Assuming you have the Base GIS stack installed, and you have a shiny Ubuntu desktop, then you might as well go ahead and install some more stuff.
QGIS is a nice desktop app. Easily view/edit your vector and raster data, including data stored in PostGIS. Also some nice GRASS integration, not to mention the new python scripting.
- Modify your /etc/apt/sources.list and put in the following line near the end
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/timlinux/ubuntu gutsy main
- run the following to update your sources list and install QGIS
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install qgis
- Now QGIS will get nicely updated whenever you run your general Ubuntu updates
- Grass is awesome, and does all the analysis you want, though it has a bad reputation for user-friendliness. Now its actually got a nice UI, but we'll these instructions are for accessing it's functionality via QGIS anyway. After installing QGIS, just install the grass plugin:
sudo apt-get install qgis-plugin-grass
- That was easy. Now you have access to all the GRASS kernel functions, with a nice UI. Enjoy!
