But it’s still absolute bullocks to make it essential to a metapackage. What if somebody else wants clementine, amarok or mpv? What if they don’t want VLC?
I want VLC. I love VLC. I think it’s the best media player in the whole wide world for what I want to do with it. But including it and making it essential? That’s just like saying Everybody uses this, shame you don’t. It’s a crap opinion to have in the open software userland.
I can understand what you are saying. But, what you are saying seems to be more about an issue you have with the idea of meta-packages in general. The issue you have with VLC being merely one particular vehicle for expression of that larger issue. Which is fair enough in itself. But which is a slightly different thing, I would argue.
While the broader meta-package issue pertains, my preferred solution to dealing with the kind of thing you mention is to simply hide the menu entry for meta-packaged apps I don’t use.
Yeah, actually. It’s not just VLC that annoys me. It’s Plank being counted as essential because of mate-tweak and the Mutiny profile. It’s Hexchat being counted as essential because it’s part of the desktop package. It’s things becoming broken because I don’t get to maintain what I think is essential and installing some things on my own.
It’s neat that they’re there by default, but I would rather that people were allowed to choose the software they want, and moreso, choose the software they want to remove without risking issues with other software. It harkens back to my desire to have a bare-bones MATE metapackage that lets me choose what I want, using the simplicity of Ubuntu MATE as a base to build my own functioning “Remix” of the MATE desktop.
I’m kind of there right now, with the notification daemon from Ubuntu, FM from Cinnamon, theme from Linux Mint because I like it, backported compiz, and I know that all of this is going to break because I’ll need to remove my backported compiz and reinstall all the metapackages which will undo all this work I did.
If i had a metapackage that just concentrated on the MATE, Debian and Linux essentials, and the welcome program, I wouldn’t have to worry about that. (and as I had alluded too previously, I don’t see the file manager as “Essential”, neither the terminal emulator because I can always replace it.)
Considering the above, is Ubuntu MATE for me, still?
I don’t use either package so don’t care, can we have a button for that too @lah7? ; pretty please!. 
@tiox, why don’t you ask the devs for a minimal version of Ubuntu Mate for people like you who like to install only what they want rather than find arguement as to what is already installed?. 
Don’t use 'em. Don’t need 'em.
A few points I’d like to address:
Metapackages are being addressed in 16.10 by making pre-installed applications “Recommended”. This’ll make them safer to remove without taking out ubuntu-mate-core and ubuntu-mate-desktop with them.
I’ve removed pre-installed applications many times in 16.04 without any issues, I’m not sure why some users start having problems doing so.
You still can, there’s got to be some defaults, otherwise I’d say a distro isn’t that functional “out of the box”.
Of course, that’s the plan. 
It will also feature the pre-installed applications, so users can install/remove these default applications easily.
It’s possible to put together one yourself, grab a mini.iso and install ubuntu-mate-core. 
Yeah. overall, I am personally happy with a meta-packaged desktop. Firstly, because it makes it a very rounded and fully functional desktop from the off for new users. Secondly, for a more experienced user like me, it is of no consequence to simply hide the apps I don’t use from the meta-package in the main menu and then simply forget about them. Finally, for power-users who want their desktop vanilla-style that they can then build entirely to their own liking, there is, as lah7 has indicated, the mini iso + Mate route.
All things to all people. What’s not to like?
Voted for removing both. I never really used either of them.
Since it’s not an option, I’ll put it here.
remove Pidgin - Yes
remove Hexchat - No
I don’t know why Pidgin and Hexchat are still bundled as they are pretty much irrelevant on a PC these days. If the OS builders are thinking of dumping them, then they should also drop Firefox and Thunderbird from the line up to remove bloat. I could make a list of none-essentials but those four are the first to go when I do an install. Chromium is the first item missing that I always add immediately.
That seems an odd combination to drop from my perspective. For me, the only criteria for dropping something from the preinstalled OS is because, as you say, it is more or less irrelevant on a PC nowadays. In the case of Hexchat and Pidgin, I can see the argument (at least for me). However, I am willing to concede that although these may never be used by me, it is possible that they are used a lot by others.
Thunderbird and Firefox, though? Surely a web browser is pretty much the most important thing on a PC for the majority of people? As for Thunderbird, for me, this is the first thing I set up so that I do not have to endlessly go to 5 different web sites to pick up my email. Instead, they all get funnelled into the one place.
HexChat is an IRC client.
Irrelevant nowadays… I can see your point I guess. Here’s the thing though:
More to the point though. If it is decided that HexChat is to get Axed, we need a replacement. Is there any good GTK3 IRC client someone knows about?
With respect stevecook, I agree that a browser these days is pretty much the heart of what most of us use a PC for as a tool. In reading my post in its entirety, you will notice that I did not say “we don’t need a browser,” but I did say that my preference is to replace Firefox with something that works better. Chromium (or Chrome,) does it better for me. As for Thunderbird, most of the functions found in an email client can be found in webmail or on your phone, so why bother having it in the bundle? It is just more bloat isn’t it? Some of the above posts mention a leaning towards a bare-bones version of Ubuntu Mate and all I can say to that is “bring it on yesterday please!” As to the subject of this discussion, so far the poll results appear to be in the affirmative at 83% to 17% which to me is very persuasive. Like they say - “what makes us the same, is the fact that we are all different.” Cheers GB.
A hard client is something I would never trade for a browser-based solution. It’s lighter on resources, it doesn’t depends on a lot of things, and most importantly the more your software is moved to a browser, the easiest it is to track you.
Edit: oh and cherry on the cake: it can’t be used to feed you ads.
I use Thunderbird Mail on one system and Evolution Mail on the other. I can’t make up my mind which I like best but leaning toward Evolution Mail.
@ouroumov This is why you use plugins like Privacy Badger (EFF are the good guys).
I agree with removing Pidgin and HexChat, I’ve never used these since the early 00’s. HexChat is discontinued also, so no development will be happening on that. There are GTK3 replacements you could use, but many require lots of additional dependencies (aka, bloat).
I don’t think Chromium should be added as default. It’s not built really in accordance with *nix principles. They’ve forked just how many ‘libs’ just for ‘Chromium’.
I agree also that VLC should not be essential. You want it? Sudo apt-get install vlc, et voila.
This turns to a funny discussion.
Why not just apt-get everything what you want? A command line system can give you all that but then we would not be here enjoying the out of the box experience of Ubuntu Mate.
Apart from some things I already find Ubuntu Mate to be relatively “bloat” free. There is no useless software center, Boutique is already a great replacement, no Synaptic, I do not need it and it would probably confuse new users. In comparison to some other distributions we have one tool for one task like VLC and not additionally Totem like in Mint, one browser, one music player etc.
In the case of Pidgin and Hexchat, I can understand the decision, they are Gtk2 apps and that seems to be the problem in the future. You could then argue why VLC, it is written in Qt but then the community already decided to replace Totem with VLC and I think for the better. I still prefer plain mplayer though.
That’s just going to the extreme. A good middle-ground is to have the same amount of functionality as a default install of Windows would give you. Not everything is on Windows by default, codecs (some), Browsers, additional software etc will need user interaction to be installed.
There are so few people who actually use those apps, it would be better to let them add them themselves as they are easily accessible in the boutique or through other methods. The way it is, I have to go around uninstalling things when I install a new distro - it’s kind of a pain in the neck. Having a customizable distro already ‘customized’ sort of defeats the purpose.
The mini.iso discussed earlier would solve this problem for the people who want a minimalist system.
BTW, what ever happened to that thing.