wine kinda sucks though, here's a link to all the software you can install on ubuntu:
terminal is in main menu and I think dev. or something, or it's next to firefox on the menu bar
http://packages.debian.org/stable/

debian=the OS ubuntu is based on

to install this software locate a package you want and open terminal

once in terminal type "sudo su" without the quotes and it will ask you for your password, type it in, now you are "root"
then apt-get install package name

or to not use sudo su in the beginning type sudo apt-get install package

for example:

xchat is a popular IRC client for debian (ie ubuntu) so to install it:

sudo apt-get install xchat

it will do everything for you!

any help just PM me