Software Package: K3B

Webiste: http://k3b.plainblack.com/

Description: K3B is an all in one intuative graphical user solution to burning cds and dvds on linux. This is available on almost every major linux distrobution and is a free and open source product. The graphical user interface is really easy to use and set up and allows you to burn media cds/dvds, data cds/dvds, isos and much more through a simple dragging and dropping. 

 Quick Start Installation:

Open Terminal: Applications->Accessories->Terminal 

Type the following command based on your distrobution:

Debian or Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install k3b

Fedora, Redhat, CentOS:

su -c "yum install k3b"

Installation:

To install k3b you should first check under the sound and video tab of your start menu. If you cannot see k3b there then either follow the quick installation instructions above or follow the instructions for installing the program using the graphical user interface below.

1. Click the system tab in your gnome panel and then administration. Now click on Synaptic Package Manager. (System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager). 

2. With Synaptic Package manager enter your root password when prompted. You set this up when you installed the system. This may or may not be your user password depending on how you set up the passwords. 

3. Click the search button in the top panel and search for k3b.

4. Right click the package named k3b and choose to mark for installation. 

5. Click apply changes and wait for the program to install. You will then be able to find it under the sound and audio tab of the gnome panel menu or by pressing alt+f2 you will be able to write in k3b and launch the application.

Troubleshooting: 

1. I cannot find the project k3b when I search for it in synaptic package manager. In this situation go to settings->repositories  and make sure the main and universe repositories are checked. Refresh your search and you should be able to see the application.

2. It won't install its taking ages and the download is just going back and forth. This usually is a result of a system lock where you are installting another application or update the system. If this is true the installation will continue after these updates. However a slow download may also be a result of internet or hardware problems. I will talk about this in a later tutorial. 

3. When I try and do the quick install it says I do not have the privliages. You have to be logged in as root and that is why the sudo command must be used. Only the root user has the privilages by default to install programs. 

4. I tried the quick install but it gave me some funky error message like: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11 Resource temporarily unavailable)
E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?

This means that you have some other program using the installation process. For example you could be updating the system, installing files or you could just have synaptic package manager open but not installing anything. Check this and make sure nothings wrong. 

Using K3b: 

Start up k3b: Applications-> Sound & Video -> K3b. 

In the top half of the screen you will see files from your computer, you can browse through these for files you want to put on your cd / dvd but more on that later. First look at the bottom half of the screen and choose the type of project you wish to start e.g a audio cd or a data dvd. There are even more options avaliable in the toolbar under the tools tab. 

After  you have chosen your project simply drag files from the first half of the screen into the second half. Once you have selected everything click the burn button and the file will begin to burn. Thats really all there is to it.

I hope you have enjoyed my tutorial please give me feed back on what you thought or any difficulties you had. 

I'm wicked pumped to use ubuntu and learn about linux. I'm not a computer noob as I'm fluent in Windows XP, just not linux. Many times I have had this same problem though...

After a fresh install of ubuntu, i have to change my session go failsafe gnome for graphics issues. After that, I get the message to install the new updates, so i install them and restart. I continue to boot up into failsafe gnome again. Then I get a message about downloading and installing the restricted driver for my ATI Radeon Xpress 200 graphics card. I would download that, and restart. Then change my session to Gnome. All goes well. I can restart and then have no graphics issues then. I later follow this tutorial on how to install compiz-fusion.All goes well. Then after i set some easy effects, such as animations, the water and fire effect and other small ones, i would restart (for reasons unknown, maybe to boot into xp or just to restart ubuntu) and hten i would get a promped for low graphics mode. I would sometimes attempt to set it up, but i think that i would do it wrong so i would just continue and boot into failsafe gnome. i then would look at my hardware drivers and see that ATI accelerated graphics driver is enabled and green light showing it in use, but my resolution would only be set at 800x600 and couldnt be set to anything higher. if i would disable them, then restart, all would be fine. I'd have the 1048x700 something ( i cant remmeber the y and x ), but i would have no effects. I would use EnvyNG to remove drivers. then boot ubunut into recovery mode. fix the package and repare my x server thing, and reboot into failsafe gnome. then use EnvyNG to autodetect my graphics hardware and install the necessary drivers. after that i would reboot into gnome but get the white screen of death. and failsafe would have no effects. i was wondering what the heck the deal is. and if i should use these two tutorials i found to use the open source driver.

the tutorials are here...

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/RadeonXpress

I run Fedora 9 Sulphur and I recently had to enter a competition that required me to compile a windows binary for my applications. Being the Linux fanatic I am I don't do windows and I really didn't want to have to install windows on one of my machines. I decided the best option was to go with virtualisation,  but I wanted to do so while staying open source. So I stumbled across a nice program called Virtual box! I installed the open source version from www.virtualbox.org (don't worry Linux is Linux is Linux so it works on Ubuntu). I installed the .rpm for Ubuntians it will be .deb after I installed it I booted into Virtual box then went to:

system->Administrator->users and groups

found vboxuser under the groups tab and added myself to the group. Don't add root, add your user (you could add root if you knew what you were doing). Now click new follow the steps set up a virtual hard drive make sure you say your installed windows xp it will ask you to put the CD in the optical drive or it will ask you to browse for the legal .iso file. From here on in its the same as a regular xp install and when its done you have windows installed with a dynamic virtual disk.

Note there are some really cool features of virtual box such as intergration etc, so in theory it would be possible to run ubuntu and fedora with one running gnome and the other kde :D.