By the way, I use Ubuntu at home exclusively so if you have any questions I might be able to help.

Here's a couple right off the bat, Gud -- what's the story on Internet security. Are all my back doors wide open right now, or is Ubuntu pretty secure right out of the box? Do I need to install a firewall and virus protection or anything like that?

In general, are there any particular apps, system thingies or other gewgaws you particularly like and recommend/hat and discourage? Just an initial look at the repositories reveals that, yes indeed, there's a kerjillion free programs out there for me to use, should I so choose.

With Internet security I would say it depends on your setup. Is your computer connected directly to the Internet or is it connected through a router?

If it is behind a router, then you really don't need anything. If it isn't, then there a couple of things I would suggest but the important one is a good password.

For what to install, I would check out this webpage... [link]

There is information about adding all the multimedia stuff that doesn't get installed automatically. Other applications would depend on what you want to do. I use the default applications for the basic stuff. OpenOffice for Word Processing/Speadsheet/Diagrams, Firefox for Web browsing. I installed Thunderbird for E-mail instead of the default Evolution. I would recommend k3b for burning CDs.

I have a lot of stuff installed for software development and managing video and audio but that may not be what you are looking for.

Is your computer connected directly to the Internet or is it connected through a router?

It is, in fact, behind two routers. Or, a router and a DSL modem, actually.

but the important one is a good password.

I usually have pretty good passwords -- long strings including both letters and numbers, with odd capitalization, and not related to any direct personal information. Actually some of my passwords are weird references to obscure things in unfinished stories that have never seen anything but the inside of one of my notebooks or been graced by eyeballs other than my own. The rest are meaningless strings I thought up and burned into my memory. Probably my only downside is needing to change them more frequently, but they're pretty comfortable and I'm a creature of comforts.

But I'm also behind a router.

For what to install, I would check out this webpage... [link]

There is information about adding all the multimedia stuff that doesn't get installed automatically.

Good, that's mostly what I'm looking for. I could tell just by looking at the user documentation that I was missing some useful items, but the platform does seem to come with most things I'll need here. I don't really intend to do anything software or development oriented here, so I think that page probably covers most of what I'm looking for.

And I'm enjoying looking through the game repositories. Plenty to keep me entertained.

I trust my router's firewall, and you're probably okay for normal home internet use if you're behind a router. I'd set up a firewall if I were using my box as any kind of server, but I'm fairly lazy about doing it before then: most of the exploits that hit PC's are designed to attack windows vulnerabilities. If you're feeling less foolhardy than I, you have a hardcore firewall called IPTables installed by default, but it's basically sitting there for now.

Antivirus is unnecessary.

(Note that I don't mean that nothing can happen. Just that the risks are vastly lower, to the point where "I don't bother" is a reasonable response where I'd never dream of such a thing on Windows.)

As for apps, you've probably got a ton of stuff already if you went with the default install (in fact, one of the reasons I picked xubuntu over the standard version is that it installs so much *less* stuff). The one place where I think Ubuntu is really weak out of the box is multimedia stuff -- a lot of very standard things (Java, Flash, mp3's) are on one restricted license or another, so they aren't installed as part of the base system. Grab EasyUbuntu [link] instead of hunting them all down.

(okay, I spent way too long on that post, as I was essentially being disturbingly x-posty with Gud but 20 minutes later...)

Also, my internet conenction feels considerably slower. I'm not sure what's causing it, but any page I load seems to be taking three or four times longer to load than normal (the advantage to generally cruising a very small, select group of Internet sites -- you get a very good feel for average load times).

Grab EasyUbuntu [link] instead of hunting them all down.

Oh sure, do it the easy way. If EasyUbuntu has a problem (which it probably won't) then that web page will help you install everything old-school.

I would concur with amych that you don't need to worry about security if you are behind a firewall. Even if you aren't I'm not sure that Ubuntu has much in the way of open ports by default.

I set up a new user and I've got my right-click and File back. I'm running a virus check to see if any of the freedup user specific files might be screwed, but I think I'm OK. I just need to set up my IE favorites again

Not sure about the network speed issue. Is it wired or wireless? If it is wireless, then it might be a driver problem (wireless can be troublesome due to lack of support from hardware vendors). If it is wired, then I'm not sure what is going on.

It's wired. It's still performing DSLish speed, faster than dialup (more or less -- B.org loads pretty fast under any circumstances), but it's noticeably slower than it was under my Windows environment.

Also, I downloaded and installed EasyUbuntu, and the download page begged me to run two command strings after it was installed. I do that from the terminal, yes? (which is what I did, and it seemed to do useful things, and not make the machine explode)

it seemed to do useful things, and not make the machine explode

Excellent work, young Jedi! Learn to love the terminal.