Chapter 8. An introduction to Linux home/office software
Once you can install software, which you learned how to do in the previous chapter, Linux really opens up for you. Because software is how you customize your desktop and make it your own. This chapter is going to cover the typical software most users work with daily. Some of this software is installed in Ubuntu (or your distribution of choice) by default, and some of it will need to be installed, which you now know how to do! I’m going to walk you through
- Office productivity software, so you can use spreadsheets, word process, and handle email.
- Image editors, so you can crop and resize your photos.
- Multimedia players, so you can watch movies and listen to music.
This is going to be a brief overview of the various tools available to you. For the most part, they’re similar to their Windows/OS X counterparts, so you should be able to get around these programs pretty easily (the GIMP image editor is a bit more complex and could probably benefit from its own book). I’m going to cover a lot of software so you can see some of what’s available and decide which tools work best for you and the work you do. A lot of the programs discussed in this chapter also have Windows/OS X versions, so if you find something you like, you might be able to use it across operating systems.