Once the item is in your Applications list, right click and add it to your desktop.  (You can click it once and hit the delete key on your keyboard and remove it later if you wish.)  Put the mouse on the desktop icon and right click it once and then select the PROPERTIES.  On the properties select the LAUNCHER tab.  You can now see the COMMAND (small letters or capital letters are important to note.)  NOW LEAVE THIS VISIBLE ON THE DESKTOP

Now click the System-Preferences-Sessions     Notice the first tab you are looking at is the STARTUP PROGRAMS tab.  Click the ADD button, enter the command and make your own descriptions.

When you restart, you have a great chance of it auto starting as you wish. 
 

Step 1:  download the DEBIAN package at:      http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-for-linux-edition.html    or use this site for pictures and instructions and then return here for more help on it: 
then install it.

Step 2:  Verbally say – “Well, what happened!”  Yep, nothing appears to have happened.  Now hold down the ALT key and press the F2 key and let go.  A command line box appears.  In the command line enter:     avastgui and press the Okay_Dokey button.

Step 3:  Enter the serial number you got for registering with them.   My license key is but you may need to get your own – IT IS FREE TO REGISTER.  My number is:

---------- cut here ----------
W66854298H5000A1106-TUD9US4Y
---------- cut here ----------

Step 4:  You just saw it install a bit more.  Now you looked through the installed applications list and found nothing  – Take a Breath and do the next step.

Step 5:  Put your mouse on the desktop where nothing else is.  Do a Right Mouse Click and on the menu you see select the Create Launcher.  In the NAME block enter what you wish.  In the COMMAND box enter:      avastgui               In the COMMENT box enter what you wish then click the OK button.

Click and Enjoy!!!!!!!
 

sudo hdparm -d1 /dev/cdrom
 

Enjoy – the statement you get back will say set to “1” and DMA is now on.
 

go to:     /etc/gdm/Presession       to display and change the    Default
 

go toward the bottom and locate

# Default Value

there you will see BACKCOLOR=”#dab082”
change to read     BACKCOLOR=”x”
 

Make a real root login

Go to System – Administration – Users and Groups

Click on root
select properties
change password (you are doing it for “root”)
click OK and Close out

Next:

Go to System – Administration – Log in Window
Select Security tab and remove auto-logic if you have it selected.
AND check the box to Allow Local System Administrator login then Close

THEN TEST YOUR WORK.
log off and sign in a     “    root    “   user name and your new password
do click to continue as you are logging on as a privileged users
 

If you truly must, use the Make a "Real" Login as the Actual ROOT instruction above.

go to:  Your word processor (Open Office) and create a blank (hit space bar one time) THEN save this blank to the TEMPLATES folder that already exists in the ROOT folder. 

NOTE:  The root folder is the one with your login name at the top.  EXAMPLE:  I am “lair” so under LAIR is the TEMPLATES folder.

likewise go to:  Your Text Editor (if you installed one) and create a blank and save it to the TEMPLATES folder. 

Add as many templates as you wish such as HTML or whatever that makes your life easier.

NOW YOU CAN RIGHT CLICK THE MOUSE AND AUTOMATICALLY OPEN A LETTER OR TEXT ITEM (.ETC).
 

READ THIS BEFORE YOU START:  The program Firestarter is NOT a firewall !!!!  It is the graphical interface (GUI) to make changes to the built-in firewall inside of UBUNTU that ALWAYS starts.  I like the Firestarter to start with the computer because when it goes red in color, someone is messing with me.  This is only for those odd enough to really want Firestarter GUI to load at start-up.  This is dangerous so FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS.   If you want it Burger King and you want it your way, with Firestarter going automatically, then read on.
 

IN ROOT (God Mode):

Go to /etc/ folder and in the little files found the SUDOERS program.
Right click the file and click on Permissions and change the root to read & write.  done.
Right click the file and select to Open With Text Editor.  done.

Under # Preferences change it to read:
 # Defaults      !lecture,tty_tickets,!fqdn

Defaults       !lecture,tty_tickets,!fqdn,env_keep+="DISPLAY HOME"

Note:  This fixes a bug in Ubuntu 30291 and 47662   doing this is a bonus for you effort.

Now click behind the very very very last line and hit the enter key so you are on the next line and add this line.
myloginname ALL=NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/firestarter

be sure myloginname is YOUR LOGIN NAME   dah!  p.s.  no spaces in the front.

Now exit the text editor and “Save” the file.  If you see “Save As” you have already not following  instructions so you should click the do not save and exit because you do not know what you are doing and you are doing very well and getting ready to kill your system.

NOW (IF YOU ARE STILL DOING WELL):  time to TEST what you just did.

Bring up the Konsole terminal.    Enter the command:
gksudo K

If it did or said nothing but bring up the next I am waiting command for you to enter then you have passed that test.

IF is says something is wrong on some line – try again, and this time get it right. OR put it back the way you found it.  When you learn more you can try again later.

IF it says something like the CHMOD is not correct, then it is an easy fix.  In Konsole terminal enter this command:
chmod 0440 /etc/sudoers

Note:  “sudoers” is a text file, but it is an executable file also.  The 0440 option is to tell the computer that it is also an executable file.

NOW – file working, passed the “K” test THIS TIME and all seems happy, then put the file back under permissions to a READ ONLY FILE like to started with.

YOU ARE NOW DONE IN ROOT – TIME TO EXIT LEFT AND RETURN TO YOU NORMAL LOGIN – SEE YOU THERE IN A MOMENT!

Welcome back – before we go on – if you did not follow instructions well then items that need the SUDO command are no longer working.  SO, before we go on, try to open one of your terminals to see if it comes up and works at all.  AH – exit the terminal, you do not need it, or OH, you terminal fails to open, you are going back to ROOT to fix what you broke.

CONTINUING:

go to the SESSIONS System-Preferences-Sessions

add a new service

in the command line enter:          sudo /usr/sbin/firestarter  --start-hidden

YES, YES, YES  I know this is not what all the rest of the world says to enter, but it works.  The rest of the world's way of doing it did not work for me   :-(     ,so made my own way   :-)

Have Fun!
 

• Firefox (Set Edit/Preferences for Home Page and Always Ask for Downloads) 
• NOTE:  Set the “Applications/Add-Remove to All Available
• NOTE2:  If add/remove is not downloading, see if check marks are in the Software Sources under System-Administration (Main tab and 3d Party)
• OPTIONAL:  Pidgin  (Add/Remove if not already on the Applications Menu)
• Mplayer for Firefox (Add/Remove or from Automatix)
• Totem (xine backend from Add/Remove or Automatix)
• Amarok (from Add/Remove)  NOTE:  May not work in 64 Ubuntu.
• Banchee Music (from Add/Remove) for 64 Ubuntu (or SongBird from Automatix for 64bit systems)
• Automatix     (For i386        or For 64bit   )
• w/Automatix:  Everything in CODEX
• w/Automatix:  OFFICE/ do Adobe and Picasa 
• OPTIONAL:  (  )  Frostwire which is like Limewire Pro version
• GnomeBaker CD/DVD (from Add/Remove)
• Computer Icon (Drag from “Places”)
• Document folder (Drag from “Places”) or Right Click and Make a DT-Documents Folder
• Terminal  (drag from Applications/Accessories)     or Add/Remove for Root or Super Terminal (You may need to run System/Preferences/Main Menu to Get root terminal to show
• At the System/Preferences/Main Menu you might add the Control Center to show and put that on your desktop (it is nice)
• Main Menu (Drag from System/Preferences) – NOTE:  Open and add “Control Center”
• Control Center (Drag from System/Preferences)  (See note above to make show)
• Word Processor (Drag from Applications/Office)
• OPTIONAL:  Sound Juicer CD (Drag from Applications/Sound&Video)
• Software Sources (Drag from System Administration)
• OPTIONAL “Azuerus”  (from Add/Remove)
• OPTIONAL “Firestarter”  (from Add/Remove) – See Other note for auto-starting.

BOTTOM TOOLBAR (Right Click the Toolbar and select Add to Panel)

1. Add Quit
2. Add “Force Quit”
3. Add “Weather Report” and setup the “Preferences” location, MPH, and Fahrenheit
4. OPTIONAL:  Properties check the “Auto hide”

TOP TOOLBAR
Adjust Time&Date and Time Zone on Time Bar and Sync with Server

DESKTOP/TERMINAL/BROWSER
In Control Center OPTIONALS:  Printer, ScreenSaver, Windows Logon boot-up    See:  to make the Control Center visible.

TERMINAL:  Eliminate the Playing Media Restrictions
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

SITEADVISOR.COM  (  )  add the Firefox site checker

OPTIONALS
 

• Make “Create Document” work on a right mouse click (see other note).
• For a calendar the SUNBIRD is a nice one. (add/remove)
• Hold Poker is a nice game (add/remove)
• Audacity to edit sound files is a nice program (add/remove)
• Automatix  add all the fonts.  Then System-Preference-Appearance  -- change all fonts to LIBERATION SANS BOLD
• System-preferences-powermanagement    on AC Power slide all to far right to turn off hibernate.
• System-preference-appearance   set the Theme and Background of your choice.  Then if you can you can change your visual effects to your choice. System-preference-screensaver    Choose a screensaver – required if you turn off hibernate.
• Add Stellarium – a where is the stars – if you wish.  (Add/Remove) 
• Add ADEPT (add/remove) if you wish to control your own files.  To open it and run.  ALT-F2  is the command box enter: sudo adept_manager    to be able to run it and make changes.
• For tools on my desktop I like:   SOFTWARE SOURCES     UPDATE MANAGER    NETWORK TOOLS   SYSINFO 
• FILE SEARCH (add/remove)     HARDWARE INFORMATION     MAIN MENU    SESSIONS   CONTROL CENTER    ROOT TERMINAL (add/remove)    &    ADEPT
• For auto-starting (sessions)  I like PIDGIN   FIRESTARTER    SUNBIRD
• I prefer  to boot auto to my screen without password   system-administartion-LoginWindow   and under SECURITY to check the Enable Automatic Login dropping the arrow down to my user name.
• System-administration-printing     Identify your printer
• Move the items on your Top and Bottom Toolbar to where you wish them by right click Unlock Toolbar the another right click and Move.
• Set GMail as primary account in Firefox, go to System-Preferences-Preferred Applications and in the command enter:  perl -MURI::Escape -e '$to = shift;$to =~ s/^mailto://i;exec("firefox", "https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&cmid=22&to=".URI::Escape::uri_escape($to) );' '%s'

Hold down the ALT key and hit the F2 then release both.  In the command line box enter 
gconf-editor      then click the RUN button.

Now go down the list finding    apps\nautilus\desktop 

Now of the right side you see trash_icon_visible    and click the little square so a check appears in it.

Enjoy !!!
 

It is capable of playing many formats, yet every once in a while it messes up.  Not often, so it is worth putting it on.

Enjoy !!
 

Go to        System-Preferences-Power Management   as you are looking at the tab that says RUNNING ON AC.

Take the sliders and move them to the far right and it changes to the word  NEVER.  Do both sliders while at it. 

Set your screen saver to do it's job and enjoy.
 

Odd Things About Main Menu
Sometimes when you install a new program it does not appear any where to be found.  I then go to the   System-Preferences-Main Menu   option.  If you go down the list you will find some things are not checked to appear on the menu list (by design I suppose).  However, the new program you just installed may be there without a check mark.  While there, if items are checked that you do not care about, by all means, take the check mark out and they will not appear on the menu.  Have it your way!

Put a Folder on Your Desktop to Make it Easy to Navigate Your File System
When I say GO TO some file location to make it VERY simple -- I open a folder, on the left side is PLACE and it is easy to find the GO TO location!

The Have it Your Way using Control Center
Before you can use the Control Center you have to make it visible on the menu.  Look at the "Odd Things" above and under System-Preferences using the Main Menu put a check on Control Center to make it visible on the menu.  Now  go to System-Preferences-Control Center (I recommend you put this on your desktop for easy access).  Whether you are setting up screen savers or your printer, here is a graphical page that has all of your possible have it your way choices.  Control Center is a valuable gem hiding to be discovered.

IM Messengers such as AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, MySpaceIM, and others
Go to Add/Remove (sometimes it is already in your menu once you have set up Ubuntu) add Pidgin.  Pidgin is a great little instant messenger that services a number of common chat programs (all in one program).

How do I find it - File Search program
Add/Remove get "File Search" -- it looks and works oddly enough like the windows search tool.  It is useful !!  Enjoy !!  For packages (installed or not installed) use Adept.  For how to use Adept see: 

Themes and the Satanic Themes for Fun (A Bit of Fun and the Devil) and/or Desktop Wallpaper Choices
Go to  and thanks to Garry Parker working with themes can be fun and a great way to learn Ubuntu at the same time.  This penguin will take you directly to his installation page.  Do follow his instruction one step at a time and it will work.  At the bottom end you will need to know if you have i386 or 64 and then later if you have Ubuntu or Kubuntu  (you have Ubuntu if you are using my site and you have the Gnome Desktop where Kubuntu uses the KDE interface).

If you just want some darn nice Desktop Wallpaper then  is a fantastic site thanks to Ryan Bliss.  Note:  He has free also, however, if you join then choices are many and more.

Get the MOST out of Open Office
Start the Office program, click on Tools, then click on Options.  Now click on the "+" in front of  Load/Save and on that click the word General.  On the left you see 2 drop down boxes.  Tell Open Office when it runs documents to save as Microsoft Word, then change left drop to spreadsheet to Microsoft Excell, then change left drop to Presentation to Microsoft Powerpoint.  This will adjust it run amazingly like the real Microsoft Office program.  Enjoy !!

Cute Trick to Keep Your System Cleaner
Using a terminal enter the command:   sudo apt-get autoclean             This is just a hidden feature built into the APT program.  As you install, setup, download, or whatever you create little messes.  This cleans the partials and incomplete back out of your system.  When you see it run and items appears in the box -- that is the useless junk.  Kind of like emptying the trash.

(AMD64 Only) Making Java Plug-in Appear in Firefox
The AMD64 processor does not like to make it easy to get Firefox to recognize Java.  There is a fix for this -- BUT BE AWARE - it took my system 5 hours to get it installed.  Yes, Java was in the system; however, it was not in the Firefox plugins.  For you to test it in Firefox simply type in  "  about:plugins  " in the address bar and Firefox will display all plugins currently installed.  Here are the commands to get it to work:

sudo apt-get build-dep icedtea-java7-plugin
sudo apt-get -b source icedtea-java7-plugin icedtea-java7-bin icedtea-java7-jre icedtea-java7-jdk
sudo dpkg -i icedtea-java7-*deb

Adding an Anti-Virus (AV) 
"Virus Scanner" is a GUI for ClamAV which is available in the Add/Remove Applications.  YES, linux does not need an AV program - BUT, you very well might wish to AV check a file before transfer to Windows.  After installing "Virus Scanner" go to System Tools on the Applications and right click Virus Scanner and make a desktop icon to use.  Now right click the icon and select Properties.  Click on Launcher and in the Command line put " gksudo " in front of the command so it looks like ( gksudo clamtk %F ).  You do not need Super-User (sudo) to run the program but you do to be able to update the virus definitions.  HINT:  To virus check a single file easily, just drag-n-drop the file to check on the Virus Scanner icon.  NOTE:  The "gk" in front of "sudo" is to bring up the password if it was not used in the last 15 minutes.

Edit theGrub Startup Menu When Needed
To edit the menu using the command in the terminal "  sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst.   ".  Sometimes the menu starts getting long after updates.  Sometimes you want to change the primary operating system to another on the computer such as XP if it is also on.  If you are editing the menu list then remove the unwanted menu choises (the not # entries).  If you are changing your default operating system to start then:  Change the line "default = 0" to "default = 1." Save the file and exit. This changes the default from Ubuntu to Windows XP. If you have fear on what to do then:  Make a copy of the GRUB menu file as a backup by entering "cp /boot/grub/menu.lst /boot/grub/menu.lst_BU." Use this file to restore menu.lst if the changes fail.

go to Programs Add/Remove and install the " bum "  (Boot Up Manager)

go to System-Administration-BootUp Manager    ---   you will be entering your password  to continue after selecting.

Check the bottom box to see advanced so that you can see everything, or not.  Look at the list of items checked and not checked and turn off/or on those that you wish.  Do not put in the checks or check them, do a right click of the item for the choices.

Examples:  I do not have Bluetooth so I do not care about it.  I do not have a notebook so PCMCIA cards are not going in my desktop to care about.  I do have a hard drive and yes I want it tuned to give me much greater performance.

Set your desires.  Enjoy !!

So You Want Even More?

How to add even more power to your system.  BUT, your system needs to be up to this.  Let us say you have a monder processor and 2GB or more of RAM.  If so, give this a good look!!   How to get linux to stop using so much hard drive (swap) and get it to use your RAM.  Why, because RAM is a bunch faster than any hard drive speed.

Open a terminal and enter the following command:
sudo cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness

It should tell you that your swappiness is 60.  Now we want to reduce that number so that it stops using the hard drive so much and uses your RAM memory as well.

In the terminal enter the following command:
sudo sysctl -w vm.swappiness=10

You just reduced made your system better.  It is now set to 10.  If you run terminal and ask it again what it is set to it will also say 10 this time and not 60.  However, after you play with it, you will want it to stay at 10 each time.  This is how you do that.

In the terminal enter the following command:
sudo gedit /etc/sysctl.conf

This is your configure file.  No not mess this up.  Go to the line that says #net.ipv4.tcp_syncookies=1  Now make a new line below it that says:

vm.swappiness=10

This new line is to the far left.  In the event a line is already there that says vm.swappiness=60 then just edit that line to equal 10.  Now save.  Feel free to enjoy your new faster speed!!!

So You Want Even More?

Some speed hungry folks may suggest you edit the /etc/init.d/rc file and change CONCURRENCY=none to read CONCURRENCY=shell and save.  You can try this.  The thought is to make linux use a dual-core processor even better.  My thought is that it will cause HAL to go into a corkscrew.  I am not recommending; however, I told you how and where but you are on your own trying it.  If you wish to do it (assuming you have "mousepad" from the Add/Remove loaded), then the command in the terminal would be:

sudo mousepad /etc/init.d/rc 

HINT:  Write this command down on a piece of paper so that if HAL gets mad you can open a terminal and fix it back rather than reload your system.