Ubuntu

Applications we use which are preinstalled

• Browser: Firefox 3
• P2P: Transmission
• MSN/IRC: Pidgen

Additional Software Installed

• Email: Thunderbird
• Editor: Geany
• Media player: VLC
• Chat: Skype
• Wine + IEs4Linux
• Vector Graphics: InkScape

Utilities

• AllTray (allows running apps to be iconised into the system tray)
• DisplayCalibrator (Set display gamma)

Server Software & Utilities

To install server software for running a local development environment for our wiki work, just run through the necessary items in the Debian Post Install.

Sharing files with Samba

The file sharing is quite simple to set up, just go to "Shared Folders" in System/Administration and enable sharing via SMB. You'll also need to edit /etc/samba/smb.conf and set browseable and writeable to "yes", and then add a user and password using smbpasswd -a username. Then reload the service through init.d.

Windows Emulator (Wine)

The windows emulator allows practically seamless integration of native windows applications into the Linux desktop environment. Internet Explorer is more difficult to set up in it than other applications due to its tight integration with the windows internal components, but a package is available allowing easy installation of multiple simultaneous Internet Explorer versions (see Installation on Ubuntu).

Below is a screenshot of my local laptop running Ubuntu. As you can see all the open windows are integrated naturally into the normal desktop environment but some of them are windows applications and some native Linux ones. The top browser window is Internet Explorer 6 running in windows emulation, but the bottom one is Ubuntu's Firefox. Music is playing from the Windows emulated Winamp in the top right, and the middle application is a Windows-only family tree program. I was able to drop a folder of music directly into the Winamp window to play it, and all file paths and open/save dialogue boxes can navigate the entire Linux directory tree just like a native application behaves.

DVD Ripping

apt-get install dvdrip vobcopy

Ubuntu 8 Notes

• Playing MP3's in VLC exhibited regular glitches every few seconds, I found that by setting Audio/Output modules/Audio output module to ALSA in preferneces fixed the problem. Also CPU-intensive operations tend to glitch the music, which is fixed by ticking Allow real-time priority in the advanced preferences.
• Also VLC has trouble with video on the default settings, I fixed it by setting the output module to OpenGL and then the OpenGLX sub item to Alternate fullscreen method