In carrying out more sophisticated work on audio, video, or graphics, the key problem with Windows is that very little good free software is available. Downloading a 'pirate' version of Photoshop or other such applications has a high risk of exposing the user to malware such as rootkits, viruses, or spyware.

Having made the transition for virtually all of my personal computing needs to using Ubuntu, the following are notes & scripts to quickly add on to a default Ubuntu install the required components for standard use, and then audio use - eg for WN:AUDIO.

You are strongly recommended to boot your computer from an Ubuntu Live CD; test graphics and audio; verify your Internet connection can be established (use a throwaway password if asked to set up a keyring for WiFi access); and try some of the as-standard graphics tools such as the GiMP (a free alternative to Photoshop).

If this all works, you can install. You may need to use additional tools (such as Partition Magic) to make space on the disk for Ubuntu. If you return to Windows and do so, then again boot into the live-CD environment and install from there.

The two scripts below can be cut and pasted into a terminal session. Use Applications->Accessories->Terminal. A reboot is likely required after each. It is strongly recommended that a completely separate "regular" user and a "audio" user be created; do not configure Skype or any other applications that require nonstandard setup under the audio user. This can break the realtime audio console, which should be avoided with the standard user.

Standard 'useful' setup

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This script is for use when Ubuntu has been installed on a machine from the standard bootable CD.

It assumes that all non-free repositories have already been enabled (System->Administration->Software sources), partner repositories have been enabled, security updates set to install without confirmation, and then Internet access enabled.

##
## Add Medibuntu repository
##
sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/$(lsb_release -cs).list --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list && sudo apt-get -q update && sudo apt-get --yes -q --allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get -q update
##
## Add usually needed packages
##
sudo apt-get install googleearth w32codecs non-free-codecs libdvdcss2 mplayer mozilla-mplayer flashplugin-nonfree vlc wine pavucontrol ubuntustudio-wallpapers skype libdvdcss paprefs

Ubuntu Studio components

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Code to add getdeb repository untested! If fails, manually add to sources.

##
## Add realtime/studio packages
##
echo "http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs)-getdeb apps  MUST BE ADDED TO SOFTWARE SOURCES!"
sudo wget -q -O- http://archive.getdeb.net/getdeb-archive.key | sudo apt-key add - && apt-get update
##
sudo apt-get install linux-rt ubuntustudio-menu ubuntustudio-audio ubuntustudio-audio-plugins ubuntustudio-sounds rosegarden
##
## Set user group sound...
##
sudo echo '@sound   -  rtprio      99' >> /etc/security/limits.conf
sudo echo '@sound   -  memlock 512000' >> /etc/security/limits.conf
sudo echo '@sound   - nice        -10' >> /etc/security/limits.conf
##
## Build IDJC
##
sudo apt-get install libc6-dev libjack-dev jackd libvorbis-dev libsamplerate0-dev libsndfile1-dev python-gtk2-dev libmad0-dev libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libmp3lame-dev libmp4v2-dev flac vorbis-tools python-eyed3 libspeex-dev python-mutagen
##
wget http://web.bethere.co.uk/idjc/download/idjc-0.8.0.tar.gz
##
tar xzvf idjc-0.8.0.tar.gz
##
##Compile...
##
cd idjc-0.8.0
./configure CFLAGS="-O2"
make
sudo make install