Linux comes in all shapes and sizes...from the full-blown app-heavy distros like Fedora and Ubuntu, to the lean and mean distros such as Puppy and Damn Small Linux.

Whatever the size of the distribution, there are always going to be applications that you will want to download and install, depending on your needs. These can be essential apps, like Skype, Flash, or Thunderbird, or not-so-important-yet-fun apps like Google Earth, VirtualBox, and VLC.