In our last Cool Tools, we covered what to do when we run into trouble with our new Linux installs. Knowing that, we're ready to try adding new programs and updating our old ones.

If you're been following along from the beginning of this series, you're probably running Linux Mint, in which case you may have noticed an orange box in the tray on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. That box indicates there are system updates available for your Linux Mint system. Click on that box and enter your administrator password, and you'll be able to review and install those updates. As with most operating system updates, you probably shouldn't deselect any of them unless you know what you're doing. Mint is based on Ubuntu, and those guys are pretty careful about pushing updates that are necessary for security and stability reasons. You may be required to reboot afterward, though you'll find this happens much more rarely than with Windows. To add software to your system, your one-stop shop is Synaptics Package Manager. (Advanced users may just want to note that Mint, like Ubuntu, uses the Debian apt-get manager, and just skip this altogether.) You'll find Synaptics Package Manager by clicking on the Install Software link under System in your Mint menu. Once open, you'll see a category section on the left (the categorization can be changed by clicking the buttons at the bottom of that column), and a whole slew of programs on the right. The sheer number of available programs can be a bit overwhelming. Even after you use the Search function by clicking on the Search button at the top of the window, you can get back multiple programs to perform the same task. The lower-right-hand window will give you a clearer description of what each program does; if you still can't determine what it is you need, Google is your friend -- you can see which programs fit your needs better, or are better supported or more recently updated. If you're still not sure, head back to your friendly Linux forums (as detailed in the previous post) and ask. Give a description of what you're looking to do, and they'll point you to the application that is best suited to your purposes. Often you'll find that there are, indeed, multiple applications for the same task, at which point you can pick and choose your favorite. Next week we'll look at installing some specific programs, including the core statistics programs we'll be using in our toolkit. It's a can't-miss!