How to Install Software on Linux

Installing software works differently on Linux. Instead of visiting a website, you’ll usually need to grab the software from your Linux distribution’s software repositories with its package manager. This sounds complicated, but is actually simpler than installing software on Windows.

A typical Linux distribution’s software installation system has a lot in common with an app store. There’s one place you go to to install most of your software and software updates arrive in one consistent way.

Install Software From Your Distribution’s Repositories

Most of the software you’ll want to install on your Linux distribution is available in its software repositories. Your Linux distribution likely provides a nice graphical frontend for this system. Select your desired package and your package manager will automatically download the package, grab any other software packages it requires, and install them all.

On Ubuntu, the included package manager is the Ubuntu Software Center — look for the orange shopping bag icon on your dock. Use this interface to search for packages and install them. You can search for a type of application like “video player” or a specific application name like “VLC.” Click the download button, enter your password, and the package manager will do the rest.

Each Linux distribution has its own software repositories and package manager, but practically all Linux distributions use a software repository system that works this way. For example, onLinux Mint, you’d use the Software Manager application instead.

The pretty graphical interface is just a front-end to the real package manager, which you can access in other ways. For example, you can install packages from the terminal with the apt-get command on Ubuntu. The graphical interface and terminal command accomplish the same thing.

Install Proprietary Software

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Some programs aren’t located in your Linux distribution’s software repositories. This includes popular proprietary programs like Google Chrome, Skype, Steam, and Opera. Your Linux distribution generally doesn’t have the license to redistribute this software, so you have to get it from the source.

To download software like this ,visit the project’s official website and click the Download button. You’ll generally see a page pointing you to various Linux download links. For example, here’s theSkype for Linux download page.

You’ll be prompted to choose the appropriate package for your Linux distribution. You should choose the package that matches your Linux distribution as closely as possible. For example, Skype offers an “Ubuntu 12.04 (multiarch)” package. It’s the most recent version number in the list, so it’s the ideal package to use on Ubuntu 14.04.

Different distributions use different types of packages with different file extensions. Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Debian, and similar distributions use Deb packages with the .deb file extension. Fedora, Red Hat, openSUSE, and some other distributions use .rpm packages.

Just double-click the downloaded package and it should open in a package installer that will handle all the dirty work for you. For example, you’d double-click a downloaded .deb file, click Install, and enter your password to install a downloaded package on Ubuntu.

Downloaded packages can also be installed in other ways. For example, you could use the dpkg -I command to install packages from the terminal in Ubuntu. The graphical tool is the easiest.

More Ways to Install Software

The two methods above are the basics every Linux user needs to know. With these tips, you can install most — if not all — the software you’ll need. But here are some other ways to install software on Linux:

Use Third-Party Repositories: Anyone can create their own software repositories, package software, and distribute it from there. You may sometimes want to use a third-party repository to install software you just can’t get in your Linux distribution’s repositories. For example, Ubuntu makes it fairly easy to set up “personal package archives” (PPAs). You can add these PPAs to your package manager and the packages in the PPA will appear in the Ubuntu Software Center and other package management interfaces. It’s a common way to get packages that aren’t yet in your Linux distribution’s official repositories.

Unpack a Binary Archive: Some Linux software is distributed in precompiled form designed to run on any Linux distribution without installation. For example, the “Dynamic” download Skype offers is a .tar.bz2 file. This is just an archive, like a ZIP file — you’d extract it to a folder on your computer and double-click the executable inside it to run it. Mozilla also offers downloads of the latest version of Firefox in .tar.bz2 form, so you can download and run it without any installation — just unpack the archive to a folder anywhere you like and double-click the firefox file inside it. You should prefer software in packaged form for better compatibility with your system and easier updating.

Compile From Source: Typical Linux users shouldn’t need to compile and install software from source anymore. All the software you want should be available in packaged form. That said, most Linux software projects distribute their software in source-code form and leave Linux distributions in charge of packaging and distributing it to you. If your Linux distribution doesn’t have a package you want or doesn’t have the latest version of a package you need, you can compile it from source. Compiling from source isn’t something average Linux desktop users should do, but it’s also not as hard as it may sound.

How to Start Using the Linux Terminal

Whether you’re a new Linux user or you’ve been using Linux for a while, we’ll help you get started with the terminal. The terminal isn’t something you should be scared of – it’s a powerful tool with lots of uses.

You can’t learn everything you need to know about the terminal by reading a single article. It takes experience playing with the terminal firsthand. We hope this introduction helps you get to grips with the basics so you can continue learning more.

Basic Terminal Usage

Launch a terminal from your desktop’s application menu and you will see the bash shell. There are other shells, but most Linux distributions use bash by default.

You can launch a program by typing its name at the prompt. Everything you launch here – from graphical applications like Firefox to command-line utilities – is a program. (Bash actually has a few built-in commands for basic file management and such, but those function like programs, too.) Unlike on Windows, you don’t have to type the full path to a program to launch it. For example, let’s say you wanted to open Firefox. On Windows, you’d need to type the full path to Firefox’s .exe file. On Linux, you can just type:

firefox

Press Enter after typing a command to run it. Note that you don’t need to add an .exe or anything like that – programs don’t have file extensions on Linux.

Terminal commands can also accept arguments. The types of arguments you can use depends on the program. For example, Firefox accepts web addresses as arguments. To launch Firefox and open How-to Geek, you could run the following command:

firefox howtogeek.com

Other commands you would run in the terminal function just like Firefox, except many run only in the terminal and don’t open any sort of graphical application window.

Installing Software

One of the most efficient things to do from the terminal is install software. Software management applications like the Ubuntu Software Center are fancy frontends to the few terminal commands they use in the background. Instead of clicking around and selecting applications one-by-one, you can install them with a terminal command. You even even install multiple applications with a single command.

On Ubuntu (other distributions have their own package management systems), the command to install a new software package is:

sudo apt-get install packagename

This may seem a bit complicated, but it’s working just like the Firefox command above. The above line launches sudo, which asks for your password before launching apt-get with root (administrator) privileges. The apt-get program reads the arguments install packagenameand installs a package named packagename.

However, you can also specify multiple packages as arguments. For example, to install the Chromium web browser and Pidgin instant messenger, you could execute this command:

sudo apt-get install chromium-browser pidgin

If you just installed Ubuntu and wanted to install all your favorite software, you could do it with a single command like the above one. You would just need to know the package names of your favorite programs, and you can guess them fairly easily. You can also refine your guesses with the aid of the tab completion trick below.

For more in-depth instructions, read How to Install Programs in Ubuntu in the Command-Line.

Working With Directories and Files

The shell looks in the current directory unless you specify another directory. For example,nano is an easy-to-use terminal text editor. The command nano document1 tells nano to launch and open the file named document1 from the current directory. If you wanted to open a document located in another directory, you’d need to specify the full path to the file – for example, nano /home/chris/Documents/document1 .

If you specify a path to a file that does not exist, nano (and many other programs) will create a new, blank file at that location and open it.

To work with files and directories, you will need to know a few basic commands:

• cd – That ~ to the left of the prompt represents your home directory (that’s /home/you), which is the terminal’s default directory. To change to another directory, you can use the cd command. For example cd / would change to the root directory, cd Downloads would change to the Downloads directory inside the current directory (so this only opens your Downloads directory if the terminal is in your home directory), cd /home/you/Downloads would change to your Downloads directory from anywhere in the system, cd ~ would change to your home directory, and cd .. would go up a directory.
• ls – The ls command lists the files in the current directory.

• mkdir – The mkdir command makes a new directory. mkdir example would create a new directory named example in the current directory, while mkdir /home/you/Downloads/test would create a new directory named test in your Downloads directory.
• rm – The rm command removes a file. For example, rm example removes the file named example in the current directory and rm /home/you/Downloads/example removes the file named example in the Downloads directory.
• cp – The cp command copies a file from one location to another. For example, cp example /home/you/Downloads copies the file named example in the current directory to /home/you/Downloads.
• mv – The mv command moves a file from one location to another. It works exactly like the cp command above, but moves the file instead of creating a copy. mv can also be used to rename files. For example, mv original renamed moves a file named original in the current directory to a file named renamed in the current directory, effectively renaming it.

This may be a bit overwhelming at first, but these are the basic commands you need to master to effectively work with files in the terminal. Move around your file system with cd, view files in the current directory with ls, create directories with mkdir, and manage files with the rm, cp, and mv commands.

Tab Completion

Tab completion is a very useful trick. While typing something – a command, file name, or some other types of arguments – you can press Tab to autocomplete what you’re typing. For example, if you type firef at the terminal and press Tab, firefox automatically appears. This saves you from having to type things exactly – you can press Tab and the shell will finish typing for you. This also works with folders, file names, and package names. For example, you can type sudo apt-get install pidg and press Tab to automatically complete pidgin.

In many cases, the shell won’t know what you’re trying to type because there are multiple matches. Press the Tab key a second time and you’ll see a list of possible matches. Continue typing a few more letters to narrow things down and press Tab again to continue.

For more tricks like this one, read Become a Linux Terminal Power User With These 8 Tricks.

Mastering the Terminal

At this point, you should hopefully feel a little bit more comfortable in the terminal and have a better understanding of how it works. To learn more about the terminal – and eventually master it – continue your journey with these articles:

• 8 Deadly Commands You Should Never Run on Linux
• How to Manage Files from the Linux Terminal: 11 Commands You Need to Know
• How to Get Help With a Command from the Linux Terminal: 8 Tricks for Beginners & Pros Alike
• How to Manage Processes from the Linux Terminal: 10 Commands You Need to Know
• How to Work with the Network from the Linux Terminal: 11 Commands You Need to Know
• How to Multitask in the Linux Terminal: 3 Ways to Use Multiple Shells at Once

Install Ubuntu Touch Preview On Nexus Devices The Easy Way From Recovery

The announcement of Ubuntu for Phones and the more recent one of Ubuntu for Tablets had sparked huge interest in the entire smartphone enthusiast community and kept countless Nexus device owners waiting to get their hands on the Ubuntu Touch experience.  Finally, the wait is over, as Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview has landed on the Nexus series of devices including Nexus 10, Nexus 7, Nexus 4 and Galaxy Nexus, just as Canonical promised it would.  Though if you have rushed to the original installation method provided by Canonical at the official Ubuntu Wiki, many of you must have been disappointed at learning that the method required you to be running Ubuntu on your PC in order to install it. A Linux based OS running PC is not everyone’s cup of tea and it’s hardly fair to install or even dual boot a new OS only to be able to install a new one on your mobile device – and one that is already highly experimental at this point. Luckily, there is an easier and much more more familiar way to get Ubuntu Touch up and running on your Nexus devices, irrespective of the OS on your PC. That’s right – we are talking about the usual flashing from a custom recovery. So let’s get on with it.

Disclaimer: Please follow this guide at your own risk. AddictiveTips will not be liable if your device gets damaged or bricked during the process.

Flashing Ubuntu on your phone will wipe your phone completely, including all your app data and media. That’s why taking a backup from recovery and then transferring all the contents of your device’s internal storage to your computer is extremely important, if you later want to get everything back to the way it was. We will also be providing instructions for backup as well as restoration.

Installing Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview

Requirements

• Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Nexus 7 or Nexus 10 with an unlocked bootloader. See our bootloader unlocking guide for details.
• If you don’t have a custom recovery installed already, download ClockworkMod Touch recovery for your device and rename the downloaded file to recovery.img to keep things simple.
• USB Debugging enabled in ‘Settings’ > ‘Developer options’. If you’re running Android 4.2, see our guide on enabling USB Debugging on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.
• Phablet armhf zip package.
• Device-specific zip packages: Galaxy Nexus GSM (maguro) | Nexus 4 (mako) | Nexus 7 (grouper) |Nexus 10 (manta)

Instructions

If you already have a custom recovery installed, skip the first 3 steps; just reboot into recovery and start from step 4.

1. Reboot your device into bootloader. Since you already installed the Android SDK in the bootloader unlocking process, and have USB debugging enabled, you can easily do so with the following command:

   adb reboot bootloader

2. Install the downloaded recovery image using this command:

   fastboot flash recovery recovery.img

3. Press any of the volume keys till it says ‘Recovery mode’ on your screen, and then use the power button to enter recovery.
4. Once in recovery, take a backup from ‘backup and restore’. If you are using another recovery such as TWRP, use its own backup method to perform a full backup.
5. Now reboot back into Android mode using the options provided in recovery.
6. Transfer all the contents of your internal storage to your PC. This step is important because the next steps will wipe everything from your device, including the backup you just took from recovery.
7. Transfer the downloaded Phablet armhf package, and the device-specific zip file to the internal storage of your device (not in any sub-folder).
8. Reboot into recovery again.
9. Perform ‘wipe data/factory reset’, followed by ‘wipe cache’, and then ‘wipe dalvik cache’ from the ‘advanced’ menu. If you are using another recovery such as TWRP, use its own wiping method to perform the same three wiping operations.
10. Now get back to your recovery’s main menu, select ‘install zip from sdcard’ followed by ‘choose zip from sdcard’ and choose the Phablet armhf zip file. If you are using another recovery such as TWRP, use its own installation method to flash this file.
11. Once the Phablet armhf package has been installed, use the same method to install the device-specific zip file (the one with maguro, mako, grouper or manta in its name, depending on your device).
12. Lastly, reboot the device into system using ‘reboot system now’ from ClockworkMod recovery’s main menu, or the appropriate option from any other custom recovery that you’re using.

That’s it – keep your fingers crossed, as Ubuntu Touch boots up on your device, which doesn’t take long. Once its lock screen shows up, you can get to the home screen as follows.

• On a phone such as Galaxy Nexus or Nexus 4, simply swipe leftward from the right edge, and you’ll land on the home screen.
• On a tablet such as Nexus 7 or Nexus 10, you will be shown multiple user accounts. You can either use the Guest account without any password, or one of the preconfigured accounts using the first name of that account (in all lowercase letters) as the password.

Enjoy playing around with Ubuntu. Not many apps work for now, and the ones that are working don’t really have that much to offer, but since it’s a preview rather than a daily driver build, that is expected. The overall user interface works, and it is both stunning and intuitive in our opinion.

 

Reinstalling Android & Restoring Your Backup

Had your fun with the preview and want to get back to Android? Let’s get the latest version of Android up and running on your device, and restore your backup to take everything back to the way it was.

Requirements

• Latest Android factory image for your device. Use this information to select the correct factory image:
  • takju for Galaxy Nexus GSM US edition (with Google Wallet)
  • yakju for Galaxy Nexus GSM International edition (without Google Wallet)
  • occam for Nexus 4
  • nakasi for Nexus 7 Wi-Fi
  • nakasig for Nexus 7 GSM/HSPA+
  • mantaray for Nexus 10
• A utility to extract contents of compressed archives. We recommend the excellent and free 7-zip for Windows.
• The backup you transferred to your computer before installing Ubuntu.

Instructions

1. Extract the contents of the factory image you downloaded. You will probably need to extract the contents of the extracted file again, to get a folder.
2. Connect your device to your computer via USB, and put it into bootloader mode using the same method you used when installing Ubuntu.
3. Windows: Run the flash-all.bat file from the folder extracted in step 1.
   Linux or Mac: Run the flash-all.sh file from Terminal.
4. Wait patiently as the factory image installs on your device.
5. Once it has installed successfully, the device will reboot into Android. Do the initial configuration of your device after it boots up.
6. Now transfer the backup you had taken on your PC back to your device, taking care to keep the folder structure the same.
7. Next, flash a custom recovery using the same method used above, and reboot your device into recovery.
8. In recovery, go to ‘backup and restore’, and select ‘restore’ and choose the backup you had made in recovery just before installing Ubuntu. If you are using TWRP or any other recovery, use its own backup restoration method to restore the backup you took before Ubuntu installation.
9. After the backup has been successfully restored, reboot your device into system, and you should have everything back the way it was.

For any queries and updates related to Ubuntu Touch, head over to Ubuntu Wiki.

Zayed Rehman contributed to this post

Run Windows Software on Linux

Linux has come a long way, but you may still need to run Windows applications occasionally – especially Windows-only PC games. Luckily, there are quite a few ways to run Windows applications on Linux.
Of course, before you try to run an old Windows program, you should look or alternatives that run natively on Linux. You’ll have a better experience if you can find a decent alternative that runs without any fiddling.

Use Wine

Wine is a compatibility layer that allows Windows applications to run on Linux. It’s basically an implementation of the Windows API on Linux. Of course, Microsoft doesn’t publish all the information we need to re-implement the Windows API from scratch, so Wine has to be reverse-engineered. While it works amazingly well given how little Microsoft has given us to worth with, it’s nowhere near perfect.
To run an application in Wine, you can install Wine and use it to launch an installer’s .exe file. Before you do, you should take a look at the Wine Application Database website, which will tell you how well an application runs in Wine. Wine is frequently used for games, as games are the one type of software that can’t run in a virtual machine. While Wine can be used to run desktop applications like Photoshop and Microsoft Word, these will run flawlessly in a virtual machine (see below).

You can also try using an application like PlayOnLinux, which helps automate the process of installing supported games and other software in Wine.

The Netflix Desktop app uses a patched version of Wine to run Netflix on Linux – Silverlight doesn’t work properly with the current version of Wine.

Run Windows in a Virtual Machine

While Wine may have bugs or crashes when installing applications, a virtual machine will be able to run those desktop applications just fine. Install Windows in a virtual machine program like VirtualBox, VMware Player, or KVM and you’ll have Windows running in a window. You can install windows software in the virtual machine and run it on your Linux desktop.
Virtual machines introduce some overhead, but with today’s fast CPUs, running many types of software in a virtual machine shouldn’t be a problem. This is especially true after you’ve tweaked those virtual machines for speed. This doesn’t apply to games – virtual machines don’t have very good 3D graphics support, so all but the oldest games will fail to run.

To integrate the Windows applications with your desktop, you can use VirtualBox’s seamless mode or VMware’s Unity mode. The applications will still be running in a virtual machine, but their windows will appear seamlessly on your desktop, as if they were running on Linux.

Try CrossOver

If Wine seems like too much of a pain, you may want to try CrossOver Linux. CrossOver is a commercial product so it will cost you money, although CodeWeavers offer a free trial. CrossOver essentially takes the Wine software and packages it so that it’s guaranteed to work properly with popular applications like Photoshop, Office, and even popular games. CodeWeavers provides commercial support for these supported programs, so you have someone to turn to if something breaks.
This option isn’t for everyone – often you can run the same applications by using Wine – but if you’re just interested in running a few popular applications on your Linux desktop and paying someone else to do the tweaking for you, CrossOver may be your ticket. CrossOver also sends their patches back to the Wine project, so the money you pay helps fund open-source Wine development.
As with Wine, CrossOver won’t work perfectly with everything. Like with Wine, CodeWeavers has a compatibility database website.

Use a Remote Desktop

If you have access to a remote Windows system, you may want to try running your applications on the remote Windows system and using remote desktop on your Linux system to access them. The applications will be running remotely on a real Windows system, so they should work properly.
Many Linux desktops include software for accessing remote Windows desktops already. If not, you can install the rdesktop package.

When All Else Fails: Dual Boot

You can’t run every Windows program on Linux – when a big new PC game comes out, it will often be quite some time until it runs properly in Wine. While Steam on Linux and rumored Linux support from Blizzard may change this in the future, games are the one category of app that have the most issues on Linux – although many older games work perfectly.
Instead of giving up on Windows entirely, consider keeping it around in a dual-boot configuration. When you want to play a new game that doesn’t work properly on Linux, restart into your Windows system.

If you’re dual-booting, you can even access your Linux partitions from Windows so you’ll always have access to your files.

A-Z of Linux – 40 Essential Commands

Linux is the oft-ignored third wheel to Windows and Mac. Yes, over the past decade, the open source operating system has gained a lot of traction, but it’s still a far cry from being considered popular. Yet though that may be true, Linux still earns new converts every day. Will you join them?

The learning curve of Linux is what deters most users from even trying it in the first place. It can be a traumatic experience having to go from a GUI-based operating system like Windows or Mac to one that requires command line fiddling. But if you can get over that initial hump of difficulty, you may find that Linux is surprisingly robust.

If you want a crash course on all that is Linux, we’ve got a great Linux newbie’s guide that will teach you all you need to know. For the rest of you who just want a brief overview of some important commands you ought to know, the following list is all you’ll need.

Newbie Commands

cd - Changes the current working directory in the command line console.

exit - Exits out of the current program, terminates the current command line terminal, or logs you out of a Unix network depending on the context.

kill - Terminates the specified running process. The Linux version of Windows’ “End Process” in the task manager.

ls - List all of the contents of a specified directory. If no directory is specified, it will use the current directory.

man - There’s a running gag in the Linux community that man is the only command you need to know. It stands for manual, and it will give you detailed information on commands and aspects of Linux.

pwd - Displays the current working directory for the command line terminal. Good for when you’ve lost track of where you are in your system.

reboot - Immediately stops all running processes, shuts down the system, then reboots.

shutdown - Stops all running processes and shuts down the system. Parameters can be specified to issue a delayed shutdown or a shutdown at a particular time.

sudo - Runs commands as root, which means no limitations due to permissions.

System Information

date - Prints out the current system date and time. Specified parameters can change the format of the output.

df - Reports the disk space usage for the file system.

hostname - Displays the name of the current host system.

ps - Displays information about all of the processes currently running on the system.

quota - Displays disk limits and current disk usage for a specified user. Useful when there are multiple users assigned to a particular system.

top - Displays all of the top processes in the system, by default sorted by CPU usage.

uptime - Reports how long the system has been running since last boot. Extremely useful for servers.

File Manipulation

bzip2 - Compresses specified contents into a .bz2 archive or extracts from a .bz2 archive depending on parameters.

chmod / chown - Changes the access permissions of one or more files (chmod) or changes the ownership of a particular file to a new user (chown). Only users with permission or ownership of a file can change that file’s permissions or ownership.

cp - Copies files to a new location with a new name depending on the parameters. Can copy directories too, whether recursively (includes all subdirectories) or not.

find / locate - Searches the system starting at a specific directory and matching all files within that location to a set of conditions laid out by the command parameters. Very useful for quickly finding certain files.

grep – Searches through all of the files in a specified location trying to find files that contain lines that match a given string. Returns a list of all the files that scored a match.

install - Used in conjunction with Makefiles to copy files from one location to the system. Not to be confused with installing packages from a software repository.

mkdir / rmdir - Creates a directory (mkdir) or deletes a specified directory (rmdir). Directories can only be created and deleted within directories that you have permission in.

mv - Moves files and directories to another location. Can be used to rename files and directories by keep their source and destination locations the same.

open – Opens a specified file using the default system application for files of its type.

rm - Remove and remove directory. Used to delete files and directories from the system, whether one at a time or in batch.

tar - Creates a .tar archive or extracts from a .tar archive depending on specified parameters.

zip / unzip - Creates a .zip archive or extracts from a .zip archive depending on specified parameters.

Other Noteworthy Commands

apt-get – Advanced Packaging Tool. Use this command to install, remove, and configure software packages on your system. For a menu-based version, use aptitude command. Available on Debian-based Linux distributions.

ftp / sftp - Connects to a remote FTP server in order to download multiple files.

wget - Downloads files from the Internet at the specified URL to your system.

yum - Yellowdog Updater, Modified. An open source package manager used to easily install software packages from repositories. Available on RPM-compatible Linux distributions.

emacs – One of the most well-known text editors on Unix-like systems.

nano - A newbie-friendly command-line text editor that uses keyboard shortcuts to simulate menus.

vim - Vim is the successor to Vi, both of which are command line text editors for Unix-like systems. Though Vim is popular, it doesn’t use menus or icons for its interface so it has a reputation for being newbie-friendly.

10 Awesome New Ubuntu Apps Developed for the Ubuntu App Showdown

The Ubuntu App Showdown resulted in the development of 133 new applications for Ubuntu. Soon, you’ll be able to install these apps from the Ubuntu Software Center and vote on your favorites – the voting decides which apps win.

These are just some of the interesting applications that are being talked about among Ubuntu users. Feel free to browse the full list yourself; I’m sure there are some hidden gems.

Fogger

Fogger creates separate, sandboxed desktop applications out of web apps.

Each web app runs in its own window, allowing you to easily switch between them and launch them from the dash — just like Ubuntu’s new web app integration feature.

Fogger is already available in the Ubuntu Software Center.

LightRead

LightRead is a slick new RSS feed reader for Ubuntu. It works with Google Reader to synchronize your subscriptions and is integrated with other web services, including Instapaper and Pocket (formerly known as Read It Later). Of course, it has offline-reading support, too. Its interface is similar to the popular Reeder application for Macs.

Until it’s available in the Ubuntu Software Center, use the following commands to install it:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cooperjona/lightread
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install lightread

GWoffice

GWoffice stands for “Google Web Office” — it’s an application for editing your Google Docs outside the browser. It can download your Google Docs files and re-sync them each time you launch it. There’s also support for uploading certain types of files to Google Drive by dragging and dropping them to the GWoffice icon on Unity’s dock.

Until it’s available in the Ubuntu Software Center, use the following commands to install it:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tombeckmann/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gwoffice

Cuttlefish

Cuttlefish waits for events to occur and automatically runs user-definable actions when they do. For example, you can create a rule that automatically launches a specific program when you connect to a specific wireless network. You can have your desktop background change when you unplug your laptop or plug it back in. You can set a specific audio volume level when a specific program launches. The possibilities are near endless, as the available events and actions can be combined in any way you like — you can even have an event trigger multiple actions.

Until it’s available in the Ubuntu Software Center, use the following commands to install it:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:noneed4anick/cuttlefish
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cuttlefish

Download Monitor

Download Monitor is a utility for people with metered Internet connections (upload and download limits). You can view graphs of your bandwidth usage history and set quotas where Bandwidth Monitor will warn you. It’s also integrated with Unity’s quicklist functionality, so you can view statistics from the dash.

Until it’s available in the Ubuntu Software Center, use the following commands to install it:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:duncanjdavis/download-monitor-submit
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install download-monitor

NitroShare

NitroShare allows you to easily send files between computers on a local network. Every computer with NitroShare installed will automatically detect every other computer with NitroShare installed, assuming they’re on the same local network. NitroShare also runs on Windows, so you can quickly send files between Windows and Linux systems with it.

Use the application indicator menu, select files and right-click them in the Nautilus file manager, or drag and drop files onto the “share boxes” on your desktop to send them between computers.

Until it’s available in the Ubuntu Software Center, use the following commands to install it:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:george-edison55/nitroshare
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nitroshare

Aplomb

Do you waste too much time online when should be working? Aplomb can help by blocking access to unproductive websites for a period of time. There’s no way to unblock the websites from within Aplomb itself — the inconvenience is designed to keep you accountable.

Until it’s available in the Ubuntu Software Center, use the following commands to install it:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:snwh/aplomb
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install aplomb

Cuckoo

Cuckoo is a simple alarm application application. It can turn your PC into an alarm clock or just remind you to do something. It has customizable alarm sounds and volume levels, but isn’t cluttered with options you’ll never use.

Until it’s available in the Ubuntu Software Center, use the following commands to install it:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:john.vrbanac/cuckoo
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cuckoo

TickIt

If you want a simple, old-fashioned desktop application for managing your to-do list, try TickIt. TickIt isn’t integrated with any web service for synchronization, it’s just an application for managing your own task list on your own computer. It’s got filters, deadlines, notes, priorities, and multiple separate workspaces (task lists).

Until it’s available in the Ubuntu Software Center, use the following commands to install it:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kazade/tickit
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tickit

MenuLibre

MenuLibre is a simple menu editor that can create new application shortcuts, as well as edit existing ones. It can also edit the quicklists that appear when you right-click a shortcut on your dock in Unity. In addition to Ubuntu’s default Unity desktop, it also works with Xubuntu’s XFCE desktop and Lubuntu’s LXDE desktop.

Until it’s available in the Ubuntu Software Center, use the following commands to install it:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:menulibre-dev/devel
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install menulibre