There is a new version of this tutorial available for Ubuntu 14.10 (Utopic Unicorn).

The Perfect Desktop - Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) - Page 2

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3 Update The System

Now it's time to check for updates and install them. This is done using the Update Manager. If you see the Update Manager in the bottom panel, you can start the Update Manager by clicking on it...

... otherwise you can start the Update Manager by going to System > Administration > Update Manager:

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:

Type in your password:

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

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 blue reboot icon in the upper right panel. Click on the blue reboot icon to restart the system.)

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] F-Spot
[ ] Picasa

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

Office:
[x] OpenOffice Writer
[x] OpenOffice 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
[ ] Helix Player
[x] Totem
[ ] Xine
[x] Brasero
[ ] K3B
[ ] Multimedia-Codecs

Programming:
[ ] KompoZer
[ ] Bluefish
[ ] Quanta Plus

Other:
[ ] VirtualBox
[ ] TrueType fonts
[ ] 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 Ubuntu 9.10.

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 (Applications > Accessories > Terminal):

First off, we edit /etc/apt/sources.list...

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

... and enable the karmic partner repository:

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

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 aptitude update && sudo aptitude install medibuntu-keyring && sudo aptitude update

Then run

sudo update-apt-xapian-index

to make Synaptic display packages from third-party repositories.

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