Consideration of Welcome in other Ubuntu releases?

Development Discussion
#1

Since Welcome is developing into quite the killer app for not just Ubuntu MATE, but the Ubuntu novice sub-community at large, had there been consideration of splitting up Welcome so there is a core which does all of the generic stuff, and corresponding individual packages with distribution-specific features for the sake of core existing in other Ubuntu varieties alongside other, third-party developed iterations of the Welcome auxiliary package with its own stuff?

I think this can be done, and allow for a brand cohesiveness yet to be seen, as well pull ideas from other people in the Ubuntu community.

#2

Brandon, please do a search on "ubuntu: distributions with a welcome app" and see what you get.

Other Linux distributions also have welcomes with their own set of features that display as many times as you want them.

#3

I understand this, But may I be so bold as to say it would benefit to keep work dry? The suggestion was so that distributors don't have to maintain their own stuff, and rather, port welcome more expediently since there has been quite a bit of work to apply much polish for something so beneficial.

Think MATE menu for a moment; a few of us who had been using Ubuntu way before GNOME Shell, CInnamon, Unity and the MATE project who checked out Linux Mint were infatuated with the Mint Menu, which was the precursor and root software MATE menu is based on. Even better; we could install and use it in all varieties of Ubuntu using GTK no problem, at least until some time ago.

Thankfully the project was forked and this software is able to be used in Ubuntu MATE, which presumably means anything Mint team does with it trickles down to us using Ubuntu MATE. But rather than having duplicate work and multiple varieties of Welcome self-encapsulated, why not give distributors under the Ubuntu brand the opportunity to build, iterate and produce a core which allows for less back-end and front-end work for everybody who publishes a variety of Ubuntu?

Personally, I've encountered nothing like it. It's the best first-time and subsequent user experience I've seen, with my limited knowledge. And I feel like it would benefit more than just our distribution if y'all feel like sharing. But if there isn't any interest in this, that's alright too; it was just an idea.

#4

Your idea works for :boutique: Software Boutique 2.0 - as a bonus objective, we'd like this upcoming version to be generic so it works on any Apt/Snap compatible distro.

I see where you're coming from for :ubuntu_mate: Welcome. It sounds like white labelling which is something I'm not interested in for these reasons:

  • Welcome is our unique selling point. If all welcomes are the same, ours is no longer special.
  • Our codebase for :ubuntu_mate: Welcome is a mess at the moment.
  • Most of the writing, documentation and functions are designed specifically for this distro.

Other distros are welcome to fork and put their spin on it - Budgie Welcome for example. Historically, we are a fork of Antergos Welcome and before that, Korora Welcome.

However, I would hope distro's create a user experience tailored to their audience and design language. After all, Welcome is just a bunch of web pages that execute commands on the system, similar to how each flavour has its own website.

1 Like
#5

Slightly related, I know that the Welcome snap currently shows a warning when starting on other distributions. That was intentional, since the classic snap packaging is a bit... broken... at the moment?

That said, we can probably patch the PPA version to run on non-Ubuntu MATE installs if there is demand for this.