Let's start with a few basics. You'll first want to upgrade your file manager from the default Nautilus to Nautilus Elementary. We'll also be adding a few handy scripts and extensions to Nautilus Elementary once it's installed that will make your file browser much more powerful and easier to use.
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| Nautilus Elementary |
To upgrade Nautilus to Nautilus Elementary, run the following commands in the terminal one at a time:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:am-monkeyd/nautilus-elementary-ppa sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get dist-upgrade nautilus -q
That last command restarts Nautilus so that the changes will take effect. If it doesn't seem to work, logging out and logging back in will get the job done. Your window won't look like the one pictured above because you haven't yet installed any custom themes or icon sets. We'll get into that a little later when we talk about customizing Ubuntu's appearance.
If you want to see some immediate improvements besides the slight difference in appearance, let's play around a bit. Open up a folder and click Edit > Customize Toolbar... Try adding new buttons to the toolbar and see what they can do. You'll be pleased by the obvious increase in functionality. The "new tab" and "edit location" buttons are particularly useful.
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| Nautilus Elementary Customize Toolbar |
You can also peruse the many different options in the Preferences menu by going to Edit > Preferences and rifling through those tabs at the top.
Also, assuming you're running Ubuntu 10.10 (if you're not, I'm sure you've gotten frustrated with this whole thing by now since quite a few of these terminal commands aren't working for you), Nautilus Elementary comes pre-installed with the "Embed Terminal" and "Clutterflow" extensions.
Embed Terminal does just what it says. Open up a folder and press F7 or go to View > Embed Terminal. A new terminal window will appear inside that folder, and you'll also notice that the prompt has already been changed to the current folder. This really comes in handy when you're dealing with terminal commands that require you to "cd" into a specific directory (we won't get into that here, but you're bound to run into it at some point) to run specific files within that directory. Now you can just navigate to the pertinent folder and hit F7 to run the command you need to run. No big deal.
Also, assuming you're running Ubuntu 10.10 (if you're not, I'm sure you've gotten frustrated with this whole thing by now since quite a few of these terminal commands aren't working for you), Nautilus Elementary comes pre-installed with the "Embed Terminal" and "Clutterflow" extensions.
Embed Terminal does just what it says. Open up a folder and press F7 or go to View > Embed Terminal. A new terminal window will appear inside that folder, and you'll also notice that the prompt has already been changed to the current folder. This really comes in handy when you're dealing with terminal commands that require you to "cd" into a specific directory (we won't get into that here, but you're bound to run into it at some point) to run specific files within that directory. Now you can just navigate to the pertinent folder and hit F7 to run the command you need to run. No big deal.
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| Nautilus Elementary Embed Terminal |
"Clutterflow" just looks cool. It doesn't really serve much of a purpose beyond that except maybe in your Pictures folder. Open up a folder and press F4 or go to View > Clutterflow to activate it.
What's that? It's just a black box? Yep, that's a bug. If you really want to make Clutterflow work, follow these steps:
Open up a terminal:
gksu gedit /etc/environment
A text file with one long line will open. On a new line, copy and paste this into the file, and then save:
export CLUTTER_VBLANK=none
Then in the terminal:
nautilus -q
Log out and log back in if nautilus -q doesn't do its job. Now give Clutterflow another go and it should look something like this:
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| Nautilus Elementary with Clutterflow |
Like I said, it's basically just eye candy. But really cool eye candy. Now onto some actually useful Nautilus extensions.
Cover Chooser
Cover Chooser is a Nautilus script that allows you to download cover art for your music folders from a variety of online databases such as Last.fm and Amazon. Once installed, all you need to do is simply right click on any album folder, and then go to Scripts > CoverChooser. A window will open with a few different choices. To download the appropriate cover art for your album, click the Use It! button located below the image.
If you want the cover art thumbnails to actually show up in Nautilus, you need to install Cover-thumbnailer first. Open up a terminal and enter the following:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:flozz/flozz sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install cover-thumbnailer nautilus -q
Now to install Cover Chooser, visit http://www.webupd8.org/2009/12/nautilus-coverchooser-script.html and click the Download CoverChooser(.deb) link at the bottom of the article. Double-click the downloaded .deb file to open it in Ubuntu Software Center, then click install. Once Cover Chooser is installed, go to Applications > Accessories > CoverChooser to activate the Nautilus script (right-click functionality) mentioned above.
All done. After you've downloaded your cover art in your Music folder, it should look something like this:
All done. After you've downloaded your cover art in your Music folder, it should look something like this:
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| Album Cover Art in Nautilus |
Nautilus Columns
Nautilus Columns lets you add a few new columns to show metadata info (Artist, Title, Album, Track, etc.) when you're browsing files in list view. This works not only for Music files but for PDFs as well (Artist acts as the Author column). Once installed, you can make temporary changes to your columns by going to View > Visible Columns... or you can make the changes permanent by going to Edit > Preferences and then clicking on the List Columns tab. Try playing around with this to find the default view that is most comfortable for you.
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| Nautilus Columns |
To install Nautilus Columns, open up a terminal and type:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8 sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install nautilus-columns nautilus -q
Nautilus Easy Union
Last but not least, we have Nautilus Easy Union. This extension allows you to view multiple folders in one single directory. For example, if you had video files stored in both your Videos and Downloads folders, Easy Union can setup a new folder that would show you all of those videos in one place without actually copying files or creating links. Check out this video from Webupd8 for a quick demonstration:
Windows 7 users might compare Easy Union to the Libraries function, which is pretty accurate. The only drawback to this extension is that Easy Union doesn't actually create a new folder, but instead creates a mount point for a virtual drive. This means that if you have your system setup to show mounted volumes on your desktop like I do, your Easy Union folders will show up there as well, which I do not like. It's the main reason I personally don't use this extension, but it is quite popular and a lot of people find it useful, so I wanted to include it here. To install Nautilus Easy Union, open up a terminal and type:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:zanko/daemontux-stuff sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install easy-union-nautilus nautilus -q
And we're done with Nautilus for now. Phew! Moving on...
Internet Applications
Ubuntu 10.10 comes pre-installed with Firefox 3, an e-mail client called Evolution, a messenger application called Empathy, and a social network client (Facebook/Twitter) called Gwibber. I personally don't use Empathy or Gwibber, so I'll let you explore those on your own. As for browsers and e-mail clients, let's see if we can make some things happen.
Firefox 4
As I said, Firefox 3 is already installed in Ubuntu out of the box, but if you've gotten used to the new style and functionality of Firefox 4, it's easy to upgrade via PPA (of course).
To upgrade to Firefox 4:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install firefox ubufox
Firefox and Ubufox are actually two separate packages. Ubufox is a Firefox extension that's part of the Ubuntu installation. This will upgrade that extension to work with Firefox 4.
And there you have it.
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| Firefox 4 |
Google Chrome/Chromium
If you prefer Chrome, Ubuntu actually provides you with two choices. You can download and install Chrome from the Google Chrome website, or you can install Chromium from the Ubuntu Software Center. There really is no discernible difference between the two to the average user. Chromium is always a little bit ahead of Chrome when it comes to pushing out updates, and it's also already available in the main Ubuntu repositories, so I would recommend it for those reasons.
To install Chromium, open up Ubuntu Software Center and search for "Chromium." Highlight "Chromium Web Browser" and then click the install button.
To install Chrome, open up Firefox and go to http://www.google.com/chrome/ and click "Download Google Chrome." Once the .deb file finishes downloading, double-click to open in Ubuntu Software Center and then click the install button.
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| Chromium Web Browser |
Mozilla Thunderbird
Ubuntu 10.10 comes with an e-mail client called Evolution. It's actually a pretty solid substitute for Thunderbird or Outlook if you don't need any of the advanced functionality that those clients can bring. If you need a little more oomph, however, I would suggest setting up Thunderbird as your default e-mail client. I'll also recommend some extensions to maximize Thunderbird's usefulness.
Note: Do not remove Evolution from your system, as it is thoroughly integrated into Ubuntu. Removing it could break stuff. Installing Thunderbird and keeping Evolution will not harm your system in any way.
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| Thunderbird with Extensions |
To install Thunderbird:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/thunderbird-stable sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install thunderbird
To make Thunderbird the default e-mail client, click System > Preferences > Preferred Applications. Under "Mail Reader," choose Thunderbird and click Close.
To increase Thunderbird's functionality, try installing some of the extensions listed below. Obviously, these are totally optional.
- Lightning is an integrated calendar for Thunderbird that shows up in a new pane to the right of your messages. To install, visit https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/extensions/ and search for the title of the extension. Once you have downloaded the extension from this site, go to Tools > Add-ons and then click the "Extensions" tab. Click the install button and then browse to the downloaded extension. You will need to restart Thunderbird to activate the extension.
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| Lightning |
- Contacts Sidebar displays your address book in a sidebar so it's always visible. The version of Contacts Sidebar listed in the link above does not work with the newest version of Thunderbird, so you will have to install an updated version from here: http://extensions.sanjer.nl/index.php?page=tb_cs_prerelease
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| Contacts Sidebar |
- Thunderbird Indicator makes use of the Messaging Menu and system notifications in Ubuntu. The Messaging Menu can be accessed by clicking the small envelope icon on the top panel. By default, this menu only recognizes Evolution. This extension will add Thunderbird to the mix. Notifications are simply those black bubbles that pop up at the top right of your screen from time to time when the system needs to notify you of something (e.g. connected to wi-fi network). By default, the system will also notify you when a new message has arrived in Evolution. This extension adds that functionality for Thunderbird as well.
This extension must be installed via PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ruben-verweij/thunderbird-indicator sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install xul-ext-indicator
- Docky Unread Count is a simple extension that displays the number of unread messages in all inboxes on the Thunderbird icon in Docky. If you decided to install Docky, this is a convenient extension to have. To install, visit https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/extensions/ and search for the title of the extension.
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| Docky Unread Count - 1 New Message |
There are plenty of other useful extensions out there for Thunderbird. Do some exploring on your own to find those that will benefit you the most.
Deluge BitTorrent Client
Ubuntu 10.10 ships with a bittorrent client named Transmission, but I find it to be a little lacking. Instead, I use Deluge to download and manage my torrents. If you're looking for a viable replacement for uTorrent, which sadly isn't available for Ubuntu, Deluge is your best bet.
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| Deluge |
To install:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deluge-team/ppa sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install deluge
That's all for now. Stay tuned for part 2 of, um...part 2 tomorrow. We've got a lot more software to install, including LibreOffice, VLC media player, Banshee Media Player, Ubuntu Tweak, Shutter, etc.
And just as a reminder, all of this stuff is FREE. You love it.
Until next time...
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