3 Update The System

When you log in for the first time, you will most likely see a notification icon in the lower right corner which means that updates for the installed software are available:

Open the main menu and click on the All applications button:

To install the updates, go to Applications > Administration > Update Manager:

Type in your password:

The Update Manager tells you which updates are available. Click on Install Updates to install them:

The updates are being downloaded and installed (this can take a few minutes):

Click on Close when you see the changelog window:

During the installation of the updates, you might be asked if you like to replace some old configuration files with their new versions. To do this, click on the Replace button:

If GRUB is being updated and you're asked on which devices to install GRUB and you're unsure about the correct device, you can simply select all devices and click on Forward:

When the update is complete, click on Close and leave the Update Manager window:

The lock icon should now be closed. The system is up-to-date.

4 Flash Player And Java

Linux Mint installs the Macromedia Flash Player by default. To see if the Flash plugin is working, start Firefox (Applications > Internet > Firefox Web Browser). Then type about:plugins in the address bar. Firefox will then list all installed plugins, and it should list the Flash Player (version 10.1 r85) among them; you should as well see the Java plugin:

5 Inventory Of What We Have So Far

Now let's browse all menus under Applications to see which of our needed applications are already installed:

You should find the following situation ([x] marks an application that is already installed, where [ ] is an application that is missing):

Graphics:
[x] The GIMP
[x] F-Spot
[ ] Picasa

Internet:
[x] Firefox
[ ] Opera
[x] Flash Player
[ ] FileZilla
[x] Thunderbird
[ ] Evolution
[ ] aMule
[x] Transmission BitTorrent Client
[ ] Vuze
[x] Pidgin
[ ] Skype
[x] Xchat IRC

Office:
[x] OpenOffice Writer
[x] OpenOffice Calc
[ ] Adobe Reader
[ ] GnuCash
[ ] Scribus

Sound & Video:
[ ] Amarok
[ ] Audacity
[ ] Banshee
[x] MPlayer
[x] Rhythmbox Music Player
[ ] gtkPod
[ ] XMMS
[ ] dvd::rip
[ ] Kino
[ ] Sound Juicer CD Extractor
[x] VLC Media Player
[ ] RealPlayer
[x] Totem
[ ] Xine
[x] Brasero
[ ] K3B
[ ] Multimedia-Codecs

Programming:
[ ] KompoZer
[ ] Bluefish

Other:
[ ] VirtualBox
[ ] TrueType fonts
[x] Java
[x] Read/Write support for NTFS partitions

So some applications are already on the system. NTFS read-/write support is enabled by default on Linux Mint Debian 201009.