If you are a Windows user making a transition to the Ubuntu environment, there are two issues that you will face – 1. the user experience will seem a little alien and 2. though you will get a host of Ubuntu benefits, you will also lose out on some of the Windows niceties. Ubuntu itself come with a deluge of free apps. However, still, they miss here and there, just a tad bit. There’s where this list of other apps might come in handy. Following are, therefore, 5 free apps that are designed make your Window to Ubuntu transition seamless.

1. Beryl, Have the Windows feel on your Ubuntu: If you are using Ubuntu for the first time, there is a high chance that you might feel a bit lost in the super-clean Ubuntu interface (unless that was the prime reason you decided to make the shift in the first place anyway). In that case, the Beryl app gives you a familiar Vista-ish UI to navigate through the Ubuntu interface. That’s a cool way to get the hang of the Ubuntu environment before you grab the penguin by its fins.

2. Beagle, Search and Organize: The free Beagle app for Ubuntu does beat its trumpet to find and index all your staff on your Ubuntu run system. The types of files it finds and indexes include documents, emails and attachments, web history, notes, music, images, source codes … you name it, you have it. In essence it will find your staff from these myriad set of documents – which might translate, finding an email through the author name, or a music file through the artist name.

3. Flash, Getting involved: One feature you will badly miss through a transition from Windows to Ubuntu is the lack of a Flash player. However, that problem has been rectified, straight from the Adobe stable. What do you have to do? Nothing? Just follow the link and choose your operating system from the dropdown. Another missing link is the absence of the Gmail notifier. That gap, however, have been filled by the free system tray app CheckGmail which checks your gmail account and notifies you about the latest activities in your account through an animated pop-up (optional).

4. GIMP, Get started on image editing: Or the GNU Image Manipulator Program is the best free alternative for the super cool (and mighty expensive) Photoshop for Ubuntu users . GIMP is no Photoshop, but does standard image retouching, image composition and image authoring tasks quite well. It also recently released an animation package. It is available in multiple packages and does help you quite a lot, unless you are looking to create a National Geographic award winning piece.

5. GNOMEBREAKER, Burning Media: This app lets you burn your to CD/DVD from your Ubuntu.