A friend and I just installed Ubuntu on my friends laptop, and we wanna get to customizing and downloading right away. Can you guys give us some links to must have skins, icon packs, and apps for Ubuntu? We are really just experimenting right now, so anything you guys think would be cool to have, link to please. 
Thanks in advance.
/http://browse.deviantart.com/customization/skins/linuxutil/gnome/gtk2/
If you want the best apps that were voted in by the community, use the built in application GUI to install software 
. It features ratings, and download popularity.
I'd recommend Lokheed's stuff (lokheed.deviantart.com). VERY great work, some of the most popular themes available. Also runs on GTK and Metacity, thank god, I'm too lazy/a noob to install and use other theme engines XD
You want compiz fusion and the pixmap gtk engine, then worry bout all the rest!
Of course, in the update manager, you now can upgrade to 7.10 Gusty Gibbon .
Yeah, a good idea would be to upgrade to Gutsy Gibbon, with Compiz Fusion enabled by default, it'll save you all the pain of installation and such. Also, the apps have a ton of bug fixes as well.
Are all these replies assuming that the laptop will be connected to the internet and able to access pages straight away after installation of Ubuntu, or are the programs meant to be burnt from another computer first?
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