To Do List After installing Ubuntu 12.04 LTS aka Precise Pangolin

Posted on March 9, 2012
Ubuntu 12.04 Unity Desktop Environment
Ubuntu Classic 12.04 “Fallback” Desktop Environment
Ubuntu 12.04 Gnome 3 Desktop Environment
Supported until April 2017
Ubuntu is designed primarily for use on personal computers, although a server edition also exists. Ubuntu holds an estimated global usage of more than 12 million desktop users, making it the most popular desktop Linux distribution with about 50% of Linux desktop marketshare. It is fourth most popular on web servers, though its popularity is increasing rapidly. There is nothing more exciting than being the master of your own computer, and with Ubuntu Linux you will make yourself more knowledgeable and have more skills when it comes to computing than other OS users. No more viruses, and no more spyware/malware. This guide was created primarily to help new Ubuntu users transition quickly over from other operating systems, but is just as useful to even very experienced Linux users. When you are done installing everything on this list hopefully you will have everything you would probably find on other comparable commercially available operating systems. There was a step-by-step list written for Fedora many many years ago when I was first starting out learning about Linux OS and was the concept for this guide, and I always found this to be best way to do fresh installations of Linux on my own computers.

Ubuntu is sponsored by the UK-based company Canonical Ltd. Canonical generates revenue by selling technical support and services related to Ubuntu, while the operating system itself is entirely free of charge, if you get really stuck at some point, it would probably make more sense to use paid commercially available technical support if you run into trouble installing Ubuntu OS than using a free how-to list, like this one.
Here is a nice user guide: “Ubuntu: An Absolute Beginners Guide“
For more specific information:
http://wiki.ubuntu.com/PrecisePangolin/
Download Ubuntu 12.04 LTS:
In addition they can be found at the following links:
Existing Ubuntu users can install Unetbootin (or use Startup Disc Creator) from the repositories, and use that application to migrate the above downloaded image to a USB Flash Drive or USB Thumb Drive and afterwards you can boot from your USB drive, or you can burn it to a disc with Brasero, or K3b, and boot from your CD/DVD drive instead. USB is much faster than CDs or DVDs when it comes to installation time, and less chance of data corruption.

Existing Mac users can use these instructions on how to install Ubuntu for the first time: http://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook
Existing Windows users can use these instructions on how to install Ubuntu for the first time if you are new to Ubuntu Linux. Avoid using Wubi. I recommend using a USB Flash Thumb Drive to install Ubuntu (select option 2 on the page of the following link to learn how):
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download
Make sure you use the drop down tab and select Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. When you have your ubuntu.iso downloaded, and installed onto a USB Flash Thumb Drive, you will need to boot your computer from the USB Flash Drive. When you turn on your computer there should be an option at the bottom of your screen to allow you to change the boot order or you may need to select BIOS settings to boot from your USB port first, instead of your HDD. You can change it back to the default when you are done installing Ubuntu. You will need to have your newly created Ubuntu installation USB inserted in your USB port when the computer is booting up. If this is your first time using Ubuntu on your computer, please make sure that you throughly test everything with your Live Ubuntu USB drive to make sure everything still works on your computer before installing it to your hard drive.
Special Note: If you have a hard drive (non-SSD drive only) that you need to have magnetically shredded because you are giving your computer to someone else make sure to use “Secure Erase” application within the Parted Magic boot disc. It will overwrite everything, even sectors marked as bad. The Parted Magic live linux CD has a GUI interface to run Secure Erase, and it makes shredding very simple for even new users to Linux OS. If you have an SSD drive that you need to have shredded, make sure to use the disc that came from the factory since SSD are usually encrypted. Here is where you can download Parted Magic iso image to burn onto a blank cd-r/dvd-r disc:
http://partedmagic.com
Installation of Ubuntu:
Make sure you select and place checkmarks next to “Download updates while installing”, and “Install this third-party software” on the following screen. (Recommended)
You can either select to repartition your entire hard drive for Ubuntu, or you want to keep your existing Windows OS installation, and you can select a side-by-side installation.
Since there have been issues with the video card drivers in Ubuntu 12.04 you probably would want to leave the Log in automatically deselected and change it to “Require my password to log in”, and that way you can switch your session to Ubuntu 2D in case your video drivers have problems in 12.04.  (Recommended)
Now that you hopefully have Ubuntu installed on your computer, here is how to use this To-do List Tutorial if you are new to using Ubuntu Linux (click the gear icon to switch to HD video):
If you rebooted your computer after installing and your computer fails to start correctly you can try to fix grub bootloader with the following program called Boot-Repair.
Boot-Repair is a simple tool to repair frequent boot issues you may encounter in Ubuntu like when you can’t boot Ubuntu after installing Windows or another Linux distribution, or when you can’t boot Windows after installing Ubuntu, or when GRUB is not displayed anymore, some upgrades breaks GRUB, etc.
Boot-Repair lets you fix these issues with a simple click, which (generally reinstalls GRUB and) restores access to the operating systems you had installed before the issue.
http://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair
But hopefully, if all went well, you should now be logged into your Ubuntu 12.04 desktop at this point.
Special Note: If your desktop seems to be running slow, you can switch your session to Ubuntu 2D by logging out, and clicking the little gear looking icon next to where you enter in your password, and click on the gear to change your session to Ubuntu 2D instead and re-login again to save your changes.
They have done a terrific job updating the Ubuntu Classic “Fallback” Desktop Environment in Ubuntu 12.04 for those who don’t really like Unity, and still long for the original Gnome 2.* Desktop look and feel. To install Gnome Fallback session DE (see screenshot at the top of this article), you will need to install “gnome-session-fallback” package using Ubuntu Software Center, Synaptic Package Manager (which no longer comes installed by default either in 12.04).
Why switch from Unity Desktop Environment to something else?
http://www.datamation.com/…/7-reasons-to-like-and-dislike-ubuntu-unity-1.html
What is Classic Ubuntu “Fallback” Desktop Environment (click the gear icon to switch to HD video):
To install Classic Ubuntu “Fallback” Desktop Environment:
sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback
sudo apt-get install indicator-applet-appmenu
sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool
Then log out and select “GNOME Classic” at the LightDM login screen. You need to click on the the little-gear-looking-icon next to where you type your password to change your session to Ubuntu Classic “Fallback” session. And Gnome 3.x Desktop Themes can be added with gnome-tweak-tool.
Ubuntu 12.04 (Gnome 2 Fork) Mate Desktop Environment
Unhappy with Unity? Want your old Gnome 2 desktop back? Just when you thought Gnome 2 was gone forever. It’s back!
More info here: http://mate-desktop.org/
How to install older Gnome 2 clone “Mate” Desktop Environment in 12.04:
sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://packages.mate-desktop.org/repo/ubuntu precise main"
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mate-archive-keyring
sudo apt-get install mate-core
Then log out and select “MATE” at the LightDM login screen. You need to click on the the little-gear-looking-icon next to where you type your password to change your session to Mate session.
How to install the latest Gnome 3 Desktop Environment: If you want to use the latest released Gnome 3 Desktop Environment you can use the following tutorial to get Gnome 3 completely installed in Ubuntu 12.04 (see screenshot at the top of this article):
http://debianhelp.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/how-to-install-gnome-3-desktop-environment-in-ubuntu-11-10/
Lubuntu (LXDE) 12.04 Desktop Environment
Lubuntu is a lightweight Linux operating system based on Ubuntu but using the LXDE desktop environment in place of Ubuntu’s Unity shell and GNOME desktop. LXDE is touted as being “lighter, less resource hungry and more energy-efficient”. Lubuntu received official recognition as a formal member of the Ubuntu family on 11 May 2011, commencing with Lubuntu 11.10, released October 13th 2011. If you really want something more like Gnome 2 was in Ubuntu, I can suggest trying Lubuntu as a nice slim retro alternative, copy and paste into Terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lubuntu-desktop/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install lubuntu-desktop
Now log out and select “Lubuntu” at the LightDM login screen. You need to click on the the little gear looking icon next to where you type your password to switch your session to Lubuntu.
Express Post-Installation Bash Script for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

If you have Ubuntu 12.04 freshly installed, and you have completely updated your system and rebooted your system (make sure to bookmark this web site first):
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo reboot
And if you have a broadband hardwired connection to the Internet (WiFi would take forever to download all the packages), you can use the following python script file to install most of the ‘recommended’ packages you will need on your system that are found on the rest of this walk-through guide.  You can skip this python script file if you prefer to install everything manually instead.  It is experimental, so if you have any doubts about using a python script, you can move on to the following steps in this guide to install everything you want individually.

Estimated Time of Installation: 30-45 minutes depending on your bandwidth.
Download Post-Installation Python Script:
cd Desktop
wget http://debianhelp.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/ubuntu-1204-post-install-tar.doc
cp ubuntu-1204-post-install-tar.doc ubuntu-1204-post-install-tar.gz
tar -xvf ubuntu-1204-post-install-tar.gz
sudo chmod a+x ubuntu-12.04-postinstall.py
Now you need to choose which CPU architecture your Ubuntu OS is running. It will be either 32-bit or 64-bit Ubuntu.
For 32-bit Ubuntu 12.04 LTS:
sudo ./ubuntu-12.04-postinstall.py -c mycfg32.cfg
For 64-bit Ubuntu 12.04 LTS:
sudo ./ubuntu-12.04-postinstall.py -c mycfg64.cfg
Important: Keep in mind that it is going to take a while to install everything. Make some coffee. Watch some TV and relax while it does most of the work on this do-to list. Try to avoid using your computer until is it completely done. Make sure to reboot your computer and check for any further software updates after you reboot your system.
Special Note: You will still need to manually install your 3rd party proprietary drivers, software like Google Earth, and configuring your firewall settings separately in the rest of this guide below.
Enable Partner and Independent Repositories in Ubuntu Software Center (Prerequisite and Requirement) :
Open Ubuntu Software Center and select “Edit” and then select “Software Sources”:
Make sure both Canonical Partner repositories have check marks next to them and make sure it looks something like this and click close:

If you receive any update errors regarding your cdrom install disc make sure to go back to the previous “other software” and leave them disabled, and then update your system.
Now open up Terminal and copy and paste (afterwards reboot your system and repeat this step until no further updates are found – do not proceed until done here):
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

Adobe Flash Player (Prerequisite and Required) is a cross-platform, browser-based application runtime that provides uncompromising viewing of expressive applications, content, and videos across browsers and operating systems. Flash Player 10.3 delivers beautiful HD video, faster graphics rendering, and high performance on mobile devices and personal computers and is designed to take advantage of native device capabilities — enabling richer, more impressive user experiences.
Open Terminal and copy and paste this:
sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer gsfonts-x11
Video Drivers and Proprietary Drivers Check:
Open your Terminal, copy and paste:
gksu jockey-gtk
Special Note for Nvidia video users: Don’t use Nvidia video cards if at all possible! I have had nothing but problems with Nvidia graphics on Ubuntu 12.04 since the latest rollout. I have no idea why they don’t work. Best suggestion would be be switch to a different video graphics card, like ATI or Intel. An example of what’s wrong is, Ubuntu 3D effects are for some strange reason enabled by default in Ubuntu 12.04 after a fresh installation of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. That means, if you have an Nvidia graphics adapter installed on your MB you are going to have a frozen screen or worse immediately after you install Ubuntu 12.04 and if you also selected autologin during the installation process, your video will freeze up. You will need to change your session from Ubuntu 3D to Ubuntu 2D session (somehow with a frozen screen?).  Login again normally, run jockey, and when the window with the drivers appears (see above), click on the line that says post-release updates and version-current updates. And click activate. Restart your computer. But guess what you still aren’t done because the latest driver updates for Nvidia don’t work either (yet? will ever?) So guess what? Then you need to go down to the next step and install the ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates below. However, you may restart your computer somewhere in the process and will be dropped to the command line during bootup eventually (probably?)..  I was hoping that they would have this issue fixed by now since it has been a while since 12.04 was released, however the problem still remains for some Nvidia graphics users. If you have a desktop PC it simply means you need to purchase a different video card that is non-Nvidia. ATI is fine as well as Intel Graphics.  Tested both with 12.04 and no issues yet. I have given up on Nvidia and 12.04 at this point. I love their prices for video cards, but your Linux support sucks right now Nvidia. I wish that wasn’t the case. The problem also exists for pure Debian as well so this isn’t just an Ubuntu Nvidia problem. For more on the subject check out this video from the creator of Linux on this same subject to see what he thinks about it. lol
If you are having video issues in general, make sure your video card is supported in Ubuntu:
http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/linux-display-ia32-270.41.19-driver-uk.html
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/Legacy/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx
http://intellinuxgraphics.org/index.html
If you are running a Nvidia video graphics adapter, and you are still having issues (which wouldn’t surprise anybody at this point), here is how you can install the very latest Nvidia drivers if you dare.
Open your Terminal, copy and paste (this one works for me the best):
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
And then reboot your system.
Or you can try the latest unstable version. Open your Terminal, copy and paste (fyi- ppa purge doesn’t work when you try to uninstall it however):
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:upubuntu-com/nvidia
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
And then reboot your system.
If you have a desktop computer with on-board video, use that instead of any ATI PCI graphics cards for now or buy a supported Nvidia graphics card from the list in the link above. They are usually inexpensive on Ebay for a decent Nvidia card to upgrade your system.
If you do have an ATI graphics card, and would like to use it (Recommended!):
How-to install ATI Catalyst Video Drivers (RECOMMENDED!):
You need to download either the 32-bit x86 version or the 64-bit version that corresponds to your CPU architecture. ATI Radeon HD PCIe cards work great and usually cost around 40-50 US Dollars. That would be my recommendation if you have a desktop computer with a PCIe graphics card slot.
Go to amd.com and download your driver
Copy and paste in terminal (32-bit Systems only):
sudo apt-get --purge remove fglrx*
sudo apt-get install dh-make execstack dh-modaliases dkgcc1 libc6-i386ms lib32
Copy and paste in terminal (64-bit Systems only):
sudo apt-get --purge remove fglrx*
sudo apt-get install dh-make execstack dh-modaliases
Go to the directory you downloaded the driver in (usually ~Downloads) and make sure you use the correct file name in the commands below:
cd Downloads
sudo chmod +x ati-driver-installer-11-10-x86.x86_64.run
sudo sh ati-driver-installer-11-10-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/precise
Above, I am assuming that you are using Ubuntu 12.04. If you’re using another version, use that version’s name, for example Ubuntu/maverick
sudo dpkg -i *.deb
sudo aticonfig --initial -f
Now reboot and it should be working. If not, you may want to research more here.
Disable any devices in BIOS you do not intend on ever using (recommended):

If you don’t have any plans on using your internal Wi-Fi now would also be a good time to disable it from within BIOS to keep anyone with a Wi-Fi sniffer from gaining access to your system. Depending on the BIOS capabilities of your system you may also be able to disable Bluetooth as well, if you know for a fact that you will not be needing it and preventing anyone with a Bluetooth sniffer from gaining access to your system. (These are only a personal recommendation if you want greater security…)
How-to access your BIOS settings:
http://www.techbusy.org/tutorial/how-to-enter-in-bios-setup-in-pc/
Adding Medibuntu Package Repository (Prerequisite and Requirement)
Medibuntu repository provides all the playback and encoding capabilities that most Windows and Mac systems contain, but which Ubuntu’s creators decline to include by default in their systems, due to licensing restrictions and a lack of open-source code for those features. If you just want to get AAC playback, copyright DVDs playing, and newer versions of all the audio, video, and font files, load Medibuntu into your system. (Required)
Open your Terminal, copy and paste:
sudo wget --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/$(lsb_release -cs).list && sudo apt-get --quiet update && sudo apt-get --yes --quiet --allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get --quiet update
sudo apt-get -y update && sudo apt-get -y upgrade
sudo apt-get install app-install-data-medibuntu apport-hooks-medibuntu
If you are running a 32-bit version of Ubuntu, copy and paste in Terminal:
sudo apt-get install w32codecs libdvdcss2
sudo apt-get install libdvdnav4
sudo apt-get install libdvdread4
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/./install-css.sh
If you are running a 64-bit version of Ubuntu, copy and paste in Terminal:
sudo apt-get install w64codecs libdvdcss2
sudo apt-get install libdvdnav4
sudo apt-get install libdvdread4
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/./install-css.sh

Samba is no longer installed by default apparently in Ubuntu 12.04 so if you need to share files over the local network you will need to install a few packages. Afterwards lookup “Personal File Sharing” and it should be ready to configure and run. And don’t forget to leave the proper port open when you configure GUFW/UFW firewall settings. After you install the packages listed here you will need to also power cycle/reboot your system.
How to Share Files over the Network:
sudo apt-get install samba smbfs system-config-samba
Ubuntu Tweak
This tool is for Ubuntu which makes it easy to change hidden system and desktop settings. Ubuntu Tweak is only for Unity Desktop Environment.
It has a large pre-configured list of repositories that can be installed with just a few mouse clicks, and makes new users feel more comfortable configuring their newly installed Ubuntu without too much trouble or knowledge of command line instructions.

Open your Terminal, copy and paste:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tualatrix/next
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-tweak
Terminator is a GPL terminal emulator. It is available on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and other Unix X11 systems.

Terminator will run on any modern POSIX system with Java 5 or later.
Open your Terminal, copy and paste:
sudo apt-get install terminator
For how to use Terminator terminal utility check out:
http://ubuntumanual.org/posts/285/make-your-work-easy-using-terminator
Uncomplicated Firewall (UFW & GUFW) is a firewall that is designed to be easy to use. It uses a command line interface consisting of a small number of simple commands, and uses iptables. iptables is already a very powerful tool by itself, but it’s syntax can get awkward at times and hard to figure out, so Ubuntu developers decided to make ufw (“The reason ufw was developed is that we wanted to create a server-level firewall utility that was a little bit more for `human beings`.”), which was to be simpler. Now, on the graphical side of things, Firestarter already existed. But why not make an even easier to use GUI for desktop `human beings`, powered by ufw?

This is where GUFW comes in.
Open your Terminal, copy and paste:
sudo apt-get install gufw
gufw
If you would like to simply use UFW from the command line, you can try any of these commands to make changes to your firewall.
To check your current settings:
sudo ufw status verbose
To add firewall rules:
sudo ufw deny 5353/udp
sudo ufw deny 5900/tcp
sudo ufw deny 22
sudo ufw deny 25/tcp
sudo ufw deny 135,139,445/tcp
sudo ufw deny 137,138/udp
sudo ufw deny 110
sudo ufw deny 2049
sudo ufw deny 143
sudo ufw deny 21/tcp
Re-check your changes:
sudo ufw status verbose
Re-check enable (required):
sudo ufw enable
It will automatically load these settings from now on. If you need to access one of those ports temporarily, then you can open up sudo gufw and disable your firewall momentarily. Just don’t forget to re-enable it when you are done.
Here is a configuration script if you are running a server:
#!/bin/sh

# obtain server's IP address
SERVERIP=`hostname --all-ip-addresses | cut --fields 1 --delimiter " "`

# disable firewall
ufw disable

# reset all firewall rules
ufw reset

# set default rules: deny all incoming traffic, allow all outgoing traffic
ufw default deny incoming
ufw default allow outgoing

# open port for SSH
ufw allow OpenSSH

# open port for Webmin
ufw allow webmin

# open ports for Samba file sharing
ufw allow from 10.0.0.0/8 to $SERVERIP app Samba
ufw allow to 10.0.0.0/8 from $SERVERIP app Samba

# open ports for Transmission-Daemon
ufw allow 9091
ufw allow 20500:20599/tcp
ufw allow 20500:20599/udp

# open port for MySQL
ufw allow proto tcp from 10.0.0.0/8 to any port 3306

# open ports for Lighttpd
ufw allow “Lighttpd Full”

# open port for network time protocol (ntpd)
ufw allow ntp

# enable firewall
ufw enable

# list all firewall rules
ufw status verbose
For more information:
http://www.frozentux.net/documents/iptables-tutorial/
Anti-Virus
Windows equivalent : AVG AntiVirus, NAV, TrendMicro, F-Prot, Kaspersky, …
Ubuntu equivalent : ClamAV, BitDefender
ClamAV
Clam Anti-virus (ClamAV) is a free, cross-platform anti-virus software tool-kit able to detect many types of malicious software, including viruses. One of its main uses is on mail servers as a server-side email virus scanner. The application was developed for Unix and has third party versions available for AIX, BSD, HP-UX, Linux, Mac OS X, OpenVMS, OSF (Tru64) and Solaris. As of version 0.96 ClamAV builds and runs on Microsoft Windows. Both ClamAV and its updates are made available free of charge.
Open your Terminal, copy and paste:
sudo apt-get install clamav clamtk
BitDefender
BitDefender is an anti-virus software suite developed by Romania-based software company Softwin. It was launched in November 2001, and is currently in its thirteenth version. The 2011 version was launched in August 2010, and it includes several protection and performance enhancements as Search Advisor and Performance Optimizer. The thing I love about BitDefender is it will run in the task-bar after start-up and has a resident shield that is always monitoring your system for any potential threats, not that viruses normally target Linux operating systems however.
First you need to get a free scanner key here via email.
Copy and paste in Terminal:
gksu synaptic
Select “Settings” and then select “Repositories”, and then click
the “Other Software” Tab, and click ‘Add’ and copy and paste this repository:
deb http://download.bitdefender.com/repos/deb/ bitdefender non-free
Click on ‘Close’ and press ‘Reload’ when prompted. Ignore the ‘No repository key’ error (if displayed). To add the repository key open a Terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) and copy+paste the following lines::
wget http://download.bitdefender.com/repos/deb/bd.key.asc
sudo apt-key add bd.key.asc
Now update the sources list:
sudo apt-get update
To install the graphical interface and command line program copy+paste the following line:
sudo apt-get install bitdefender-scanner-gui
sudo reboot
Once completely installed then you will need to reboot your system. A menu shortcut will be generated (Applications -> System Tools -> BitDefender Scanner). And you will need to enter in the free scanner key you received via email.
Before running the scanner it’s probably best to install the latest virus/malware signatures by clicking on the ‘Update’ button.

Special Note: Troubleshooting BitDefender Scanner Engine Crashing
Some users are reporting that BitDefender crashes right after the scanning engine is initialized. In order to fix this error you will need to copy and paste this into terminal:
sudo touch /opt/BitDefender-scanner/var/lib/scan/bdcore.so.linux-x86_64
sudo ln -fs /opt/BitDefender-scanner/var/lib/scan/bdcore.so.linux-x86_64 /opt/BitDefender-scanner/var/lib/scan/bdcore.so
sudo bdscan --update
As of April 2012 they still do not have this fixed in BitDefender yet. Hopefully someone will let them know by posting a message to their support forum? Thanks.
For further BitDefender support please visit:
http://forum.bitdefender.com
Essential tools for compiling from sources.
There are times when you need to compile software from sources, maybe because you need to compile the package with some specific option that is not enabled in the default package, or maybe the software application you wish to install isn’t available in any of your repositories. When you begin the installation process you will come to a window that will require you to accept the EULA to install, and you will need to click on your key to select and press enter. (Here is a guide on how to compile software from source) and here are the required packages you need in order to compile sources in Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install build-essential checkinstall cdbs devscripts dh-make fakeroot libxml-parser-perl check avahi-daemon
Multimedia (Prerequisite and Required)
Windows equivalent : windows media player, real player, vlc, mplayer, media codecs
Ubuntu equivalent : vlc, mplayer, fluendo media codecs
Unfortunately, many audio and video formats won’t work “out of the box” with Ubuntu, or most Linux distros.
MPlayer is a movie player that plays most MPEG, VOB, AVI, OGG/OGM, VIVO, ASF/WMA/WMV, QT/MOV/MP4, FLI, RM, NuppelVideo, yuv4mpeg, FILM, RoQ, and PVA files. You can also use it to watch VCDs, SVCDs, DVDs, 3ivx, RealMedia, and DivX movies. It supports a wide range of output drivers including X11, XVideo, DGA, OpenGL, SVGAlib, fbdev, AAlib, DirectFB etc. There are also nice antialiased shaded subtitles and OSD.
VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player and multimedia framework capable of reading most audio and video formats as well as DVDs, Audio CDs VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a media converter or a server to stream in uni-cast or multi-cast in IPv4 or IPv6 on networks.
Open your Terminal, copy and paste:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:videolan/stable-daily
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install vlc mplayer
SMPlayer intends to be a complete front-end for MPlayer, from basic features like playing videos, DVDs, and VCDs to more advanced features like support for MPlayer filters and more. One of the most interesting features of SMPlayer: it remembers the settings of all files you play. So you start to watch a movie but you have to leave. Don’t worry, when you open that movie again it will resume at the same point you left it, and with the same settings: audio track, subtitles, and volume. This is really great for watching DVD movies.
sudo apt-get install smplayer
FFMpeg is a complete and free Internet live audio and video broadcasting solution for Linux/Unix. It also includes a digital VCR. It can encode in real time in many formats including MPEG1 audio and video, MPEG4, h263, ac3, asf, avi, real, mjpeg, and flash.
Open your Terminal, copy and paste:
sudo apt-get install libxine1-ffmpeg gxine mencoder mpeg2dec vorbis-tools id3v2 mpg321 mpg123 libflac++6 ffmpeg totem-mozilla icedax tagtool easytag id3tool lame nautilus-script-audio-convert libmad0 libjpeg-progs flac faac faad sox ffmpeg2theora libmpeg2-4 uudeview flac libmpeg3-1 mpeg3-utils mpegdemux liba52-0.7.4-dev libquicktime2
Gstreammer 0.10
Open your Terminal, copy and paste (when you get to the EULA prompt press Tab key):
sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3 gstreamer0.10-gnonlin gstreamer0.10-sdl gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly totem-plugins-extra gstreamer-dbus-media-service gstreamer-tools ubuntu-restricted-extras ttf-mscorefonts-installer
Check and see if you can now view DVD movie discs on your computer. If not you may need to set the region key and you are usually allowed to do this only 5 times (only use if needed, and very optional):
sudo apt-get install regionset
sudo regionset
Or you can purchase the proprietary codecs from your Software Center:

VLC blu-ray libraries:
http://vlc-bluray.whoknowsmy.name/
or
http://vlc-aacs.whoknowsmy.name/
…to get VLC 2.0 to play encrypted blu-ray discs.
Internet Web Browsers:

Here are some highly recommended add-ons for Firefox:
Adblock Plus (plugin) (Recommended)
Adblock Plus (ABP) is a content-filtering extension for Mozilla Firefox (including Firefox for mobile) and Google Chrome web browsers. ABP, a forked version of Adblock, allows users to prevent page elements, such as advertisements, from being downloaded and displayed. Very popular, and almost what I would consider to be a necessity, if you surf the Internet on a daily basis. Works great with sites like youtube.com and other similar web sites that bombard you with constant commercials. It will also allow you to import preconfigured blocklists to stop tracker web sites from monitoring your browser presence.
Password Exporter (plugin)
This extension allows you to export your saved passwords and disabled login hosts using XML or CSV files that can be imported later. Very helpful when needing to re-install Ubuntu onto a new system or migrating your data and personal information.
NetVideoHunter (plugin)
NetVideoHunter is a Firefox add-on (extension), and you can easily download videos and audio from almost all audio and video streaming web pages with two clicks. Tested and considered to be probably the best plugin out of all the other similar plugins available for this kind of task.
HTTPS Everywhere (plugin)
HTTPS Everywhere is a Firefox and Chrome extension that encrypts your communications with many major websites, making your browsing more secure.
Dictionaries & Language Packs (plugin)
The Java Runtime Environment (OpenJDK) (Prerequisite and Required) provides the libraries, the Java Virtual Machine, and other components to run applets and applications written in the Java programming language.
Copy and paste into your terminal:
 sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jre icedtea-7-plugin
Test your browser to make sure your Java is installed and working properly here:
http://www.java.com/en/download/testjava.jsp
(optional!) Or if you know for a absolute fact that you will absolutely be needing the actual original Sun Java 7 JDK (not openjdk-7-jre above), for playing Minecraft, and other websites that -must- use Sun Java, copy and paste in your terminal (this will take some time to completely download):
sudo apt-get purge openjdk-7-jre icedtea-7-plugin
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install oracle-jdk7-installer
Now to add Oracle Java 7 as an option in mozilla-javaplugin.so (It should already be available to the browsers as libnpjp2.so):
In 32bit Ubuntu:
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libjavaplugin.so mozilla-javaplugin.so /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-oracle/jre/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so 1
In 64bit Ubuntu:
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libjavaplugin.so mozilla-javaplugin.so /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-oracle/jre/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so 1
Then use “update-alternatives –config” commands to set what java that will be used.
(The “update-alternatives –config” commands below can also be done with the GUI-tool “galternatives” if it is installed on your system.)
sudo update-alternatives --config java
sudo update-alternatives --config javac
sudo update-alternatives --config javaws
sudo update-alternatives --config mozilla-javaplugin.so
sudo update-alternatives --config libnpjp2.so
My recommendation is always to use openjdk-7-jre from the Ubuntu repositories whenever you need to use Java, but if at this point you are still having trouble trying to install Java and geting Java to work correctly on your Ubuntu system, please visit the following web site for further support:
http://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/java
And if nothing else works for you then you can try:
wget https://github.com/flexiondotorg/oab-java6/raw/0.2.4/oab-java.sh -O oab-java.sh
Flash Aid Plugin For Firefox (optional, in case your flash video playback has issues)
“Remove conflicting flash plugins from Ubuntu/Debian Linux systems, install the appropriate version according to system architecture and apply some tweaks to improve performance and fix common issues.”
Flash Aid Plugin
Click ‘Add to Firefox’ to download and install it.
After installing the add-on and restarting Firefox, a new icon will be added to your Firefox browser Navigation Toolbar.
When clicking the toolbar icon, a menu pops up displaying the features available. Click the Flash Aid icon, and click next to complete the installation. Afterwards test your flash video playback ability by visiting youtube or some other flash video web site, to check your performance.
How to change your privacy settings on Ubuntu 12.04 (Recommended):
Open up the Software Center and install “Activity Log Manager” if your system doesn’t come installed by default with Privacy options. Or you can cut and paste this in Terminal:
sudo apt-get install activity-log-manager-common activity-log-manager activity-log-manager-control-center
If you are using Fallback DE, it is located in System Settings.
How to change your Startup Application Manager settings on Ubuntu 12.04 :
Starting with Ubuntu 12.04 the ‘Startup Applications’ manager now only displays a sub-set of applications to control at startup with the remaining applications being hidden. To make the hidden applications visible in the manager, follow these steps:
Copy and paste the following command into Terminal:
sudo sed -i 's/NoDisplay=true/NoDisplay=false/g' /etc/xdg/autostart/*.desktop
Archiver/ Packing software (Recommended)
Windows equivalent : winrar, zip, 7zip
Ubuntu equivalent : tar, unrar, p7zip, arj, unace
An archive format is the file format of an archive file. The archive format is determined by the file archiver. Some archive formats are well-defined by their authors and have become conventions supported by multiple vendors and/or open-source communities.
File Archiving:
sudo apt-get install unace rar unrar p7zip-rar p7zip zip unzip sharutils uudeview mpack lha arj cabextract file-roller
Alternative Graphical Web Browsers
Windows equivalent : Internet explorer, opera, google chrome
Ubuntu equivalent : opera, chromium, google chrome, google chrome beta
Opera is a web browser and Internet suite developed by Opera Software. The browser handles common Internet-related tasks such as displaying web sites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, chatting on IRC, downloading files via BitTorrent, and reading web feeds.
Opera is offered free of charge for personal computers and mobile phones.
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://deb.opera.com/opera/ stable non-free" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/opera.list'
sudo sh -c 'wget -O - http://deb.opera.com/archive.key | apt-key add -'
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install opera
Also, don’t forget to check to see if there is an upgrade for Opera:
http://www.opera.com/download/
Chromium is the open source web browser project from which Google Chrome draws its source code. The project’s hourly Chromium snapshots appear essentially similar to the latest builds of Google Chrome aside from the omission of certain Google additions, most noticeable among them: Google’s branding, auto-update mechanism, click-through licensing terms, usage-tracking, a built-in PDF viewer and bundling of the Adobe Flash Player. Chromium uses the WebKit layout engine.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chromium-daily/stable
sudo apt-get install chromium-browser chromium-browser-l10n
Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008, and the public stable release was on December 11, 2008. It uses its own flash plugin to play flash video/audio. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or “chrome”, of web browsers. As of June 2011, Chrome was the third most widely used browser with 20.65% worldwide usage share of web browsers, according to StatCounter.
wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | sudo apt-key add -
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list'
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install google-chrome-stable
or if you want the latest developmental version:
sudo apt-get install google-chrome-beta
Google Chrome Plugins:
Adblock Plus (plugin) (Recommended)
Adblock Plus (ABP) is a content-filtering extension for Google Chrome web browsers. ABP, a forked version of Adblock, allows users to prevent page elements, such as advertisements, from being downloaded and displayed. Very popular, and almost what I would consider to be a necessity, if you surf the Internet on a daily basis. Works great with sites like youtube.com and other similar web sites that bombard you with constant commercials. It will also allow you to import preconfigured blocklists to stop tracker web sites from monitoring your browser presence.
Remote Desktop (plugin)
Access other computers or allow another user to access your computer securely over the Internet.
HTTPS Everywhere (plugin)
HTTPS Everywhere is a Firefox and Chrome extension that encrypts your communications with many major websites, making your browsing more secure.

Google Talk is a browser plugin that lets you voice and video chat with friends and family from your browser. Install this plugin and logon to Gmail with your webcam and microphone attached to your computer, then initiate a chat with a friend or family member. It will try to connect to your webcam and enable video chat.
wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | sudo apt-key add -
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://dl.google.com/linux/talkplugin/deb/ stable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list'
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install google-talkplugin
Download Manager
Windows equivalent : Free download manager
Ubuntu equivalent : Multiget

MultiGet is an easy-to-use and open source file download manager for Windows. It supports HTTP/FTP protocols which covers the requirements of most users. The download accelerator supports multi-task with multi-thread on multi-server. It supports resuming downloads if the Web server supports it, and if you like, you can reconfigure the thread number without stopping the current task. It’s also support SOCKS 4, 4a, 5 proxy, ftp proxy, http proxy. MultiGet also supports switching language dynamically; you can choose English, Chinese, and German. Plus this it will automatically choose a proper language for you.
sudo apt-get install multiget
Access it through Applications → Internet → MultiGet .
Graphical Email client
Thunderbird
Windows: Outlook, Outlook Express
Despite perceptions to the contrary, the desktop-based e-mail client is not dead. Mozilla Thunderbird 3.0 is a serious reaction to the prevalence of Web mail, so whether you’re looking for a strong desktop client, an Outlook replacement, or a powerful tool for managing archives and Web mail offline, Thunderbird can scale to your needs.

Outlook users will notice the speed and responsiveness of the program, which loads quickly, even when weighed down by multiple folders and RSS feeds, and the basic feature set remains intact: good junk mail filters, HTML support, multiple identities, and robust Web mail, POP, IMAP, and Microsoft Exchange server support. Security features include S/MIME, digital signing, message encryption, and a built-in phishing detector. Add-ons, based on the same code as Firefox’s add-on network, can enhance your security even further. Thunderbird is now installed by default and replaces evolution as the default mail client in 12.04.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/thunderbird-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install thunderbird xul-ext-calendar-timezones xul-ext-lightning
Access it through Applications → Internet → Mozilla Thunderbird Mail/News .
To import Outlook PST files in Thunderbird:
sudo apt-get install readpst
readpst -r nameofyourPSTfilehere
This changes the output format to Recursive. This will create folders as named in the PST file, and will put all emails in a file called “mbox” inside each folder. These files are then compatible with all mbox-compatible email clients. Then just import the mbox file into Thunderbird and you should be all good.
Instant Messanging protocal clients
Windows equivalent : MSN messenger, Trillian, Yahoo messenger, QQ, AIM, Gtalk, ICQ,IRC
Ubuntu equivalent : Empathy, Pidgin, Emesene

Empathy is an instant messaging client which supports text, voice, video, file transfers, and inter-application communication over various IM protocols. Empathy is installed by default on Ubuntu, however you may want to make sure you have the latest updated version.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:telepathy/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install empathy
Additional plugins for Empathy remote desktop (RDC) feature:
sudo apt-get install vino vinagre
Then install Empathy plugins in terminal:
sudo apt-get install empathy telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-gabble telepathy-haze telepathy-idle telepathy-salut telepathy-sofiasip msn-pecan
Access it through Applications → Internet → Empathy IM Client .
Pidgin
Pidgin is an easy to use and a free chat client used by millions. Connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and more chat networks all at once. Supported chat networks: AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, Groupwise, ICQ, IRC, MSN, MySpaceIM, QQ, SILC, SIMPLE, Sametime, XMPP, Yahoo!, Zephyr
Add the launchpad repository :
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pidgin-developers/ppa && sudo apt-get update
Then install it :
sudo apt-get install pidgin pidgin-data pidgin-lastfm pidgin-guifications msn-pecan pidgin-musictracker pidgin-plugin-pack pidgin-themes
Access it through Applications → Internet → Pidgin Internet Messenger .
Emesene only for MSN Messenger, gtalk, facebook, and dummy.

Add the launchpad repository :
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bjfs/ppa && sudo apt-get update
Then install it :
sudo apt-get install emesene
Access it through Applications → Internet → Emesene .
Gmail Notification
Checkgmail
If you would like to get notified when you have a new mail in your google mail account, checkgmail is for you.

To install Checkgmail type the following command in the Terminal Window.
sudo apt-get install checkgmail
Now you can launch it from Application → Internet → CheckGmail
VOIP
Windows equivalent : Skype
Ubuntu equivalent : Skype, Jitsi, Brosix
Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chats over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system. Skype has also become popular for its additional features which include instant messaging, file transfer, and video conferencing.
You can download the latest verison of Skype for Ubuntu here:
http://www.skype.com/intl/en/get-skype/on-your-computer/linux/
If you are upgrading from the older version to the above new version of Skype there is something you will need to do first before you can upgrade to Skype 4.0.
In terminal, copy and paste:
sudo apt-get purge skype
sudo apt-get autoremove
Now you can install the downloaded Skype 4.0.x installation package from that link above in your Ubuntu software center or you can use Gdebi package installer.
Hardware acceleration and WebGL also feature in this release but are not turned on by default. Head into opera:config to enable it.
Other new features include:
  • Webcam support
  • Support for the Do Not Track header
  • CSS3 Animations and Transitions
  • Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (Cors) Support
  • Improved language support
Skype has 663 million registered users as of 2010. The network is operated by Skype Limited, which has its headquarters in Luxembourg. Most of the development team and 44% of the overall employees of Skype are situated in the offices of Tallinn and Tartu, Estonia. It was purchased by Microsoft in the Summer of 2011. Here is the older version:
sudo apt-get install skype
Access it through Applications → Internet → Skype
Some webcams work perfect with Cheese and other webcam applications, but in Skype you may have a green screen, no picture at all or the picture is upside down!
If you have webcam issues with skype, fix this by doing this:
echo -e '#!/bin/bash \n LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libv4l/v4l1compat.so /usr/bin/skype' | sudo tee /usr/local/bin/skype
sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/skype
And make sure to check with Skype’s Download page in case there is a new Beta release available at:
http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/get-skype/on-your-computer/linux
Jitsi (formerly SIP Communicator) is a VoIP, videoconferencing, and instant messaging application for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. It supports several popular instant messaging and telephony protocols.
Download your Ubuntu debian (*.deb) installation packages at either:
http://jitsi.org or http://download.jitsi.org/jitsi/debian/
Brosix Enterprise Instant Messenger is a secured instant messenger that is designed to help business users find a secure way to connect to one another quickly. It uses encrypted communications in order to secure messages in a manner that is similar to secure email services. Video chat just like Skype, and even LogMeIn-like features.
To download and install, copy and paste in Terminal:
curl -o brosix_free.deb http://download.brosix.com/download.aspx/Brosix_ubuntu/1/brosix_free.deb
sudo dpkg -i brosix_free.deb
For more information about Brosix and support: http://www.brosix.com/
Viewing PDF files (Recommended)
Windows equivalent : Adobe Reader
Ubuntu equivalent : Adobe Reader

Adobe Reader enables users to view and print PDF files but doesn’t have PDF creation capabilities. Acrobat and Reader are widely used as a way to present information with a fixed layout similar to a paper publication (when you get to the EULA prompt press Tab key) and make sure to install medibuntu repository at the beginning of this guide at the top:
sudo apt-get install acroread acroread-fonts
ScrubIt Public DNS profiles several million websites and by default block out any pornographic, phishing, and many other potentially harmful sites. It is a free open DNS for content filtering, and highly recommended if you have kids using your home network.
You can add it to your Static DNS entries in your hardware WiFi router configuration (recommended if you have never updated your router before: you can try calling the tech support company that made your router to help guide you throuh the process for updating your router’s “LAN” DNS settings. Just tell them you want to add a public DNS 67.138.54.100 and 207.225.209.66 to be used by all the computers on your network) or if you aren’t using a router on your individual Ubuntu system, you can update your DNS like this:
sudo gedit /etc/resolv.conf
Write down your existing ISP nameserver IP addresses in case you want to change it back later on. And then modify those ISP nameserver entries as to the pubic DNS ScrubIt entries:
nameserver 67.138.54.100
nameserver 207.225.209.66
Click on Save, and reboot your system.
The best way to update your DNS nameserver is to change your wifi router configuration. Just call tech support for your make and model router (the manufacturers tech support phone number) and ask them to walk you through the process to update your DNS nameserver configuration for your router box. It should normally be free of charge to call for support for your make and model router box. Make sure you put a good password on your router box when you are done. And never let your kids have administrative accounts on Ubuntu. Always create new users without superuser rights too. Only you, the superuser should be able to change any of the system network settings from within Ubuntu OS.
Here is a walkthrough to set up the same kind of parental blocking service but with OpenDNS instead:
http://www.liberiangeek.net/2012/01/enable-parental-control-in-ubuntu-11-10-precise-ocelot-with-opendns/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LiberianGeek+%28Liberian+Geek%29
Simple Yet Advanced Text Editor
Windows equivalent : Notepad ++
Ubuntu equivalent : GEdit, Geany
GEdit
sudo apt-get install gedit gedit-plugins gedit-developer-plugins
Geany
Geany is a text editor using the GTK2 toolkit with basic features of an integrated development environment.

It was developed to provide a small and fast IDE, which has only a few dependencies from other packages. It supports many filetypes and has some nice features.
sudo apt-get install geany geany-plugins
LibreOffice (the new Openoffice.org replacement) Recommended
Windows equivalent : Microsoft Office Suite
Ubuntu equivalent : LibreOffice 3 Suite

LibreOffice is a free software office suite developed by The Document Foundation as a fork of OpenOffice.org. It is compatible with other major office suites, including Microsoft Office, and available on a variety of platforms. Its developers’ goal is to produce a vendor-independent office suite with ODF support and without any copyright assignment requirements. The name is a hybrid word with the first part Libre, which means free (as in freedom) in French and Spanish, and the English word Office.
LibreOffice comes preinstalled by default, but you still want to double check that you have everything else here installed as well.  Java isn’t installed by default so go ahead and copy and paste this into your terminal. The PPA line is optional, but you should double check to make sure you have everything else here installed on your system.
To install LibreOffice 2.8 PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libreoffice libreoffice-java-common libreoffice-math libreoffice-gnome libreoffice-java-common
How to install Grammar checking Plug-in for LibreOffice Writer:
http://debianhelp.wordpress.com/2011/10/25/how-to-install-grammar-checker-in-libreoffice-in-ubuntu/
To enable PDF import capability:
sudo apt-get install libreoffice-pdfimport
To enable Mozilla Office plugin:
sudo apt-get install mozilla-libreoffice

http://extensions.libreoffice.org/extension-center
GWoffice (Google Web Office) is an application that lets you access Google Drive and its content directly from your desktop in Ubuntu. It supports HUD, drop and drag to upload documents, and offline synchronization. GWoffice comes with a clean and nice GTK theme that integrates well with Ubuntu. Although it only works with office documents, spreadsheets, and presentation files, it’s nice to have if you want to sync your Google documents in Ubuntu.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tombeckmann/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install gwoffice
Scribus is an desktop open source page layout program with the aim of producing commercial grade output in PDF and Postscript, primarily, though not exclusively for Linux.
While the goals of the program are for ease of use and simple easy to understand tools, Scribus offers support for professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, easy PDF creation, Encapsulated Postscript import/export and creation of color separations.
sudo apt-get install scribus
AbiWord is a free and open source software word processor. It was originally started by SourceGear Corporation as the first part of a proposed AbiSuite. Development stopped when SourceGear changed their focus to Internet appliances. AbiWord was adopted by some open source developers and AbiWord continued to be developed. AbiWord supports both basic word processing features such as lists, indents and character formats, and more sophisticated features including tables, styles, page headers and footers, footnotes, templates, multiple views, page columns, spell checking, and grammar checking. Starting with version 2.8.0, AbiWord includes a collaboration plugin that allows integration with AbiCollab.net, a Web-based service that permits multiple users to work on the same document in real time, in full synchronization.

sudo apt-get install abiword
Graphical FTP clients
Windows equivalent : CuteFTP, SmartFTP, CoreFTP
Ubuntu equivalent : FileZilla
FileZilla is free, open source, cross-platform FTP/SFTP software, consisting of FileZilla Client and FileZilla Server. Binaries are available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. It supports FTP, SFTP, and FTPS (FTP over SSL/TLS). As of 18 April 2011, FileZilla Client was the 7th most popular download of all time from SourceForge.net.

This is great FTP client, very complete, in my opinion, and the best one around.
To install FileZilla in terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:n-muench/programs-ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install filezilla filezilla-common
Access it through Applications → Internet → FileZilla FTP Client.
Development IDE
Windows equivalent : Dreamweaver
Ubuntu equivalent : Kompozer, Netbeans
KompoZer is an open source WYSIWYG HTML editor based on a rewritten version of the now-discontinued Nvu editor. KompoZer is maintained as a community-driven fork and is a project on Sourceforge.

KompoZer’s WYSIWYG editing capabilities are one of the main attractions of the software. In addition, KompoZer allows direct code editing as well as a split code-graphic view:
sudo apt-get install kompozer
Access it through Applications → Internet → Kompozer
Komodo Edit inherits many features of the commercial Komodo IDE, such as a full range of supported languages (including Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Tcl, SQL, Smarty, CSS, HTML and XML) and tri-platform support (Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows ). But if you are looking for an open-source editor I would also suggest Eclipse IDE in Ubuntu repositories.
Like Komodo IDE, Komodo Edit can edit remote files over FTP and supports user customization through plugins and macros. It was developed for programmers who need a multi-language editor with broad functionality, but not the features of an IDE, like debugging, DOM viewer, interactive shells, and source code control integration. However, independent implementations of some of these features are available in the free version through the plugin system as of January 2011.
Windows: Notepad++
In terminal, copy and paste (for 64-bit systems):
wget http://downloads.activestate.com/Komodo/releases/7.0.2/Komodo-Edit-7.0.2-9923-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
tar xzvf Komodo-Edit-7.0.2-9923-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
cd Komodo-Edit-7.0.2-9923-linux-x86_64/
sudo ./install.sh
When prompted to specify the directory or folder to install into, type this command:
/opt/Komodo-Edit-7/
After installing, run this command in your terminal to complete the process.
export PATH="/opt/Komodo-Edit-7/bin:$PATH"
NetBeans
The NetBeans platform allows applications to be developed from a set of modular software components called modules. Applications based on the NetBeans platform (including the NetBeans IDE) can be extended by third party developers.
sudo apt-get install netbeans
Image Editors
Windows equivalent : Adobe Photoshop
Ubuntu equivalent : GIMP
Basic GIMP
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free software raster graphics editor. It is primarily employed as an image retouching and editing tool and is freely available in versions tailored for most popular operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, and GNU/Linux. It has layering abilities like Photoshop.
In addition to detailed image retouching and free-form drawing, GIMP can accomplish essential image editing tasks such as resizing, editing, and cropping photos, photomontages combining multiple images, and converting between different image formats. GIMP can also be used to create basic animated images in the GIF format.
New additions in Gimp 2.8 are single window mode, on-canvas text editing, layers group, and to apply all changes to a layer grouping. You will need to install the PPA to upgrade to Gimp 2.8 below.
GIMP’s product vision is that GIMP is, or will become, a free software high-end graphics application for the editing and creation of original images, icons, graphical elements of web pages and art for user interface elements.
sudo apt-get --purge remove gimp*
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:otto-kesselgulasch/gimp
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gimp gimp-data gimp-data-extras
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Access it through Applications → Graphics → GIMP Image Editor.
Download additional Script-Fu filters and tweaks:

Instructions on how to install Scripts that work in Gimp 2.8:
http://www.gimphelp.org/script28.shtml
GIMP Paint Studio
GIMP Paint Studio (GPS) is a package with a collection of brushes and accompanying tool presets for GIMP aimed at improving the capabilities in drawing and painting using GIMP. GPS provides a wide range of tools for graphic designers and digital artists: different shadowing pencil brushes (graphite, 2B, 6B, etc), pen brushes (BIC pen, sketching pen), oil brushes and other presets for airbrushing, using the ink tool, smudging, etc.

To add the PPA and install GIMP Paint Studio in Ubuntu (install GIMP first), use the following commands on the terminal (this PPA might not be available yet in 12.04):
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:shnatsel/gimp-paint-studio
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gimp-paint-studio
Gimp Painter adds some color blending and line smoothing features:
It is not a separate package, but a whole patched GIMP.

To install Gimp Painter from terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mizuno-as/gimp-painter
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
To install additional helpful plugins for Gimp try:

http://registry.gimp.org/popular
Vector Graphics Editor
Windows equivalent : Adobe Illustrator
Ubuntu equivalent : Inkscape
Inkscape is a free software vector graphics editor, licensed under the GNU General Public License. Its goal is to implement full support for the Scalable Vector Graphics 1.1 standard. An Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.

Inkscape is an open source drawing tool that uses the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) scalable vector graphics format (SVG). Some supported SVG features include basic shapes, paths, text, markers, clones, alpha blending, transforms, gradients, and grouping. In addition, Inkscape supports Creative Commons’ metadata, node-editing, layers, complex path operations, text-on-path, text-in-shape, and SVG XML editing. It also imports several formats like EPS, PostScript, JPEG, PNG, BMP, and TIFF and exports PNG as well as multiple vector-based formats.
sudo apt-get install inkscape
Access it through Applications → Graphics → Inkscape Vector Graphics Editor.
Photo Management
Windows equivalent: Aftershot Pro, Lightroom, Bridge, Photoshop Organizer
RAW file viewers/editors/plugins for SLR Digital Photography
Not the most intuitive program to use at first, Raw Therapee is a fairly feature rich and comprehensive RAW editor that’s compatible with Linux. At the time of writing, the team are working on a stable release of version 3.0, which is a major release for the project. Unidentified Flying RAW (or UFRaw for short) is a dedicated RAW image editor based on GTK+. It can be used as an application on its own or as a plugin for GIMP (simply open a RAW image in GIMP to be presented with the UFRaw editor window).
sudo apt-get install libraw-bin ufraw ufraw-batch and gimp-ufraw rawtherapee
For more raw file utilities visit: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-great-tools-editing-raw-photos-linux/
Darktable is an open source photography workflow application and RAW developer. A virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers. It manages your digital negatives in a database, lets you view them through a zoomable lighttable and enables you to develop raw images and enhance them. It focuses on the workflow to make it easier for the photographer to quickly handle the thousands of images a day of shooting can produce. It’s also one of the very few FOSS projects able to do tethered shooting.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pmjdebruijn/darktable-release-plus
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install darktable
Shotwell can import photos and videos from a digital camera directly. Shotwell automatically groups photos and videos by date, and supports tagging. Its image editing features allow users to rotate, crop, eliminate red eye, and adjust levels and color balance. It also features an auto “enhance” option that will attempt to guess appropriate levels for the image. Shotwell allows users to publish their images and videos to Facebook, Flickr, Picasa Web Albums, Piwigo, and YouTube.
sudo apt-get install shotwell
3D Graphics Applications
Windows equivalent : 3D Studio MAX, Google Sketch
Ubuntu equivalent : Blender
Blender
Blender’s features include 3D modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, rigging, water and smoke simulations, skinning, animating, rendering, particle and other simulations, video editing software, compositing, and the ability to create interactive 3D applications, video games, animated film, or visual effects.

More advanced tools include rigid, realistic body, fluid, cloth and softbody dynamics simulation, modifier-based modeling, character animation, a node-based material and compositing system, and embedded scripting in Python.
sudo apt-get install blender
Or you can get the latest developmental beta version:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:irie/blender
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install blender2.5
Access it through Applications → Graphics → Blender (windowed).
Microsoft Visio
Windows equivalent : Microsoft Visio
Ubuntu equivalent : Dia
Dia
Dia can be used to draw many different kinds of diagrams and flowcharts. It has special objects to help draw entity-relationship models (tedia2sql can be used to create the SQL DDL), Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and simple electrical circuits. It is also possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files, using a subset of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) to draw the shape.
sudo apt-get install dia
Access it through Applications → Graphics → Dia Diagram Editor
Google Picasa is an image organizer and image viewer for organizing and editing digital photos, plus an integrated photo-sharing website, originally created by a company named Lifescape (which at that time may have resided at Idealab) in 2002 and owned by Google since 2004. “Picasa” is a blend of the name of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, the phrase mi casa for “my house”, and “pic” for pictures (personalized art). For Linux, Google has bundled Wine with the Windows version to create an installation package rather than write a native Linux version, but this version is severely out of date (the latest Windows version, however, can be run with Wine; see the Linux section).
http://www.ubuntuupdates.org/package/mint_import/maya/import/base/picasa
You will need to either select the 32-bit or 64-bit version according to the version of Ubuntu you  have installed on your computer.
Screenlets is the name of both a set of independently-developed widget applications and the widget engine which runs them. The engine runs primarily on X11-based compositing window managers, most notably with Compiz on Linux. Like Google Gadgets for windows.
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:screenlets/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install screenlets
P2P Clients / Servers, File Sharing
Windows equivalent : Limewire, utorrent, Azureus, Emule, PeerGuardian
Ubuntu equivalent : Frostwire, Deluge, Azureus, Amule, Moblock/Mobloquer
BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol used for distributing large amounts of data over the Internet. BitTorrent is one of the most common protocols for transferring large files, and it has been estimated that it accounted for roughly 43% to 70% of all Internet traffic (depending on geographical location) as of February 2009.
Frostwire
Windows equivalent: Limewire
FrostWire is a free, open source BitTorrent client, first released in September, 2004, as a fork of LimeWire. It was initially very similar to LimeWire in appearance and functionality, but developers added more features, such as BitTorrent support. In version 5, Gnutella support was dropped entirely, and now FrostWire only uses the BitTorrent network. Development of the program has been active since the program was first released in September 2004.
Install Frostwire:
wget -q -O - http://archive.getdeb.net/getdeb-archive.key | sudo apt-key add -
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu precise-getdeb apps" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/getdeb.list'
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install frostwire
Bittorrent Add-ons for Ubuntu:
Windows Equivalent: PeerGuardian (requirement for Bittorent downloading!)
Ubuntu equivalent : Moblock and Mobloquer
MoBlock is a Linux security application for blocking connections to and from a specified range of hosts. It is an open source IP filtering program similar to PeerGuardian for Linux. There are current plans between Phoenix Labs and MoBlock to make it the official PeerGuardian for Linux, but they haven’t released an updated Moblock/Mobloquer installation package for 12.04 yet.
While you are installing Moblock, just accept the default settings for now. You can change them with Mobloquer after you are done installing everything.
This will install the moblock “natty” repository because they haven’t released a moblock for 12.04 yet.  Tested in 12.04, and works great.  No issues.
To install Moblock in terminal (select the default settings by using the TAB key and pressing enter – there will be several prompts – just accept default settings and afterwards you can configure the blocklists in Mobloquer app):
sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/jre-phoenix/ppa/ubuntu natty main"
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install moblock blockcontrol mobloquer
Make sure to enable your blocklists you want and update Mobloquer after you get it completely installed:
The first thing most users will notice after installing Moblock and have it running is that their Pidgin/Empathy/IMclientOfChoice stops working. Mobloquer log will list the IP’s and info about the IP’s, so just whitelist them if need be with one mouse click. It’s really a very strong utility and will block pretty much everything until you tell it to do otherwise.
qBittorrent is a multi-platform Bittorrent client developed in C++/Qt4 by Christopher Dumez. This software is still under active development and it becomes more and more featureful, while being already very stable.

Its main features are its integrated search engine (allows searching for torrent from the main torrent Web sites simultaneously in a transparent fashion), its support for l’UPnP/NAT-PMP, Bittorrent protocol encryption (Azureus-compatible), Peer Exchange (PeX) compatible with µTorrent, IP filtering (eMule-like “ipfilter.dat” or PeerGuardian filters), Torrents (and the files they contain) prioritizing, remote control through a secure Web User Interface.
Windows Equivant: µTorrent
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hydr0g3n/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install qbittorrent
Deluge is a full-featured BitTorrent client for Linux, OS X, Unix and Windows. It uses libtorrent in it’s backend and features multiple user-interfaces including: GTK+, web and console. It has been designed using the client server model with a daemon process that handles all the bittorrent activity.

The Deluge daemon is able to run on headless machines with the user-interfaces being able to connect remotely from any platform.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deluge-team/ppa && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install deluge-torrent
Access it through Applications → Internet → Deluge Torrent.
Azureus: Uses Java to run, very complete but a bit heavy. And has a wide variety of add-ons to choose from too.

Vuze (formerly Azureus) is a P2P file sharing client using the bittorrent protocol. Search and download torrent files. Play, convert and transcode videos and music for playing on many devices such as PSP, TiVo, XBox, PS3, iTunes (iPhone, iPod, Apple TV).
sudo apt-get install azureus
Access it through Applications → Internet → Azureus.
µTorrent is a very tiny BitTorrent client, super fast and ultra light. µTorrent’s built for speed. That means ultra-efficient downloads of mega-sized files.
Go to µTorrent official site and download the Ubuntu installation package and use the following instructions to install µTorrent at:
http://ubuntuguide.net/install-lightweight-fast-%C2%B5torrent-on-ubuntu-12-04-lts/
Amule
aMule is an eMule-like client for the eD2k and Kademlia networks, supporting multiple platforms.
Add the launchpad repository :
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:happyaron/amule-dlp && sudo apt-get update
Then install it with the following command :
sudo apt-get install amule-dlp amule-dlp-gnome-support amule-dlp-utils-gui amule-dlp-daemon
Access it through Applications → Internet → aMule.
Music / MP3 / OGG Players
Windows equivalent : iTunes, Winamp
Ubuntu equivalent : Amarok, Nuvola Player, Spotify
Amarok 2.5 “Earth Moving” was released on December 2011.
New features:
  • GPodder.net podcast synchronization.
  • Re-written USB Mass Storage support.
  • The Windows version of Amarok is now officially declared stable.
  • Many bugfixes to the iPod plugin, thanks to Matěj Laitl.
  • An integrated Amazon MP3 store. This major feature is the work of our web-entrepreneurs Sven and Justus.
sudo apt-get install amarok
Nuvola Player, Google Music Frame used to be an application that integrates Google Music in Ubuntu, providing sound menu support, notifications, multimedia keys and even last.fm scrobbling. But the application has evolved and the latest development builds work with Grooveshark.
Because it now supports two music services (more cloud music services might be added in the future), Google Music Frame has been renamed to “Nuvola Player”.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nuvola-player-builders/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nuvolaplayer
Spotify is a Swedish-founded, UK-headquartered DRM-based music streaming service offering streaming of selected music from a range of major and independent record labels, including Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group, and Universal.

Launched in October 2008 by Swedish startup Spotify AB, the service had approximately ten million users as of 15 September 2010; about 2.5 million of whom were paying members.The service is, as of November 2011, available in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.
gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.de.pgp.net --recv-keys 4E9CFF4E
gpg --export 4E9CFF4E |sudo apt-key add -
then
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://repository.spotify.com stable non-free" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/spotify.list'
then
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install spotify-client-qt
Audacity is a cross-platform multitrack audio editor. It allows you to record sounds directly or to import files in various formats and convert audio files into many different audio file formats too. It features a few simple effects, all of the editing features you should need, and unlimited undo. This is the first and last GUI audio editor you will ever need on Ubuntu.
The GUI was built with wxWidgets and the audio I/O supports PulseAudio, OSS and ALSA under Linux.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:audacity-team/daily
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install audacity lame libmp3lame0
Mixxx is a DJ tool that allows for the playback and mixing of digital music (MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC and Wave). Mixxx will run on the Linux, Mac OS X and Windows operating systems.

Mixxx has the ability to provide comprehensive support for any MIDI controller due to its scripting engine, and it ships with mappings for a number of popular controllers, a complete list of which can be found on the Hardware Compatibility page.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mixxx/mixxx
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mixxx libportaudio2
Airtime an award-winning open source radio management software, has reached version 2.1, getting real-time show editing and live stream rebroadcasting.
Airtime 2.1 allows connecting remotely via tools such as Mixxx or Virtual DJ and the application will rebroadcast the stream either at a time you set or in the middle of the broadcast, using a nice transition.
Download Airtime (officially supports Ubuntu and Debian, but works on other Linux distributions too)
Ardour is a hard disk recorder and digital audio workstation application. It runs on Linux, Mac OS X and FreeBSD. Its primary author is Paul Davis, who is also responsible for the JACK Audio Connection Kit. Ardour’s intention is to provide digital audio workstation software suitable for professional use.
sudo apt-get install ardour
bristol is a vintage synthesiser software emulator suite. The application consists of an engine itself called bristol and a graphical user interface called  brighton. The graphical interface is a bitmap manipulation library to present the diverse synth devices such as potentiometers, buttons, sliders, patch cables and which generates the messages to  configure the synth emulator.
The engine is  an infrastructure that hosts the emulator code that couples together the different audio operators required to generate the  audio.  The  engine and GUI are started together with the start Bristol script which sets up the required environment for the two to connect together. It is not generally envisaged that bristol and brighton be started outside of the script however there are options to the script to only start one or the other. Bristol also has a command line interface that can be used rather than the GUI. Audio drivers are PCM/PCM plug or Jack. Midi drivers are either OSS/ALSA rawmidi interface, or ALSA SEQ. Multple GUIs can connect to the single audio engine, which then operates multitimbrally.
Currently the following synthesizers are emulated:
http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/precise/man1/bristol.1.html
Download bristol 32-bit or 64-bit deb installation package here:
http://www.ubuntuupdates.org/package/core/precise/universe/base/bristol
And then in Terminal copy and paste to install the GUI:
sudo apt-get install monobristol
Special Note: You may need to type monobristol in terminal to start the GUI or you may need to create a launcher for it manually.
Amarok
Amarok’s tagline is “Rediscover Your Music”, and its development is based around this ideology. Amarok’s core features such as the unique “context browser”, integrated Wikipedia lookup and lyrics download help users to find new music, and to learn more about the music they have.
Windows equivalent : iTunes
Amarok also features integration with last.fm, giving users suggestions about what to listen to next and which artists may fit their mood, as well as with Magnatune integration, allowing no-cost full listening of all the music in their catalog, and DRM-free purchasing.
sudo apt-get install amarok amarok-common
Access it through Applications → Sound & Video → Amarok.
gtkpod
gtkpod is a graphical user interface for the Apple iPod for Unix-like systems, written using the GTK+ toolkit.
Windows equivalent : iTunes
This application allow you to connect to your ipod, shuffle, idohickeythingamabob so you can access your music, mp4s, and tranfer them, copy them, rename them, with Ubuntu or Debian systems. It’s all kinds of good stuff for apple media users.
sudo apt-get install gtkpod
Programs for CD/DVD burning with GUI
Windows equivalent : Nero, Roxio Easy CD Creator
Ubuntu equivalent : K3b, Brasero
K3b (from KDE Burn Baby Burn) is a CD and DVD authoring application for the KDE desktop environment for Unix-like computer operating systems. It provides a graphical user interface to perform most CD/DVD burning tasks like creating an Audio CD from a set of audio files or copying a CD/DVD, as well as more advanced tasks such as burning eMoviX CD/DVDs. It can also perform direct disc-to-disc copies.
sudo apt-get install k3b k3b-data libk3b6
Access it through Applications → Sound & Video → K3B.
Brasero is a application to burn CD/DVD for the Gnome Desktop. It is designed to be as simple as possible and has some unique features to enable users to create their discs easily and quickly.
sudo apt-get install brasero
Access it through Applications → Sound & Video → Brasero Disc Burning .
Gnac is an easy-to-use audio conversion program for the GNOME desktop. It is designed to be powerful but simple. It provides easy audio file conversion between all GStreamer supported audio formats. This and WinFF I have found to be very handy.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnac-team/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnac
Kdenlive, Kino, Openshot, Pitivi Video Editors
Kdenlive, Kino, Openshot, Avidemux, and Pitivi are intuitive and powerful multi-track video editors, including some of the most recent video technologies. Winff is a video/audio converter. With WinFF you can convert a video from youtube into an MP3 audio file, for example. Avidemux is good general purpose video editor as well.
sudo apt-get install kdenlive kino pitivi
sudo apt-get install avidemux avidemux-common avidemux-plugins-common avidemux-plugins-gtk



WinFF is a GUI for the FFmpeg command line video converter. It will convert any video file that is supported by FFmpeg. WinFF processes multiple files in multiple formats at once. You can, for example, convert mpeg, flv, and mov files into avi videos, all at once. To install the most recent updated version:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:paul-climbing/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install winff libavcodec-extra-53
OpenShot Video Editor is open-source, video editing software package for Linux, built with Python, GTK, and the MLT Framework.  I personally recommend this for video editing.

The project was started in August 2008 by Jonathan Thomas, with the objective to provide a stable, free, and friendly to use video editor. For a complete list of features click here. To install the most recent updated version:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openshot.developers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install openshot
Flowblade is a multitrack non-linear video editor for Linux designed to “provide a fast, precise and as-simple-as-possible editing experience”. The application can be used to join or cut videos, create movies from video clips, audio clips and images, add filters and more.
Download Flowblade (.deb and source files available)
HandBrake is an open-source program designed to convert MPEG video (including DVD-Video) into an MPEG-4 video file in MPEG-4 Part 14 (.mp4) or Matroska (.mkv) containers.
The program is used to convert DVDs into other forms so they can be viewed on iPods, iPhones and with the Apple QuickTime Player and most media players.

Originally developed for BeOS, HandBrake is now available for Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stebbins/handbrake-snapshots
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install handbrake-gtk handbrake-cli
FfDiaporama is an application for assembling photos and videos. It is inspired by presentation software such as Impress or Powerpoint. It can read all image formats, a majority of cameras and camcorder video formats, and the most commonly used music formats.
It includes 140 transitions and a device database for the generation of videos with more than 50 models of video viewing devices (including smartphones, tablets, and home cinema systems). ffDiaporama can manage several hundreds of slides. Every slide can contain several tens of shots and several tens of blocks. Every shot contains its own block settings. The application calculates all the shot transformations.
http://ffdiaporama.tuxfamily.org/

Kazam is a simple screen recording program that will capture the content of your screen and record a video file that can be played by any video player that supports VP8/WebM video format. You are able to have a mic enabled and background soundtrack too.
Optionally you can record sound from any sound input device that is supported and visible by PulseAudio.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kazam-team/stable-series
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install kazam
VideoLAN Movie Creator (VLMC) is a cross-platform, non-linear, video editing software application based on the VLC Media Player.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/vlmc
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install vlmc frei0r-plugins
AcidRip is an automated front end for MPlayer/Mencoder (ripping and encoding DVD tool using mplayer and mencoder) written in Perl, using Gtk2::Perl for a graphical interface. Makes encoding a DVD just one button click!
You can install it as follows under Debian / Ubuntu Linux:
sudo apt-get install acidrip
dvd::rip is a full featured DVD copy program written in Perl i.e. fron end for transcode and ffmpeg. It provides an easy to use but feature-rich Gtk+ GUI to control almost all aspects of the ripping and transcoding process.
It uses the widely known video processing swissknife transcode and many other Open Source tools. dvd::rip itself is licensed under GPL / Perl Artistic License. You can install dvd::rip as follows under Debian / Ubuntu Linux:
sudo apt-get install dvdrip
K9copy is a KDE DVD Backup tool. It allows the copy of a DVD9 to a DVD5. It is also known as a Linux DVD shrink. It supports the following features: The video stream is compressed to make the video fiton a 4.7GB recordable DVD. DVD Burning. Creation of ISO images. Choosing which audio and subtitle tracks are copied. Title preview (video only). The ability to preserve the original menus.

sudo apt-get install k9copy
Hulu Desktop is a lean-back viewing experience for your personal computer. It features a sleek new look that’s optimized for use with standard Windows Media Center remote controls or Apple remote controls, allowing you to navigate Hulu’s entire library with just six buttons. For users without remotes, the application is keyboard and mouse-enabled. Hulu Desktop is a downloadable application and will work on PCs and Macs. It will initially launch as a beta product during which we plan to gather and incorporate user feedback to improve the service. The new version includes both bug fixes and also support for the new Hulu Plus subscription service.
You can download the deb installation package for your 32-bit or 64-bit version of Ubuntu 12.04 here:
http://www.hulu.com/labs/hulu-desktop-linux
After you have download it, you can double-click on the *.deb file and it should automatically install itself with your Ubuntu Software Center.
TV-MAXE is an application which provides the ability to watch TV stations and listen radio via different streams, such is SopCast. Currently it has a large number of channels, both romanian and international. I tested this in 12.04 and it is working very good.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:venerix/blug
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tv-maxe
FreetuxTV is a Web TV player for Linux that lets you watch and record free Web TV Channels and listen to Radio. Unlike Sopcast this works with direct asf/wmv connections/downloads for streaming media. And the programming lists appear to not be quite as updated as Sopcast at the moment. The application that runs on VLC as backend comes with several pre-added channels for many languages. You will need to open up the required ports on your firewall if it is enabled.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:freetuxtv/freetuxtv
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install freetuxtv
For support contact: https://code.google.com/p/freetuxtv/
XBMC is an award-winning free and open source (GPL) software media player and entertainment hub for digital media. XBMC is available for Linux, OSX, and Windows. Created in 2003 by a group of like minded programmers, XBMC is a non-profit project run and developed by volunteers located around the world. More than 50 software developers have contributed to XBMC, and 100-plus translators have worked to expand its reach, making it available in more than 30 languages. While XBMC functions very well as a standard media player application for your computer, it has been designed to be the perfect companion for your HTPC. Supporting an almost endless range of remote controls, and combined with its beautiful interface and powerful skinning engine, XBMC feels very natural to use from the couch and is the ideal solution for your home theater.
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:nathan-renniewaldock/xbmc-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xbmc
Infra-red remote control support “lirc” can be reconfigured with this command:
sudo dpkg-recondigure lirc
For more information: http://lirc.org/
Calibre is a free and open source e-book computer software that organizes, saves and manages e-books, supporting a variety of formats. It also supports e-book syncing with a variety of popular e-book readers. calibre is cross-platform (programmed in Python and C) and is intended for the three main operating systems, Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.
Windows: “Kindle for PC” software

Calibre was originally called libprs500, but was renamed calibre (lower case ‘C’) in mid-2008. calibre is primarily an e-book cataloging program. It is designed around the concept of the logical book, where a single database entry corresponds with the same book in a variety of formats. calibre supports the following formats for cataloging: AZW, AZW1, CBR, CBZ, CHM, EPUB, FB2, HTML, IMP, LIT, LRF, LRX, MOBI, ODT, OEBZIP, OPF, PDB, PDF, PML, PMLZ, PRC, RAR, RB, RTF, SNB, TPZ, TXT and ZIP.

sudo apt-get install calibre
Also make sure to install better smaller fonts:
http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/957788-installing-calibri-font/
Map Viewing and Management
Google Earth allows you to travel the world through a virtual globe and view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings, and much more. With Google Earth’s rich, geographical content, you are able to experience a more realistic view of the world.

Prerequisite: Make sure you have all your media codecs installed listed at the beginning of this tutorial.
And if you are running a 64-bit version of Ubuntu 12.04 then you will also need:
 sudo apt-get install ia32-libs
To install Google Earth copy and paste the following command in the Terminal Window.
sudo apt-get install lsb-core
and here is Google Earth 6.2 
Latest Upgraded Version:>>Download Google Earth 6.2
Select either:
32 bit .deb (For Debian/Ubuntu)
64 bit .deb (For Debian/Ubuntu)
Depending on your PC architecture and install in Software Center.
VMWare Player System Emulator
VMware Player is a freeware virtualization software package from VMware, Inc.(a company which was formerly a division of and whose majority shareholder remains EMC Corporation). VMware Player can run virtual appliances. VMware Player can also create virtual machines since version 3.0. I personally recommend VMware Player over using Wine to run Windows Applications in Ubuntu.
It uses the same virtualization core as VMware Workstation, a similar program with more features, and not free of charge. VMware Player is available without restriction for personal non-commercial use, or for distribution or other use by written agreement. It allows you to run all Windows applications in Ubuntu.
How-to Install VMware Player in Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin (Linux Kernel 3.2):
http://debianhelp.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/how-to-install-vmware-player-in-ubuntu-12-04
Oracle VM VirtualBox is an x86 virtualization software package, originally created by software company innotek GmbH, purchased by Sun Microsystems, and now developed by Oracle Corporation as part of its family of virtualization products. It is installed on an existing host operating system; within this application, additional guest operating systems, each known as a Guest OS, can be loaded and run, each with its own virtual environment.
Supported host operating systems include Linux, Mac OS X, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Solaris, and OpenSolaris; there is also a port to FreeBSD (only OSE version). Supported guest operating systems include versions and derivations of Windows, Linux, BSD, OS/2, Solaris and others. Since release 3.2.0, VirtualBox also allows limited virtualization of Mac OS X guests on Apple hardware.
According to 2010 surveys by LinuxJournal.com, and LifeHacker.com, VirtualBox was the most popular virtualization product with over 50% of the vote.

Add the VirtualBox repository and install the latest VirtualBox 4.0.6 using the commands below (before this, make sure you remove any VirtualBox 3.x version you may have installed).
To install Virtualbox 4 in terminal:
sudo echo "deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian $(lsb_release -sc) contrib" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/virtualbox.list
wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-4.1
For some additional features like USB 2.0 support, you will need to install the VirtualBox Extension Pack which you can download from HERE. Once downloaded, double click the Extension Pack and it should open with VirtualBox and you can then easily install it. If that doesn’t work for you, Open VirtualBox and go to File > Preferences and on the Extensions tab, click the “add” button on the right (first blue diamond) and browse for the VirtualBox extension pack.
Free VirtualBox Images.
Ready-to-use virtual machines sporting open-source operating systems:
http://virtualboxes.org/images/
VirtualBox Homepage:
http://www.virtualbox.org/
VirtualBox User’s Guide:
http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/UserManual.pdf

Updated: June 10th 2012 (patch for 64-bit Ubuntu systems)
Citrix Systems Reciever ICAClient (w/Firefox Plug-in):
Citrix Receiver is a lightweight software client that allows access to virtual desktops and apps including Windows, Web or SaaS apps on any PC, Mac, netbook, tablet or smartphone. Works for both 32-bit and 64-bit version of Ubuntu. You need to download two deb packages to have it working correctly. You need the installation package for either 32-bit or 64-bit, and the supporting usb deb package, and then you will need to also install the USB support deb package as well. You will find both on the Linux download page on the following link:

http://www.citrix.com/lang/English/lp/lp_2309126.asp

And then copy the certificates to the proper directory:
sudo cp /usr/share/ca-certificates/mozilla/* /opt/Citrix/ICAClient/keystore/cacerts
Tutorial on how to install Citrix Receiver in Ubuntu:
Special Note: There is a error in the deb installation package that you download from Citrix. If you are running 64-bit Ubuntu 12.04 and trying to install Citrix the installation will FAIL. Here is how to resolve this problem with the installation package for 64-bit Ubuntu 12.04 LTS:
1. Install the .deb and let it fail
2. Edit /var/lib/dpkg/info/icaclient.postinst
sudo gedit /var/lib/dpkg/info/icaclient.postinst
3. Replace the line that says
echo $Arch|grep "i[0-9]86" >/dev/null
with
echo $Arch|grep -E "i[0-9]86|x86_64" >/dev/null
4. Run dpkg –configure icaclient
sudo dpkg --configure icaclient
Restart Firefox so the plugin is installed correctly.
I really hope Citrix fixes this problem with their 64-bit installation deb package for Ubuntu 12.04 soon. And the other thing that is missing from the installation package is the certificates. Copy the certificates to the proper directory so Citrix can connect properly with your Citrix host:
sudo cp /usr/share/ca-certificates/mozilla/* /opt/Citrix/ICAClient/keystore/cacerts
TeamViewer is a free for non-commercial use, software application for remote control, desktop sharing, and file transfer between computers, great for meetings, presentations, tech support and more. It runs on Windows, Mac OSX, Linux (even though it comes in a .deb or .rpm, it uses Wine which comes bundled with it) as well as Android or iPhone.
Windows: LogMeIn, GoToMeeting, MS RDC
http://debianhelp.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/teamviewer-7-beta-available-for-linux-remote-desktop-tool/
DraftSight
Windows: AutoCAD

Free CAD software* available for Windows®, Mac® and Linux®. A new CAD product that provides professional CAD users, students and educators with a better way to create, edit and view DWG files.
Prerequisite installation packages:
sudo apt-get install libxcb-render-util0
sudo apt-get install libdirectfb-extra
(Download Draftsight) http://www.3ds.com/products/draftsight/download-draftsight/
If you need to install this on a 64-bit Ubuntu system here are instructions:
http://www.ggsalas.com.ar/instalar-draftsight-en-ubuntu-11-04-x64/
Microsoft Project
Windows equivalent : Microsoft Project
Ubuntu equivalent : OpenProj
OpenProj is an open source project management software intended as a complete desktop replacement for Microsoft Project, being able to open existing native Project files. It was developed by Projity in 2007. OpenProj runs on the Java Platform, allowing it to run on a variety of different operating systems.
OpenProj
wget http://nchc.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/openproj/openproj_1.4-2.deb && sudo dpkg -i openproj_1.4-2.deb
Access it through Applications → Office → OpenProj
Source Control Management
Windows equivalent : TortoiseSVN
Ubuntu equivalent : RabbitVCS
RabbitVCS is a graphical front-end for version control systems available on Linux. It integrates into file managers to provide file context menu access to version control repositories. The project was originally called NautilusSvn, but due to the desire to support file managers in addition to Nautilus and more version control systems, it was renamed to RabbitVCS (Version Control System). The interface was inspired by TortoiseSVN, recognisable by the file manager shell integration, which is available on Nautilus and Thunar in the case of RabbitVCS. It can also integrate into Gedit or run independently on the command line.
sudo apt-get install rabbitvcs-core rabbitvcs-nautilus rabbitvcs-gedit rabbitvcs-cli
killall nautilus
Right Click on any folder or file and access the RabbitVCS submenu
Adobe AIR (no longer officially supported for Linux OS) internally uses Adobe Flash Player as the runtime environment, and ActionScript 3 as the sole programming language. Flash applications must specifically be built for the Adobe AIR runtime in order to utilize additional features provided, such as file system integration, native client extensions, native window/screen integration, taskbar/dock integration, and hardware integration with connected Accelerometer and GPS devices. AIR enables applications to work with data in multiple different ways, including local files, local SQLite databases for which AIR has inbuilt support, a database server via web services, or the encrypted local store included with AIR.

Special Note: Beginning June 14 2011, Adobe AIR is no longer supported for desktop Linux distributions. Users can install and run AIR 2.6 and earlier applications but can’t install or update to AIR 2.7. The last version to support desktop Linux distributions is AIR 2.6. AIR 2.6 is available from the AIR Archive.
If you are running a 32-bit version of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS:
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0 /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0 /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0
If you are running a 64-bit version of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS:
sudo apt-get install ia32-libs
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0 /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0 /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0
Download and isntall Adobe Air:
wget http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/lin/download/latest/AdobeAIRInstaller.bin -O AdobeAIRInstaller.bin
sudo chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin
sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin
Post-installation clean up:
sudo rm /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0
sudo rm /usr/lib/libgnome-keyring.so.0.2.0
If you are having trouble installing Adobe Air on Ubuntu 64-bit you can also try these alternative instructions:
http://ubuntuguide.net/install-adobe-air64-bit-ubuntu-12-04-precise/
Htop is an interactive system-monitor process-viewer written for Linux. It is designed to replace the Unix program top. It shows a frequently updated list of the processes running on a computer, normally ordered by the amount of CPU usage. Unlike ‘top’, Htop provides a full list of processes running, instead of the top resource-consuming processes. Htop uses color and gives visual information about processor, swap and memory status.

Users often deploy htop in cases where Unix top does not provide enough information about the systems processes, for example when trying to find minor memory leaks in applications. Compared to top, it provides a more convenient, cursor-controlled interface for killing processes.
Windows: Task-manager
Ubuntu: Htop
sudo apt-get install htop
Create your own custom distribution based on your installed Ubuntu OS
Windows Equivalent: Norton Ghost (well kind-of)
Ubuntu Equivalent: Remastersys, Clonezilla
Remastersys is a free and open source program for Debian, Ubuntu-based, or derivative software systems that can create a customized Live CD/DVD (a remaster) of Debian and its derivatives. Backup an entire system, including user data (optional), to an installable Live CD/DVD/USB Flash Drive with Unetbootin.
http://debianhelp.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/how-to-install-and-use-remastersys-in-ubuntu-os/
Hard Disk Partitions Manager
Windows equivalent : Norton Partition Magic
Ubuntu equivalent : GParted
GParted is a GTK+ front-end to GNU Parted and the official GNOME Partition Editor application.
It is used for creating, deleting, resizing, moving, checking and copying partitions, and the file systems on them. This is useful for creating space for new operating systems (works with Vista / Windows 7 System & Data partitions), reorganizing disk usage, copying data residing on hard disks and mirroring one partition with another (disk imaging). It is useful for tasks such as: creating space for new operating systems, restructuring disk space to separate user and operating system data, and copying partitions to enable upgrading to a larger hard disk drive. Your hard disk drive or USB flash drive can be subdivided into one or more partitions. GParted enables you to reorganize your disk partitions while preserving the contents of these partitions.
sudo apt-get install gparted
BleachBit quickly frees disk space and tirelessly guards your privacy. Free cache, delete cookies, clear Internet history, shred temporary files, delete logs, and discard junk you didn’t know was there. Designed for Linux and Windows systems, it wipes clean 90 applications including Firefox, Internet Explorer, Adobe Flash, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, and more. I highly recommend installing this on your system at some point, and making sure to have it automatically run at system login as a reminder.
Windows equivalent : CCleaner
Beyond simply deleting files, BleachBit includes advanced features such as shredding files to prevent recovery, wiping free disk space to hide traces of files deleted by other applications, and vacuuming Firefox to make it faster. Better than free, BleachBit is open source. If you have a system that seems to be running slower than normal, it’s always a good idea to try running Bleachbit to see if it may resolve your performance issues that you may be experiencing. I personally recommend that heavy internet users run this at least once or twice a month.
sudo apt-get install bleachbit
sudo bleachbit
Bleachbit Tutorial:
can look in the “edit” menu and there is an item for “Software sources…”. 
 
source
http://debianhelp.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/to-do-list-after-installing-ubuntu-12-04-lts-aka-precise-pangolin/