Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon ! With the hype of
the new release behind us, its time to take a long hard look at the
operating system itself. Yeah it’s new and funky and has wobbly
windows. But lets start looking beyond the first impressions and
throw the monkey to the lions.
Step one : Basic installation. Ok , we
do the whole next – forward – accept routine of the installation
process that should not be any problem ( considering you know what
language you speak, what part of the world you live and that your
keyboard does not have a Klingon layout. ) so we just skip to the
part where you get to your desktop. If you have the brain of a
goldfish you know what your user name and password is and you log in.
The first screen you see is .. hideous. I know brown is the trademark
of the whole Ubuntu distro, but seriously : Why in hells bells does
my desktop look like it has an OSX desktop dipped in brown pooh ? So
get on the internet, whiz up a wallpaper from some hot chick or
whatever, right click the sucker and choose as wallpaper.
By the way : If your wireless card is
NOT working out of the box : You’re officially fucked ! There are a
great many ways to get it working all lovingly explained on the
Ubuntu Forums. Get down on your knees, plug the Ethernet cable into
your wired network card and start looking for the solution. If you
CAN get your wifi card going you are going to find out how, (don’t
worry). As for me ? I have an intel 2200 chip set that is recognized
out of the box, it found my wifi router right away and it worked. (
One point awarded to gutsy for finally getting the whole wifi debacle
out of the way)
Next : Go to SYSTEM / ADMINISTRATION /
SOFTWARE SOURCES. On the first tab select the first four check-boxes
(except the SOURCES one) and un-check the CDROM option (otherwise the
Ubuntu is gonna wine for the cd). Now : The second tab : Third party
software: Check both options. Third tab : Updates : Choose
‘important’ and ‘recommended’ and select “download all updates in
the background” Now click Close. That way you’ll have your update
sources all sorted out. ( If you see the update icon on the top right
corner : Click it and install your updates).
When that is out of the way its time to
juice up our little distribution with some more software. Click on
“Applications” Add/Remove. on the top left select “All
available applications” and browse the different sections of
software. You can select and choose what you want to install, but
I’ll give you a list of the extras I’ve installed.
accessories : 7zip / ace / gDesklets (choose this one
!) / Ophcrack. / RAR / xtraceroute.
Internet :Bittornado Client / chatzilla /
ClusterSSH / Etherape / ettercap / Filezilla / Gmailnotify / Grsync /
Internet DJ Console /Mozilla Thunderbird / Nessus / NmapFE /Pdgin/Sun
5 and 6 (java stuff) / VPN Connection Wizzard./ Wireshark /
Other :ubuntu restricted extra’s
System tools: Yaquake
Next click on : Apply changes.
The one thing I have noticed while
going through this list is that there are an a-amazing amount of
programs that you can install using this select-and click method.
(How about turning your ubuntu machine into a fileserver / ftp server
/ Digital video recorder and so on) But not to turn this ‘first look’
into the next volume of the Dune series .. I decided to keep it
brief.
Now, back to our little desktop : Click
SYSTEM/PREFERENCES/APPEARANCE and choose the theme you like. For
wobbly windows and more go to ‘visual effects’ and choose the medium
setting (believe me , all the rest is overhead). Click ok and voila.
For the final part of this little howto
we are going to spice up our interface. Go to your desktop, and right
click on the bottom toolbar : Choose ‘delete this panel’. Then go up
to the toolbar on the top of your screen and right click. Choose “add
to panel” and click on “windows list” That way your top bar has
your “start button” and your programs list .. This leaves the
bottom half of our screen open for something nice.
Go to applications / accessories /
Gdesklets. From here you can choose several nice “widgets” that
live on your desktop. The one I want you to choose is
Toolbar/launcher/ Starterbar : Click it and drag it down to the
bottom of your desktop. Drag shortcuts onto it et voila : you have
your own OSX dock. Now to round it all up : We are going
to get this little “dock” be started whenever we boot. To do that
go to System/preferences/sessions/ Click add and type gdesklets in every
line.
Et voila, next time you boot you’ll
have a cool looking dock, a nice wallpaper, wobbly windows, mp3 and
Dvd support and some nice extra programs to keep ya busy 🙂 Enjoy !
