Enhance your Ubuntu experience

Ubuntu is one of the most popular Linux distro now. This is really simple to use and at the same time highly customizable. There is a very strong community support behind you. Lots of theme and software to use with it. Still you some time fill bad. Here I am telling some trick to enhance your experience.


  1. Menu: Ubuntu menu is one of the thing that most of the people don't like. And there are lots of menu to use like gnome main menu, gno menu and so on. But the menu that I like most is cardapio menu. It is very much like windows menu. Check some screen shots here. It has native gtk interface. There are lots of plugin. You can search file, application from the menu window. You can even do google and wikipedia search right from the menu window. To install it add the ppa ppa:cardapio-team/unstable (how to add ppa? see other blog). And then you can install it directly from the package manager.


  2. Avant Windows Nevigator: Avant Window Nevigator (AWN) is a dock bar for linux. This is one of the best dock bar for  linux. This is very simple to use. There are lots of plugin and docklet for AWN. You have lots of theme also and you can customize the look very easily. Check some screen shot here.

  3. Artha Dictionary: This is a very usefull offline dictionary. You can find the meaning of any word just by selecting it calling the dictionary by shortcut key alt+ctrl+w. It has nice collection of word. It will show you the meaning, synonym, antonym, similar and lots of thing about the word.

  4. Screenlet: Screenlet is a software to show some desktop gadget in the linux. It has lots os gadget like watch, calender, weather and lot of other.

  5. Picassa: probably picasa is one of the best photo organizing and viewing software for desk top. It is available for linux also, but beat old version. If you want to use the latest version of picasa then you can install it using wine. There are some other trick also to install the picasa in linux for latest version also. See the post to know how to install latest version of picasa in linux

  6. Pidgin: Pidgin is multiprotocol IM client for linux. You can use it for gtalk, yahoo messenger, skype, facebook and lots of other IM protocol. This is very easy to configure and also support proxy. It also support file sharing, audio and video chat. There are lots of plugin to make your experience better with pidgin.

  7. Chees: If you are using web cam on your laptop and want to take photo or want or record video then chees probably the best option for you. There are lots of effect on the chees and you can directly apply them while you are taking a photo or recording some video clip.

  8. Desktop Recorder: You have probably seen the tutorial video from youtube, where people demonstrate some thing in which only the portion that we required is shown. You can clearly understand that this video are not taken from camera outside. Then how? This video actually recorded from the desktop recorder. You can select whether you want to record the whole desktop or any particular portion of the desktop. This is very easy to use and powerful software. Surely you can give a try. You will not be disappointed.

  9. VLC: VLC probably one of the best media player available in the market (not only linux but for other platform also). This media player contain almost all kind of codec and can play almost all type of media. Very easy to use and can be installed from the package manager.

  10. WinFF: This is the font end of the media converter for linux FFmpeg. Actually FFmpeg is a very powerful media converter. But this is actually cli (command line interface) software. So this is actually very difficult to use. But WinFF is the relief from doing all this difficult task. This support almost all codec. If the codec are installed then it is very easy to convert any media. And if you install the WinFF from the package manager it will automatically install the FFmpeg also, you don't need to worry about this. This is as simple as that.

  11. Ailurus & Ubuntu Tweak: Ailurus and Ubuntu Tweak are the software that will make use your system easy. To change any kind of setting, to clean configuration file for any unused software, to remove unused package you don't need any headache. Even you can add ppa for software, install, uninstall software very easily using this software.

  12. Wine: Though linux is a great OS, but the no of user is very less for linux. Obviously the software company will not be so serious to make software for linux user. Since the most of the computer user Windows in there computer, it is very obvious that all impotent software has its windows version, but not all have linux version too. You can over come this problem using wine. This is used to run and install the windows software (.exe file). Though all software will not work as efficient as windows but still this is a very good software.

  13. CompizConfig setting manager:  Compiz is an OpenGL compositing manager that use GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap for binding redirected top-level windows to texture objects. It has a flexible plug-in system and it is designed to run well on most graphics hardware. Okay, this description isn’t really meaningful. In a nutshell, Compiz is a compositing manager, which means that it enhances the overall user interaction by adding fancy effects to your windows, from drop shadows to awesome desktop effects like the Desktop Cube or the Expo view.
    Compiz can also be a window manager, which means that it is the software between you and your desktop apps. It enables you to move or resize windows, to switch workspaces, to switch windows easily (using alt-tab or so), and so on.
    CompizConfig setting manager is the simple GUI that is used to change the setting the compiz effect.
  14. Talika: This is a gnome panel applet that lets you switch between open windows using icons.This make you fill some what the panel like windows task bar. It offer grouping and ungrouping of the open windows.


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