Things you could do after installing meercat

After reading this site I did this:

Update Repositories

• Every time you install a brand new Ubuntu, the first thing you need to do is to update repositories and make sure you have the latest updates installed. 

• Goto System - Administration - Synaptic Package Manager and hit 'Reload' button OR simply do the following in Terminal.

sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get upgrade

Install Ubuntu Restricted Extras

• Install the "ubuntu-restricted-extras" package. This will enable your Ubuntu to play popular file formats like mp3, avi etc. Click Here or use the command below to install the package.

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

Enable Full DVD Playback Including Dual Layer DVD's

• Though installing the restricted extras package will solve most of your problems, you may not be able to play encrypted commercial and dual layer dvds yet in your Ubuntu. 

• For that, you need to install libdvdcss2 package from medibuntu repositories. Simply do the following in Terminal. (Only works after enabling the medibuntu repository)

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 install libdvdcss2

Check For Availability of Proprietary Hardware Drivers

• In my case, all the hardware drivers including graphics and wireless drivers weren't enabled automatically.

• Simply goto System - Administration - Hardware Drivers and check whether there are any drivers available and activate the ones you want. In 90% of the cases, this will do the trick. Those who were not able to get their hardware drivers enabled yet will have to do fair amount of digging through ubuntuforums.

Install Compiz Config Settings Manager

• Compiz desktop effects are available in your Ubuntu by default and if you have any kind of 3D acceleration available(graphics driver ie), you are good to go with Compiz.  

• Now to tweak compiz the way you want, Install "compizconfig-settings-manager". Click here or do the following in Terminal to install "compizconfig-settings-manager".

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

Goto System - Preferences - CompizConfig Settings Manager.

Nautilus-Elementary

• The new Nautilus-Elementary for Ubuntu Maverick comes packed with a lot of goodies like embedded Terminal, Clutterview and more. Read our Nautilus Elementary in Ubuntu Maverick Review.

• To install Nautilus Elementary in Ubuntu Maverick, do the following in Terminal.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:am-monkeyd/nautilus-elementary-ppa
sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get upgrade
nautilus -q

Stellarium

You can update your system with unsupported packages from this untrusted PPA by adding ppa:stellarium/stellarium-releases to your system's Software Sources.

If you're using the most recent version of Ubuntu (or any version from Ubuntu 9.10 onwards), you can add a PPA to your system with a single line in your terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stellarium/stellarium-releases  
sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install stellarium

Firefox 4.0

Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10 users wanting to upgrade to the latest release of Mozilla Firefox can do so by adding the Firefox Stable PPA to their system sources.

To do this, open up the Ubuntu Software Center, head to Edit > Software Sources and click the ‘Other Software’ tab. Press ‘Add’ and then paste ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable into the relevant field.

After adding the PPA you will be prompted to update your sources. Once done you can head to System > Administration > Update Manager to perform an upgrade

Alternatively you can do the above via the Terminal (Applications > Terminal).  Just enter the following two commands separately, entering your password when asked: - 

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable  
sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get upgrade

extra languages kan be downloaded here:
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/4.0/linux-i686/xpi/
for 32 bit or here
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/4.0/linux-x86_64/xpi/
for 64 bit systems

The Extra Applications I Installed


Some of the applications that I regularly use in Ubuntu are not available by default. And all of them are available in the default Ubuntu 10.10 repo.


xsane (easier scanner GUI)  
GFTP (Easy file transfer)
Samba (to share folders on your local network)
Eye of Gnome plugins,  (to make EoG better)

Exaile music player,  (An easy to use music player)

Sound Juicer (cd rip tool)
VLC DVD player (A very versatile media player. It plays anything)

Audacity (The best audio editor)

The GIMP (The GNU Image Manipulation Program)

Keepassx (Manage your passwords crossplatform)

Chromium web Browser (The open source version of Chrome, the Firefox alternative)

Stellarium  (Your own planetarium allready installed if you did anbove)

Kompozer (To make HTML pages with wysiwig)
Mozilla Thunderbird  (Read and write email)
Grsync (Sync directories in your system)
Klibido (Read usenet binaries)
Gwenview a kde viewer
Geeqie another versalite viewer 
Thunar the XCFE filebrowswer with an awesome batch rename function
PDFshuffler split and merge pdf files 
fcrackzip to crack ZIP passwords
k9copy copy DVD's and reduce them to max 4.5 Gb
k3b a versatile CD and DVD burning tool.





Install them using a terminal with this command:

sudo apt-get install k3b k9copy gftp fcrackzip pdfshuffler sound-juicer thunar gwenview geeqie gparted system-config-samba xsane eog-plugins exaile vlc audacity gimp keepassx stellarium chromium-browser kompozer thunderbird grsync klibido

And some games for the children:

sudo apt-get install gcompris kbreakout kollision ktuberling ktron kspaceduel planets frozen-bubble supertux supertuxkart  extremetuxracer gnome-breakout  pacman torcs micropolis lincity-ng  pychess

Install Dutch language using a terminal with this command:

sudo apt-get install gimp-help-nl kde-l10n-nl kdevplatform-l10n-nl language-pack-kde-nl-base  language-pack-kde-nl childsplay-alphabet-sounds-nl chromium-browser-l10n gcompris-sound-nl language-support.nl thunderbird-locale-nl 

Back in time backup software

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bit-team/stable 
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install backintime-gnome

To install Dockbarx to implement taskbar buttons like Win7 has

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:dockbar-main/ppa 
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install dockbarx

Now add the dockbarX to your Gnome panel by right clicking on it an select it. After that remove the windowlist applet by right clicking right to the left of it and select the remove option. You may resize the Gnome panel by right clicking on it, select the properties and resize the panel.
 

Furtherone you may need a PDF stitcher if pdfshuffler doesn't suit your needs:  Couturier
You can download the .deb file and install this program. It offers the option of stitching PDF files into one larger file. Direct link
Second direct link

A nice wallpaper called Xplanet


The DEB Packet is available via repository. Please keep in mind to never trust external repositories!  Even though I will never upload any shit to this repo I recomment the old scool way regardless: add the RSS to your favorite feed reader and fetch the package from the header of this website. The repository is signed (same goes for the packages, too) so you can be kind of “shure” that the stuff is what it is expected to be.
sudo wget -O - http://repository.mein-neues-blog.de:9000/PublicKey | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb http://repository.mein-neues-blog.de:9000/ /" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xplanetFX

If you want to download a .deb or a .rpm please go to:

http://mein-neues-blog.de/xplanetFX/#install

Early Feb 2011 there was a new release with many improvements. Some of these include: -

• Consistency between tabs, padding and buttons used throughout
• ‘Display’ now gives a more accurate preview of changes
• ‘View’ Position widget has colour, a new grid, more
• The application has a new Splash screen and application icon

Amongst those changes come a few new features, notably: -

• Ability to change corona blur
• Star field can be zoomed
• More shadow options
• Faster rendering time

Download

The latest release of XPlanetFX, provided pre-packaged as a .deb, can be downloaded @ mein-neues-blog.de/files/xplanetFX/xplanetFX-latest_deb
Once installed the application can be launched the from the ‘Applications > Accessories’ sub-menu.



PPAmanager

This is a simple tool that allows you to search for PPAs and install them without hitting the terminal. It also allows you to manage (add/remove/purge) your existing PPAs with a few clicks.

Usage

Open a terminal (hopefully this will be the last time you install PPA via the terminal) and type:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install y-ppa-manager

Once installed, go to “Applications -> System Tools -> Y PPA Manager“.

VirtualBox

if you need the Closed source virtualbox read this and use this:

Note: VirtualBox has been moved from non-free to contrib with 4.0, so please adjust your repository settings.
Add one of the following lines according to your distribution to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian maverick contrib
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian lucid contrib
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian karmic contrib
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian jaunty contrib
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian intrepid contrib
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian hardy contrib
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian squeeze contrib
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian lenny contrib
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian etch contrib

The Oracle public key for apt-secure can be downloaded here. You can add this key with

sudo apt-key add oracle_vbox.asc

or combine downloading and registering: 
sudo wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

The key fingerprint is

7B0F AB3A 13B9 0743 5925  D9C9 5442 2A4B 98AB 5139
Oracle Corporation (VirtualBox archive signing key) 

(As of VirtualBox 3.2, the signing key was changed. The old Sun public key for apt-secure can be downloaded here.)

To install VirtualBox, do

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-4.0

Replace virtualbox-4.0 by

• virtualbox-3.2 to install VirtualBox 3.2.12
• virtualbox-3.1 to install VirtualBox 3.1.8
• virtualbox-3.0 to install VirtualBox 3.0.14
• virtualbox-2.2 to install VirtualBox 2.2.4
• virtualbox-2.1 to install VirtualBox 2.1.4
• virtualbox-2.0 to install VirtualBox 2.0.12
• virtualbox to install VirtualBox 1.6.6

Note: Ubuntu/Debian users might want to install the dkms package to ensure that the VirtualBox host kernel modules (vboxdrv, vboxnetflt and vboxnetadp) are properly updated if the linux kernel version changes during the next apt-get upgrade. For Debian it is available in Lenny backports and in the normal repository for Squeeze and later. The dkms package can be installed through the Synaptic Package manager or through the following command:

sudo apt-get install dkms

What to do when experiencing The following signatures were invalid: BADSIG ... when refreshing the packages from the repository?

# sudo -s -H
# apt-get clean
# rm /var/lib/apt/lists/*
# rm /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/*
# apt-get clean
# apt-get update

Indicator-Virtualbox offers a quick way to launch virtual machines via the desktop panel.


The applet, created by astrapi, sits in your panel and, on opening, lists all the virtual machines configured in Virtualbox. Selecting an entry launches the machine without the need to call the main virtualbox window.

The Indicator can be installed from astrapi‘s PPA
  

sudo apt-get-repository ppa:michael-astrapi/ppa 
sudo apt-get- update
sudo apt-get install indicator-virtualbox

To launch press ALT + F2 (or use Synapse) and type: -

indicator-virtualbox

or add the indicator to the list of automatically started programs.

Choqok Twitter client

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:neversfelde/experimental

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get-install choqok 




Openshot video editor

To install OpenShot 1.3.0 in Ubuntu 9.10 or higher add the following PPA to your software sources: -

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonoomph/openshot-edge
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install openshot

Grub Customizer for customizing Grub2
 
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install grub-customizer

Grub Customizer will now show up in the Applications/System Tools menu.

Redent NotifyOSD in Ubuntu,

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jconti/recent-notifications
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install recent-notifications

To use it, you have to right click on the panel and select “Add to Panel” From the window that pop up, select “Recent Notification”.
You should now see a new applet in your Gnome panel.
Simply click the applet and it will show a window with all your past notification