To make your karmic koala look like  lucid lynx is easy. Here are the links to debian files you need to download to make it work ,desktop  items and icons . Download the files and double click on it to install it.Then, to select the themes, select System> Preferences> Appearance and in the flap Subject, For Ambiance or Radiance . Choose your theme and have fun. If you need to try something different take a look at how to make your ubuntu linux look like mac os .

If amarok or rythmbox make you feel its not for you then its the time to look up to YouAmp a simple and fast music player for linux.The name YouAmp is definitely inspired from winamp for windows, but does not seem to have any relation with it.

Youamp simply offers essential features of an audioplayer, but lacks support for scrobble tracks. For all Ubuntu users out there, you can install YouAmp from commandline. Issue the following commands :

sudo apt-add-ppa repository: rojtberg / youamp
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install youamp

If you are interested in other simple audioplayers, audicious is a perfect choice. Audacious is fast and even have support for winamp themes.

Ok, I am a linux guy and most of you will be thinking that why I am writing this . Let me say , even though many people are agreeing with the statement Ubuntu is always better than Windows , there are a lot of people how think that Ubuntu has too few applications available for use . Ubuntu would be more secure , most faster and more stable , but is it up to par with Windows in doing things , like can we use photoshop cs 4 in linux , or can we play assassins creed 2 in Ubuntu . I am not promising you that you could , but I assure you that you can make your ubuntu linux much more better in doing things . Let me show a handful of essential applications for your linux machine which would transform your ubuntu to a real star performer , doing almost everything you can do in windows . Ok , here is it :

1. WineHQ – If you were a  windows user , you might sometimes need to carry your favourite app to ubuntu. WineHQ is good at running such windows stuff . If you need to know if your favourite app runs on linux you can check this here . To download wine, check out this link .

2. VirtualBox – Most of you might be familiar with VirtualBox , from Sun Microsystems , a nice virtualization software which is available for free . There are many commercial virtualization softwares like vmware , which is much more powerful than virtualbox . To see a list of virtualization softwares have a look at this .

3.Scribus – Scribus is an opensource desktop publishing tool available for free . Scribus offers a modern and easy to use interface .and even supports advanced and professional features like CMYK color, separations, Spot Colors, ICC color management and  PDF creation.What to say more, visit its official website .

4.Gimp – Available by default in your Ubuntu machine . If you are interested in photo-editing  gimp would be a good start .Read more about gimp and how to use gimp .

5.Blender – Blender is an opensource 3-d content creation suite available for free . Blender is as effective as other commercial software like maya , 3-d max etc , without taking you in to complex processes. Blender is definitely worth a look , you can even watch  how powerful is blender viewing the blender, gallery page .

6. Other crazy stuff like vlc player ,firefox, evolution ,pidgin , openoffice , k3b disc burner , songbird , x-chat etc are definitely worth a look . Here are a few tutorials and reviews on getting in touch with various nice free software programs , take a look at them .

7.If you are interested in making your linux an eye-candy , then opt for compiz .Compiz offers a stylish look without sacrificing too much system resources . Oh ! , I know you need to make your linux appear similar to mac os , here it is it mac4lin .

Windows is never equivalent to Linux as both are distinct operating systems . I , here present my personal opinion .

If you are a person who have tried many linux distros and couldn’t find the one you needed , then your search has come to an end . ArchLinux would be the answer to your searches . Arch Linux is a highly customizable linux which comes around at 360 mb .iso file , which includes all files needed for a harddisk install . If you are opting for net install or ftp install , then there are ways of doing it too . Arch Linux by default doesnot have a graphical interface . You can choose the graphical interface according to your wish , whether it be gnome , kde, fluxbox , xfce , enlightment and lot more . You can find a nice step by step tutorial which shows you how to install archlinux and customize the archlinux the way that suits it .As you know your desktop manager uses a large portion of your system resources . So choice of desktop environment is of great importance as one can make a linux distro which may be slow and flashy or fast and ugly .

Arch Linux offers support for almost all file systems like ext4 , ext3 , ext2, xfs, jfs , and much more . ArchLinux is great as it takes you out of the hassels of dependencies and libraries . ArchLinux by default , comes with a nice package manager called pacman , which is capable of updating and installing all softwares and applications . Compared to other linux distros , rather than compiling from source packages , archlinux installs from pre-made binaries .ArchLinux offers extreme customization and you can modify it to suit your daily needs . There are a lot of distros based on archlinux . Here is a page that lists out them . Archlinux is perfect for everyone with “do it ourselves” character.  ArchLinux is one of the  fastest linux distros , especially when run in console . Updating of software packages is done perfectly in archlinux servers too , which provides users with uptodate softwares and applications . Download links and guide to installation can be found in arch official website .

Believe me archlinux is simply a magnificent distro and it is worth a try . I assure you that you will definitely fall in love with archlinux . Feel the joy of tweaking your machine and modifying it the way you need  . Happy tweaking …..

In the Linux world with Ubuntu dominating the market to discuss about the comparison of Desktop Managers available for Linux is of good importance . By default Ubuntu comes with gnome desktop environment and Kubuntu comes with kde as the desktop manager . Considering the case of someone who is interested in trying out something different xfce might be fun . Xfce is a new desktop environment aimed at unix like operating system , providing nice features at smaller size and resources . Xfce can be installed in many platforms like freebsd , linux , solaris , cygwin and even macos . Xfce is definitely worth a look for users , who is interested in nice look and feel without sacrificing system resources . xfce is based on gtk 2 + just like gnome . It uses xfwm window manager . As it is always better to show something than to describe it , here I present you with some screenshots .

Also have a look at how xfce performs with compiz in Ubuntu 9.10 distribution .

The latest available version of XFCE is XFCE 4.6 . Visit xfce website for more details .

Applications like Mousepad text editor, Xfmedia audio player, Orage Calendar and Terminal are available by default for xfce environment . Printing tasks in xfce are managed by Xfprint . Xfburn is the cd/dvd burner program available for xfce . The default media player is Xfmedia player derived from Xine movie player . Thunar is the file manager for xfce .Xfce has almost everything needed by a normal user . Xfce but doesnot offer the flashy and eye-candy appearance of kde or large amount of applications like gnome .

Considering the progress xfce made in the following years , one day xfce may replace kde and gnome from our distros .Also connsider reading the comparison of kde vs gnome .

If you have ever lost any data as a result of computer crash , you might know the importance of creating backups of your pc . But are you confused to make  a choice of backup software for your linux os . Then , here is a really simple backup software for linux named ” back in time” . Back in time is inspired by “flyback project” and “TimeVault” . Backup is made by making snapshots of specific directories . Back in time has a really simple user interface and runs in user mode . Here is a video tutorial explaining how to install back in time in ubuntu and how to use it . If you feel that you need more documentation feel free to visit the official documentation from back in time website . Download backintime from here .

Songbird is a opensource music player,a digital jukebox and and a web browser,  all in one. Like Winamp, it supports extensions and skins feathers.It supports a variety of formats and is an excellent option for organizing your music files in your system. It is built from mozilla and it has a web browser inbuilt within for searching for extensions and plugins. This can be even used for normal browsing purposes Songbird is an advanced music player which even permits use of addons to do amazing things like displaying lyrics of songs while playing etc . Songbird is available for Windows , Linux and Mac platforms . Personally i recommend you to give songbird a try , you will really get to like it .
Here i have included a video tutorial on how to install this fantastic player  on your Ubuntu system.