Description

Introduction
This book was born out of an experiment carried out when Ubuntu
6.06 was released in 2006. Back then Ubuntu was rougher around the
edges than it is today. Getting MP3 files to play took some effort. Only
a handful of wifi cards worked out of the box and the rest had to be
wrangled into working.
So I wrote 25 tips to get Ubuntu working the way I felt it should. I also
looked at some cool things that could be done with Ubuntu—the kind
of things that wowed people passing by your computer. Everything was
kept simple because I knew a high proportion of Ubuntu users had
switched from Windows, where things were done differently. Many of
the tips were pulled from my award-winning book, Beginning Ubuntu
Linux.
I put the tips on my website and then posted a link to the page on the
Digg.com social networking website. Within hours it was in the top 10
links for that day. My site was actually knocked offline by the sheer
volume of visitors.
The popularity of the tips was partly because Ubuntu has always been
popular with the Digg.com crowd, but there was a more important reason.
People wanted Ubuntu to "just work". They brought with them the
expectations of Windows users. They didn’t want to make any compromises,
either in terms of usability or function. And they wanted to learn
how Ubuntu worked. They wanted that above all, in fact.
Ubuntu Kung Fu is for those people, and others like them. It’s an Ubuntu
book for the rest of us.
In its pages you’ll find over 300 tips that:
1. Make Ubuntu more usable for newcomers and experienced users
alike;
2. Point out cool and often extraordinary things that Ubuntu can do;
3. Show how Ubuntu can be fun.
Along the way you’ll pick up many skills that will make you a more
proficient Ubuntu user.
If you’d like to share some of the tips from this book on your blog
then feel free. I’m not sure my publishers will be too happy if you take
liberties, but sharing a handful of tips you’ve found useful with others
can only be a good thing. If you do, it would be great if you could link to
http://www.ubuntukungfu.org, the community site that partners this book
(if you’re feeling generous, you might also link to the book’s official
webpage—http://pragprog.com/titles/ktuk).