Asterisk PBX: The Perfect Desktop

This tutorial shows how you can set up a Kubuntu 11.04 desktop that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge. Kubuntu 11.04 is derived from Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) and uses the KDE desktop instead of the GNOME desktop.

I want to say first that this is not the only way of setting up such a system. There are many ways of achieving this goal but this is the way I take. I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

To fully replace a Windows desktop, I want the Kubuntu desktop to have the following software installed:

The GIMP - free software replacement for Adobe Photoshop Shotwell Photo Manager - full-featured personal photo management applicationGoogle Picasa - application for organizing and editing digital photosFirefoxOperaChromium - Google's open-source browser Flash Player 10 FileZilla - multithreaded FTP client Thunderbird - email and news clientEvolution - combines e-mail, calendar, address book, and task list management functionsaMule - P2P file sharing applicationKTorrent - Bittorrent client Vuze - Java Bittorrent client Kopete - multi-platform instant messaging clientSkypeGoogle EarthQuassel IRC - IRC client Gwibber Social Client - open-source microblogging client (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) LibreOffice Writer - replacement for Microsoft Word LibreOffice Calc - replacement for Microsoft Excel Adobe ReaderGnuCash - double-entry book-keeping personal finance system, similar to Quicken Scribus - open source desktop publishing (DTP) applicationAmarok - audio player Audacity - free, open source, cross platform digital audio editorBanshee - audio player, can encode/decode various formats and synchronize music with Apple iPods MPlayer - media player (video/audio), supports WMA Rhythmbox Music Player - audio player, similar to Apple's iTunes, with support for iPods gtkPod - software similar to Apple's iTunes, supports iPod, iPod nano, iPod shuffle, iPod photo, and iPod miniXMMS - audio player similar to Winampdvd::rip - full featured DVD copy programKino - free digital video editorSound Juicer CD Extractor - CD ripping tool, supports various audio codecsVLC Media Player - media player (video/audio)RealPlayer - media player (available for i386 systems only)Totem - media player (video/audio)Xine - media player, supports various formats; can play DVDs Brasero - CD/DVD burning program K3B - CD/DVD burning programMultimedia CodecsKompoZer - WYSIWYG HTML editor, similar to Macromedia Dreamweaver, but not as feature-rich (yet)Bluefish - text editor, suitable for many programming and markup languagesQuanta Plus - web development environment, including a WYSIWYG editorVirtualBox OSE - lets you run your old Windows desktop as a virtual machine under your Linux desktop, so you don't have to entirely abandon Windows TrueType fontsJavaRead-/Write support for NTFS partitions

Lots of our desired applications are available in the Ubuntu repositories, and some of these applications have been contributed by the Ubuntu community.

As you might have noticed, a few applications are redundant, for example there are two CD/DVD burning applications in my list (Brasero, K3B). If you know which one you like best, you obviously don't need to install the other applications, however if you like choice, then of course you can install both. The same goes for music players like Amarok, Banshee, Rhythmbox, XMMS or browsers (Firefox, Opera, Chromium).

I will use the username falko in this tutorial. Please replace it with your own username.

The installation of the base system is easy as 1-2-3 because the Kubuntu installer doesn't offer a lot of options to choose from, so you cannot go wrong.

Download the Kubuntu 11.04 Desktop iso image from http://www.kubuntu.org/getkubuntu (this link offers torrent downloads only; if you want to download the iso image directly, you can use one of the mirrors listed on https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+cdmirrors), burn it onto a CD, and boot your computer from it. Select Start Kubuntu:

The system boots:

Select your language and click on the Install Kubuntu button to start the installation:

On the next screen you see a few requirements for the Kubuntu 11.04 installation (the system should have at least 3.9GB available drive space, should be plugged into a power source (to make sure that the system doesn't shut down during installation because of an empty battery), and should be connected to the Internet). Please check the Download updates while installing and Install this third-party software (this will install the software necessary to process Flash, MP3, and other media files) checkboxes and click on Forward:

Now we come to the partitioning of our hard disk. Usually Guided - use entire disk is a good choice, unless you need custom partitions and know what you're doing. Guided - use entire disk will create one big / partition for us: