A few good apps.

Hello all! There have no recent posts on here for one reason. I was distracted by the beautifully working Ubuntu Edgy operating system. Everything I once used in Microsoft Windows is already here at my fingertips. After I had gone through with the default install and set up of Ubuntu, I then set up and installed Scribus, Gnomad2 with MTP support, KMyMoney, Blender3d Modeller, and Acidrip. In the next few steps, we will first understand what these few programs are, and then we'll walk through the process of setting up these applications for Ubuntu Edgy.


Brief Description
1) Scribus - a desktop publishing application that can be used to create fancy emails, letters, cards, etc.
2) Gnomad 2 with MTP support - a program used to interface with the Creative Nomad Zen Xtra - of which I own. However, I had updated the firmware to PlaysForSure, which had then rendered my player very difficult to connect to from within Linux - which is my primary and only operating system now.
3) KMyMoney is a money management program similar to Microsoft Money or Quicken, featuring an easy-to-use interface.
4) Blender 3d - a 3d modeling application. Although hard to use, it is quite powerful in the creation of beautifully rendered art.
5) AcidRip - a quite useful little tool that can rip personally owned DVD's to a compressed video file, using a broad array of encoders to choose from, even including the H.264 encoder.


Installation
1) The most important thing for Ubuntu - what I consider to be the greatest commandment of the operating system - is to enable the repositories. The process is rather simple. Just click on System -> Administration -> Software Sources, and check the first four check boxes under the Internet heading. Click on Close, and then click on Reload after the message asks.

Ok, your first and hardest step is done. :)

2) Click on Applications -> Add/Remove... and then search for Scribus, KMyMoney, Blender, and Acidrip. Click on OK. Done.

3) As for Gnomad 2 with MTP support, you must download Gnomad 2 and build it. This is never a task that is needed in Windows, so I will explain how to do this, with the help of this thread at ubuntuforums.org:

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=199250&highlight=mtp


a) Open up a Terminal window by selecting Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal
b) Install these required applications with this command:

sudo aptitude install build-essential libnjb-dev libmtp-dev libid3tag0-dev libglib2.0-dev libgtk2.0-dev libxml-perl

c) Download Gnomad2 here to your home directory or desktop.
d) Extract the archive by right clicking on it and selecting Extract here...
e) Cd to the directory you extracted to, then configure and make the program with this command:

cd gnomad2-2.8.9
./configure
sudo make


If you, or anyone else happens to need any of these programs, I hope this helped.