Migrating from WinXP Pro to Ubuntu 10.10

[Richard Owlett]

*CAVEAT LECTOR*
I'm responding in reverse chronological order due to the large 
number of links and/or keywords received. Thanks - my cup 
overfloweth ;!

Ric Moore wrote:
> On Fri, 2010-10-15 at 19:25 -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
>> Tony Pursell wrote:
>>> On Fri, 2010-10-15 at 19:17 +0100, Joao Ferreira gmail wrote:
>>>> On Fri, 2010-10-15 at 11:48 -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
>> [SNIP]
>>>>
>>>> fireup a command line console and type "sudo synaptic" and search what
>>>> you need....
>>>>
>>>
>>> Shouldn't we be advising people to use Software centre these days?
>>
>> To which Jordon Bedwell replied:
>>>
>>> You part the software centre brigade?
>>>
>>
>> As the OP, I appreciate knowing what breath of choices exist. My
>> goal is advancing to command line -- back to where I was with
>> CPM80. But in the interest of immediately "getting things done",
>> is "Software centre" a GUI?
>
> I had an Imsai VDP-80 with two 8" floppies, in my CP/M machine
> collection.

IIRC I was post Altair &/or Imsai. Had S100 back-plane, Z80 CPU, 
  16k BYTE ram and dual 8" floppy. Later a Kaypro10.


> Remember Irv Hoff and IMP?
> http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Comp/comp.os.cpm/2008-06/msg00124.html

No. was involved with a Washington DC BBS supporting the deaf 
community. It used RBBS IIRC.

>
> Most of us die-hards prefer synaptic, for getting things done. lots of
> text information within the gui. Not sure at all about the "Software
> Centre". Enjoy Linux! It's CP/M on greased rails. :) Ric
>

Among you, Mr. Bedwell, Mr. Ferreira, and Mr.Pursell - I'm now 
totally confuzed ;/

Although advised to 'fireup a command line console and type "sudo 
synaptic" ', is "synaptic" a GUI? Is it part of "Live CD" &/or 
USB created from it?

After launching a "live" "???" of Ubuntu 10.10 [it's on USB 
drive] what am I launching when clicking leftmost item in menu bar?