So, 
after the “Ubuntu installation” dust is settling, it’s time to add some ‘candy’ to your desktop. After all, the default Gnome docks look quite boring.
– You can look for Themes and that over at Art at Gnome or GnomeLook. A word of caution: Gnome is not Windows. To install a theme, you download the tar/files, go to System | Preferences | Appearance -> Install. I recommend downloading the ClearLooks Themes (both Application and Window Border themes).
– The next thing is to install AWN, or, the Avant Window Navigator. It’s a sort of Leopard-like Dock and it works seamless with Compiz/Beryl. The good news is that Hardy includes AWN. The bad news is that Hardy doesn’t include the core set of applets. So, include the following lines to Software Sources:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/awn-testing/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/awn-testing/ubuntu hardy main
Then, open up a terminal (you can also use the Synaptic Manager) and enter:
sudo apt-get install awn-manager-trunk awn-extras-applets-trunk
AWN will be installed in your Applications Menu. Additionally, the AWN manager will be installed in your System menu. Before you start up AWN, remove the bottom panel first (you don’t need that one anymore). Currently there are 10 to 15 applets available: You can obviously write your own applets too.
Earlier, I downloaded the trunk of the latest Banshee sources: I’ve opted to discard of RhythmBox Music Player only because Banshee allows the use of bookmarks, something I found handy while downloading and listening to the several CBC and PBS podcasts. The good thing is that most of Banshee’s dependencies (the libraries, the libraries) are included in Hardy (except for the latest GDK/GTK libs).