it comes standard with ubuntu, you can update it...but you can figure that out, it's easy. Anyways, Seamonkey is available as well, but if you have Firefox there's no real need for Seamonkey + I hate it

****For Firefox extensions and addons! DO NOT install them via Add/Remove ---they have adblock and other addons there, but they've messed up on me when I tried it that way, just install them via Mozilla's official addon site****

PRISM:

Prism is fast becoming one of my favorite little apps of the all time!!

For info go here:
If you want to install it simply go to the terminal and type

sudo apt-get install prism

Also, on the website I linked *just above* download the Prism for firefox extension, it's seriously nice.



Java Plugins----random note-----
install the Icedtea Java plugin by going to Add/Remove and enterinve icedtea or Java in the searchbox then installing those packages, they are the best available--




TORRENTING:

So, we have ONE...ugly as , and useless, torrent client which is included with the install of Ubuntu, it is called Transmission...you will never use it, never ever, ever. For serious torrent fans there are two options

1. Install Utorrent via wine (not a bad option)
2. OR you can install deluge (my baby....love it)...deluge is soooo epic! In my opinion it is better than Utorrent, but to each their own

sudo apt-get install deluge





DOWNLOAD MANAGERS:

I never use download managers, I am oldschool about it and just use firefox or opera, lol, but I know quite a few of you use them, so here's some you can try (I don't use them, so use at your own annoyance)

1. Kget - I've heard GREAT things about it...never used it, but they say it's nice

*info- KGet is an advanced download manager with support for Metalink and Bittorrent. Downloads are added to the list, where they can be paused, queued, or scheduled for later.
This package is part of the KDE 4 networking module.*

sudo apt-get install kget

2. Gwget - Haven't heard much about it, but you can try it if you really want to...

*Gwget offers a GNOME front-end to the popular wget application, with enhanced features, such as systray icon, multiple downloads and a powerful preferences manager.*

sudo apt-get install gwget



SCREENSHOTS:

Since screenshotting is (I guess) at least a small part of Warez, you should at least know how to do it properly....

1. The easy way is to just click print screen and it will grab the whole screen and pop up a box that asks where to save the file...you can modify the name and extension, that's about it....

2. The best way...download KSNAPSHOT which is an easy little program that allows you to capture various regions, full screen, window under cursor, etc etc...it's seriously easy, and the best program for screenies.



sudo apt-get install ksnapshot

3. If you would like to actually capture VIDEO from your desktop (record what you're doing) you need gtk-recordMyDesktop which is a simple little program that allows you to record audio/video and screencast, etc

sudo apt-get install gtk-recordmydesktop



PIMPING OUT YOUR DESKTOP: *with these I'm going to offer you websites, not commands*

1. Docks...

a. Cairo dock! EPIC, the best, all you will ever need
***Uses cairo to render nice graphics, and Glitz to use hardware acceleration. It's fully configurable and can be a taskbar too. You can easily plug applets into it.

Homepage: ***

b. Avant Window Navigator....I don't like it, most people love it

***The avant-window-navigator is a MacOS X like panel for the GNOME Desktop written in C. In addition to launchers that can be dragged onto the bar, it features a taskbar that behaves similarly to the Mac OSX dock. The window navigator uses the composite extension for transparency and other effects.

Homepage: ***

c. SimDock ----- AKA So Mother Ugly ---- download at your own risk, I hate it
****
Simdock is a dockbar that features a zoom effect (like OS X) and customized launchers. It fits well in GNOME but works on most desktop environment and does not require Compiz or 3D acceleration.

Homepage: ****

2. Desktop Environments:

a. Gnome - Ubuntu
b. KDE - Kubuntu
c. XFCE - Xubuntu

The main 3 desktop environments....if you have Gnome and would like to try out Xubuntu (XFCE) all you have to do is type in

sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop

*screenshot below*



it's the same process for Kubuntu, once you have installed the xubuntu or kubuntu desktop environments all you have to do is reboot, and at the login screen click "select session" and you can now choose from Gnome, KDE, and XFCE...so you can now technically run Xubuntu, Kubuntu, and Ubuntu...woot?

3. Window Decorators *I will link you to the wiki for this info as I don't feel like coming up with my own writing about it....to make it short...Emerald = lovely)

a. Emerald
b. GTK - default
c. KDEWindowDecorator
*HINT* once you have installed the decorator(s) you want you should download a little thingy called "Compiz Fusion Icon" You can find compiz fusion icon in the Add/Remove area, once you have it installed you can access it by going to Applications -> System Tools

It will put a little icon on your top taskbar which (when right clicked) will allow you to change between your installed decorators at a simple click of a button...saves a ton of time.

4. Themes/Icon Packs

Go to
for themes you will go to GTK 2.x

for Icons you will go to Icons - > Icon Themes

download whichever packs you like! SOME PACKS WILL HAVE CUSTOM INSTRUCTIONS!! IF SO FOLLOW THOSE INSTRUCTIONS!! To install a theme all you have to do is click System -> Preferences -> Appearance and simply drag the theme package onto it...in some cases they will RAR a RAR, so unrar the first pack and drag the second pack onto appearance

The Appearance window looks like this



*NOTE* If you installed a package and you do not see it on the main page of Appearance you sometimes will have to hit the "customize" button, in the controls tab you would need to find the theme you installed



It is the same process with ICONS...click the icons tab and select the icon pack you would like to use, once you click the icon theme it will autochange so you can see if you like it, if you do then just click apply and VOILAH it's changed.

If this DOES NOT work you can unrar the file into home *will show up as your username* then click CTRL-H to show hidden files, once you can see the hidden files in the extract screen go to .themes

***If you are unsure of what I mean, go to the screenshot coded below*** This is the .icons folder, for themes you would just go to .themes
Extract the theme into that folder

It's the same for Icons except you would be extracting into .icons not .themes ...I prefer to extract them into the .icons folder as opposed to dragging them onto appearance, but it's your call.

It's as easy as that, if the theme/icon pack has custom instructions just make sure to follow them! Also, you can change your wallpaper from the Appearance screen

Bugs/Random crap that will annoy you

1. A bug I find alot (this bug happened in 9.04 AND 9.10 (alpha 4, which is what I'm using now) is that the master volume toggle will be down to 0% when I start Ubuntu for the first time each day...this is a pain as you can adjust the regular volume switch all the way to 100% but your main will still be down to 0% and you'll be confused as as how to fix it...well, no worries, here's an easy fix

sudo apt-get install gnome-alsamixer

Install gnome alsamixer, once it finishes installing go to Applications -> Sound and Video right click Gnome Alsa Mixer and select "add this launcher to panel"

Once it's added to the panel just left click it at any time and you will have the advanced Alsa Mixer which will allow you to move the master switch all the way to 100% or whatever you want



2. Subtitles don't automatically work when you use MOVIE PLAYER...

Uhm, this is so easy, but apparently people just have a brain fart while trying to figure it out...if you have an .srt file just drag the damn thing onto the movie player interface as the movie is playing and the subs will appear...not rocket science. *NOTE* Gnome Movie Player, SMPLAYER, etc will automatically pickup the presence of subs (if it's in the same folder) and you won't have this issue

3. Brasero won't burn properly...

I love Brasero, don't get me wrong, and it was selected as the default burner as it IS relatively easy to use, but if you want a failsafe that (at least in my usage) has NEVER messed up, then install k3b...k3b is my baby, I love it

sudo apt-get install k3b

4. Pidgin.... pidgin (or empathy in 9.10)

I hate multi messengers...I want one for each carrier, so let's go through how to install compatible frontends to the major carriers you are used to in Windows

MSN:

1. Emesene - hands down the best MSN clone on the market..it's light as hell and has some great plugins
2. Amsn - heavy, ugly, but a good alternative. Good for webcamming with buddies...you can record webcams too if you are creepy like that
3. Kmess - like it's name, it is a mess...I hate it, some may like it

Skype:

To download skype go to their official website and select the Ubuntu option (it says 7.04-8.04 but it will work for newer versions as well) and download the .deb file. Once it finishes downloading just double click the deb file and it will autoinstall Skype and add it to your menu, done.

Yahoo/Aim

There are no (to my knowledge) dedicated clone of Aim/Yahoo....I may be wrong, i never use either one, but if you want a nice interface that is NOT pidgin or empathy then you can use Kopete...it's a bit heavy (imo) but it runs fine and is so much better than pidgin...I hate pidgin, I've said it like 3 times, but I really do despise it.