Open Source (Andrew Online)

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Open Source

Gnome

I greatly prefer Linux distributions based around Gnome. Gnome offers a consistent interface, and a high degree of stability. Undoubtedly this is why Ubuntu has chosen it as its primary desktop.

The default sound server in Ubuntu, pulseaudio is responsible for interfacing with applications and delivering audio to the sound drivers in the Linux kernel. It opens up many new possibilities including support for applications written for a number of different sound systems, routing sound to multiple sound cards, and adjusting the volumes of different programs' sound output separately.

PulseAudio Volume Control provides you with individual volume control sliders for a number of purposes including indivitual applications and even incoming network audio from another computer on the network.

PulseAudio Device Chooser provides a system tray icon which can perform a number of functions including routing sound to one or more sound cards, sharing sound cards with others network computers, detecting other computers with shared sound cards and more.

For a detailed guide to setting up PulseAudio on Gentoo see this page.

GParted

GParted is a powerful disk partitioning tool with support for a wide variety of file systems. To install it open up "System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager" and search for "gparted" or enter the following command into a terminal window:

sudo apt-get install gparted

A word of caution: be sure that you know what you are doing before you go messing about with your partition tables. GParted can be a powerful tool in the right hands, or a weapon of mass destruction in the wrong hands.

Compiz Fusion

Compiz is a compositing window manager for Linux, which is enabled by default on Ubuntu systems with supported graphics hardware. The purpose of a compositing manager is to alter the way programs are displayed to screen by rendering them individually and then compositing them onto the desktop using either 2D or 3D rendering techniques.

Compiz provides a huge number of window management options, visual aids, and eye-candy which can greatly enhance the usability and appearance of a Linux system's desktop. Users of Gnome 2.0 will benefit greatly from these features, and the standard distribution of Ubuntu comes with Compiz automatically enabled on systems which support it.

KDE 4 comes equipped with its own compositing engine and doesn't benefit from the use of compiz.

Dosbox

Dosbox is a DOS emulator which can run on Linux, Windows and Mac computers. It literally supports every DOS application ever written (including Windows 3.1) and works extremely well. Being a complete general solution, (unlike wine) it does not require specific applications to be supported.

Wine

Wine currently enables a very large portions of windows application to run on Linux. There are also special versions of wine available for more difficult to support programs, like Microsoft Office. Crossover Office is a version of wine that runs Microsoft Office better than windows itself.

KDE 4.3

The current version of KDE is very pretty but also very broken. Ubuntu offers a version of their operating systems which is based around KDE, called Kubuntu. If you are a Gentoo user and you decide to use KDE, I highly recommend you compile it with the pulseaudio use flag, and follow this howto to set up pulse as the default ALSA device. If you are using Kubuntu or Ubuntu, this is already done for you.

However I do not recommend that you use KDE at all if you want a stable desktop system that isn't prone to random application crashes.It's main benefits are it's nice interface, flashy visual effects, and widget set.