Suggest best ways to configure Ubuntu on a personal PC

"ubuntuguidedotorg has detailed instructions to set up Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty for all kinds of different use cases.

I remember having used this guide to set up Ubuntu 8.04, so I think they will always refer to the latest official version."

"Without going into details on each, here are the programs I install on every Linux system I put together. Many are cross-platform, but they are absolutely required for my home Linux systems (PC or laptop):

ClamAV for anti-virus
IpTables for firewalling
Firefox for browsing (or Opera
Thunderbird for e-mail
VirtualBox for running Virtual Machines
Songbird for syncing an iPod (not great, but works)
Amarok is another decent player if you don't mind installing KDE
Conky for desktop monitoring of your system (e.g. processes, CPU temps, system load, etc.)
Eclipse for a fantastic IDE (you can use a number of different flavors, including Eclipse CDT for C/C++, Apatana for web-based development, PyDev for Python, the list goes on...)
Nitrogen for a lightweight background browser
Subversion for source control
Zim is a neat wiki-based desktop text-editor (great for taking notes)
FreeMind is a great mind-mapping tool
Openbox for an alternative window manager (rather than Gnome or KDE) -- works great with Conky and tint2

The list definitely goes on, and I apologize for not providing more information regarding each (configuration and whatnot). The links, however, should get you started."