[xubuntu-users] Useful Desktop Applications to Add to Xubuntu

[David Collins]

Thanks, Vincent for the suggestion to install -
xubuntu-restricted-extras
I have added this to my script.

For a USB Bluetooth device, I have also added the installation of -
gnome-bluetooth
bluez-gnome

We never got this working in Gutsy, but Hardy is nicely set up to recognise the hardware.  A 'Bluetooth File Sharing' option is added under the 'Accessories' part of the menu.  I created a Desktop icon that runs 'bluetooth-properties --singleton' to set transfer options.

Currently, I need to start 'Bluetooth File Sharing' manually after inserting the USB device.  Is there a way to start this process automatically when the USB Bluetooth device is inserted ?

(I can't see a way to do it in the Thunar Volume Management options.)

---------------------------------------------------------------
     Hi, and thanks a lot for the valuable suggestions!

     I wanted to add that for whatever reason Brasero did not work on
my install, so I removed it and am using k3b instead- I think it is a
superior program anyway.

Xubuntu users,

I have been using Xubuntu in my home for a bit
more than a year.  I now have Xubuntu on all  our PCs
- my own and my 2 teenage daughter's PCs.  I chose the XFCE
interface over GNOME and KDE for the usual reasons - it is simple and
fast and will run nicely on any old PC or mini-laptop (eg. the Eee PC)
when I eventually get to buy one.  My thinking is that if I
get familar with Xubuntu, I can use it everywhere, and not have to
bother with Kubuntu or Ubuntu.

By design, though, the default
Xubuntu install does not give you a fully-functioning desktop
PC.  You need to install a number of applications, browser
plugins and codecs.  We have tested lots of applications to
see which is the most suitable paint
 program, word processor, iPod
manager, etc. for us.  I thought it might be useful to anyone
new to Xubuntu to document the applications that we install. 
Note that I have scripted the install process as much as possible so
that I don't have to re-do this manually on 3 PCs when I do a fresh
install of the next version of Xubuntu.

 GStreamer packages (codecs for different format video files) ..
gstreamer0.10-alsa
gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg
gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs
gstreamer0.10-plugins-base
gstreamer0.10-plugins-good
gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly
gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad

 More things for Web-browsing ..
REMOVE totem
flashplugin-nonfree
vlc
mozilla-plugin-vlc
Java run-time ..
sun-java6-bin
sun-java6-jre
sun-java6-plugin

 Essential Simple GUI Program for looking at Hardware ..
gnome-device-manager

 Xfce4 utilities (these might all be installed by default in hardy?) ..
xfce4-mixer
xfce4-mixer-alsa
xfce4-taskmanager
xfce4-cpugraph-plugin
xfce4-datetime-plugin
xfce4-netload-plugin
xfce4-systemload-plugin
xfce4-taskmanager
You
then need to add these to the top panel and configure.  Once
you have configured these manually, you can copy all the config files
in ~/.config/xfce4/panel/ to other PCs.

Ksnapshot - much more flexible than xfce4-screenshooter-plugin ..
ksnapshot
Add a launcher for this in the top panel, also.

 a2ps - needed for Mousepad to print ..
a2ps

Load apps faster (?) ..
preload

 OpenOffice ..
openoffice.org-calc
openoffice.org-common
openoffice.org-core
openoffice.org-draw
openoffice.org-hyphenation
openoffice.org-impress
openoffice.org-style-human
openoffice.org-thesaurus-en-au
openoffice.org-writer
myspell-en-au

 kolourpaint, gthumb and Gimp help files ..
kolourpaint - VERY similar to MS Paint - basic and easy to use
gthumb - Great little program for photos - brightening, cropping, removing red eye, etc.
gimp-help-en - With GIMP you need all the help you can get!
GIMP
is a very scary program - but it is very good once you get used to
it.  The most important thing to understand is that it creates
LAYERS.  Make sure that you have the 'Layers Dialog' open so
that you can see what layer is active - else you will get totally
confused.  I bought a book 'Beginning GIMP' by Akkana Peck -
and this explained everything - heaps cheaper than buying a software
license for PhotoShop.

Add a File Search in Thunar (good if this was done in the Xubuntu install) ....
gnome-utils
Now in Thunar, click Edit/Configure Custom Actions and add an item with the command -
gnome-search-tool --path=%f
Under the 'Appearance Conditions' tab, type * for 'File Pattern' and tick 'Directories'

 Music Management ..

CD
Player (this simple program will copy the sound tracks off an audio CD
into .ogg files.  You can then use GTKPod to translate these
to .MP3s and copy to an iPod.) ..  
goobox

And GTKPod (with packages that probably should be in the dependency list?)  ..
gtkpod
  mp3gain
  lame
  flac
  vorbis-tools
We
were ONLY using Banshee for a while, but then it didn't work with an
iPod shuffle that we bought.  GTKPod is more basic but seems
to work more reliably with the hardware.  GTKPod has less
dependent packages, so it might be best to try GTKPod, and then only
use Banshee if you want something fancier.

Banshee ..
banshee-1
podsleuth - required for iPod


 For transferring photos from Cameras onto your PC ..
gtkam

Microsoft fonts ...
msttcorefonts

I use Samba for a shared folder area on our main PC, so we install the following on all PCs ..
smbfs
smbclient
pyneighborhood

Initially
we installed VirtualBox for running a Windows XP session in. 
It runs very nicely and is very user-friendly. Although I still have it
installed on a couple of PCs, we don't actually use it anymore - or
very rarely.

I hope this is useful to some of you.

Regards,
David Collins



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