This page contains quick overviews of the most common things a person might want to do with their desktop environment under Linux.
Browsing the web
There are a number of different browsers available for Linux, the most popular probably being Mozilla Firefox . If you are coming from a Windows background, you will have probably used this browser already or at least heard of it. You might also want to check out Opera , Konqueror , Mozilla and Netscape . Don't forget to install plugins such as Acrobat PDF reader , Flash , Java , Realplayer and Mplayer-plugin.
Reading and writing email
Chat and instant messenging
Editing or capturing pictures
For professional picture editing, you will want to use
An excellent basic photo manipulation program with all the common functions
(crop, red-eye, etc...) is
Showfoto and associated
For getting pictures off your USB camera, use GtKam or DigiKam. Alternatively, mount your camera and copy them over manually using a file management program.
Listening to music
Editing or capturing music
A popular program for recording and editing audio is Audacity.
For watching almost any kind of video/DVD, use Xine or MPlayer. Also check out Ogle and Totem. Don't forget to install the DivX plugin to watch certain video files and the DeCSS plugin to watch protected commercial DVDs. Remember that for streaming video on your browser, make sure you have Mplayer-plugin installed!
Editing or capturing video
Use a program called Kino to grab and edit video from your DV camera.
Creating/copying a CD or DVD
Reading and writing documents
Installing new software
Most desktop distributions have their own custom methods of installing new software packages, like YUM, YaST, and RPMdrake. If you are willing to use the command line, popular installers are apt-get, dpkg, rpm and urpmi.