Linux-a few programs needed

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have gone back to linux after a few years break-due to becoming a laptop only user.
yesterday, install-dual booted latest version of xubuntu [because Xfce is awesome],and unlike what was thinking would happen-there was not one problem with compatibility-this had been the main reason for avoiding installing on the laptops.
everything worked perfectly,no drivers needed.


does anyone know of a:
*fully GUI based text to speech program for linux,am communicate using TTS on the laptop and dont want to have to constantly boot into vista for JTalk.
have had a look around already,and tried installing eSpeak,but cant find it,so assuming its CLI based.

*a good music/mp3 player that will work in xubuntu.

*how to get youtube working-eg,which flash is it that needs downloading exactly? cant seem to find it on synaptic p/m.

*anything good and gui based worth installing [have installed open office and a few games].
-also,need to be able to get them all through synaptic p/m,manual installing and compiling etc is beyond skills.


also-does anyone play tremulous?
does it have an option for bots,or some sort of single player? if not does anyone [those new to it especially] want to have a WP only game? no idea how to set one up either being completely new to online gaming,but made a server before just so could explore the game a bit.

MP3-Player:
A good idea is mplayer (shall come with ubuntu, is part of the Debian-distribution)

Flash:
More difficult. Goto Adobe's webpage: you can download the deb-installation-file (currently install_flash_player_10_linux.deb). Download the file into a temporary directory (e.g. ~/TempInstall). Open a shell and go into this directory ("$cd ~ ~/TempInstall"). Became root ("$su" - will ask for root-password) and call the debian-manager for single packages ($dpkg -i install_flash_player_10_linux.deb). This shall install the adobe-flashplayer.

I installed flash from the tar.gz-file, therefore I am not certain that dpkg will also installs the plugins for browsers. If not not, you have to install those manually, by creating a symbolic link from the plugin-directory to the location of the flashplayer.

I listen to music in Xubuntu with totem or mpg321 / ogg123 / flac123. No idea for the Text to Speech software (I remember hearing that festival does it on the CLI, but can't remember...).

Other things, I can recomend are inkscape (for editing vector graphics, OODraw is rather clumsy for that), Dia (for creating UML and ER diagrams. If this sounds greek to you, you do not need it) and a good jabber and IRC client. I use many CLI programs, but I think mcabber and irssi are sufficiently user-friendly even for normal people.

You can just double click a .deb file Dussel. Then hit the install button.

For music playing, I second mplayer as a good choice. Rhythmbox is not bad either.

Flash will depend on whether you have 32 or 64 bit Xubuntu. Fortunately, for 64-bit users, someone made it easy for us. Just copy-and-paste the two commands, and it should work. If you're on 32-bit, I think just downloading the package from Adobe's website should work, but I'm not sure as I've never used 32-bit Linux.

festival is a text to speech program or screader. screader reads what on the screen, it's like festival.