I wanted to set up an environment for anonymous internet browsing and found it devastatingly simple in Ubuntu 7.10. Just install Tor, Privoxy, and a Firefox extension.

Install Tor and Privoxy from command line:

sudo apt-get install tor privoxy

Open Privoxy config file:

sudo gedit /etc/privoxy/config

Add this line to end of the file and save:

forward-socks4a / localhost:9050 .

Start both services:

sudo /etc/init.d/tor start
sudo /etc/init.d/privoxy start

Now you can install the Tor Button Firefox extension to turn anonymous browsing on and off with the push of a button. More details (like disabling logs) and things you can do with Tor in Ubuntu here.