3 Update The System

Now it's time to check for updates and install them. You can start the Update Manager by opening the Dash, typing in Update Manager into the search bar and clicking on the icon:

The Update Manager tells you which updates are available (you can click on the Check button to refresh the list). Click on Install Updates to install them:

If there are any updates available you can install them by clicking on Install Updates and entering your password confirm administrative rights. When the update is complete, click on Close (if a new kernel was amongst the updates, a system restart is required to make the changes effective. If this is necessary, you will see a Restart Now button. Click on that button to restart the system.). The system is now up-to-date.

4 Flash Player And Java

If you have checked the Install this third-party software checkbox during installation Flash Player should already be installed on the system but Java has to be installed manually.

To check this, open Firefox and type about:plugins in the address bar. Firefox will then list all installed plugins, and it should list the Flash Player (version 11.2 r202) plugins among them.

We will install Java a few steps below.

5 Inventory Of What We Have So Far

Now let's browse all menus to see which of our needed applications are already installed (open Dash and click on the second icon at its bottom - The label Installed displays all application already on your system):

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

Graphics:
[ ] The GIMP
[x] Shotwell Photo Manager

Internet:
[x] Firefox
[ ] Opera
[ ] Chromium
[x] Flash Player
[ ] FileZilla
[x] Thunderbird
[ ] Evolution
[ ] aMule
[x] Transmission BitTorrent Client
[ ] Vuze
[x] Empathy IM Client
[ ] Skype
[ ] Google Earth
[ ] Xchat IRC
[x] Gwibber Social Client

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

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

Programming:
[ ] KompoZer
[ ] Bluefish
[ ] Eclipse

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

So some applications are already on the system. NTFS read-/write support is enabled by default on Ubuntu 12.04.

6 Install Synaptic and Configure Additional Repositories

Before you install any additional packages it's best to first install the Synaptic Package Manager since it easily lets you download multiple packages at a time. Open a terminal (Dash > Terminal) and enter

sudo apt-get install synaptic

Some packages like the Adobe Reader are not available in the standard Ubuntu repositories. The easiest way to make such packages available to your system is to add the Medibuntu repository.

Again, open a terminal and edit /etc/apt/sources.list...

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

..., enable the precise partner and Ubuntu Extras repositories (if they are not already enabled) and add the Mint Lisa repository while you are at it:

[...]
## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonical's
## 'partner' repository.
## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by Canonical and the
## respective vendors as a service to Ubuntu users.
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu precise partner
deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu precise partner

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ lisa main upstream import
[...]

Then save the file.

To enable the Medibuntu repository, please do the following:

Import the repository:

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/$(lsb_release -cs).list --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

Import the gpg-key and update your package-list:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get update

Then run

sudo update-apt-xapian-index

sudo apt-get install linuxmint-keyring