Use Applications → Add/Remove to install applications from Ubuntu’s software library, or to remove existing applications from your computer. Use System → Administration → Synaptic Package Manager for more advanced tasks.

Settings that affect everyone who uses Ubuntu on this computer are found in System → Administration. Settings that just affect you are accessed from System → Preferences.

To manage the files and folders on your computer, start by choosing an item from the Places menu.

Use Places for easy access to commonly-used folders. Firefox has Bookmarks, which are equivalent to Favorites in Internet Explorer.

You can use Firefox to search the Web and visit Web sites: Applications → Internet → Firefox Web Browser.

To close all your programs and leave the computer ready for someone else to log in, choose System → Quit, then Log Out.

Equivalent items to those in the “My Computer” window are found in various places in Ubuntu.

Inside your home folder (Places → Home Folder), you can arrange documents and other files in whatever folders you wish.

Open System → Administration → Printing to set up printers. Ubuntu does not support faxing.

The Trash works much the same way as the Recycle Bin. The Trash is almost always at the bottom right corner of the screen.

To put your computer into a power-saving mode until you resume using it, choose System → Quit, then Suspend or Hibernate. (Hibernate requires no power at all, but is slower, and is not available on some types of computer.)

The three menus at the top left of the screen — Applications, Places, and System — contain most of the same things as the Start menu in Windows.

To see or halt currently running programs, or to track processor and memory usage, choose System → Administration → System Monitor.

Programs that play music and movies, and rip music CDs, are available from Applications → Sound & Video.

To check for updates to Ubuntu, open System → Administration → Ubuntu Update Manager.