1. Guidance Notes for using Trubuntu desktops
    1. Useful information to help you get the most out of your new computer
    2. Getting help
      1. Documentation
      2. Searching the web
      3. Online support
      4. IRC channels
      5. Trinity Mediatech mailing list
      6. Remote desktop support
    3. Navigating your new computer
      1. Getting information about your computer
      2. Your home folder
      3. Your Desktop
      4. Other important directories
      5. Using USB pen drives and other external storage
      6. Burning CDs and DVDs
    4. Using the Internet
      1. Connecting to the Internet
      2. Browsing the Internet
      3. Setting up email
      4. Instant messaging
      5. File sharing
    5. Multimedia
      1. Connecting your speakers and microphones
      2. Controlling the volume on your sound card's mixer
      3. Listening to music
      4. Listening to Internet radio
      5. Watching DVDs and films
    6. Getting Creative
      1. Editing images and photographs
      2. Recording audio
      3. Realtime kernels
      4. Creating music
      5. Capturing from a video camera
      6. Editing movies
      7. 3D Animation and game design
    7. Office Software
      1. Open Office
      2. Word Processor
      3. Desktop Publishing
    8. Administering your computer
      1. System administrator accounts
      2. Updating your computer
      3. Installing new software
      4. Adding/Removing users
    9. Security
      1. Upgrades
      2. Firewall
      3. Anti-Virus
      4. The big, bad, Internet
    10. Other things that your computer can do
      1. Desktop Effects
      2. Installing other operating systems
      3. Games
      4. Software for kids

Guidance Notes for using Trubuntu desktops

Useful information to help you get the most out of your new computer

Getting help

There are a number of ways that you can get help using your new computer.

Documentation

Ubuntu has Help and Documentation installed with it, which can be accessed by clicking the icon on the toolbar:

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/gnome-help.png

Searching the web

If you can think of clear keywords to search with, you can find a huge amount of useful information to get help via the web (You can often find a lot of rubbish though!)

Often if you get an error message that you don't understand, it is useful to copy and paste it into a search engine such as Google, to see if you can find an explanation of it there.

Online support

If you have a problem relating to the operating system you can check the Ubuntu websites.

There you will find lots of other users who may have had similar problems to you who may be willing to help you.

Often you will find answers just by searching the documentation or forums.

Ubuntu online documentation is here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/

Ubuntu forums are here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/

Ubuntu guide is available here:

http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Hardy

Much of the software installed on your Ubuntu computer also has websites and communities supporting it, so it's always worth checking their website if you have a problem.

IRC channels

A quick and easy way to get help and support is through online chat rooms.

Most free software projects provide support directly to their users in this way.

You can use Pidgin to connect to these IRC chat rooms.

Many free software projects use the network:

irc.freenode.org

The Ubuntu channel is called:

#ubuntu

They generally only help with Ubuntu related questions. If, for example, you needed help with Ardour you should go to:

#ardour

If you are polite, patient and ask clear questions, you are much more likely to be helped

Trinity Mediatech mailing list

Another useful place to get support for using your computer if from the Trinity Mediatech mailing list.

You can subscribe to it here:

http://lists.3ca.org.uk/listinfo/mediatech

There are lots of Linux and media software users there and they will be happy to help.

Remote desktop support

If you are having difficulty with your computer and you have contacted Trinity you may be asked to enable the remote desktop so that we can help you to fix the problem.

Getting information about your computer

You can find information about your computer through the System Monitor program:

System > Administration > System Monitor

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/utilities-system-monitor.png

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-system-monitor.png

Your home folder

Your personal files and settings are stored in your home folder. If, for example, your system username is 'trinity' your home folder would be:

/home/trinity

You can view your home folder from the Places menu on the toolbar.

Places > Home Folder

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/user-home.png

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-home-folder.png

Your Desktop

Your Desktop is contained in a folder. If your username was as above, the path to this folder would be:

/home/trinity/Desktop

You can view your desktop folder from the Places menu on the toolbar.

Places > Desktop

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/user-desktop.png

Other important directories

Your home folder contains a number of special folders such as Music, Pictures, Documents. Some programs may use these folders by default, for example Firefox might download PDFs into the Documents folder.

You can view the root of your file system by clicking the 'File System' bookmark in your file browser.

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/drive-harddisk.png

Using USB pen drives and other external storage

By default, storage devices that are plugged into the system mount automatically and place an icon on your desktop.

You can view all storage devices attached to your computer by going to:

Places > Computer

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/computer.png

Before you can disconnect usb devices, it is essential that you unmount them .

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-unmount.png

This can be done by right-clicking the desktop icon and selecting "Unmount". You can also unmount any devices from the Computer screen.

The file path to all externally mounted media is /media, so if my usb pen was called MyDisk, the filepath would be:

/media/MyDisk

Burning CDs and DVDs

To make a photo or data CD, insert a blank CD then double click on the icon that appears on your desktop.

This will open a CD/DVD Creator window, which allows you to add any file or folder by dragging or copying it into the window.

When you are ready to burn the CD, click Write to Disc. This will open another window that will let you name the CD and select the write speed. Finally, click "Write" to create the new photo or data CD.

Using the Internet

Connecting to the Internet

Your machine has a gigabit lan connection at the back. You should connect this to your modem or hub using an ethernet cable.

Once this has been connected your computer will try to establish a connection to the internet. You can tell when you are connected, as the networking icon on the toolbar will look like this:

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-network-connected.png

Browsing the Internet

Ubuntu comes with the Firefox web browser installed for browsing the Internet. You can use Firefox by either clicking the icon on the toolbar:

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/firefox.png

or through the menu:

Applications > Internet > Firefox Web Browser

From within firefox you can set your homepage, goto:

Edit > Preferences > Main

and enter the full web address into the "Home Page" or simply click "Use Current Page" if you are on the page you want.

Use the Bookmarks menu to add sites you frequently visit or want to remember.

To search the web, type in your keywords in the navigation toolbar or through your preferred search engine.

If you want to open multiple tabs, simply click Ctrl+T. You can then Ctrl+Tab to scroll between the pages.

To find text within the page you are currently viewing in Firefox click Ctrl+F or select:

Edit > Find

This will open the Find toolbar at the bottom of Firefox. Then just type the text you want to find.

The search automatically begins as soon as you type something into the search box.

More info can be found at:

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Using+Firefox

Setting up email

Email can be used either through a webmail account on the Internet, or by using a mail 'client' installed on your computer.

If you only wish to use webmail, such as a hotmail or yahoo account, you can do this using Firefox.

If you have a Pop or IMAP mail account you can use Evolution (in the same way as MS Outlook), by clicking the icon in the toolbar:

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/evolution.png

or through the menu:

Applications > Internet > Evolution Mail

If you wish to use Evolution, you will also need to set up an SMTP server for sending mail as well. This is usually provided to you by the ISP that you connect to the Internet through.

Instant messaging

If you like to chat with your friends using an instant messaging system, such as MSN, or yahoo messenger, you can use Pidgin to do it.

Start Pidgin through the menu:

Applications > Internet > Pidgin Instant Messenger

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/pidgin.png

File sharing

You can share files over the Internet using the Transmission Bit Torrent client.

Applications > Internet > Transmission Bit Torrent Client

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/transmission.png

Multimedia

Connecting your speakers and microphones

There are two audio jack sockets on the front of your computer they are:

Red - Line-in

Green - Line-out

Connect your speakers or headphones to the green socket.

Connect your microphone to the red.

There are three on the soundcard at the back of the computer.

Controlling the volume on your sound card's mixer

You can control the volume level on your sound card by right-clicking the speaker icon on the toolbar,

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/volume-control.png

...and selecting 'Open Volume Control'.

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-volume-control.png

The PCM channel on your mixer controls the line out from your computer.

Listening to music

You can listen to music that you have stored on your computer using a program called Audacious.

Applications > Sound & Video > Audacious

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/audacious.png

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-audacious.png

Audacious has many features, and lets you manage your music in playlists.

Listening to Internet radio

There are thousands of Internet radio stations that you can tune in to with the Streamtuner Internet radio player.

Applications > Sound & Video > Streamtuner

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/streamtuner.png

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-streamtuner.png

Watching DVDs and films

In order to watch DVDs you need to have special software for decrypting the DVD, which we have installed for you.

We have installed a piece of software called VLC for watching DVDs and films.

To watch your DVD, place it into the disk drive and goto:

Applications > Sound & Video > VLC Media Player

Under "File", click on "Open Disc..." and then click "OK" to play your DVD.

When the screen opens up, right click in the window and go down to "Titles" to skip between any menu titles within your DVD.

Getting Creative

Editing images and photographs

You can edit images and photographs using the excellent GIMP Image Editor.

Applications > Graphics > Gimp

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/gimp.png

Gimp automatically stores images in the XCF format.

This stores all the information about your image so that you can continue editing it next time you open it.

If an image is stored in another format such as gif, jpg, or png, this additional information is not stored (a prompt will appear if you try to save an image with multiple layers etc to warn you that this will flatten the saved image but not the image you are working on).

You can access most of the Gimp's features by right-clicking on an image, and following the menus.

Many of the functionalities available in Photoshop are also available in Gimp, although they are sometimes called by different names.

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-gimp.png

You can display an image's layers or editing history by selecting them from the "Dialogs" menu. Right click on these once they're opened and select "Always on Top" if you want to be able to see these windows all the time.

Remember, any changes you make under the "Image" menu effects the whole image Anything you change under the "Layer" menu only effects the layer you have selected.

Recording audio

There is a simple program for recording sound from a microphone or exteneral source called Audacity.

Applications > Sound & Video > Audacity

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/audacity.png

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-audacity.png

Realtime kernels

Generally if you are creating music or videos you will want to be running the Realtime Kernel . This lets the audio programs on your computer run uninterrupted by any other programs.

You can check if you are running a Realtime Kernel on the 'System' tab of the System Monitor.

The line that starts with kernel should end with rt.

Creating music

Your computer should be running with a Realtime kernel if you want to make music.

Jack is a piece of software that hooks different audio or midi programs together.

You will normally want to start Jack first.

Applications > Sound & Video > Jack Control

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/qjackctl.png

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-qjackctl.png

Jack should be configured to use Realtime Scheduling.

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-qjackctl-settings.png

A great drum machine thats often likened to Fruity Loops is Hydrogen.

Applications > Sound & Video > Hydrogen

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/hydrogen.png

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-hydrogen.png

Ardour is a fully featured Digital Audio Workstation (DAW).

Applications > Sound & Video > Ardour

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/ardour.png

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-ardour.png

Mixxx lets you mix mp3s and other music files together

Applications > Sound & Video > Mixxx

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/mixxx.png

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-mixxx.png

Capturing from a video camera

You can capture film from a DV camera using Kino

Applications > Sound & Video > Kino

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/kino.png

Editing movies

You can edit your movies using Cinelerra movie editor.

While it is not a simple program and will take a little while to learn, it is very powerful and will let you create professional movies.

Cinelerra works better if it is run with a Realtime kernel.

Unfortunately, to make use of this you must run Cinelerra with administrator privileges.

While this is not ideal for security, it will ensure that Cinelerra will run better.

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-cinelerra.png

3D Animation and game design

If you are interested in creating 3-dimensional worlds either for animation or for games, Blender has everything you need.

Applications > Graphics > Blender

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/blender.png

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-blender.png

Office Software

Open Office

Open Office provides a range of Open Office tools such as a word processor, spreadsheets, and presentation editor. These are very similar to those found in Microsoft Office in terms of layout and navigation.

Open Office is very stable software and is used by large organisations such as Bristol City Council.

Open Office uses a different format to Microsoft Office for storing its files - the Open Document Format.

The most important thing to remember is that Open Office can read and write MS Office files but MS Office can't read .odt or .ods files.

Word Processor

The word processor is called Open Office Writer.

Applications > Graphics > OpenOffice.org Drawing

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/ooo-writer.png

If you need to email a document to someone who does not use Open Office, you can quickly send them a PDF or Word copy:

File > Send > Email as...

This will create a copy of your document and attach it to the email.

Sharing documents as PDF ensures that their layout remains the same, and makes them more difficult to edit.

Desktop Publishing

If you want to create flyers or posters, Open Office has a program for Desktop Publishing (DTP).

Applications > Graphics > OpenOffice.org Drawing

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/ooo-draw.png

Administering your computer

Learn more about managing users and software on your computer.

System administrator accounts

To reduce the risk of your computer being infected by viruses and trojans, Ubuntu normally runs programs with restricted permissions.

Some programs, like for upgrading or installing new software or for managing user accounts, needs to be run as a system administrator.

When this is necessary, a box will pop up asking for your password, and once you have entered this you are temporarily allowed to run as an administrator. Not all users of the system are allowed to do this.

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-gksudo.png

Updating your computer

If there are updates available for your computer you will see the following icon in your toolbar:

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/software-update-available.png

If there are updates that should be installed urgently you will see this icon:

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/software-update-urgent.png

If you click on these icons, it starts the Update Manager, after asking for your password.

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-update-manager.png

Installing new software

You can only install software designed for Ubuntu or Linux onto your computer.

Most of the software that you can install can be installed automatically.

Use the Synaptic Package Manager to find and install software.

System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/synaptic.png

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-synaptic.png

Adding/Removing users

You can manage the users of your computer:

System > Administration > Users and Groups

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/config-users.png

Security

Keeping your computer safe.

Upgrades

If a vulnerability is found in commonly-used software, news of it will often travel fast.

It is then important that you run any available fixes, as bad people will start scanning the Internet looking for vulnerable computers.

It is therefore very important that you keep your software up-to-date

Firewall

Your computer uses the Firestarter firewall program.

System > Administration > Firestarter

The firewall is set up so that it will allow all outgoing traffic, and refuses all incoming traffic.

If you use your computer for file-sharing, online gaming, or internet telephony you may need to change these rules.

Anti-Virus

There have been less that 50 viruses ever found on Linux computers, compared to 60,000 for Microsoft. Some say this is because virus writers are trying to overthrow Microsoft.

Either way, your Linux-based computer should be relatively safe.

It is important however to keep your virus scanner up-to-date, and to be able to scan files that you do not trust.

While your Linux computer may not be susceptible to most viruses you can still pass them on to others in infected files.

The big, bad, Internet

Your computer is most at risk when you are browsing the Internet.

Every week new vulnerabilities are being found in all of the major browsers. These could potentially allow someone to take control of your computer or gain access to other computers on your network.

It is important to keep your software up-to-date.

The most important thing is to never download or run anything from the Internet if you do not know what it is.

NEVER EVER give your bank details or personal information to a website that you do not trust.

Most Internet crooks do not bother trying to take control of your computer they are happy with your bank details.

Other things that your computer can do

Your computer has lots of software installed, here's some of the cool stuff.

Desktop Effects

Your desktop has lots of visual effects to make it look more pretty.

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-cube.png

Sometimes these effects can get be annoying or they may prevent some programs from working correctly.

If you wish to switch the desktop effects off you can do so by right-clicking the blue icon in the toolbar,

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/fusion-icon.png

and from there:

Select Window Manager > Metacity

If you wish to re-enable the window effects, set the window manager back to compiz.

Sometimes the window manager needs to be reload, if for example the windows lose their borders. This can also be done from this icon.

You can configure which desktop effects that you are using by selecting 'Settings Manager' from this icon.

Installing other operating systems

You can run other operating systems such as Windows while running Ubuntu.

You do this by creating a virtual machine, and running the guest operating system inside it.

You can create virtual machines with the virtual machine manager:

Applications > System Tools > Virtual Machine Manager

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-virt-manager.png

Games

You will find many games installed in:

Applications > Games

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/package_games.png

Some of the like supertuxkart make use of the fast 3d graphics card in your computer.

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-supertux-kart.png

Software for kids

Your computer has lots of software for younger kids.

Gcompris is particularly useful for teaching small children how to use a computer.

Application > Education > Educational Suite GCompris

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/gcompris.png

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-gcompris.png

There is a simple and fun paint program for small children, Tuxpaint.

Application > Education > Tux Paint

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/tuxpaint.png

http://art.3ca.org.uk/tutorials/student-machines-guidance/desktop-tuxpaint.png