Ubuntu.All.The.Way!

Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn was finally released last April 19...Edgy Eft (6.10) users frequently updating their distro packages won't be seeing anything new (some say its more stable but in my case I never had a problem with Edgy so I can't really say), but first time as well as casual Ubuntu users will surely enjoy trying out its features . Feisty is a more simplified Ubuntu experience, it removes most of the fuss associated with configurations and applications simply just works!
Compiz is now integrated and is referred to as "desktop effects", you will now be able to make use of the desktop cube and wobbly windows effects out of the box. You can also opt to install Beryl instead of compiz since it has more plugins plus the Beryl community is very active, highly recommended for eye-candy lovers like yours truly.

I've been using Ubuntu (starting with Dapper Drake) for almost a year now (basically the first OS i installed after I got my notebook) and I can confidently say that you won't miss Windows (except maybe for games :) )

To help out would-be Ubuntuers (I know it sounds corny, but thats the best I've come up for now) I'm putting out a list of apps that you can try out with Feisty to improve your computing experience.

Web Browsers. Ubuntu comes with Firefox by default, Opera on the other hand is another browser you can try out.

Email Clients. Ubuntu comes with Evolution Mail but I'm an avid Thunderbird user since its beta days and I find it to be better when it comes to mail handling. Evolution however is an excellent Outlook replacement if you're looking for one.

Media Players. Although Totem is installed as the default player you might want to grab and install VLC player from videolan.org. VLC player allows you to play most media files without the need to install additional codecs. ( Windows and Mac versions are also available). RhythmBox is an excellent iTunes counterpart...and it syncs your iPod as well.
Update: Exaile! is my current favorite audio player...its like Amarok but uses GTK instead so performs better in Ubuntu. It gives you statistics, fetches artist info via wikipedia, provides lyrics, album cover art and even tablature! man I love this software! :)

Torrent Client. Azureus is my tool of choice...the default torrent client is too plain for my needs...but then again if it works right?

Office Suite. Ok, Microsoft Office is still the best...but trust me, most of what you need is already in OpenOffice. Aside from that I'd like to plug my personal favorite word processing apps, AbiWord. Its got less features but its lean and fast...exactly what I need. Gnumeric is also an excellent Excel replacement, I haven't done programming on it, but for usual needs I'm sure it will suffice.

Project Management. Planner is the best open-source project management app I've seen, but I would love for it to be better.

Photo Apps/Image Manipulation app. Photoshop is king but until it goes open-source GIMP gets my vote for the best Image manipulation app for Linux. Another app that might strike your fancy is F-Spot but I'm urging the developers to come up with something close if not better to Picassa.

Application Launchers. I can only think of two effective application launcher interfaces and thats
1. Application Dock (like in OSX). In this case Avant Window Navigator might
just be what you need

2. Search-based launchers like Quicksilver. KDE already have their Katapult,
but if you want to keep it clean (meaning less KDE based apps as possible in
Ubuntu), you might want to try gnome-launch-box.
Its a simple yet very effective way of launching apps that got its roots from the
original MacOS-based app Quicksilver. I'll post my configuration on the next
blog.

Take the time to try this apps out, I'll blog about a list of other cool utilities to enhance your computing experience on the next blog as well as their corresponding configurations. Until then happy Ubuntu-ing. :)