Information Security The theory behind security

http://www.amsn-project.net/

http://www.ubuntux.org/how-to-install-p2p-bittorrent-client-azureus

Downloader for X : Downloader manager for Ubuntu Linux.
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Internet/HTTP-WWW-/Downloader-for-X-045.shtml

Firefox: Still on IE...uhhhhhhhhh..make a switch, at least now.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Thunderbird: Annoyed with outlook..looking for a change..make a switch.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/

Opera: Another browser of choice, very good competitors with some cool features.
http://www.opera.com/download/

Firestarter Firewall: One of the best firewall available for Ubuntu.
http://www.ubuntux.org/how-to-install-the-firewall-firestarter

http://www.getautomatix.com/

Java 6: Refer to this tutorial on installing Java 6 on your Ubuntu.
http://www.jaxmag.com/itr/news/psecom,id,35104,nodeid,146.html

Adobe Reader: Very good article on installing Adobe Reader & mozilla plug-in for the same.
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/install-adobe-pdf-reader-on-ubuntu-edgy/

Adobe Flash: Install adobe flash on your Ubuntu install.
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/flash

OpenOffice: A very nice blog on openoffice - Ubuntu Stories.
http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/ubuntu/index.html

NetBeans: It received developer's choice award, the best Java IDE ever.
http://download.netbeans.org/netbeans/6.0/final/

http://elisa.fluendo.com/

Exaile Music Player: The complete music solution, arrange, strangle, play, make playlists....
http://linux.wordpress.com/2007/01/08/exaile-media-player/

k3b: The complete CD/DVD burning solution.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/ubuntu-63/repo-to-install-k3b-on-ubuntu-7.10-desktop-x8664-613062/

http://www.getmiro.com/ (Available for Linux, Mac, Windows)

Mplayer: The best plug-in for all your internet videos.
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html

Real Player 10: A necessary player to have.
http://www.real.com/linux?pcode=rn&src=freeplayer_partner&opage=freeplayer_partner

Quicktime: Apple quicktime for Ubuntu.
http://quicktime-downloads.com/

http://www.songbirdnest.com/

Beryl: Looking for some desktop effects, envy Mac & Windows Vista users with some cool things.
http://www.beryl-project.org/

OpenLDAP: Make your Ubuntu LDAP server.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OpenLDAPServer

VMware server: Host virtual machines under your Ubuntu.
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-install-vmware-server-in-ubuntu-710-gutsy-gibbon.html

Wine-doors: Opensource solution to manage your windows application under GNOME.
http://www.wine-doors.org/wordpress/

https://launchpad.net/awn

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mac4lin

http://www.getdeb.net/browse.php

Its been two months since I haven't touched Microsoft Windows now as I am using Ubuntu Linux on my Dell laptop. Its been a great journey from Mr. MS-proprietary to Mr. Linux-opensource.  It all started a long time back when I thought I should give Vista a try, but as everyone knows Vista doesn't live up to its expectations even after a year of its launch. A real memory hungry OS with little added benefits, I think Vista will never be able to replace XP market in the coming future unless some miracle happens. But because of failure of Vista there are other players making some money e.g. Apple, with its proprietary hardware & software and MAC OS Leopard doing the job for them.

I bought my first Dell laptop just little over year a go and was loving its performance with XP pre-installed (this was just before Vista release though).  But when I joined Sun in early June last year, it looked like 1 GB RAM wasn't enough for the stuff I wanted to do with it, like VMware and running up different virtual machines of my laptop talking to each other all the time. It was slowing down its performance, which makes me wonder how does my PC back home runs on Intel Celeron 644MHz processor with only 64MB RAM..yes only 64MB RAM is running XP!!

Well it was the time for a change, even though I loved Macbook Pro for its slim design, better performance and cool Mac OS desktop effects. I couldn't afford to buy it and dump my Dell Inspiron. So, I went and did some research looking for alternate options out there. I knew about Ubuntu since long and played with it as live CD and some cool features. It was all worth the effort to put Ubuntu on my laptop and searching for different applications which works with Ubuntu. I would say its the easiest installation I have ever seen for any Linux distro and even Windows. It has built-in support for NTFS read/write support which is a big plus, also support for plug-and-play hardware has never been easier than this under Linux. If you loved your Windows environment for years but you are looking for a change on your PC/laptop. I would definitely recommend Ubuntu over any other Linux distro or XP and fluffy Vista too.

I would like to share my transition experience on this blog category over period of posts aiming at different software packages I have searched and installed on my laptop for making most out of my current desktop needs. As it says 'Ubuntu', Linux for Human Beings. I would like to take a step forward to help people easily transition from Proprietary to Open Source, a FREE community based knowledge sharing space.

Image reference: http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/images/2007/05/01/prec_m90ubuntu.jpg

Welcome to U-B-U-N-T-U World !!!