Got Extras?

by Ronnie Whisler

We have all read many tutorials and articles about what programs to add to Ubuntu after installation. However I have yet to see an article or tutorial talk about installing the extras that beef up the default programs that come with Ubuntu.

Many of the default packages are ones you want to keep. The Gimp, Pidgin, OpenOffice and the default games just to name a few. I'm not going to tell you to install this codec or that program or anything like that. This article is simply about adding umph to the existing default programs.

The easiest way to install some and discover other “extras” is to open synaptic package manager. Click on the search button and select by name only. Type in the word “extra” and click search. You will find a pretty long list of "extra" packages that can be installed for various programs to add additional features. You won't find all of them but you will find most.

I have compiled a small list of extras that I usually always install after a fresh installation. This is no where near everything that could be installed to spice up programs since we are only concentrating on the standard default programs.

Ubuntu-restricted-extras

Installing this package will pull in support for MP3 playback and decoding,

support for various other audio formats (GStreamer plugins), Microsoft fonts,

Java runtime environment, Flash plugin, LAME (to create compressed audio

files), and DVD playback.

Gimp-data-extras

This package contains extra brushes, palettes, and gradients for

extra GIMPy artistic enjoyment.

gnome-extra-icons

Optional GNOME icons from http://art.gnome.org/

gnome-games-extra-data

This package contains extra data files for the gnome-games package. At

the moment this is almost entirely extra themes and artwork for the

games.

gnome-themes-extras

This package contains a few nice contributed themes for the GNOME

desktop, including vector icons for applications and nautilus, GTK+

themes and metacity themes.

totem-plugins-extra

This package contains an extra set plugins for Totem, which allow to: Annotate the screen with the Gromit tool, Have a DLNA/UPnP client for Totem powered by Coherence

openclipart-openoffice.org

The Open Clip Art Library is a collection of 100% license-free,

royalty-free, and restriction-free art that you can use for any purpose.

gedit-plugins

Contains a set of plugins for gedit, GNOME's text editor.

Pidgin-themes

This package provides few different smiley theme for Pidgin.

After you have all packages marked for installation click apply and install them. These extras will add some kick to the default programs and should be come a part of your “things to do” after a fresh install.

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