Copyright © 2010–2016 by Te Ubuntu Manual Team. Some rights reserved. cba Tis work is licensed under the Creative Commons Atribution–Share Alike 3.0 License. To view a copy of this license, see Appendix A, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, or send a leter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. Geting Started with Ubuntu 16.04 can be downloaded for free from http:// ubuntu-manual.org/ or purchased from http://ubuntu-manual.org/buy/ gswu1604/en_US. A printed copy of this book can be ordered for the price of printing and delivery. We permit and even encourage you to distribute a copy of this book to colleagues, friends, family, and anyone else who might be interested. http://ubuntu-manual.org Revision number: 125 Revision date: 2016-05-03 22:38:45 +0200 Contents Prologue 5 Welcome 5 Ubuntu Philosophy 5 A brief history of Ubuntu 6 Is Ubuntu right for you? 7 Contact details 8 About the team 8 Conventions used in this book 8 1 Installation 9 Geting Ubuntu 9 Trying out Ubuntu 10 Installing Ubuntu—Geting started 11 Finishing Installation 16 2 Te Ubuntu Desktop 19 Understanding the Ubuntu desktop 19 Unity 19 Te Launcher 21 Te Dash 21 Workspaces 24 Managing windows 24 Unity’s keyboard shortcuts 26 Browsing fles on your computer 26 Files fle manager 27 Searching for fles and folders on your computer 29 Customizing your desktop 30 Accessibility 32 Session options 33 Geting help 34 3 Working with Ubuntu 37 All the applications you need 37 Geting online 39 Browsing the web 46 Reading and composing email 55 Using instant messaging 59 Microblogging 64 Viewing and editing photos 65 Watching videos and movies 68 Listening to audio and music 69 Burning cds and dvds 73 Working with documents, spreadsheets, and presentations 77 4 Hardware 79 Using your devices 79 Hardware identifcation 79 Displays 79 4 getting started with ubuntu 16.04 Connecting and using your printer 81 Sound 82 Using a webcam 83 Scanning text and images 84 Keyboard and mouse 84 Other devices 85 5 Sofware Management 87 Sofware management in Ubuntu 87 Using Sofware Center 88 Managing additional sofware 91 Manual sofware installation 94 Updates and upgrades 94 6 Advanced Topics 97 Ubuntu for advanced users 97 Introduction to the terminal 97 Ubuntu fle system structure 99 Securing Ubuntu 100 Why Ubuntu is safe 100 Basic security concepts 101 Users and groups 101 System updates 104 Firewall 104 Encryption 105 Running Windows Programs on Ubuntu 106 7 Troubleshooting 111 Resolving problems 111 Troubleshooting guide 111 Geting more help 116 8 Learning More 117 What else can I do with Ubuntu? 117 Open source sofware 117 Distribution families 117 Choosing amongst Ubuntu and its derivatives 118 Finding additional help and support 120 Te Ubuntu community 121 Contributing 122 A License 123 Creative Commons Atribution–ShareAlike 3.0 Legal Code 123 Creative Commons Notice 129 Glossary 131 Credits 135 Index 137 Prologue Welcome Welcome to Geting Started with Ubuntu, an introductory guide writen to help new users get started with Ubuntu. Our goal is to cover the basics of Ubuntu (such as installation and work- ing with the desktop) as well as hardware and sofware management, work- ing with the command line, and security. We designed this guide to be simple to follow, with step-by-step instructions and plenty of screenshots, allowing you to discover the potential of your new Ubuntu system. Canonical releases new versions of Ubuntu every six months; every fourth release is a so-called long-term support (lts) version. Each Ubuntu release has a version number that consists of the year and month number of the release, and an alliterative code name using an adjective and an an- imal. Code names are in consecutive alphabetic order, allowing a quick determination of which release is newer. Ubuntu 16.04 (code-named Xenial Xerus) is considered a so-called lts version and is supported by Canon- ical with patches and upgrades for fve years. Te previous lts version is Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr), and has support for fve years (until April 2019). Whenever a new LTS version of Ubuntu is released, we will incorpo- rate updates and changes into our guide, and make a new version available at http://www.ubuntu-manual.org. Geting Started with Ubuntu 16.04 is not intended to be a comprehensive Ubuntu instruction manual. It is a quick-start guide that will get you do- ing the things you need to do with your computer easily, without geting bogged down with technical details. With the help of this guide, it should not take long before new users get used to the Unity desktop environment. Unity includes the Launcher, the Dash, the hud, indicators, and an on- screen display notifcation system (osd). All these features will be explained in this guide. For more detailed information on any aspect of the Ubuntu desktop, see the “Ubuntu Desktop Guide,” which can be obtained in any of the following ways: ‣ in the Dash, type help. ‣ in the indicator area, click Session indicator ‣ Ubuntu Help. ‣ go to https://help.ubuntu.com, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS ‣Desktop HTML. Tere are also many excellent resources available on the Internet. For example, on https://help.ubuntu.com you will fnd documentation on in- stalling and using Ubuntu. At the Ubuntu Forums (http://ubuntuforums.org) and Ask Ubuntu (http://askubuntu.com), you will fnd answers to many Ubuntu-related questions. You can fnd more information about Ubuntu’s If something isn’t covered in this manual, chances are you will fnd the online and system documentation in Chapter 8: Learning More. information you are looking for in one of those locations. We will try our best to include links to more detailed help wherever we can. Ubuntu Philosophy People sometimes wonder how to pronounce Te term “Ubuntu” is a traditional African concept originating from the Ubuntu. Each u is pronounced the same as in the word put except for the last u which is Bantu languages of southern Africa. It can be described as a way of con- pronounced the same as in the word due. 6 getting started with ubuntu 16.04 necting with others—living in a global community where your actions afect all of humanity. Ubuntu is more than just an operating system: it is a community of people coming together voluntarily to collaborate on an international sofware project that aims to deliver the best possible user experience. The Ubuntu Promise ‣ Ubuntu will always be free of charge, along with its regular enterprise releases and security updates. ‣ Ubuntu comes with full commercial support from Canonical and hun- dreds of companies from across the world. ‣ Ubuntu provides the best translations and accessibility features that the free sofware community has to ofer. ‣ Ubuntu’s core applications are all free and open source. We want you to use free and open source sofware, improve it, and pass it on. A brief history of Ubuntu Ubuntu was conceived in 2004 by Mark Shutleworth, a successful South African entrepreneur, and his company Canonical. Shutleworth recognized To learn more about Canonical, go to http:// www.canonical.com. the power of Linux and open source, but was also aware of weaknesses that prevented mainstream use. Shutleworth set out with clear intentions to address these weaknesses and create a system that was easy to use, completely free (see Chapter 8: Learning More for the complete defnition of “free”), and could compete with other mainstream operating systems. With the Debian system as a base, Shutleworth began to build Ubuntu. Using his own funds at frst, Debian is the Linux operating system that Ubuntu is based upon. For more information installation cds were pressed and shipped worldwide at no cost to the visit http://www.debian.org/. recipients. Ubuntu spread quickly, its community grew rapidly, and soon Ubuntu became the most popular Linux distribution available. With more people working on the project than ever before, its core features and hardware support continue to improve, and Ubuntu has gained the atention of large organizations worldwide. While large organizations ofen fnd it useful to pay for support services, For information on Ubuntu Server Edition, and how you can use it in your company, visit Shutleworth has promised that the Ubuntu desktop operating system http://www.ubuntu.com/server. will always be free. Ubuntu is installed on an estimated 2% of the world’s computers. Tis equates to tens of millions of users worldwide, and is growing each year. As there is no compulsory registration, the percentage of Ubuntu users should be treated as an estimate. What is Linux? Ubuntu is built on the foundation of Linux, which is a member of the Unix family. Unix is one of the oldest types of operating systems, and together with Linux has provided reliability and security for professional applica- tions for almost half a century. Many servers around the world that store data for popular websites (such as YouTube and Google) run some variant of Linux or Unix. Te popular Android system for smartphones is a Linux variant; modern in-car computers usually run on Linux. Even OSX is based on Unix. Te Linux kernel is best described as the core—almost the brain —of the Ubuntu operating system. Te Linux kernel is the controller of the operating system; it is responsi- prologue 7 ble for allocating memory and processor time. It can also be thought of as the program which manages any and all applications on the computer itself. While modern graphical desktop environments have generally replaced early command line interfaces, the command line can still be a quick and efcient way of performing many tasks. See Chapter 6: Advanced Topics for more information, and Chapter 2: Te Ubuntu Desktop to learn more about gnome and other desktop environments. Linux was designed from the ground up with security and hardware compatibility in mind, and is currently one of the most popular Unix-based operating systems. One of the benefts of Linux is that it is incredibly fex- ible and can be confgured to run on almost any device—from the smallest micro-computers and cellphones to the largest super-computers. Unix was entirely command line-based until graphical user interfaces (guis) emerged in 1973 (in comparison, Apple came out with Mac os ten years later, and Microsof released Windows 1.0 in 1985). Te early guis were difcult to confgure, clunky, and generally only used by seasoned computer programmers. In the past decade, however, graphical user interfaces have grown in usability, reliability, and appear- ance. Ubuntu is one of many diferent Linux distributions. To learn more about Linux distributions, see Chapter 8: Learning More. Is Ubuntu right for you? New users to Ubuntu may fnd that it takes some time to feel comfortable when trying a new operating system. You will no doubt notice many sim- ilarities to both Microsof Windows and OSX as well as some diferences. Users coming from OSX are more likely to notice similarities due to the fact that both OSX and Ubuntu originated from Unix. Te Unity shell, which is the default in Ubuntu, is a completely new concept, which needs some exploring to get used to it. See Chapter 2: Te Ubuntu Desktop for more information about the Unity shell. Before you decide whether or not Ubuntu is right for you, we suggest giving yourself some time to grow accustomed to the way things are done in Ubuntu. You should expect to fnd that some things are diferent from what you are used to. We also suggest taking the following into account: Ubuntu is community based. Tat is, Ubuntu is developed, writen, and maintained by the community. Because of this, support is probably not available at your local computer store. Fortunately, the Ubuntu community is here to help. Tere are many articles, guides, and manuals available, as well as users on various Internet forums and Internet Relay Chat (irc) rooms that are willing to assist beginners. Additionally, near the end of this guide, we include a troubleshooting chapter: Chapter 7: Troubleshooting. Many applications designed for Microsof Windows or OSX will not run on Ubuntu. For the vast majority of everyday computing tasks, you will fnd suitable alternative applications available in Ubuntu. However, many professional applications (such as the Adobe Creative Suite) are not developed to work with Ubuntu. If you rely on commercial sofware that is not compatible with Ubuntu, yet still want to give Ubuntu a try, you may want to consider dual-booting. Alternatively, some applications To learn more about dual-booting (running Ubuntu side-by-side with another operating developed for Windows will work in Ubuntu with a program called system), see Chapter 1: Installation. Wine. For more information on Wine, see Chapter 6: Advanced Topics. Many commercial games will not run on Ubuntu. If you are a heavy gamer, then Ubuntu may not be for you. Game developers usually design games 8 getting started with ubuntu 16.04 for the largest market. Since Ubuntu’s market share is not as substantial as Microsof’s Windows or Apple’s OSX, fewer game developers allocate resources towards making their games compatible with Linux. If you just See Chapter 5: Software Management to learn more about Ubuntu Software. enjoy a game every now and then, there are many high quality games that can be easily installed through the Ubuntu Sofware application. Tere are also a lot of games available at http://store.steampowered.com/ browse/linux/. Contact details Many people have contributed their time to this project. If you notice any errors or think we have lef something out, feel free to contact us. 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