Apps that should come installed with Ubuntu

[forrestcupp]

My experience with the Ubuntu mini iso was I installed the system then was left with a command line. Then I apt-got xfce and other stuff I wanted. That still has to fetch all the stuff from the online repos. What I'm suggesting is that we are given a graphical environment with stuff that people expect from a modern operating system like a web browser and office suite and then let them chose additional stuff that is included on the disc but not installed without the users wish. One of the reasons why I like the idea of Ubuntu is that it is a very quick install and all my hardware works out of the box. That being said I hate the fact that they assume I want a twitter client,email,cloud based storage, and a bunch of other stuff by default. Ubuntu tries to please everybody all the time and and you can't really do that. I think that the goal should be to provide in the default install what can reasonably be expected to be there. For example I expect a car to have breaks but I don't necessarily think it should include ass warmers by default. But if i ask and pay a premium I can have the ass warmers you just have to special order it. But i don't expect to have to build the car from the ground up just to be able to have a car do I? That's all I'm suggesting for Ubuntu. Provide sane defaults and then provide options for the rest. It seems like in linux there really isn't any middle ground. You are either forced to remove stuff that you don't want post install or start from absolutely nothing and add everything.

Yeah, when I tried to run the mini iso, I wished that it could have been much easier and less confusing. It's a good concept, but they need to enhance the installation a lot. I doubt if we'll ever see an official release of Ubuntu with the whole repository on disc. I think Debian has that, don't they?

[mamamia88]

Yeah, when I tried to run the mini iso, I wished that it could have been much easier and less confusing. It's a good concept, but they need to enhance the installation a lot. I doubt if we'll ever see an official release of Ubuntu with the whole repository on disc. I think Debian has that, don't they?

They have 3 or 4 dvds you can download not sure what's on all of them. Anyway it would take way too long to download 12gb for most people. I'm not suggesting they have the entire repos on the disc just the popular stuff. For example take statistics of stuff downloaded after a default install from software center and then include the most popular stuff as an option post install. And edit how would they have to tweak the install much? The base install would install say desktop environment, browser, and software center. They would provide a list of other possible stuff to install at the end. Then a script that takes the users selection and runs dpkg on the deb files contained on the disc is run. Or something like that. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out.

[snowpine]

That's exactly what Debian does. The most popular packages are on DVD 1, the next most popular packages on DVD 2, etc. so for most users, DVD 1 (or even CD 1) is an okay starting point. (You can always fill in a few extra packages post-install using your package manager of choice.)

In face I seem to recall Debian asks you during the installation whether you want to participate in the package popularity survey or not.

And of course there is 'tasksel': http://wiki.debian.org/tasksel

[Jay Car]

Oh Synaptic isn't installed by default on modern Ubuntu release is it? To me it's irreplaceable. Software Centre often makes me want to go live in a cave!

Not only does Software Centre make you want to live in a cave, while waiting for it to complete an installation it ALSO allows you PLENTY of time to find a good cave location and wait until time, wind, rain and wandering varmints carve the cave out and decorate it with petrified bat guano and fossils of small animal bones.

Synaptic makes me happy.

[S Hartwell]

Chrome. That is a must-have at this point. It's just that good of a browser.

Amarok would be nice but that's just personal preference.

Over-all I got to say Ubuntu is great at packaging the most demanded applications.