3 Update The System

Now it's time to check for updates and install them. This is done using the Update Manager. Start it by going to System > Update Manager:

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

After you type in your password the updates are downloaded and installed (this can take a few minutes). 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 that button to restart the system. (If no restart is required, click the Close button to leave the Update Manager.)

The system is now up-to-date.

4 Inventory Of What We Have So Far

Now let's browse all menus 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] Shotwell Photo Manager
[ ] Picasa

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

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

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

Programming:
[ ] KompoZer
[ ] Bluefish
[ ] Eclipse

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

So some applications are already on the system. NTFS read-/write support is enabled by default on Ubuntu Studio 11.10.

5 Configure Additional Repositories

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.

First we open a terminal (System > Terminal):

To edit text files I prefer to use gedit which is why we will install it first with:

sudo apt-get install gedit

Then we edit /etc/apt/sources.list...

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

... and enable the oneiric partner and Ubuntu Extras repositories (if they are not already enabled):

[...]
## 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 oneiric partner
deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu oneiric partner

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Ubuntu's
## 'extras' repository.
## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by third-party
## developers who want to ship their latest software.
deb http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu oneiric main
deb-src http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu oneiric main

Then save the file.

Next we create the file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/opera.list...

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list.d/opera.list

... and add the Opera repository to it:

deb http://deb.opera.com/opera/ stable non-free

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

to make Synaptic display packages from third-party repositories.