The Perfect Desktop - Linux Mint 13 XFCE - Page 2

3 Update The System

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

Type in your password to gain authorization:

The Update Manager tells you which updates are available (you can click on the Refresh button to refresh the list). Click on Install Updates to install them. On the first run, the update manager updates itself to be able to show you all other packages' updates:

Install all the other ones afterwards:

Click OK if additional changes have to be made:

Click Replace if a similar window pops up:

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).

The system is now up-to-date.

4 Flash Player And Java

Flash Player and Java should already be installed on the system.

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 11.0 r1) plugins among them. This is not the newest version, that's why we will update it in a few steps.

5 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, whereas [ ] is an application that is missing):

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

Internet:
[x] Firefox
[ ] FileZilla
[x] Thunderbird
[ ] Deluge
[ ] Skype
[ ] Marble
[x] Pidgin
[ ] Dropbox
[ ] Gwibber Social Client

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

Sound & Video:
[ ] Audacity
[x] Banshee
[ ] dvd::rip
[ ] Kino
[x] VLC Media Player
[ ] K3B
[ ] Multimedia-Codecs
[ ] Winff

Programming:
[ ] KompoZer
[ ] Eclipse

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

So some applications are already on the system. NTFS read-/write support is enabled by default on Mint 13.