Apps You Need

Ubuntu comes with all the apps that you need to get started. However, you might have your favorite applications. I have my own set of apps that I install to be more productive.

Suppose you want to install VLC, a must-have app that will play virtually every video format. Instead of installing the version of VLC that is available in the Ubuntu repositories, suppose you want to set up the Snap version available directly from the VLC project, which means you get the latest version as packaged by the VLC developers.

Using Snap is as easy as using apt and apt-get. To search for the Snap version of the app, run the following command:

snap find vlc

This command will show all the available versions of the app. Now install it by running this command:

sudo snap install vlc

Firefox is a great browser, but I use Google Docs for my stories, and Google Docs shortcuts work better with Chrome. You can install Chrome by downloading the .deb package file and installing it. Or you can choose the command-line path and add the Google repository to your system, and then install it from the Terminal app.

First, you need to download the key:

wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | sudo apt-key add -

Now add the repository:

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list'

Now refresh the repository, and install Chrome:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install google-chrome-stable

The good news with Chrome is that it comes with the Digital Rights Management (DRM) extension enabled, so you will be able to watch movies and TV shows from web-streaming services like Netflix.

If there are other apps that you need, you can very easily install them using either Snap, apt, or simply finding a .deb binary from the official site. However, I would recommend going with the Snap route.

Final Thoughts

The Ubuntu project is back to being what a good distribution should be, and you can once again benefit from the fruits of upstream projects like Gnome.