ADN

Generally, in any operating system when you first install it fresh, you don't get all the goodies. You have to install and download various applications and install them to make it suitable for your personal taste and requirement. Same is the case with Ubuntu as well. Unlike Windows, you have email client (Evolution) and an office suite (OpenOffice.org) by default loaded when you first install it. (Microsoft wants you to buy them separately and install it. But that's a different debatable topic.)
In fact you are better off with default Ubuntu installation without a need for further customization and installation. However if you are like me, you want even more, more and more...
So I have prepared a list of applications and plugins I need to install after I fresh install Ubuntu.

More/Source: http://snipurl.com/5oaay [www_knowliz_com]

Some interesting stuff there.

For me I like to install:

Comix: http://comix.sourceforge.net/
This is a comic reader. It also allows viewing images in zip and rar files.

Truecrypt: http://www.truecrypt.org/
For accessing encrypted files.

I turn off all visual effects, speed up the menu system and disable file time stamps. On my laptop I also disable hard drive head parking.

Basically everything else I need to use is already there. Of course, there are some things I require that only run in an M$ windows environment and for that my computers are dual boot with XP SP3. Best of both worlds really :)

I much prefer OpenSUSE myself for a Linux distro. :p