The reviews are in, and the just-released Ubuntu 9.04, i.e. “Jaunty Jackalope,” rates as a slick, fully-formed UNIX desktop. Looking to intend started or raise your system? We’re recommending 10 downloads for everyone to try.
Graphic by Andrew Mason.
A hurried state most this compilation—it’s a lowercase assorted than a itemize of Windows or Mac utilities. We unification to apiece application’s bag page, but most of them (with exceptions noted) crapper be installed from Ubuntu’s repositories, the choice assemblage of code some individual crapper admittance by artefact to their System menu, then Administration, then choosing Synaptic Package Manager. Search discover the app’s study there to establish it (or, for tangency fans, identify something aforementioned sudo apt-get establish conky). Many of the applications also hit Windows or Mac versions that impact substantially for dual-booting users.
If you’re dustlike with every the choice settings on your shiny-fresh Ubuntu system, you hit no requirement for Ubuntu Tweak. For newcomers, or anyone who feels confining by having their Computer picture cragfast with the study “Computer,” Ubuntu Tweak is an OCD multi-tool. Besides allowing you to modify every the lowercase bits and ends of Ubuntu in a behavior farther easier than redaction a book enter or using the gconf-editor tool, Ubuntu Tweak also turns instalment (and ownership up-to-date) third-party upgrades aforementioned the Avant Window Navigator cut or the stylish Firefox beta into a ultimate check-the-box job. Short edition for Windows geeks: It’s aforementioned TweakUI for Linux. (Head to the information locate to download).
Look, we intend it—not everyone’s a follower of widgets/gadgets/whathaveyou, and we totally understand; motion soured Vista’s sidebar was digit of the prototypal things we did on a newborn install. But the Screenlets covering gives you admittance to some of the hundreds upon hundreds of Google Gadgets and another unstoppered widgets, some of them hardnessing actualised fecundity tools aforementioned Google Calendar or Remember the Milk. With Ubuntu’s today built-in Compiz powers, you crapper modify ordered the Screenlets to be unseeable absent until you advise a key (like, say, the Mac’s F9 default). To do that, you’ll requirement to establish the compizconfig-settings-manager package, where you’ll encounter every kinds of another goodies.
We’ve ever likeable Handbrake, our readers aforementioned it, too, and it entireness meet dustlike in UNIX (as it does on Windows and for Macs). With its stylish version, Handbrake entireness hand-in-hand with our selection media player, VLC, to attain cacophonous some DVD into a recording enter for some device. (Head to the information locate to clutch a pre-compiled Ubuntu version; the 8.10 edition should impact dustlike in 9.04).
It’s become a daylong way, but no Ubuntu individual crapper intend by without a lowercase command line impact today and then. Yakuake takes the drop-down tangency from recreation touchstone Quake, makes it earnestly fast and cushy to tab, and bespoken foodstuff and image graduation for a tangency that looks how you poverty it, pops up in the aforementioned locate apiece time, and feels a aggregation more desegrated into your coverall experience. Technically, it’s shapely for KDE-based systems (like Ubuntu’s KDE version, Kubuntu), but GNOME-based systems aforementioned Ubuntu crapper separate it with rattling some dependencies or problems. You’ll poverty to attain this digit move up with your system.
Trying discover newborn UNIX distributions is fun, modify if you’re a long-term relation with an Ubuntu desktop. Because, hey, maybe CrunchBang would attain a beatific quick-boot alternative, right? And isn’t the Fedora 11 beta hunting powerful nice? UNetbootin makes it departed ultimate to invoke pretty such some UNIX organisation into digit that boots from a USB stick. It crapper automatically download and establish the eld of favourite distributions (Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, etc.), or alter some bootable ISO enter you’ve got. You crapper modify intend disturbed and custom-roll your possess grouping from a chosen kernel, but UNetbootin doesn’t order such more than digit download and digit click.
Songbird’s acquirable on every threesome platforms, but if you’re digit of the vast some iPod or iPhone owners discover there on a Windows or Mac machine, there’s a beatific quantity you’re alright with having iTunes separate your penalization and control your figure (not that there aren’t alternative iPod wranglers). UNIX has its clean deal of original penalization managers, but Songbird is the most adaptable, attractive, and streamlined penalization app around. It likewise crapper manage your iPod (except for the accepted iPhone/iPod occurrence conundrum), clutch medium prowess from the web, endeavor the moving tracks from some scheme locate with its built-in browser, and offers a full patron of elegant add-ons that comminute up scheme data, attain how Songbird looks and feels, and essentially modify up anything the artefact that extensions crapper for Firefox. It’s not perfect, but it’s rattling disposable on nearly some UNIX desktop. (Head to the information locate to download).
This one’s an old-school app, dominated every by book files, but the results crapper be brilliant, as evidenced by digit hacker’s mutli-colored, iconic desktop, or a falsehood for fans of to-dos and Twitter replies. Best of all, you crapper intermixture and correct the features and accumulation you poverty displayed in some setup, as we showed you in our Conky guide. Basically, Conky crapper place some accumulation you want, from your screen or the web, on your desktop, and ready it updated, and that’s a enthusiastic thing.
VMWare is meliorate if you’re earnest most streaming multiple, uber-efficient realistic machines in a utilization environment. For the cipher bag individual who meet needs admittance to a Windows covering today and then, it’s hornlike to vex a trimmed-down XP streaming in VirtualBox. It’s cushy sufficiency for a beginner to intend into, but customizable sufficiency to separate as a seamless taskbar on your UNIX desktop. In another words, it’s a liberated semi-equivalent of what Mac users hit been using (Boot Camp or Parallels) to separate the needed Windows app today and again. (Ubuntu’s repositories circularize the “Open Source Edition” of VirtualBox, which is such the same, but lacks destined features, including USB support; nous to the information locate to download accepted packages for 9.04).
Most UNIX screen users are hate to adjudge it, but some app that Just Works is commendable of praise. Whether you’re instalment from maker or a pre-rolled package, Dropbox integrates itself smoothly into the Ubuntu desktop, creating a Dropbox folder in your bag directory, ownership whatever’s in it synchronal (up to 2GB with a liberated account), and substance hurried admittance and notifications from the grouping tray. When you’re absent from your system, you crapper clutch some you’ve got in the ‘box from Dropbox’s scheme interface. Simple, streamlined, helpful. (Head to the information locate to download pre-compiled Ubuntu packages).
Adam never fails to inform me of GNOME Do’s similarity to Quicksilver, the uber-essential application launcher and fecundity agency for Macs. But that’s a beatific thing. With Do installed, a hurried keyboard blow could unstoppered up a super-quick artefact to unstoppered an application, blast soured a one-shot tangency command, move a VirtualBox machine, add a Google Calendar or Remember the Milk obligation, update Twitter, uphold your system, move an telecommunicate to a Gmail occurrence … this itemize goes on. As a two-for-one, GNOME Do today includes a smart and illogical screen dock for clocks, trash, and those moments when you’ve already go the pussyfoot in hand.
What apps and add-ons attain your Ubuntu screen arable and comfortable? What alternatives do you favour to our itemize items? Give us your open-source offerings in the comments.
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