Copyright © 2010–2014 by The Ubuntu Manual Team. Some rights reserved. c b a This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution–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 letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. Getting Started with Ubuntu 14.04 can be downloaded for free from http:// ubuntu-manual.org/ or purchased from http://ubuntu-manual.org/buy/ gswu1404/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: 100 Revision date: 2014-08-12 12:40:44 -0500 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 Getting Ubuntu 9 Trying out Ubuntu 10 Installing Ubuntu—Getting started 11 Finishing Installation 16 2 The Ubuntu Desktop 19 Understanding the Ubuntu desktop 19 Unity 19 The Launcher 21 The Dash 22 Workspaces 24 Managing windows 24 Browsing files on your computer 26 Files file manager 26 Searching for files and folders on your computer 29 Customizing your desktop 29 Accessibility 31 Session options 32 Getting help 33 3 Working with Ubuntu 35 All the applications you need 35 Getting online 37 Browsing the web 45 Reading and composing email 53 Using instant messaging 58 Viewing and editing photos 62 Watching videos and movies 65 Listening to audio and music 66 Burning cds and dvds 70 Working with documents, spreadsheets, and presentations 73 4 Hardware 75 Using your devices 75 Hardware identification 75 Displays 75 Connecting and using your printer 77 Sound 78 4 getting started with ubuntu 14.04 Using a webcam 79 Scanning text and images 80 Keyboard and mouse 80 Other devices 81 5 Software Management 83 Software management in Ubuntu 83 Using the Ubuntu Software Center 84 Managing additional software 87 Manual software installation 91 Updates and upgrades 92 6 Advanced Topics 95 Ubuntu for advanced users 95 Introduction to the terminal 95 Ubuntu file system structure 97 Securing Ubuntu 98 Why Ubuntu is safe 98 Basic security concepts 99 Users and groups 99 System updates 102 Firewall 102 Encryption 103 Running Windows Programs on Ubuntu 104 7 Troubleshooting 109 Resolving problems 109 Troubleshooting guide 109 Getting more help 114 8 Learning More 115 What else can I do with Ubuntu? 115 Open source software 115 Distribution families 115 Choosing amongst Ubuntu and its derivatives 116 Finding additional help and support 118 The Ubuntu community 119 Contributing 120 A License 121 Creative Commons Attribution–ShareAlike 3.0 Legal Code 121 Creative Commons Notice 127 Glossary 129 Credits 133 Index 135 Prologue Welcome Welcome to Getting Started with Ubuntu, an introductory guide written 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 software 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 14.04 (code-named Trusty Tahr) is considered a so called LTS version and is supported by Canoni- cal with patches and upgrades for five years. The previous lts version is Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin), and has support for five years (until April 2017). Whenever a new version of Ubuntu is released, we will incorporate updates and changes into our guide, and make a new version available at http://www.ubuntu-manual.org. Getting Started with Ubuntu 14.04 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 getting 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 notification 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 14.04 ‣ Ubuntu Desktop Help. There are also many excellent resources available on the Internet. For example, on https://help.ubuntu.com you will find documentation on in- stalling and using Ubuntu. At the Ubuntu Forums (http://ubuntuforums.org) and Ask Ubuntu (http://askubuntu.com), you will find answers to many Ubuntu-related questions. You can find more information about Ubuntu’s If something isn’t covered in this manual, chances are you will find 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 The term “Ubuntu” is a traditional African concept originating fromthe 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 14.04 necting with others—living in a global community where your actions affect all of humanity. Ubuntu is more than just an operating system: itis a community of people coming together voluntarily to collaborate on an international software 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 software community has to offer. ‣ Ubuntu’s core applications are all free and open source. We want you to use free and open source software, improve it, and pass it on. A brief history of Ubuntu Ubuntu was conceived in 2004 by Mark Shuttleworth, a successful South African entrepreneur, and his company Canonical. Shuttleworth recognized To learn more about Canonical, go to http:// the power of Linux and open source, but was also aware of weaknesses that www.canonical.com. prevented mainstream use. Shuttleworth 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 definition of “free”), and could compete with other mainstream operating systems. With the Debian system as a base, Shuttleworth began to build Ubuntu. Using his own funds atfirst, Debian is the Linux operating system that installation cds were pressed and shipped worldwide at no cost to the Ubuntu is based upon. For more information 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 attention of large organizations worldwide. While large organizations often find it useful to pay for support services, For information on Ubuntu Server Edition, and Shuttleworth has promised that the Ubuntu desktop operating system how you can use it in your company, visit http:// www.ubuntu.com/business/server/overview. will always be free. Ubuntu is installed on an estimated 2% of the world’s computers. This equates to tens of millions of users worldwide, andis 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. The popular Android system for smartphones is a Linux variant; modern in-car computers usually run on Linux. Even Apple os x is based on Unix. The Linux kernel is best described as the core—almost the brain—of the Ubuntu operating system. The 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 efficient way of performing many tasks.