Synaptic is an advanced package management application that can install and remove every package available to your system. The interface is graphical like Add/Remove Applications but a lot more information is presented to the user, which means that Synaptic gives you complete control over the package management of your system.

To launch Synaptic, choose System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager on the desktop menu system.

The Synaptic screen is divided up into four sections, the two most important being the package categories on the left side, and the packages on the right.

To install packages, just choose the category, find the package name in the list, right click on it and choose "Mark this package for installation". Once you are satisfied with your selections click Apply on the top button bar. Synaptic will then download and install the required packages from the online repositories and/or from your Ubuntu installation CD.

Alternatively you can click the Search tool bar button, enter the package name or a short search term in the search text field and click the Search button.

Synaptic will now show you a much shorter list from which to select your application for installation. This is usually much easier than having to look through the very long list of applications on your own.