Opening a terminal
When you use Nautilus (the file manager used by GNOME Ubuntu), it is sometimes convenient to open a terminal directly to a particular directory.
It is quite possible. Do: sudo aptitude install nautilus-open-terminal
(It is necessary to reloguer).
You can now open a terminal by right clicking on a file "Open in Terminal":
or open the current folder in a terminal by going to the menu "File"> "Open with.