Ask HN: Ubuntu Desktop Default Apps

188 points by dustinkirkland 8y ago ↗ HN

We asked the HackerNews community, “What do you want to see in Ubuntu 17.10?”: https://ubu.one/AskHN and a passionate discussion ensued, the results are at: http://ubu.one/thankHN

You can check that link and see our progress. Already in beta for 17.10:

- 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

Your feedback matters! There are hundreds of engineers working for you to continue making Ubuntu amazing!

We're now reviewing the desktop applications we package and ship in Ubuntu.

We invite you to submit the apps you find most useful in Linux, in the format defined below. You can suggest multiple apps in priority order (e.g. Web Browser: Firefox, Chrome, Chromium). Please note apps that are now you use exclusively on the web (e.g. Email Client: Gmail web, Office Suite: Office360 web). If the software isn’t open source, note that (e.g. Music Player: Spotify non-free). If we missed a category, please add it in the same format. If your apps aren’t packaged yet, please let us know, as we’re creating hundreds of new snap packages for desktop apps.

===

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: ???

===

We’ve cross-posted this thread to Reddit and Slashdot. We very much look forward to another friendly, energetic, collaborative discussion.

Thanks!

twitter.com/@DustinKirkland @Canonical @Ubuntu

245 comments

[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 253 ms ] thread

Freak_NL 8y ago ↗

For most I would say the current defaults more than suffice.

Web Browser: Firefox. Of the two modern web browsers that are applicable (Chromium being the other), Mozilla and Firefox are more in tune with the free software mentality many users of Ubuntu adhere. It is an excellent browser as well.

Email Client: Thunderbird? Are there mature alternatives that will work for most people that use a standalone mail application?

Terminal: Keep gnome-terminal, it's perfectly fine for most.

IDE: None. Leave this to the user. An IDE need not be present by default, as it depends greatly one the language chosen. For simple scripting Gedit suffices at first, and associating code files with Gedit by default is fine too.

File manager: I take it Gnome Shell still ships with Nautilus?

Basic Text Editor: Nothing wrong with Gedit.

PDF Reader: Evince. Mature and fast.

Office Suite: LibreOffice of course.

Video Player: Something that supports everything you can throw at it.

Music Player: I'm partial to Quod Libet. :)

jhasse 8y ago ↗

> Video Player: Something that supports everything you can throw at it.

I would go with mpv there instead of the obvious VLC. It just so much faster and bug-free!

enzanki_ars 8y ago ↗

And if you love the command line, MPV (https://mpv.io/) is an even faster and contains less bugs than VLC.

cJ0th 8y ago ↗

I only recently discovered mpv. Is it possible to make it resume the playback where it was left off?

grover_hartmann 8y ago ↗

Yes, from the mpv(1) man page:

       Q      Like q, but store the current playback position. Playing the  same  file  later
              will resume at the old playback position if possible.

Just quit with Q instead of q.

cJ0th 8y ago ↗

awesome! thanks a lot!

brudgers 8y ago ↗

What I want is no change unless there is a good reason to change. The internet voting for Browsey McBrowseface etc. is not, in my opinion, a good reason to change.

There are things Canonical does well, I think. Those things are technical. When it comes to trying to be Microsoft/Apple/Google, it misses the mark. In part because it assumes that which PDF reader it ships with matters to users.

Good luck.

keithpeter 8y ago ↗

I would echo brudgers sentiment here but would table the suggestion for a meta-package or series of meta-packages that would install R, texlive, octave, iPython and a good selection of other mathematical/data processing software. My 'vision'(+) would be something like UbuntuStudio for data/maths.

(+) I can no longer use words like 'vision', 'paradigm' &c without distancing speech marks because of their misuse in the corporate world.

The survey:

Web Browser: Firefox with pocket &c disabled and javascript toggled off, Chromium for when I need javascript &c. Also a hosts.txt file that deep-sixes ignorant Web trackers.

Email Client: Evolution.

Terminal: Gnome-terminal (minimal use case)

IDE: RDesktop

File manager: default, Nautilus at present

Basic Text Editor: default, Gedit at present

IRC/Messaging Client: N/A

PDF Reader: default, Evince at present

Office Suite: Libreoffice but also use of texlive and pandoc (and groff!)

Calendar: Evolution

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: default, presently Rhythmbox

Photo Viewer: shotwell

artursapek 8y ago ↗

> turning off JS by default for a browser

Year of the Linux laptop would never come

keithpeter 8y ago ↗

I'm not suggesting that anyone else run a Web browser with javascript switched off - I interpreted the list as some kind of survey of current use.

However I'm pleasantly surprised at how many Web sites do actually convey their main content with javascript disabled, and the increase in speed and battery life is marked.

The 'year of the linux desktop' meme is a little moot as phones/tablets now provide the mass computing experience for many people, and the primary experience for people under 25 or so (I'm a teacher).

dannysu 8y ago ↗

Agree. It really doesn't matter to me what Ubuntu is shipped with. If they're going to spend anytime on this, why not just build a quickie wizard for installation to pick what you want?

A screen with selection of Chromium, Firefox, etc. With a default selected of course.

Users can breeze through it if they just want defaults.

ovh 8y ago ↗

Totally agree with Freak_NL.

For video player, definitely VLC.

jhasse 8y ago ↗

Why not mpv?

FranOntanaya 8y ago ↗

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: Gnome-Terminal

IDE: None

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: Whatever supports Slack and Discord I guess.

PDF Reader: Current choice is fine.

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Video Player: I prefer SMPlayer to VLC for simple playback

Music Player: Clementine

Photo Viewer: gThumb

Screen recording: Kazam

jhasse 8y ago ↗

> I prefer SMPlayer to VLC for simple playback

I'm curious: What's your opinion on mpv vs. SMPlayer?

nilsocket 8y ago ↗

SM-Player is based on MPV.

Giako 8y ago ↗

Web Browser: Chromium, Firefox, Chrome

Email Client: Thunderbird, Web GMail

Terminal: Terminix

IDE: IntelliJ IDEA Community, Eclipse

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: GEdit

PDF Reader: evince

Office Suite: LibreOffice, Google Drive

Calendar: Thunderbird Lightning, Google Calendar

Video Player: Totem

Music Player: Spotify webapp, Spotify client non-free

jacek 8y ago ↗

Web Browser: Firefox, Opera (non-free)

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: Tilix, gnome-terminal

IDE: Atom, gnome-builder

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: telegram-desktop

PDF Reader: Evince

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: gnome-calendar

Video Player: gnome-mpv, smplayer

Music Player: gnome-music, Spotify (non-free)

Photo Viewer: gnome photo viewer (don't know the name)

Screen recording: don't use

Photo editing: Darktable

Note taking: QOwnNotes

Research source organization: Zotero

j0ar 8y ago ↗

    Web Browser: Firefox, Opera
    Email Client: Geary, Thunderbird, pantheon-mail (when the new version is ready)
    Terminal: gnome-terminal, pantheon-terminal
    IDE: ???
    File manager: Nautilus, Thunar, pantheon-files
    Basic Text Editor: gedit, scratch-text-editor (from elementaryOS)
    IRC/Messaging Client: Telegram
    PDF Reader: envince
    Office Suite: Libre
    Calendar: gnome-calendar (please please please with Caldav support for posteo)
    Video Player: totem, mpv (gnome-mpv)
    Music Player: audacious
    Photo Viewer: gnome-viewer
    Screen recording: ???

dustinkirkland 8y ago ↗

If you'd prefer, you can fill out the survey here:

https://ubu.one/apps1804

_R_ 8y ago ↗

Web Browser: Chrome, Chromium

Email Client: unity-mail

Terminal: Gnome Terminal

IDE: VIM

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: None

PDF Reader: Evince

Office Suite: LibreOffice, Google Drive

Calendar: Gnome Calendar, Google Calendar

Video Player: VLC, YouTube

Music Player: Audacious

Photo Viewer: Gnome Image Viewer

Screen recording: None

devillius 8y ago ↗

Web Browser: Firefox, Chromium, Chrome

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: gnome-terminal

IDE: Atom, VS Code

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: None

PDF Reader: None

Office Suite: Libreoffice, Openoffice

Calendar: None

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: None

Photo Viewer: None

Screen recording: Recordmydesktop (Kali recorder)

brian_herman 8y ago ↗

Kind of offtopic but is there a linux terminal program that when you paste a bunch of commands with carriage returns asks you if you want to continue?

notamy 8y ago ↗

I don't think something like that exists; the closest I've seen to anything like that is pantheon-terminal prompting you about pasting when a command is sudo

laumars 8y ago ↗

I'm not sure I understand your question correctly but KDE's terminal (konsole) warns you if you try to paste large amounts of text

brian_herman 8y ago ↗

So if you have the following command:

    echo "hello"
    python -v

I want it to warn me if there are returns or carrage returns in the paste. iterm does this

xiaq 8y ago ↗

Some terminal emulators / shells use some heuristics, but the most reliable way is to use a combination of a terminal emulator and shell that support bracketed paste mode. This article (https://cirw.in/blog/bracketed-paste) lists some terminal emulators that supports bracketed paste, and a zsh plugin that makes zsh handle bracketed paste in a safe manner.

As an alternative to zsh, Elvish (https://github.com/elves/elvish) supports bracketed paste out of the box. When you paste anything that includes a carriage return, Elvish will insert a literal return instead of executing it.

(Disclaimer: I am the author of Elvish.)

acidburn1995 8y ago ↗

Web Browser: palemoon

Email Client: mutt

Terminal: terminator

IDE: jetbrains stuff, vim

File manager: ranger, nautilus

Basic Text Editor: vim

IRC/Messaging Client: hexchat

PDF Reader: evince

Office Suite: libreoffice

Calendar: cal, webshit

Video Player: mplayer,vlc,totem

Music Player: clementine

Photo Viewer: feh

Screen recording: shutter

Theodores 8y ago ↗

Since this post mentioned vim, can we have that as the default and installed editor for command line use? On the demo disk as well as the install. The nano editor is accessible for people like my Dad but he just calls when it is time to edit the crontab so nano only reaches the people that don't need the arm bands. There is a GUI on desktop for people wanting nano.

petepete 8y ago ↗

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: Geary

Terminal: Gnome terminal

IDE: ???

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: Empathy/Polari

PDF Reader: Evince

Office Suite: Libre Office

Calendar: Gnome calendar

Video Player: Totem

Music Player: Gnome music

Photo Viewer: Shotwell (definitely not Darktable or RawTherapee, far too complicated)

Screen recording: Built in Gnome screen recorder

gremlinsinc 8y ago ↗

Web Browser : Google Chrome Stable Email: Thunderbird Terminal : Terminator IDE: Sublime Text3/Vs Code. File Manager: Thunar/Nautilus Basic Text: Gedit IRC: Irssi PDF ? (Usually just use chrome) Office Suite: Libre Calendar : (don't use) Video Player.: vlc Music Player: A good google play music/spotify app that can stream to chromecast would be nice... Photo Viewer: N/a Screen Recording: Don't know of any.

Caveat.. not a ubuntu user here per se... But left because of some of the bloatware/opinonated stuff and it crashed a lot. Plus I like Antergos with i3-gnome better than anything I've ever used before... Much better performance, less crashes/bugs...etc..

brian_herman 8y ago ↗

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: gnome-terminal

IDE: vscode

File manager: nautilus

Basic Text Editor: gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: ???

PDF Reader: evince

Office Suite: libreoffice

Calendar: Thunderbird

Video Player: vlc

Music Player: vlc

Photo Viewer: evince

Screen recording: never use one so I dont really have an opinion

Kostic 8y ago ↗

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: Tilix[0], Gnome Terminal,

IDE: Visual Studio Code (although it's not a fully fledged IDE)

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: Polari, HexChat

PDF Reader: Evince

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: Gnome Calendar

Video Player: Totem

Music Player: Lollypop[1]

Photo Viewer: Eye of Gnome

Screen recording: Peek[2]

[0] https://github.com/gnunn1/tilix

[1] http://gnumdk.github.io/lollypop-web/

[2] https://github.com/phw/peek

sametmax 8y ago ↗

Same but vlc for videos

Kostic 8y ago ↗

VLC is indeed superior in comparison with Totem but it does not integrate nicely into GNOME as Totem would.

MPV is also a very capable player. There is even an GTK frontend which obeys GNOME HIG and which is called gnome-mpv[0]. Maybe it would be a nice pick for the default video player.

[0] https://github.com/gnome-mpv/gnome-mpv

gknoy 8y ago ↗

MPV also has the benefit of having a _really good_ command line API, which is in fact the main way I use it:

   mpv --no-border --autofit-larger=320x200 --loop=inf --volume=60 foo.mp4

It also has built-in support for youtube-dl so that you can do things like `mpv [youtube url]`.

(It's possible that VLC lets you do both of these, of course.)

moosingin3space 8y ago ↗

IIRC, mpv already has native Wayland support, whereas VLC's was lacking. gnome-mpv is pretty nice, though.

ColanR 8y ago ↗

I'd rather have the superior player than the superior aesthetics, IMHO.

ht85 8y ago ↗

MPV is incredible.

The subtitle syncing hotkeys alone are a godsend. It blows all over players out of the water when playing streams under non perfect network conditions. Not to mention the best fast forward / rewind experience, something I only had experienced with the original XBMC.

pmontra 8y ago ↗

I never really understood this thing about integration into the desktop environment. It stops at the window manager level for me and the overall style of widgets. I don't notice the difference between QT and GTK applications. The only important thing is that they work.

What I see instead is desktop environments reinventing the wheels to have their own versions of applications that often somebody else did better and work across DEs anyway. Either they have too many developers or they can't make them focus on the core. I understand that it's difficult to make people do things they dont want if they're working for free, but are they?

I checked this list https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_Core_Applications and I think I never used any application in the conversation and world categories since I've been using Gnome (2009). Not many of the others too. They are just inferior to other native applications or web services or my phone.

pksadiq 8y ago ↗

Packaging media players like VLC, mpv, mplayer etc. may result in patent violations. And thus it would be hard to package those in Ubuntu iso images. The safer one might be Totem with gstreamer plugins.

zanny 8y ago ↗

I think? VLC is the only Qt dependency on there. That means you pull in all of Qt just to run VLC.

If you are making a default install, it is best to only include one or the other toolkit for a lot of reasons:

* Consistency. Gnome and Qt apps, even when themed the same, have different UI metaphors, especially modern GTK3 apps and Qt Quick apps vs everything else.

* Performance and memory. Central to making a fast, responsive, low resource using OS is sharing libraries. Having all your software using the same hot toolkit rendering code paths means - optimally - better cache coherency and - generally - lower ram usage from not having to pull two toolkits into resident memory at the same time.

* Install image size / hard drive disk usage. Full Qt (including webengine) takes up at least 400MB of space. That is both on the iso and in the final install. That isn't a problem for average use cases, but there exist both bandwidth limited and storage limited scenarios where you can still run a modern desktop to consider.

picibucor 8y ago ↗

similarly, but: Browser: chromium Video & music player: vlc Ide: atom

dallamaneni 8y ago ↗

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: Terminator

IRC/Messaging Client: Pidgin, Thunderbird

PDF Reader: evince

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: Thunderbird

Video Player: VLC

kevincox 8y ago ↗

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: gnome-terminal

IDE: neovim

File manager: nautilus

Basic Text Editor: gedit (but actually neovim)

IRC/Messaging Client: None

PDF Reader: evince

Office Suite: Libreoffice

Calendar: Lightning (thunderbird plugin)

Video Player: Totem

Music Player: Totem/None

Photo Viewer: eog

Screen recording: I don't use them frequently enough to remember one I like.

SingletonIface 8y ago ↗

Web browser: Firefox, Chromium. Comment: It is important that neither Chrome nor Chromium eat too much market share in order for the web to remain healthy.

Email client: ??? Comment: I use mutt but I'm wishing for something better. mutt is too limited

Terminal: Terminology, urxvt

IDE: None; neo-vim is sufficient for programming tasks, don't need most IDE features.

File manager: What ever is the default for the selected DE.

Basic Text Editor: neo-vim

IRC/Messaging Client: irssi and Pidgin

PDF Reader: Evince

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: Don't know

Video player: VLC

Music player: Tomahawk

Photo Viewer: What ever is default for the selected DE

Screen recording: Open Broadcast Studio

mrkrabo 8y ago ↗

I've removed the ones I don't use.

Web Browser: Chrome

Email Client: Evolution

Terminal: gnome-terminal

IDE: VSCode

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: HexChat

PDF Reader: Evince

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Video Player: mpv

Music Player: GTK3 frontend of Audacious

Photo Viewer: eog

smacktoward 8y ago ↗

Web Browser: Firefox, Chromium

Email Client: Thunderbird. (Note: I'm a bit worried about the future of TB, with Mozilla cutting back its support of the project. Since it's been the default email client in Ubuntu since forever, it would be great to see Canonical pitch in to support it more.)

Terminal: GNOME Terminal

IDE: Does Ubuntu need to ship with an IDE?

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: Does Ubuntu need to ship with an IRC client?

PDF Reader: Evince

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: GNOME Calendar, Lightning

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: Clementine

Photo Viewer: No opinion

Screen recording: No opinion

tradesmanhelix 8y ago ↗

++ To Canonical supporting TB more. Really don't want to see this important project go away. I use it on a daily basis in order not to have to deal with the Outlook365 web and M$ tracking me via its web apps.

antihero 8y ago ↗

Web Browser: Chromium

Email Client: None

Terminal: Tilix?

IDE: vs-code

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: vs code

IRC/Messaging Client: None

PDF Reader: Evince

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: Gnome Calenar

Video Player: mpv

Music Player: Audacious

Photo Viewer: ???

Screen recording: ???

haspok 8y ago ↗

I have but one humble wish: when I want to start the calculator app I open the Dash and type "calc". However for some reason LibreOffice Calc has higher priority than the Calculator app, so I always have to select it specifically (instead of just pressing Enter) - even though I might have never used the LibreOffice Calc on this computer. Can you make the LibreOffice Calc app lower priority in the Dash please. Thank you.

pksadiq 8y ago ↗

In case you don't know: You can simply type the expressions in gnome-shell search to get results.

eg.: if you type "3+5" (without quotes), the result 8 will be shown. You can also have complex expressions like "3kg in lb", "sin (90)" etc.

Once the result is shown, you can simply press the Enter key to open the result in gnome-calculator.

Queue29 8y ago ↗

I'm in the same boat as OP. When I type "calc", I want the calculator. LibreOffice Calc is on my list of things to immediately remove on every reformat.

ccrush 8y ago ↗

Why don't you rename the shortcut to LibreOffice Excel?

vetinari 8y ago ↗

Now that Gnome Shell replaced unity, you can use the search box itself as a simple calculator. No need to run an extra app.

jerknextdoor 8y ago ↗

I am so glad that I am not the only person that has this frustration. I wish I could remove other apps or give them lower priority in the dash, but this is absolutely the worst.

mod 8y ago ↗

This plagued me for a couple of years! Yes!

Either make it higher or learn which ones we actually click.

Rusky 8y ago ↗

Gnome Shell seems to remember the last opened one. That doesn't really help when you actually do use Calc occasionally, though.

mattl 8y ago ↗

Doesn't seem to remember at all for me.

ColanR 8y ago ↗

I've never known it to exhibit that kind of memory - and if it does, it needs to be smarter about keeping the much more frequently used calculator above the spreadsheet program.

vegbrasil 8y ago ↗

I have the same issue. I do use Calc but the Calculator is waaaaaaay more used.

dannysu 8y ago ↗

I think in GNOME it learns which one you use more frequently and have that first instead.

mattl 8y ago ↗

You'd think so, but no.

fpgaminer 8y ago ↗

It does, but it has a short memory. If you select Office by accident, it'll then start showing that first again for awhile.

mattl 8y ago ↗

It wasn't doing it before, but I have a new System76 machine with a fresh GNOME install, so let's see if it works here.

dannysu 8y ago ↗

When I type 'calc' I get the calculator as the first entry in GNOME.

Even after I move over and opened LibreOffice Calc, subsequent searches still gave me the calculator as the first entry.

I'm not exactly sure how it works, but I don't seem to have the same issue that's being mentioned.

43224gg252 8y ago ↗

It does for me.

AsyncAwait 8y ago ↗

It does, it can just be overridden easily.

TheHippo 8y ago ↗

Add calc to your favourites (programs on the left bar). Now it comes before Libre Office Calc when you enter "calc".

dd9990 8y ago ↗

Appears to be fixed in Gnome under Arch for me. It picks Calculator as I use it more often.

saint_fiasco 8y ago ↗

I just type "calcu" instead. It's only one extra letter.

frik 8y ago ↗

Same for me, rename the link to "LibreOffice Spreadsheet" please.

And beautify the Gnome3 UI, add the menu bar back or fork an older Gnome which had still the more normal UI elements like system wide menu bar, etc or revert back to the older Unity shell (not the failed new Unity). Ubuntu 12 LTS was perfect, it all went downhill after that, with awkward decisions, and Gnome3 was never good by default.

halflings 8y ago ↗

To be fair, it definitely makes sense that "Calc" would show "Libre Office Calc" first, since it's an exact match. Why not simply type "Calcu"?

FractalNerve 8y ago ↗

Wouldn't some simple search heuristics solve this?

EDIT: there surely is a library with good search algortihms to utilize for the search-box, please share =)

baguzzzaji 8y ago ↗

In my GNOME, Calculator app is the first option and the LibreOffice Calc come second. I use Fedora btw.

erazor42 8y ago ↗

Web Browser: Chromium

Email Client: gmail

Terminal: terminator

IDE: Sublime / VSCode

File manager: terminator

Basic Text Editor: Sublime

IRC/Messaging Client: irssi

PDF Reader: Chromium plugin

Office Suite: Libre office (I'd prefer Microsoft one)

Calendar: Google calendar

Video Player: vlc

Music Player: YouTube :D

Photo Viewer: basic gallery

Screen recording: -

a_humean 8y ago ↗

Web Browser: Chromium, Firefox, Chrome

Email Client: Gmail web

Terminal: Gnome Terminal

IDE: VS Code

File manager: nautilus

Basic Text Editor: gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: xchat

PDF Reader: Evince

Office Suite: Office360 web, LibreOffice

Calendar: Gnome Calendar, Google Calendar web

Video Player: smplayer

Music Player: cmus, Spotify non-free

Photo Viewer: Eye of Gnome