Ask Slashdot: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Desktop Default Application Survey

Dustin Kirkland, Ubuntu Product and Strategy at Canonical, writes: Howdy all- Back in March, we asked the HackerNews community, "What do you want to see in Ubuntu 17.10?": https://ubu.one/AskHN. A passionate discussion ensued, the results of which are distilled into this post: http://ubu.one/thankHN. In fact, you can check that link, http://bit.ly/thankHN and see our progress so far this cycle. We already have a beta code in 17.10 available for your testing for several of those:

- GNOME replaced Unity
- Bluetooth improvements with a new BlueZ
- Switched to libinput
- 4K/Multimonitor/HiDPI improvements
- Upgraded to Network Manager 1.8
- New Subiquity server installer
- Minimal images (36MB, 18% smaller)

And several others have excellent work in progress, and will be complete by 17.10:

- Autoremove old kernels from /boot
- EXT4 encryption with fscrypt
- Better GPU/CUDA support

In summary -- your feedback matters! There are hundreds of engineers and designers working for *you* to continue making Ubuntu amazing! Along with the switch from Unity to GNOME, we're also reviewing some of the desktop applications we package and ship in Ubuntu. We're looking to crowdsource input on your favorite Linux applications across a broad set of classic desktop functionality. We invite you to contribute by listing the applications you find most useful in Linux in order of preference.

Click through for info on how to contribute. To help us parse your input, please copy and paste the following bullets with your preferred apps in Linux desktop environments. You're welcome to suggest multiple apps, please just order them prioritized (e.g. Web Browser: Firefox, Chrome, Chromium). If some of your functionality has moved entirely to the web, please note that too (e.g. Email Client: Gmail web, Office Suite: Office360 web). If the software isn't free/open source, please note that (e.g. Music Player: Spotify client non-free). If I've missed a category, please add it in the same format. If your favorites aren't packaged for Ubuntu yet, please let us know, as we're creating hundreds of new snap packages for Ubuntu desktop applications, and we're keen to learn what key snaps we're missing.

• Web Browser: ???
• Email Client: ???
• Terminal: ???
• IDE: ???
• File manager: ???
• Basic Text Editor: ???
• IRC/Messaging Client: ???
• PDF Reader: ???
• Office Suite: ???
• Calendar: ???
• Video Player: ???
• Music Player: ???
• Photo Viewer: ???
• Screen recording: ???

In the interest of opening this survey as widely as possible, we've cross-posted this thread to HackerNews, Reddit, and Slashdot. We very much look forward to another friendly, energetic, collaborative discussion. Thank you! @DustinKirkland On behalf of @Canonical and @Ubuntu

Comments

My Ubuntu Gripe List

[damn_registrars]

Two things really grind my gears with the version of (K)Ubuntu (16.04.2 LTS) that I currently run:

• CUPS crashes randomly. Yes, I've updated it since installing and it still crashes randomly. Yes, I've checked the logs and it logs nothing at all. My solution is to set up a cron job that runs every 10 minutes to restart it, which is tolerable but shouldn't be necessary. This problem did not exist in previous versions.
• Sleeping my laptop locks a config file and prevents me from changing monitors until I move .config, .local, and .kde directories. I have not been able to find the locked file. Why is this important? Because I use a docking station at work but some times bring my work home where I use a different monitor configuration.

There are other less dramatic problems I've run into, but these are the two that eat the most of my time. Other than that Ubuntu has been a real pleasure.

Re:My Ubuntu Gripe List

[mjwx]

I fell of Ubuntu when they moved the X, + and - buttons over to the wrong (left hand) side of the windows.

I've switched to Linux Mint and never looked back. So...

Dearest Ubuntu,
if you want to get users back, move the buttons back to the correct side.

Re:My Ubuntu Gripe List

[Hognoxious]

Retarded though that is, isn't that in the options somewhere? I think in Gnome you can even switch the order somehow, so close is between minimise and maximise, though why anyone would want to is anybody's guess. Is it like that on Macs?

I vaguely remember accidentally setting it and thinking "this totally fucking sucks" then switching it back and nearly forgetting about it.

Re:My Ubuntu Gripe List

[Nunya666]

I fell of Ubuntu when they moved the X, + and - buttons over to the wrong (left hand) side of the windows.

One of the best things about Linux is also one of its downfalls: choices. If you don't like something about Linux, just change it. Select (or install) a different one, no matter what "it" is that bothers you, or you don't like the options, or you don't like the UI, or whatever. Those choices are also its downfall because new users don't know which they need, or why they would want one vs. another.

In your specific example, those buttons are controlled by an app called the Window Manager. It lets you easily change which ones appear, their location, and their color/graphic theme.

Wow.

[Feyshtey]

In other news, /. ends tradition of summaries and posts entire encyclopedia to front page.

bring ifconfig back

[TheGratefulNet]

many of us have typed 'ifconfig' for decades. its sad to see a perfectly good command go away. yes, I know I can re-add it back, but taking it away because its not 100% perfect was just stupid.

CD burning?

[jandrese]

Would it be possible to get a CD burner built into the file manager again by default? The people who need it the most are people without internet access, and the dependency tree for brasero makes it a hassle to install offline.

Re:CD burning?

[l20502]

I suggest Xfburn, not many dependencies, runs fine on early 2000 hardware and I've never had issues with it, unlike brasero.

Re:CD burning?

[thegarbz]

What is a CD burner? ;-)

Time to update my Buzzword Bingo card

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> crowdsource input

Why can't you just say "survey"?

On second thought, why can't you just post this on some crappy survey site and point anyone who cares to it instead of dropping a wall of text here?

Re:Time to update my Buzzword Bingo card

[thegreatbob]

All too many; we need people that are willing to expound upon their reasoning why. If enough people raise a significant, intelligent stink about it, it has a much better chance of getting ... resolved. To me, "eggs in one basket", the lead dev's user-hostility and apparent self-absorption, poor service start checking (fails to error out just because an old instance of the process is still running, context: debian SSH), damaged/broken logging, and, finally, the terrific bugs are all great reasons to have stayed the course with (insert something that isn't systemd).

seriously

[Malenx]

WTF

Autoremove old kernels from /boot

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Because fallback kernels are for pussies, right?

Re:Autoremove old kernels from /boot

[tbannist]

Do you really need to have 16 fallback kernels?

Re:Autoremove old kernels from /boot

[Gavagai80]

I can see the value to keeping one fallback kernel. I can't see the value to keeping a half dozen of them.

Re:Autoremove old kernels from /boot

[cellocgw]

Do you really need to have 16 fallback kernels?

64k[ernels] should be enough for anyone.

Ahhhh, c'mon: you knew someone was going to go there.

Thanks For Asking

[Tenebrousedge]

Thanks for doing this, and thanks for doing this in this way. I appreciate especially the idea that this place has any currency :)

Request for Ubuntu 18

[Anonymous Coward]

Remove systemd

In & out

[gti_guy]

In with MATE and out the systemd, Otherwise all my new boxes get Devuan!

Re:In & out

[thegreatbob]

Second; this is basically what it would take to get me recommending Ubuntu in addition to Mint for average users. Remember, the techie crowd is largely the bunch that winds up fixing stuff for family/friends using it, so making it less hostile to the grey-beards would be nice.

Re:survey response

[Anonymous Coward]

Web Browser: emacs
Email Client: emacs
Terminal: emacs
IDE: emacs
File manager: emacs
Basic Text Editor: vim
IRC/Messaging Client: emacs
PDF Reader: emacs
Office Suite: emacs
Calendar: emacs
Video Player: emacs
Music Player: emacs
Photo Viewer: emacs
Screen recording: emacs

Drop GNOME3 and go with Mate or Cinnamon instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Gnome 3 is a joke made by self-appointed user experts who have no eye for how a user interface should wok. Gnome 3 is the same junk like Unity and Windows 8 where they tried to shove a tablet interface onto desktop users that like to use a real mouse and keyboard and do not have a touch screen.

I say drop the horrible Gnome 3 and use Mate or Cinnamon instead.

By the way, ever since Gnome 3 / Unity because the standard on many distros, I no longer felt the inclination to use Linux anymore. I felt that Ubuntu, Fedora, and others have abandoned their existing user base. And they do not care what their users think either.

Microsoft realized they made a mistake with Windows 8.0/8.1 and came out with Windows 10.

I wish the Gnome 3 developers would be enlightened too...

Basic Text Editor: ???

[Albanach]

Basic Text Editor: ???

I'm glad someone is finally asking this question. It's a debate that's long overdue in the *nix community and I can't wait to hear a decisive answer to a question that's bothered me for years.

Re:Basic Text Editor: ???

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> Text Editor...a debate that's long overdue in the *nix community

Winner: most subtle troll on the board today.

Why the fuck did eth0 become enp0s19?!

[Anonymous Coward]

My computer has one Ethernet port. In pre-systemd versions of Ubuntu, it would show up in ifconfig as "eth0". That makes perfect sense to me. "Eth" appears to be short for "Ethernet", and the "0" indicates it's the first of possibly many Ethernet ports.

Then I upgraded to Ubuntu 16.04, which as I understand it uses systemd. For some reason, ifconfig started showing the one and only Ethernet port on my system as something like "enp0s19". Where the fuck does that come from?! I have one Ethernet port. So why the fuck is it mentioning a number close to 20?!

Of course, things went down hill after that. I ran into so many problems with systemd breaking in weird and unexpected ways. I spent more time on my phone trying to search for ways to fix systemd problems than I ever spent actually using that Linux installation.

After a couple of days I gave up. I installed FreeBSD, and I haven't looked back. It gives me all of the benefits of Ubuntu, but without the downsides. My Ethernet port now shows up in ifconfig as the very reasonable "em0".

I don't care what Ubuntu does to their distro at this point. I don't think I will ever be able to switch back to Linux as long as systemd is still being used.

Re:Why the fuck did eth0 become enp0s19?!

[GoingDown]

Network interface naming has nothing to do with systemd. Reason why your ethernet adapter was suddently named as enp0s19 is because of this: "udev supports a number of different naming schemes. The default is to assign fixed names based on firmware, topology, and location information. This has the advantage that the names are fully automatic, fully predictable, that they stay fixed even if hardware is added or removed".

https://access.redhat.com/docu...

Re:Why the fuck did eth0 become enp0s19?!

[jeremyp]

Isn't udev now part of systemd?

Re:Why the fuck did eth0 become enp0s19?!

[danomac]

open up your machine, and add a second nic. Now you find your new nic is eth0 and your old one is eth1, and everything is potentially broken.

I've never had that happen before udev decided to give really stupid names to ethernet ports. You know why? udev was smart enough to remember what mac address tied to what port. I had eth0, installed a card with two ports on it, and they became eth1 and eth2. Persistent rules are a thing in udev. Or was? I have a machine that will rename its ethernet port from the enp0s19 to enp0s116666777 or something stupid once in a while on reboot breaking all sorts of things. I had to turn that "persistent network names" off (tip: net.ifnames=0 on kernel parameter line) so it wouldn't occasionally screw up my networking on reboot. So much for predictable network names...

Actual responses

[Cyrano de Maniac]

Here's what I use regularly:

Web Browser: Chrome, then Firefox when needed. lynx if it gets bad enough.
Email Client: They all suck, but Thunderbird and alpine
Terminal: xfce4-terminal, xterm when needed
IDE: Don't need one. But please package cscope, xxdiff, and hexedit. diffuse would be helpful as well.
File manager: I accidentally start this once in a while. Then I close it ASAP.
Basic Text Editor: vim
IRC/Messaging Client: pidgin, xchat, epicII, in that order
PDF Reader: evince
Office Suite: OpenOffice, because there's no other realistic choice outside of Google Docs or Office 365.
Calendar: Lightning in Thunderbird, but it sucks. Would use Orage if it played nice with Exchange (sadly no choice in mail server at work), or if you could at least add calendar entries via an .ics file from the command line without restarting Orage.
Video Player: Don't use.
Music Player: Don't use.
Photo Viewer: eog, because I don't know what else is out there. Not a great choice, admittedly.
Screen recording: Don't use.

Too Late...

[Anonymous Coward]

I started using Ubuntu when 10.04 came out. When they forced that Unity shit on us I had to instal gnome-flashback to get a "not shit" desktop back. I just recently installed Ubuntu Mate w/compiz which gives me the traditional desktop without the shitty new gnome or unity wad.

AWS

[swan5566]

Use it a lot in that environment. Having smooth updates from previous versions, as well as network reliability.

Response

[gsliepen]

Web Browser: firefox
Email Client: mutt
Terminal: xterm
IDE: vim
File manager: ls
Basic Text Editor: vim
IRC/Messaging Client: irssi
PDF Reader: evince and okular, whichever annoys me less
Office Suite: latex
Calendar: orage
Video Player: mpv
Music Player: mpd
Photo Viewer: geeqie
Screen recording: n.a.

Re:What about better blockchain integration?

[tommeke100]

it will be called blockchaind

Re:Installed by default

[Hognoxious]

Web Browser: SYSTEMD!!!
                Email Client: SYSTEMD!!!
                Terminal: SYSTEMD!!!
                IDE: SYSTEMD!!!
                File manager: SYSTEMD!!!
                Basic Text Editor: SYSTEMD!!!
                IRC/Messaging Client: SYSTEMD!!!
                PDF Reader: SYSTEMD!!!
                Office Suite: SYSTEMD!!!
                Calendar: SYSTEMD!!!
                Video Player: SYSTEMD!!!
                Music Player: SYSTEMD!!!
                Photo Viewer: SYSTEMD!!!
                Screen recording: SYSTEMD!!!