Must have software applications for Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

The new release of Ubuntu, Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, is better than the previous release Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope distribution. It includes a new installer, many new themes, icons, wallpapers and login screens, ext4 filesystem, grub2, Gnome 2.28.1, new Firefox browser 3.5.3 and the new Software center from where you can access many free and open source software applications.
We are giving here a list of some important and extremely useful software applications which are not included in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala.

List of must have software applications for Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala:

1. Restricted ExtrasRestricted Extras is a package consisting of Adobe Flash Player, Java Runtime Environment (sun-java-jre), a set of Microsoft Fonts (msttcorefonts), multimedia codecs (w32codecs or w64codecs), mp3-compatible encoding (lame), FFMpeg, extra Gstreamer codecs, the package for DVD decoding (libdvdread4), the unrar archiver, odbc, and cabextract. To install Restricted Extra package in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, open a terminal and type:

   sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

2. Multimedia

   DVD Playback

   To play encrypted DVDs you must install libdvdcss2. To install it, type in the terminal:

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

   VLC

   VLC is the most popular, free and open source multimedia player. It has support for most of the multimedia formats, without the need for extra codecs. To install VLC, type in the terminal:

   sudo apt-get install vlc vlc-plugin-pulse

   DVD::Rip

   DVD::Rip is a popular DVD backup/copy program, that uses the transcode video/audio processing and conversion tools. To install it, type in the terminal:

   sudo apt-get install dvdrip rar

3. Google Earth
   Using Google Earth, you can view satellite image of Earth, maps, terrain, 3D buildings and much more.
   To install it, type in the terminal:

   sudo apt-get install googleearth-package
make-googleearth-package --force
sudo dpkg -i googleearth*.deb

4. Eye Candy

   Compiz Fusion

   You can achieve advanced desktop effects using using Compiz fusion. To install it type:

   sudo apt-get install compiz compizconfig-settings-manager compiz-fusion-plugins-main \
compiz-fusion-plugins-extra emerald librsvg2-common fusion-icon

   Conky

   Conky is an advance desktop manager for X window system, which displays information about your desktop like CPU utilization, free hard disk space, RAM usage and so on. To install it type:

   sudo apt-get install conky

   Screenlets

   Screenlets are basically the best form of eye candy for your Ubuntu desktop. They are small applications laying on your desktop. To install screenlets, type in the terminal:

   sudo apt-get install screenlets

5. Internet

   IRC

   XChat is an IRC chat program that allows you to join multiple IRC channels at the same time, talk publicly, private one-on-one conversations etc. It even supports file transfers. To install it, you can type in the terminal:

   sudo apt-get install xchat

   Pidgin

   Pidgin is one of the most popular open source Instant Messaging application. You can use any IM account like Gtalk, Yahoo, Msn, Jabber and others with it. To install Pidgin, type in tthe terminal:

   sudo apt-get install pidgin

   Skype

   Skype is the most popular integrated VOIP and video conferencing program. To install skype on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala just click on the Ubuntu 8.10+ 32bit version or Ubuntu 8.10+ 64 bit version from this download page.

6. Torrent Client

   Vuze

   Vuze is a popular torrent client similar to Azureus. You can use it to download files from torrent websites and servers. To install it type:

   sudo apt-get install vuze

7. NTFS read/write support
   To read/write data from Windows partition which is using NTFS filesystem, you have to enable NTFS read/write support in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala. To do this, type int the terminal:

   sudo apt-get install ntfs-config

This is a screenshot of how we have configured our desktop using some of these applications:

We hope that you find these applications useful for your new Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala desktop. Do share your experience by comments.
For more tips and how-to’s on Ubuntu Karmic Koala, keep reading Blogsdna.

Similar Posts:

• Extra Wallpaper Package for Ubuntu Karmic Koala
• Free and Attractive themes for Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
• How to Add getdeb Repository in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala
• Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala Alpha 1 Released
• How to Install Firefox 3.6 on Ubuntu 9.04