So I've made the change to dual booting ubunutu. I'll be using it during the school year so I figured I'd get into the swing of things now.

I know some of the software I'll need/want to install but I wanted to see what you, the community, would recommend.

So list away!

matlab

Originally Posted by macsci

matlab

more like octave if you want free and non-locked-in formats

Originally Posted by DannyV

So I've made the change to dual booting ubunutu. I'll be using it during the school year so I figured I'd get into the swing of things now.

I know some of the software I'll need/want to install but I wanted to see what you, the community, would recommend.

So list away!

gedit is always good, but thats included in ubuntu.
Give us specs of your computer, a lot of apps(ie games) are dependent on it.

Originally Posted by adrian

gedit is always good, but thats included in ubuntu.
Give us specs of your computer, a lot of apps(ie games) are dependent on it.

I'm not looking for games but the specs are:

• Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz
• 2 GB ram
• 160 gb hd
• Intel 4965 chipset hardware (network, display, etc)

Ubuntu? doesn't that come preinstalled with the basic apps you'd need.

It does, I was looking for how people customize it, if at all.

Install Office 2007 using Wine 1.14(?) if you're using Ubuntu 9.04.

Ya, install office 2007 through Wine if you can. I find Open Office to be very lacking (it's about as advanced as Office 2000...), spell check is broken out of the box, and grammar check is non-existent.

Anyway, for music, you're going to want either Amarok or Songbird. I personally prefer Songbird over Amarok just because it has less problems with saving ID3 tags and generally screwing up. They can both sync with iPods (with the exception of the iPhone and iPod Touch because apple is a a bunch of douchebags and encrypt everything on those devices).

For video, the built in Totem player isn't bad, but you're going to want more codecs. I think it will prompt you to install them if you need them.

If you're into programming in Java, you can get Eclipse for it, which is basically identical to the Windows version.

Also, since you're not playing games, you probably have a lot of unused CPU power, so I recommend installing Compiz Fusion. It makes your computer's GUI look really cool (i.e. You can make it look like windows burn up when you close them).

The last thing I would recommend it Conky. It's basically a tile that sits on your desktop and displays information about the computer to you (CPU percent usage, temperatures. etc). It's super customizable.

Pretty much anything else beyond that that you would need is built into Ubuntu (GNOME to be specific :p).

One last thing; if you convert video, use avidemux. I don't know about everyone else, but I convert all the 1.4 GB 2 CD format movies I download into 700 MB XviD videos before storing them since I don't really care about having AC3 audio. :p

I did the same thing you have done. I installed Ubuntu along side with Windows Vista and spent a good week trying to get it to show up on the mbr thing and up and running. Went through alot of trouble and I barely used it during school haha. Now I think I'll try out some of those cool programs, Conky and Compiz Fusion.

Originally Posted by Colin

I installed Ubuntu along side with Windows Vista and spent a good week trying to get it to show up on the mbr thing and up and running.

lol ya. Linux and Windows seem to like destroying each others MBR stuff for some reason.

I spent about 3 hours trying to get the Office 2007 setup running and finally gave up. I'll dual boot anyway and when I clean up some more space I'll install windows in VirtualBox and install windows software there.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Originally Posted by DannyV

I spent about 3 hours trying to get the Office 2007 setup running and finally gave up. I'll dual boot anyway and when I clean up some more space I'll install windows in VirtualBox and install windows software there.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Ya, I just use VirtualBox as well to avoid incompatibility problems. It's kind of cool because I keep all my stuff in the virtual box (Office 2007/MSN), and can run the virtual computer from both inside my Windows and Linux installation (although I don't think this is recommended :p).

There are tutorials for getting Office 2007 to work under Wine, and I did get it working once a while ago. Unfortunately it didn't run too smoothly and launching things like the equation editor breaks everything :p.

Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

lol ya. Linux and Windows seem to like destroying each others MBR stuff for some reason.

dual booting is easy to do. It works best if you install ubuntu after windows. The GRUB boot loader in ubuntu automatically sets up everything for you. Go to http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_l...lled_first.htm for detailed instructions. The drop down menu there has all kinds of different installation options.

Originally Posted by ali999

dual booting is easy to do. It works best if you install ubuntu after windows. The GRUB boot loader in ubuntu automatically sets up everything for you. Go to http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_l...lled_first.htm for detailed instructions. The drop down menu there has all kinds of different installation options.

I know that it's initially pretty easy to setup, but if you try reformatting partitions and stuff, it can get screwed up when you reinstall.