Would Ubuntu MATE consider dropping unnecessary software?

Thoughts & Feedback
#5

I wonder in which direction this discussion is going.
For me Ubuntu MATE should be not only a user friendly distro. It should be the most user friendly distro.
There are two ways to get a distro user friendly:

  1. Make a distro where is nothing to customize. Only one way for one action and make it easy to find for the user. That’s the gnome way.

  2. Make a feature rich distro and tell the user how it works. That’s for me the Ubuntu MATE way. Else you will get in the trouble like the KDE guys. They have a highly customizable DE, but also a talent for hiding the preferences for the single features where no one expect them.

In nearly every review I saw about Ubuntu MATE the mate welcome was praised as the new standard of welcome screens. And I think they are right.
When a new user don’t find a function he doesn’t say, “Oh, I’m too silly to find this function, I have to learn a lot, now.”. He will say, “This don’t work with linux.” and we are out of business. This is what we must prevent. The first hours with a new OS are the most significant hours for the user and the OS. Only when all things work like expected the new OS will get a chance to prevail.
And for me Ubuntu Mate is one the distros which could pass the first hours with a new user.
The welcome screen is a significant element for this. Especially the “First Steps” section.
For me the welcome screen is not negotiable.

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#6

Did any of those reviewers compare Ubuntu MATE Welcome with Manjaro Hello?

#7

Yes, there is review from Chris Were. He has used Manjaro as his daily driver for a time and switched now to Ubuntu MATE. I used Manjaro XFCE myself a few years ago. At this time it was not stable enough for me. It broke the whole system for several times after updates. But, as said, this was a few years ago. Here is Chris’ Vlog.

#8

Directions to install Ubuntu Mate core:

https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/ubuntu-mate-minimal-iso/14356

#9

Thanks. I already knew about the core meta package, and have done many an ISO install in the past. The core package for 16.04 depends on tilda, so even that brings in unnecessary packages.

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#10

I didn’t say anything about wanting to make things harder. What I want is to make things easier.

Too much choice confuses people and makes it look complicated. If you are at the position where you need a popup instruction to work your distro (as the opening post wanted EDIT: on the original thead Desktop Layout in Welcome? ), then I think you need to take a look at your overcomplicated distro.

The menus are cluttered with stuff. Get rid of it. There are endless and seemingly overlapping configuration menu entries. Get rid of what you can (mate-tweak).

Ubuntu-mate doesn’t have to imitate every os in the world. It should be comfortable and confident in its own skin. That is why I hate the new wallpaper. It clearly is a knock off of the mac os x wallpaper.

Welcome is essentially a browser based on webkit. UM already has a browser -Firefox. All that is needed is a link on the desktop or whatever to any online instructions. Simple.

I’m resigned to the fact that I won’t convince you, just like you won’t convince me that UM’s approach is better than lubuntu’s.

Choices, "Greeting software" and perspectives of a general user
#11

I am a newbie to Ubuntu and Linux generally speaking, the Welcome application is the one which made me love Ubuntu-MATE by helping me a LOT in the beginning, without the Welcome screen i might be to another distro or even worse, back to macOS…

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#12

Good idea and the button lovely fit the welcome screen as well as the icons in the button which give a good idea about what the button is for (both windows and mac users).

#13

I’m genuinely interested how it helped you and why you think it is better than an online wiki webpage (like lubuntu). As far as I’m aware (probably wrong on this) there is only one other Linux distro with a welcome screen. Macos doesn’t have a welcome screen (or at least it didn’t from what I remember) despite it being very different from windows (which most people are familiar with). So what advantage do other distros have over a welcome-less UM which would of made you use them instead?

With a decent package/snap manager then there really should be no need for a welcome screen.

#14

Please could I make it clear I work on Ubuntu MATE out of love, not any sort of financial incentive. Besides, if anyone wants to see something change or suggest an improvement, they are welcome to start a discussion here, or make a pull request.

I see this too. The Welcome and Software Boutique is one of Ubuntu MATE’s highlights. It could be described as a “Virtual Martin”, as @wimpy described in a podcast once that it was originally designed in mind for helping his not very tech savvy family relatives.

It is essentially a “web browser” under the hood, but there are some advantages as well:

  • Users who are offline or without an internet connection can still get started.
  • It integrates with Apt and the system so you actually start software (e.g. MATE Tweak) and do things. You simply can’t do this through a website.
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#15

Get started with what? Pretty much everything needs an internet connection. You needed one to download the ISO. If you’ve written over your only internet access and then found UM internet doesn’t work, then you are an idiot (they exist, I’ve spoken to them on ubuntuforums…via an internet access they supposedly don’t have).

It’s swings and roundabouts, an online wiki can always be kept up to date.

There is apturl and if you really must launch an app https://askubuntu.com/questions/330937/is-it-possible-to-open-an-ubuntu-app-from-html - not that I’m saying that it is needed or a good idea.

If you need this then you are basically saying the UM menus are hard to navigate. Why not fix that?

#16

Except UM does neither of these things currently. It certainly doesn’t do 2 “tell the user how it works”. The point of mate-tweak etc is to hide how the system is really configured.

#17

When I got into Ubuntu MATE I had just came out of a long hiatus from Linux. That Welcome Screen was a savior, especially because I messed up somehow and was having trouble with my package database, which the welcome screen helped me fix. Today you or I may not even look at it and just disable its “start every time” feature. But I’ll be damned if I don’t immediately recognize its importance.

It shouldn’t matter, who does it or how many do it. What I can tell you is that no one ever did a correct Welcome Screen until Ubuntu MATE. Welcome screens used to be common on Linux. Maybe you just don’t remember anymore, but they were a common feature back on the 90s and early 00s. Almost every distro had one. It was exactly because they were badly made that they fell into disuse. It’s a bit like the FAQ you see on every website. There’s never been in computer history such a misused term as Frequently Asked Question. There was a time they were good, way back in the BBS days and the early WWW days. Bout oh boy did they evolved into pure nonsense. Nobody cares for FAQs these days, due to how lame they usually are. But that doesn’t mean that someone can’t make them right. And Ubuntu MATE did the Welcome Screen right.

And how do you expect to walk a newcomer to Linux through Synaptic or, worse, apt-get? Tools like this exist and become useful after a certain number of hours have been spent using a distro. In the interim, a new user will welcome options such the Welcome Screen and the Boutique. And this is fact! Can be proven with the constant flux of positive user feedback that both applications consistently have on this forum. You seem like a new user to Ubuntu MATE and an experienced Linux user. So it’s conceivable you may look at both apps as useless to your needs. Just don’t confuse your needs with the needs of everyone else. You will lose. Badly. Because you have no idea how much positive feedback both tools have been having from our users. Heck, Boutique in particular even from the seasoned user crowd like myself who still use it to this day! I’ll use Boutique every time, because I trust it to be maintained for me and spare me the work of having to maintain my own repos/ppas for those applications on the boutique. In fact the Boutique is yet another case of someone finally doing a Software Center the right way!

And you also have to consider that a wiki as you say.
It takes a whole lot of effort to write and maintain. Something that is not at the reach of a distribution like Ubuntu MATE that doesn’t share the same number of active users like Ubuntu or Arch. A wiki on the case of Ubuntu MATE would be more detrimental give the high probability of it contained poorly written content (as is the case of the poorly written Manjaro wiki). Neither can you expect new users to know what they are looking for. What good do you think a wiki will do to a user who can’t update Ubuntu MATE because his package database needs to be fixed? Don’t confuse Ubuntu MATE with Arch. This is a distro that also wants to include a different audience: those who lack experience on Linux.

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#18

I said decent. Synaptic? awful.

#19

Where is this decent app manager, may I ask?

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#20

I would expect UM to use the same as Ubuntu proper. So Ubuntu software/Gnome software centre. Whether these are decent, I have no idea since I haven’t used them. The screenshots show a list of recommended apps, which is surely fulfilling the same role as software boutique? If Ubuntu software could be improved, then improve it, rather than creating a new package manager in software boutique. Otherwise you are just adding to the problem of similar apps, doing similar things, only slightly differently, which is what software boutique was meant to overcome.

#21

What you are describing is functionality that belongs in a package manager. What does a welcome screen have to do with fixing a broken package?

And why did you have a broken package? Presumably you force loaded a package? And why did you feel the need to do this? Is it because the software boutique did not have the package you wanted?

So the package management offered by UM - synaptic and software boutique did not fulfil your initial needs? Is that right?

Of course UM has the numbers to maintain a wiki.

People often refer to UM as a distribution (I’m guilty as anyone on this), but it is not. It is a flavour of Ubuntu. So it doesn’t need a heap of documentation writing, because it is already there.

The various flavours share common elements that give Ubuntu as a distribution its identity. Using the same package manager would strengthen this identity.

It’s just like when I install a distro/flavour/whatever that is based on mate desktop I expect caja, Marco etc. I don’t expect plank as my panel.

I’ll repeat again, I don’t just want to focus on welcome (we’re never going to agree). Can we agree that synaptic can be culled?

#22

If that’s not bare minimum enough for you, then perhaps this will be.

https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/lightweight-desktop-environment-for-ubuntu-server/13479/11?u=steven

#23

It’s interesting to see how your mindset seems to assume that everyone should have the same level of intelligence and ability as you. But at the point where you abuse people, I will stop reading. UM is an inclusive OS, it’s used by my aged parents, and I use it too, it’s used by people of different and varying levels of ability and needs. Humble yourself or find another platform to shout at.

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#24

[quote=“veggrower, post:21, topic:14367, full:true”]
What you are describing is functionality that belongs in a package manager. What does a welcome screen have to do with fixing a broken package?[/quote]

This is exactly why Ubuntu MATE Welcome screen is such a valuable asset and ahead of everyone else. Instead of a bunch of needless links to community websites, like what everyone else does, it also offers you quick fix options that are well described and at the distance of a button or a copy paste.

Boy, you really are on a mission, aren’t you? What on earth are you talking about?
What does it matter how I or anyone else came to get broken packages within minutes of first installing an unfamiliar operating system? How could I even remember something that happened so long ago. We are talking about quick fixing solution at the distance of your fingertips without scouring the internet or begging for help on a forum.

You need to make a more serious effort. For pete’s sake. Your argumentation is bordering the ridiculous at this point.

Where is it in all these years?

[quote=“veggrower, post:21, topic:14367, full:true”]
I’ll repeat again, I don’t just want to focus on welcome (we’re never going to agree). Can we agree that synaptic can be culled?[/quote]

No we cannot agree, for pete’s sake! Synaptic is not installed by default with Ubuntu MATE. It doesn’t matter. And if you don’t like the Welcome Screen or the Software Boutique, you can completely ignore them, even hiding them from the menu. Pretty soon made even more easy when MenuLibre becomes the default menu manager.

What you don’t want to understand is that you are asking to remove the two most defining packages of the Ubuntu MATE distribution. And two of the most beloved ones (for reasons that in your little time among us you completely fail to grasp). This is even more evidenced by your argumentation. And you make claims and demand-like requests from a position of “ignorance”, as if a distribution should fit your particular needs and lets screw everyone else.

If you like streamlined distributions with little in the way of homegrown solutions/applications, Ubuntu MATE is not for you. And I doubt any Ubuntu-based distro will ever be. You need to head on to Arch, Void, or Solus perhaps. I can promise you one thing though, no matter your efforts here the Welcome Screen and the Software Boutique will not be going anywhere, if you even cared to read their roadmaps.

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