1
Banshee
Banshee is the best media player for the GNOME desktop environment. Add the PPA here. Then:
sudo apt-get install banshee
2
Gnome-Do
Gnome-Do is an amazing application launcher and system tool. Add the PPA here, then:
sudo apt-get install gnome-do
3
Multimedia
Ubuntu provides a fairly robust multimedia experience, but a few programs need to be added. First, add the Medibuntu repositories:
sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/`lsb_release -cs`.list --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list; sudo apt-get -q update; sudo apt-get --yes -q --allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring; sudo apt-get -q update
Then install the following software:
sudo apt-get install soundconverter easytag vlc vlc-plugin-esd mozilla-plugin-vlc libdvdcss2
This will provide an audio conversion tool, an MP3 tagger, VLC (the best video player out there), and DVD playback.
4
Shutter
Shutter is an awesome screenshot utility for Linux. Add the PPA here, then:
sudo apt-get install shutter
5
KeepassX
KeepassX is a port of the awesome Windows password manager, Keepass, to Linux. Add the PPA here, then:
sudo apt-get install keepassx
Now you can use the same Keepass files on Linux and Windows.
6 Dropbox Dropbox is quite possibly the coolest online backup and sync utility around. It works on Linux, install it by following the instructions here.
7
Plugins
There are a few crucial plugins that you should add to your Ubuntu installation:
sudo apt-get install gedit-plugins mozplugger
That will add some neat plugins to the default GNOME text editor, gedit, and allow Firefox to open files like PDFs inline.
8
GnuCash
GnuCash is awesome, full-featured accounting software. Install it from the included Ubuntu repositories:
sudo apt-get install gnucash