What are some essential applications to have for Ubuntu?

Here are som suggestions:

http://lifehacker.com/software/ubuntu/hack-attack-top-10-ubuntu-apps-and-tweaks-195437.php

http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006/06/26/essentials-2006

Thanks :) I’ll look into those links!

My pleasure :-)

When looking for good programs I usually turn to lifehacker.com or downloadsquad.com – both of them top quality applikation centered blogs and highly recommended.

Depends on what he likes doing, most standard use cases come by default ;-)

As for games, I’ve taken a great liking of Hedgewars (Worms-like), Frets on Fire (Guitar Hero-like, using your keyboard as a guitar – if it sounds silly, just give it a try :P) and Warzone 2100 (RTS game). You might have to find some of them on GetDeb.net or the respective websites.

All of these are good suggestions; I’ll let him know about these places.

Opera

gnome-do, amarok, avant-window-navigator and adobe air (for twhirl (twitter) ). tilda is pretty pimp after you get into using the command line.

Screenlets – widgets for the desktop
Gwibber – Twitter/Identi.ca/Facebook/RSS etc client
Emesene – Client for MSN messaging service
TomBoy – note system
Incollector – program for collecting bits of different information
Conduit – app for syncing information between facebook, desktop, picasa and so on.
Banshee – media player
Ubuntu tweak – tweak your system.