Ask HN: Ubuntu Desktop Default Apps

[dustinkirkland]

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

[haspok]

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 → haspok]

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 → pksadiq]

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 → Queue29]

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

[jerknextdoor → haspok]

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.

[TheHippo → haspok]

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

[vetinari → haspok]

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

[frik → haspok]

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.

[mod → haspok]

This plagued me for a couple of years! Yes!

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

[Rusky → mod]

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

[ColanR → Rusky]

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.

[mattl → Rusky]

Doesn't seem to remember at all for me.

[dannysu → haspok]

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

[mattl → dannysu]

You'd think so, but no.

[dannysu → mattl]

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.

[fpgaminer → mattl]

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 → fpgaminer]

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.

[AsyncAwait → mattl]

It does, it can just be overridden easily.

[43224gg252 → mattl]

It does for me.

[halflings → haspok]

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"?

[vegbrasil → haspok]

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

[FractalNerve → haspok]

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 → haspok]

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

[dd9990 → haspok]

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

[saint_fiasco → haspok]

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

[johnchristopher]

If I may make a suggestion:

I'd rather have a quizz at first install and user account creation that would ask what users want with sane defaults hiding behind an `I don't know` checkbox (ie: don't configure any mail client if people just use GMail). It would definitely ease the adoption from first users instead of throwing a huge pile of shortcuts to their face when they click the apps menu for the first time.

I would also make it very easy to do the most common first things users do: opening an image, browsing the web, playing music. Don't send them to players/viewers with different UI than the rest of the workspace or ask them what pic viewer they want to use among 4 different apps. First impressions matters :).

[tradesmanhelix → johnchristopher]

I know Ubuntu Mate has Welcome [1], which does pretty much exactly what you're describing. Wish more distros would adopt this and/or the software botique, which has now been decoupled from Mate/Welcome [2].

[1] https://github.com/ubuntu-mate/ubuntu-mate-welcome. [2] http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/06/ubuntu-mate-new-software-...

[BornInTheUSSR → johnchristopher]

Really like this idea, a wizard to get all your preferences on setup that preconfigures defaults. Expand it to programming toolsets or whatever your primary use is and have a way to save and share it between different linux versions or even OS's a la dotfiles.

[ColanR → BornInTheUSSR]

Love the idea of a wizard - but a lot of users will want as painless a setup as possible. if they can worry about configuration when they feel like it, if they feel like it, they may be happier. i.e., some way to use a one-time app for running that wizard later.

[gt_ → ColanR]

I second this. Ubuntu default config probably isn't perfect for anybody, but nothing is in the way, which I consider a major benefit. If I need automatic configuration, none of these ideas will move faster than a decent Bash script. Some configurations cannot be scripted well and that's where the room for improvement is.

[c_moscardi → johnchristopher]

Awesome idea! Let me make a shameless plug for my web app that does something like this for ubuntu LTS distros:

https://www.lilite.co/

I'd love for it to be made obsolete though :)

[Queue29 → johnchristopher]

This really is a great idea.

[Kostic]

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 → Kostic]

Same but vlc for videos

[Kostic → sametmax]

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 → Kostic]

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.)

[pmontra → Kostic]

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.

[ht85 → Kostic]

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.

[moosingin3space → Kostic]

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

[ColanR → Kostic]

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

[zanny → sametmax]

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.

[pksadiq → sametmax]

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.

[picibucor → Kostic]

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

[hysan]

I'm pretty sure anything I'd suggest would already be included in other people's lists so I'm going to request something different. Personally, I'd like a well maintained set of applications that integrates nicely into the default desktop. So things like global shortcuts (ideally having them be the same for common actions), panel and notification integrations, nicely setup default launcher icons, works well with the search bar, looks great with the default icon set, etc.

Example: whatever calendar app you include should work with the calendar in GNOME's panel.

I'd also like to emphasize on the well maintained part since I personally prefer that my core set of applications to not become stale over time or even worse, just have tons of quality of life/paper cut bugs that remain unpatched for years. Whatever is chosen as default should get continued support and help from Ubuntu itself.

If you can do that, I would definitely come back and give Ubuntu another chance.

[bokchoi → hysan]

Yes, this is the most important aspect. Functional, stable, maintained, consistent, and nicely integrated applications.

[vegbrasil → hysan]

This. The default apps from 17.04 are already great. We just need more integration and updates.

[Freak_NL]

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 → Freak_NL]

> 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 → jhasse]

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

[cJ0th → jhasse]

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

[grover_hartmann → cJ0th]

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 → grover_hartmann]

awesome! thanks a lot!

[brudgers]

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.

[dannysu → brudgers]

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.

[keithpeter → brudgers]

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 → keithpeter]

> turning off JS by default for a browser

Year of the Linux laptop would never come

[keithpeter → artursapek]

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).

[Keeblo]

I really like Ubuntu, but there are two things that I would recommend changing/fixing:

1. Replace the default PDF reader with something faster. It takes the default PDF viewer (in 17.04) 10+ seconds to open files that MuPDF can open in 2 seconds. MuPDF is very basic, so it might not be the best option for the default viewer, but hopefully there's something faster than the current default.

2. Allow the software center app to request sudo privileges when installing .deb files from the GUI. When I set up my most recent Ubuntu desktop I downloaded the Chrome deb from Google and then tried to install it by double clicking the file in the GUI file browser. The software center app opened and tried to install it, but instead of asking me for sudo privileges (which I had), it failed to install. My options were A) install it from the command line with sudo or B) install gdebi and use that to install the deb from the GUI.

As someone who is comfortable working in Linux, it's not a big deal for me to install a deb from the command line. The inability to install a deb by double clicking it would be a showstopper/major issue for someone who is brand new to Linux and isn't trying to "learn Linux".

P.S. There's an argument to be made that people should just learn to use the command line, but Ubuntu's slogan is "Linux for human beings". Besides, the worst way to introduce someone to the wonderful world of FOSS software is to give them a headache while they're trying to set up their computer :-)

[michaelmrose → Keeblo]

Zathura can use mupdf as a backend and has much better bindings/features compared to mupdf, it also supports other ebook formats.

Still pretty keyboard driven and not an optimal choice for ubuntu.

Maybe ubuntu should have a more minimal spin with i3wm and apps like zathura.

[Keeblo → michaelmrose]

I second that! The i3wm rocks, but it's kind of a pain to set up. Many applications expect certain GUI elements to be present, and a lot of "It Just Works" aspects of Ubuntu (e.g. hotkeys on laptop media keyboards working) are built into the desktop environment and have to be reconfigured for i3wm.

[michaelmrose → Keeblo]

This is super trivial just figure out the right command to run and what the key is called and bindsym key command.

If you don't know what they key is called run xev and press the key and it will show you.

If you don't know what command to run google do whatever command line linux.

[kgwxd]

Web Browser: Firefox unmodified (e.g. no Ubuntu start page)

Email Client: None, users still using desktop clients know what they want and how to get it.

Terminal: No preference

IDE: None, this should be chosen by the user if they want one.

File manager: No preference

Basic Text Editor: No preference

IRC/Messaging Client: None, same situation as email

PDF Reader: No preference

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: Like the calendar the clock opens (no preference) or a calendar you can add events to (does a modern desktop calendar for Linux even exist)?

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: Whatever is least bloated

Photo Viewer: Whatever is least bloated

Screen recording: None, most people don't need or want this.

[aruggirello → kgwxd]

> calendar you can add events to (does a modern desktop calendar for Linux even exist)?

I don't know about Gnome - but KDE has both a desktop calendar/organizer app (Korganizer) and a (unrelated) Plasma widget for the toolbar - the gorgeous Event Calendar Plasma widget, which shows your Google Calendar events.

[moosingin3space → aruggirello]

There is a Gnome calendar app: https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Calendar.

[gurkendoktor → moosingin3space]

And then there's also https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/California

And of course elementaryOS has its own GTK+3-based calendar: https://launchpad.net/maya

So basically, the same situation as with mail clients, photo apps, music players, ... I wish the GNOME world would decide to just merge all the features into one app per task and then kill the others.

[sp332]

Web Browser: Firefox, but consider defaulting to 52 ESR since FF57 may cause breakage in November (one month after your Ubuntu release). Whatever browser you use, don't be afraid to change the settings or extensions for security. HTTPS Everywhere or Privacy Badger or an adblocker built-in goes a long way in protecting your users.

Photo Viewer: must open quickly. If I want to manage a zillion photos I can download something else, but when I just open a file I want to see it right away.

[dd9990]

Web Browser: Firefox (unmodified, no pre-installed Ubuntu extensions)

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: Gnome Terminal or Tilix [0]

IDE: Gnome Builder

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: N/A

PDF Reader: Okular

Office Suite: LiberOffice Fresh (preferably via a snap to keep updated)

Calendar: Gnome Calendar

Video Player: Gnome MPV with youtube-dl [1] or VLC

Music Player: VLC

Photo Viewer: Digikam

Screen recording: N/A

[0] https://github.com/gnunn1/tilix [1] https://github.com/gnome-mpv/gnome-mpv

[dustinkirkland]

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

https://ubu.one/apps1804

[zanny]

Meta-observation: There are three primary applications everyone wants fairly uniformly. Firefox, LO, and VLC.

It is really interesting from an integration perspective to consider all three:

* Firefox pulls in gtk3 and gtk2 dependencies.

* VLC pulls in Qt and sdl1.

* LO pulls in Python.

Of note, both Firefox and VLC use ffmpeg, which is nice.

But my macro point - the most popular applications for Linux right now all use pretty much entirely different infrastructure. All three pull in at least a dozen library or package dependencies each, there is little overlap, and between them you have the entirety of GTK and Qt. On top of that, they are about 130MB, 50MB, and 400MB installed respectively.

I'm not going to make conclusions about how this relates to the desire to write composable software, or how these various monolith projects are also the most desired. It is just interesting that just from the big three staples you are looking at more space used on installation media than a CD just from them and their immediate dependencies. Qt alone is around 400MB including webengine. Gtk is another 90MB. So you are looking at over 1GB of binaries, libraries, and art assets to run 3 programs, and at runtime they will all be pulling these respective libraries into resident memory with almost no overlap.

[michaelmrose → zanny]

Its foolishness to try to find a whole list of apps that use the same gui toolkit instead of the best apps, python is installed by default on every linux system under the sun, and you can't just convert from installed size to memory usage. The universe just doesn't work that way.

[zanny → michaelmrose]

Its not installed size to memory usage. Its shared common libraries vs unshared libraries. Pulling in Qt means every Qt app will load so's for all the same things the core GTK libraries do, and take up memory that in a purely GTK environment would never be used because all the apps shared the same libraries in memory. This also dramatically affects the performance of app switching and opening new apps.

This is how Android has a tiny memory footprint - one gui toolkit, one runtime, one way to do everything. You really notice on Android when you open an NDK app that isn't using the Android Frameworks GUI components because they take a long time to open.

This is also why Windows in general is a bloated mess - depending on what software you are running it might be Windows Forms or XDA or their new app frameworks (Metro and/or 10) or .net or Qt or the old style COM API from the 95-98 days. Or worse, nowadays, you can get an Electron app that starts up its own browser rendering engine and doesn't share anything with the Chrome instance you have running at the same time despite using the same libraries. None share fundamental primitives, so opening programs from each toolkit eats memory alive. And then every program you install pretty much has to assume you don't have any library dependencies installed as well, so they pull down their entire toolkit in some .Z patch version that is incompatible with any other app using it so almost the same library gets loaded multiple times.

[michaelmrose → zanny]

You are assuming that a single app from a toolkit causes every possible qt library to be loaded in memory. This is a faulty assumption.

[PascLeRasc]

I'd love for Chromium to be included by default and for that Amazon app to be removed. I have no idea what the Amazon thing even is but it's just Windows 10-esque spamware to me.

As for IDE, it'd be really cool to have Arduino included, but some might consider that spamware ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[pitaj → PascLeRasc]

Arduino is a horrible IDE. It doesn't even have high DPI support, making it entirely unusable in my XPS 15.

[takno → pitaj]

Absolutely agree that it's a horrible IDE. Java 9 has better HiDPI support in Linux though, so it may get a little better in the future

[SubiculumCode]

Whatever file browser is chosen, please include the damn up button, and please no buttons replacing the address bar. Also, PLEASE 'open terminal here' as a default option on right click.

[Jackneill → SubiculumCode]

Nemo has those. (At least i think the right click is possible with plugins.)

[lucb1e → Jackneill]

Nemo did that out of the box on my Debian Stretch/Buster with Cinnamon setup. I assume it's not a plugin.

[acabal]

Web browser: Firefox

Email client: Thunderbird

Terminal: Gnome Terminal

File Manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Gedit (But can you patch the ridiculous "find next" shortcut key to ctrl + f/enter from ctrl + f/ctrl + g?)

PDF Reader: Gnome default

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Music Player: I always felt like Banshee was the superior Gnomish music player but it seems to unmaintained unfortunately. Rhythmbox is the next best basic one IMHO.

Photo viewer: Gnome default

[anopows → acabal]

>But can you patch the ridiculous "find next" shortcut key to ctrl + f/enter from ctrl + f/ctrl + g?

Yes this is one of the things that I am really annoyed with gedit. All searches (to my knowledge) in browsers and IDE's work by pressing enter to get to the new search entry.

The only exception which comes to my mind is vim which has 'n' to go to the next search entry(also completely different to gedit). But in comparison vim, excepts the user to learn a lot of new commands, gedit on the other hand should imo follow the simplicity of other GNOME apps.

To search a keyboard shortcut in the manual and then memorize it for such a simple editor is just tedious and irritating.

[SingletonIface]

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

[_ieq6]

TextEditor:- I really hate gedit, it takes around 1 to 3 seconds to save a file.

It doesn't notify user if some foreign process changed or removed file.

When ever a user types in a bracket, parentheses..., It does mean that he/she is going to close that (most probably).

Indentation, only God can understand what it means for source code files.

Only one thing which I like in gedit is, cobalt.

I don't use Ubuntu, because I need a feature-rich desktop, not the opposite.

I could've used Kubuntu, but I hate it because of apt (for being too slow)

What I like in Ubuntu is better power management.

I could've used Fedora, but I hate it's package manager, for being inconsistent, and this text like Microsoft, "please wait while your system is being updated", "reboot to update your system".

Rather than feeling the pain everyday, I take pain for few hours and install Arch Linux, with KDE.

Having the best feature-rich DE, with latest and up-to-date packages, a package manger which just works out of the box even in worst network conditions, for having every application in one place...

I literally forgot what's the name for, including those community or independent developers application, URL into main repositories, which will most probably break the system.

I don't know why you guys choosed GNOME, everything is damn slow. I accept that it provides simplicity for its users.

[bsharitt]

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: I'm pretty much all web apps, and would actually like not having evolution or thunderbird installed by default. I think email clients are something to leave up to the users to specifically install

Terminal: Gnome Terminal

IDE: Visual Studio Code. I don't care if it's installed by default, but the ability to install out of the box without a web visit and .deb download would be great.

File manager: I guess I use Nautilus by default, but don't take that as an endorsement

Basic Text Editor: I use vim, but Gedit suffices.

IRC/Messaging Client: Like email, I think this should be left out of a base install these days.

PDF Reader: Evnince it fine, but ePub support in it, or what ever PDF/document viewer is default would be wonderful(bonuse points for mobi too)

Office Suite: Libre Office seems to be the only real option and it's fine

Calendar: Gnome Calendar

Video Player: I used to install VLC day, one, but actually have kept Totem lately

Music Player: I don't think there's any good options, Rhythmbox is still much better than Gnome Music if you're tempted to go all Gnome with the default DE switch

Photo Viewer: EOG is fine, just don't make a big heavy gallery app the default opener even if one is installed by default.

[pmontra]

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: gnome terminal is ok

IDE: none. I'm using emacs for all the things. Which standard IDE could handle all languages well? I think this is for developers and we pick our tools. If this is a IDE for learning, I don't know if this is the right way to learn. Maybe vim.

File manager: nautilus is ok

Basic Text Editor: gedit should be ok. I never use it because I don't need a basic editor.

IRC/Messaging Client: no idea. I use my phone for messaging.

PDF Reader: evince.

Office Suite: Libreoffice from their PPA. The distro is usually way too behind. This is a general problem with many packages not in the core of the OS. Maybe it's time to give up on trying to be current and let developers package their stuff in any sensible format.

Calendar: I use the offline calendar on my phone.

Video Player: VLC, Gnome Video is just too basic.

Music Player: YouTube :-) Seriously, I use Rhythmbox and it's kinda ok, when it doesn't mess with the metadata of a full directory of files. I'm chmod 400 my mp3 to make them safe.

Photo Viewer: eog? I used shotwell and its predecessor (fspot?) and I lost all labels migrating among versions and computers. I'm not wasting my time anymore with sw that organize picture collections. If at least they had import / export to / from csv.

Screen Recording: I liked to use Green Recorder https://launchpad.net/~mhsabbagh/+archive/ubuntu/greenprojec... but how about adding a video editor too?

[Rondom → pmontra]

Gnome has a smorke screen recorder built in already. Press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-R to record

[pmontra → Rondom]

That doesn't work for me, probably because I'm on Gnome flashback. I don't like Activities and other quirks of Gnome Shell. Luckily with Ubuntu 16.04 the flashback mode gained back all the functionality of the Gnome 2 desktop.

I googled for the package name of that screen recorder, with no success, but Green Recorder is pretty good.

I also don't seem to have an embedded screen shapshotter (PrntScreen works). I've been using shutter for ages.

[tombert]

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: Evolution

Terminal: Gnome Terminal

IDE: No IDE by default. Most users aren't developers

File manager: Files/Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Atom

IRC/Messaging Client: Nothing, let user install their own.

PDF Reader: Evince

Office Suite: I don't really like it, but LibreOffice is probably the best option right now. Personally, I'd almost prefer an option to just have LaTeX and TeXStudio pre-installed.

Calendar: No Preference

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: VLC

Photo Viewer: No preference

Screen recording: No preference

[pitaj → tombert]

Atom isn't a basic text editor. It's closer to an IDE. I'd go a step further and say no Email client. Most users don't use email clients at all, and Thunderbird is really old looking nowadays.

[mycat → tombert]

Using electron app for _basic_ editor?

[tombert → mycat]

I don't use it much personally, since I'm basically married to Vim, I just like it better than Gedit, and sublime text is proprietary.

You're probably right though, an electron app is a bit heavy.

[blfr]

Video Player: mpv!

I had been using Ubuntu for years before realising that this amazing improvement over mplayer exists. And it has everything: GPU decoding, excellent UI, keyboard shortcuts, it's fast, and never fails. Of the software I use regularly, this one is by far the closest to perfection.

[markstos]

=== Web Browser: Chromium, Firefox

Email Client: Fastmail web, Gmail web

Terminal: konsole, terminator

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Gedit, Gvim

IRC/Messaging Client: Slack web, Signal web

PDF Reader: Chromium, Firefox

Office Suite: LibreOffice, GSuite web

Calendar: Google Calendar web

Music Player: Google Music web, Clementine

Photo Viewer: eog, shotwell, gimp

Screenshot tool: Shutter

Sound source switcher: indicator-sound-switcher

Clipboard Manager: glipper

PDF Annotation: xournal

Markdown Viewer: ghostwriter

Markdown Editor: ghostwriter ===

[newscracker]

Web browser: Firefox

Email client: Thunderbird

File Manager: Thunar File Manager

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Video Player: mpv

----------

Completely unrelated, but having Ubuntu work well on a Mac (and retaining habits learned on a Mac) with the external Apple Magic Trackpad would be great. It's a huge source of frustration and annoyance for me for various reasons, right after the keyboard shortcuts. Native to Ubuntu, I will also miss Unity not being developed further or not being developed with the focus that existed before.

Another one, though not a desktop default app. Please add a well maintained and working VNC server (or make it available). I tried a few, gave up and went with TeamViewer (which is a commercial product, but free for personal use). Not being able to screen share with a mostly headless machine has been very frustrating.

[j0ar]

    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: ???

[shock]

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: Tilix[0], Gnome Terminal,

IDE: IntelliJ, Eclipse

File manager: Double Commander[1]

Basic Text Editor: Vim

IRC/Messaging Client: Pidgin

PDF Reader: Evince/MuPDF

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: Gnome Calendar

Video Player: Vlc, Kodi

Music Player: Audacious

Photo Viewer: Eye of Gnome

Screen recording: Simple Screen Recorder[2]

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

[1] - https://doublecmd.sourceforge.io/

[2] - http://www.maartenbaert.be/simplescreenrecorder/

[lucb1e → shock]

Cool to see SSR in here. A friend made that and I always thought it was much better than existing tools, at least at the time, both in how fast they are, their ease of use and the options they provide (some have options you just never touch, others lack options that you wanted to change; SSR has neither).

[tradesmanhelix]

Also, maybe try the Ubuntu Mate approach and let users pick their own solution. I'd love to see Ubuntu implement something like the Ubuntu Mate Welcome [1] and/or Software Boutique [2].

[1] https://github.com/ubuntu-mate/ubuntu-mate-welcome

[2] https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/ubuntu-mate-welcome-screen/1...

[simonvdv]

First of all, thanks for getting in touch with your users! Hope you'll be able to extrapolate some useful info from it :)

My basic suggestion would be to keep it simple, so stay with the GNOME apps where you can. Also it might make sense to make a distinction between what people feel is a good choice of software and which of those should be included in the default install.

IMHO stuff like and IDE, e-mail client, IRC client, messaging client, office suite and screen recording don't have to be included in the default install as long as it's easy enough for everyone to add them later (or customize during install).

Regarding specific items: - Terminal: gnome-terminal, but if possible look into make the tabs a bit less tall and fix the search dialog so it can be closed by pressing escape

- File manager/photo viewer: nautilus, but look into fixing the preview (spacebar) so that it allows opening the preview window once and then allow navigating through all files in the chosen directory using the arrow keys

- Calendar: gnome-calender, but make sure you use gnome 3.24 or later so it support dark mode

- Screenshots: gnome-screenshot, but please fix it so it's possible to take multiple screenshots in succession. Right one has to close and open it to do so.

- Video player: Technically mpv, maybe with the gnome-mpv GUI. Though mpv might be too difficult to use for some users?

- Music player: Imho none of them is really good enough :( Elementary's noise might be at some point

[smacktoward]

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 → smacktoward]

++ 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.

[petecox]

Web Browser: Firefox

Chrome and Vivaldi each have their own apt repository, so why Ubuntu would bundle or package them, I'm not sure but give the option of adding an entry to sources.list. I mainly use Chrome for websites requiring flash support and letting Google manage that rather than the FOSS Chromium is simpler.

Basic Text Editor: Geany. Decent feature set and it has support in Windows and I prefer cross platform tools. Video Player, Music Player: VLC. Again it works on multiple operating systems and with few dramas. Office Suite: Libreoffice, again it's cross platform. I have written a couple of things in Lyx but it's niche. PDF Reader: NOT Okular - it's very versatile but chokes when rendering image-heavy 40 page film festival brochures. Atril or whatever the Gnome version is called are snappier.

Email Client: On linux, I use webmail. Too many hoops to jump through in getting Office365 and Gmail working seamlessly without typing in a bunch of IMAP/SMTP settings voodoo - lack in patience and too lazy in 2017 for that! Would revisit if something worked out of the box.

The rest? Well you've committed to Gnome and the default apps would suffice.

[brian_herman]

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?

[xiaq → brian_herman]

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.)

[notamy → brian_herman]

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 → brian_herman]

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 → laumars]

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

[rvern]

Web Browser: Firefox, not Chromium, Epiphany or anything else.

Email Client: Evolution, Thunderbird if you really don't want to pick Evolution. Do install one by default.

Terminal: GNOME Terminal.

IDE: none.

File manager: Nautilus.

Basic Text Editor: gedit.

IRC/Messaging Client: none, Pidgin, Polari, HexChat.

PDF Reader: Evince.

Office Suite: LibreOffice; LibreOffice Base should be excluded.

Calendar: GNOME Calendar.

Video Player: Totem, not VLC.

Music Player: Rhythmbox, perhaps GNOME Music in a future release.

Photo Viewer: Eye of GNOME, maybe include Shotwell too.

Screen recording: GNOME Shell's built-in recording.

Also include file-roller, gnome-calculator, gnome-characters (not gucharmap), gnome-clocks, gnome-disks, baobab, gnome-documents, gnome-font-viewer, gnome-system-monitor, yelp, gnome-logs, bijiben, seahorse, gnome-screenshot, gnome-software, and gnome-weather, and consider including gnome-boxes, devhelp, gnome-dictionary, gitg, gimp, gnome-maps, gnome-tweak-tool, and deja-dup.

This is almost exactly identical to Fedora Workstation's default apps. In general, I have a strong preference for embracing the GNOME apps and GTK+ 3. The only exceptions are Firefox instead of Epiphany and LibreOffice instead of AbiWord and Gnumeric.

[ameliaquining]

Web browser: Chromium, Firefox

Email client: Gmail

Terminal: gnome-terminal

IDE: Atom, Emacs, Visual Studio Code

Basic text editor: Atom, gedit, nano, Emacs

PDF Reader: Chromium, evince, Adobe Acrobat (non-free)

Office Suite: Google Docs, LibreOffice

Calendar: Google Calendar

Video player: Totem, mplayer

Music player: Totem, mplayer

Photo viewer: Eye of GNOME, Shotwell

Screen recording: RecordMyDesktop

And a category that's been traditionally missing from Linux distros and really shouldn't be:

Simple raster graphics editor (like Microsoft Paint): GNU Paint

[zumu]

Is there an option to have none of that installed? First thing I do on any distro is uninstall that stuff

[dillon]

Web Browser: Firefox

Email: Anything simple and lightweight

Terminal: Default GNOME Term.

IDE: Shouldn't be in a default install

File Manager: Anything simple and lightweight + tabs (Nautilus) Basic Text Editor: vi

IRC/Messaging: Pidgin or Empathy

PDF: Default GNOME Viewer

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: Default GNOME Calendar

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: VLC

Photo Viewer: Default GNOME

Screen Recording: Something full featured?

Additionally:

Maps: Anything supporting OSM (GNOME Maps)

Software Center: GNOME's Software Center

[gremlinsinc]

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..

[RealityDisorder]

Web Browser: Firefox, Chromium

Email Client: Thunderbird (altho would prefer a modern alternative)

Terminal: rxvt-unicode

IDE: IntelliJ family

File manager: ???

Basic Text Editor: vim

IRC/Messaging Client: irssi/pidgin

PDF Reader: Atril/xpdf

Office Suite: Abiword/Gnumeric

Calendar: Thunderbird + Lightning (altho would prefer a modern alternative)

Video Player: mpv

Music Player: deadbeef, Clementine

Photo Viewer: feh, eom

Screen recording: open broadcaster software

[Theodores]

A genuine long term Ubuntu fan, not used Windows since Vista. Happy with everything. Let's have a look at what I left behind:

Web Browser: IE6

Email Client: Outlook Express

Terminal: putty

IDE: MS Studio

File manager: Explorer

Basic Text Editor: Notepad

IRC/Messaging Client: Skype

PDF Reader: Adobe Acrobat

Office Suite: MS Office

Calendar: Outlook

Video Player: RealPlayer

Music Player: Winamp

Photo Viewer: Cracked copy of Photoshop

Screen recording: Print screen key

I don't use alternative programs to the above, I don't write Word docs or need to as communication has changed. I don't have an email client.

My point is that this list of defaults is stuck in the past, we use computers differently and need an updated list of default applications. There should be a default app for your phone and what happens when you plug it in. There should be built in IoT apps too, so your computer can be at the heart of gadgets you get for the home.

[jacek]

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

[xiaomai]

In most cases I prefer the standard gnome stuff (browser is the big exception).

Web Browser: Chromium / Firefox / Epiphany Email Client: Evolution / Mutt / Thunderbird Terminal: gnome-terminal File manager: nautilus Text editor: gedit IRC: weechat / polaris Office Suite: google docs / libreoffice Calendar: google calendar / gnome calendar Video Player: Totem / mpv Photo Viewer: Shotwell (I wish gnome-photos would work but its reliance on Tracker makes it unusable for me (what is with tracker not following symlinks?? please fix that). Screen recording: I wish the gnome-builtin one did sound, since it doesn't I use SimpleScreenRecorder)

[jtolmar]

I'm generally happy with all the Ubuntu default apps.

Basic text editor: gedit. Search has been a lot less usable since it moved to the top right bar. Keyboard sequences like control-f + part of a word + escape do strange things like sending you back to where you started. I'd like to be able to pilot to different parts of the code using control-f, down/enter/tab, up/shift-tab, and escape.

Also searching a huge file hangs because it stops to highlight every instance of the first character before processing the second. It should never be faster to open a terminal, find the file, and run grep. Also the entire app hangs to do syntax highlighting on giant xml files.

[zhte415]

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: <web>

Terminal: GNOME Terminal

IDE: none

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: GEdit or Sublime Text

IRC/Messaging Client: none

PDF Reader: Firefox

Office Suite: LibreOffice, but in a work environment use MS Office, and even MS Office 2007 (at work) is light-years ahead of LibreOffice in terms of how I use Office. I do like the pop-out right column for editing, but find I have to go through menu after menu for simple things like formatting a text box in Impress. Calc table functions lack MS Office in all aspects.

Calendar: none

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: VLC

Photo Viewer: Whatever the default is. Is good enough to not notice what it is.

Screen recording: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+r. Mainly record screen at work (Windows) where ShareX produces nice quality and file sizes.

[_m7bj]

I'd really like to ask for a "nothing, thanks" option.

The main reason I use xubuntu is because it offers a xubuntu-core package that comes with the desktop, apt and /nothing else/.

When I installed unity version of ubuntu, the install was always followed with about an hour of uninstalling shite I didn't care about. The new unity uninstall dialogue never worked correctly, and uninstalling 5 things in a row would cause it to lose track of what was installed and start duplicating entries. When I install a fresh system, I really want it to be fresh.

[dallamaneni]

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: Terminator

IRC/Messaging Client: Pidgin, Thunderbird

PDF Reader: evince

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: Thunderbird

Video Player: VLC

[petepete]

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

[_pfxa]

I'm using the latest Ubuntu GNOME, and I can say that I'm pleased with how it is. Using GNOME's own software where available is going to be better IMHO.

[lousken]

Web browser: Firefox

Email: None, Thunderbird

Terminal: xfce4-terminal

IDE: None, Qt creator, Visual studio code

File manager: Thunar, Nautilus, for terminal Midnight commander

Basic text editor: Mousepad, for terminal vim

IRC/Messaging Client: Empathy, Pidgin, none

PDF Reader: Okular, Firefox (integrated)

Office suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: Gnome native

Video player: smplayer (or any Mplayer version with GUI), for terminal ffplay

Music player: Clementine, for terminal cmus

Photo viewer: Ristretto

Screen recording: xfce4-screenshooter, OBS Studio

Extra

Shell: zsh

Password manager: Keepass, KeepassXC

Task manager: htop

Other: Numlockx, git

Basic photo editor similar to picpick/mspaint on windows: Pinta (guess is closest to that)

(currently xubuntu 16.04 user)

[aibara]

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: gnome-terminal

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: Pidgin

PDF Reader: Evince

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: Lightning (Thunderbird add-on)

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: Audacious

Photo Viewer: gThumb

P.S. Thanks for working on autoremoving old kernels from /boot!

[bitL]

Autoremove old kernel from /boot - this might look nice on "paper" however I have significant issues on latest LTS with any version of kernel 4.8 and 4.10 where I can't ever get to desktop, so I have to stick with 4.4 (Broadwell Core M ultrabook). If a reliable kernel is gone, I might not be able to boot unless I prepare an emergency USB stick and carry it with me all the time...

[riffic]

Give more love to Ubuntu server. Remove this update notification from the MOTD (this message encourages newbs to break their box):

https://imgur.com/a/6SD97

further elaboration provided here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14006747

[tapper]

Web Browser: Firefox Email Client: Thunderbird File manager: Nemo Basic Text Editor: Geany Messaging Client: Telegram, Pidgin IRC client: Hexchat PDF Reader: Evince Calendar: Thunderbird's built-in Video Player: VLC Music Player: Spotify non-free, VLC Screen recording: SSR (ppa:maarten-baert/simplescreenrecorder) System monitor: htop, gnome-system-monitor Calculator: apcalc

[devillius]

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)

[interfixus]

Web Browser: Pale Moon Email Client: Thunderbird Terminal: [DE default] IDE: Geany File manager: [DE default] Basic Text Editor: ??? IRC/Messaging Client: Pidgin PDF Reader: qpdfview Office Suite: [none] Calendar: Thunderbird/Lightning Video Player: SMPlayer Music Player: ??? Photo Viewer: Viewnior, [DE default] Screen recording: ???

[PleaseHelpMe]

Web Browser: Firefox/ Chrome

Email Client: No Email Client.

Terminal: Terminator

IDE: No IDE.

File manager: Nautilus/ Thunar. (I was looking for something with dual panel view but no good solution seems to exist right now)

Basic Text Editor: Gedit/ Sublime.

IRC/Messaging Client: No IRC/MEssaging client or Hexchat.

PDF Reader: Evince/ qPdfViewer

Office Suite: Libreoffice (But do we have an alternative?)

Calendar: Gnome Calendar seems fine.

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: Clementine

Photo Viewer: gThumb

Screen recording: OBS/ Kazam.

[pdfttgz]

Web Browser: Chromium Email Client: Thunderbird Terminal: Gnome Terminal IDE: Builder File manager: Nautilus Basic Text Editor: Vim IRC/Messaging Client: Polari PDF Reader: Chromium Office Suite: LibreOffice Calendar: Gnome Calendar Video Player: VLC Music Player: Audacious Photo Viewer: Shotwell Screen recording: No preference

[rasengan]

The switch to libinput is good. I would also strongly suggest including libinput-gestures which enables multi-touch gestures. It's a fascinating feature which helps one's work flow.

Dash to Dock is another good one as are several other nice GNOME extensions.

bumblebee / gfx support would be nice :-)

Tiling Extensions as well.

The GNOME screen recorder works fine built in. :)

[jdlyga]

The default apps in Ubuntu under Unity are good as-is. I don't feel the need for any changes.

But after looking at the 17.10 image, it absolutely needs dash to dock. Gnome is unusable to a lot of people without it. Ubuntu is supposed to be user friendly, remember.

Also, improving the look of GDM is a must. It looks fairly ugly by default.

[sigi21]

Web Browser: Firefox, Chromium Email Client: Thunderbird Terminal: ??? IDE: ??? File manager: Nautilus Basic Text Editor: ??? IRC/Messaging Client: ??? PDF Reader: ??? Office Suite: LibreOffice Calendar: Thunderbird Video Player: VLC Music Player: VLC Photo Viewer: ??? Screen recording: ???

[sathackr]

Native Windows user, raised on it since 3.0. Made Ubuntu 16.04 my primary OS about 14 months ago after MS tried to cram Windows 10 down my throat and insisted on packaging the Windows Store, CandyCrushSaga and Facebook apps in Server 2016 and making them essentially impossible to remove.

Every day I get more and more comfortable. It hasn't been without frustration, and often I've wanted to give up and go back, but so far I've stuck to it.

-----

Web Browser: Google Chrome

Email client: None since I use gmail and Office 365, and not much will cooperate with O365 except OWA.

Terminal: default preinstalled app

IDE: Not a developer

File manager: default preinstalled app(Nautilus?)

Basic text editor: gedit, or the non-gui version of emacs. I know I know.....

IRC/Messaging: Google voice and Slack web pages, via Google Chrome

PDF Reader: Evince or Google Chrome. Not really because I prefer either, just the first ones I found and they were 'good enough'.

Office Suite: Preinstalled libreoffice has been 'good enough' for me. Also Google Sheets(via Chrome)

Calendar: Don't use one, probably would if O365 integration worked better.

Video Player: Default preinstalled player because it usually works, but VLC occasionally if I have something the built-in won't play.

Music Player: None -- Pandora/Soundcloud/Youtube/DI.FM/Google Play, all web, via Google Chrome.

Photo Viewer: default preinstalled has worked pretty well for me. I think I like it better than the Windows Photo viewer that MS took away from me with 8/10

Screen recording: None. I make heavy use of the preinstalled screenshot utility, though I wish it was a bit more like the windows snipping tool. It's fairly annoying to use it to grab multiple screenshots when you're trying to just select an area, though I like that you can grab a quick succession using the prt-screen and save them all.

Other apps I use often: Steam

libvirt/VMM

Remmina, though I wish it had more features for RDP. Seems sessions are much slower than when using a MS rdp client.

PlayOnLinux

Occasionally Gimp, though it's pretty annoying to use in 16.04 because of the way it creates multiple separate windows.

[_vx81 → sathackr]

Regarding your last comment about Gimp, this feature (the multi-window mode) can be disable. Open Gimp > "Windows" > check "Simple-Window mode".

[sathackr → _vx81]

Interesting -- I went in to enable that option and it was already checked.

It's been a couple of weeks since I last used Gimp -- maybe it was changed in an update?

In any case, thanks!

[Jackneill]

Web Browser: chromium, firefox

Email Client: thunderbird

Terminal: alacritty

IDE: vscode

File manager: nemo

Basic Text Editor: gedit, sublime text 3

IRC/Messaging Client: hexchat

Office Suite: libreoffice

Video Player: mpv, vlc, smplayer

Photo Viewer: eog

Screenshot taker: shutter

[saikatsg]

- Web Browser: Chromium/GNOME Web

- Email Client: Gmail-web

- Terminal: Guake/GNOME Terminal

- IDE: Visual Studio Code

- File manager: Nautilus/Files

- Basic Text Editor: Leafpad/Bluefish

- IRC/Messaging Client: Hexchat/Polari

- PDF Reader: Evince

- Office Suite: LibreOffice

- Calendar: GNOME Calendar

- Video Player: VLC/SMPlayer/GNOME Videos

- Music Player: GNOME Music/Audacious

- Photo Viewer: gThumb/GNOME Photos

- Screen recording: Peek/Kazam

[koot]

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: Gnome Terminal

IDE: Emacs / Sublime Text 3 / Geany

File Manager: Thunar / PCManFM / Caja (Anything but Nautilus they stripped to many features after 2.32)

Basic Text Edtor: Gedit

IRC / Messaging Client: Hexchat / Pidgin

PDF Reader: Evince

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: Gnome Calendar

Video Player: VLC / SMPlayer

Music Player: Deadbeef / Audacious / Rhythmbox

Photo Viewer: EOG

Screen Recording: ???

[gurkendoktor]

I don't really care as long as the Software app is in good shape. It should find common software and maybe even have a link to software that it doesn't find (search for Spotify->show link with PPA installation instructions).

My only wish is OpenVPN (+GUI integration).

[toxicbits]

Web Browser: Chromium

Email Client: Geary

Terminal: Gnome Terminal

IDE: Gnome Builder

File manager: Gnome Files

Basic Text Editor: Gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: Polari

PDF Reader: Evince

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: Gnome Calendar

Video Player: Gnome MPV

Music Player: Lollypop

Photo Viewer: Gthumb

Screen recording: Peek

[alok-g]

Please make sure to honor accessibility features and select applications that do. I need dark themes because my eyes become red without. It is painful to use apps that do not honor theme colors and do not provide their own means to change colors either.

[luis3380]

Web Browser: chrome Email Client: thunderbird Terminal: IDE: codeblocks File manager: nautilus Basic Text Editor: gedit IRC/Messaging Client: ??? PDF Reader: evince Video Player: vlc Office Suite: libreoffice (last version) Music Player: clementine

[ddevault]

PDF reader: lightweight greenfield project that just puts pdf.js in a GTK3 webview

My answer to all of the other questions, though, is "nothing that's suitable for noobs". To this end, please make it easy to clean out the gunk and bring in power user tools.

[MrBingley → ddevault]

Do you, by chance, use Arch Linux?

[ddevault → MrBingley]

Sometimes!

[billconan]

===

Web Browser: chrome (close source)

Email Client: web gmail/web outlook

Terminal: ubuntu default (gnome terminal?) (I don't like it)

IDE: QtCreator

File manager: ubuntu default (gnome file manger?) (I don't like it)

Basic Text Editor: sublime text (close source)

IRC/Messaging Client: slack (close source)

PDF Reader: ubuntu default

Office Suite: libreoffice (hate it!)

Calendar: ubuntu default

Video Player: vlc

Music Player: ubuntu default

Photo Viewer: ubuntu default

Screen recording: shutter

===

[ptr_void]

Everyone default seems to be gnome nowadays, I don't understand why. One of the main reason for me to stick with Ubuntu was unity being a great DE.

===

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: ???

Terminal: Gnome terminal

IDE: VIM + plugins, Visual Studio Code

File manager: 16.0 default

Basic Text Editor: VIM

IRC/Messaging Client: ???

PDF Reader: 16.04 default

Office Suite: LibreOffice, markdown + pandoc -> pdf

Calendar: ???

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: ???

Photo Viewer: ???

Screen recording: Simple Screen Recorder

===

[c2h5oh]

Web Browser: Firefox, Chromium

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: Termite

Basic Text Editor: Leafpad, gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: Pidgin

Office Suite: Libre Office

Video Player: mpv

Screen recording: OBS Studio

[ColanR]

I really like the defaults that ubuntu gnome currently has. If I could make one request, it would be to include gdebi in the default install. I've found it much more convenient for adding .deb packages than software center.

[abbiya]

Web Browser: firefox

Email Client: dont include one

Terminal: stable one with wayland support

IDE: vs code

File manager: mate's

Basic Text Editor: no gedit for sure

IRC/Messaging Client: dont bother to include one

PDF Reader: smallest and stable one

Office Suite: dont include

Calendar: no good apps are there

Video Player: vlc

Music Player: Clementine

Photo Viewer: include only one, no need to photo manager

Screen recording: include the stable

[lucb1e]

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: Thunderbird

File manager: Nemo

Basic Text Editor: Anything except Gedit. For example Geany is fine.

Messaging Client: Telegram, Pidgin

IRC client: Hexchat

PDF Reader: Evince

Calendar: Thunderbird's built-in

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: Spotify non-free, VLC

Screen recording: SSR (ppa:maarten-baert/simplescreenrecorder)

System monitor: htop, gnome-system-monitor

Calculator: apcalc

[HuangYuSan]

Web Browser: Chrome non-free, Firefox

Email Client: Inbox web, Mutt

Terminal: GNOME Terminal

File manager: Nautilus, Nemo

Basic Text Editor: Atom, Gedit

PDF Reader: Evince, Chrome

Office Suite: LibreOffice, Google Docs web, Office 2016 with VMWare Player non-free

Calendar: Google Calendar web

Video Player: Totem Movie Player

Music Player: Google Play Music web

Photo Viewer: GNOME image viewer

[chavlu]

Ubuntu and Google they should play as a team, Google has many tools and ubuntu many knowledge, people like both. Ubuntu should start using Google apps, and ubuntu should be easier to get in stores.

[flurdy]

Web Browser: Brave, Firefox

Email Client: Gmail web

Terminal: Terminator

IDE: IntelliJ, Atom

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Atom, VIM

IRC/Messaging Client: Gitter, Slack non-free

Office Suite: Google Docs web

Calendar: Google Calendar web

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: Spotify non-free

Screen recording: Google Hangout non-free, Floobits non-free

Games platform: Steam non-free

Source control GUI: GitKraken

[chavlu]

Ubuntu y Google deberían de aliarse ambos son open source, el nuevo ubuntu debería de utilizar las aplicaciones de Google y tener ciertas funciones geniales que un dispositivo Android tiene.

[hd4]

I don't know if this is the appropriate thread but can we have some better support for F2FS in Ubuntu please?

From what I know, we can't even install to a F2FS partition using the default installer.

[kevincox]

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.

[fsantucci]

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: YahooMail, Gmail

Terminal: Tilix

IDE: Visual Studio Code, Atom

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Vim, Gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: Telegram

PDF Reader: Evince

Office Suite: LibreOffice, WPS Office

Calendar: Gnome Calendar

Video Player: VLC, MediaInfo

Music Player: Lollypop, Spotify, EasyTAG

Photo Viewer: Shotwell

Screen recording: Simple Screen Recorder

Shell: zsh

Bitmap Image Editor: GIMP

2D Vetorial Image Editor: Inkscape

[Nala_Alan]

Web Browser: Chromium

Email Client: Gmail (web), Protonmail (web)

Terminal: gnome-terminal

IDE: Sublime Text 3 (non-free), Visual Studio Code

File manager: default

Basic Text Editor: nano

IRC/Messaging Client: HexChat

PDF Reader: default

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: none

Video Player: mpv

Music Player: unsure, i would go with DeaDBeeF and Spotify (non-free)

Photo Viewer: ???

Screen recording: none

Extra: KeePass, git, gpg

[Shorel]

Web browser: Chromium. Bittorrent client: Deluge.

I use Kodi for videos and music and sublime text to edit texts, and I don't see any reason to force complex or proprietary software as the defaults.

[Giako]

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

[mi100hael]

Web Browser: FireFox, Chromium, Chrome only as last resort for media compatibility

Email Client: Thunderbird, mutt

Terminal: Gnome Terminal, Terminator

IDE: Netbeans

Basic Text Editor: vim, gVim, gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: Pigin, Hexchat

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: NextCloud web

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: VLC

Photo Viewer: Shotwell I guess

[FranOntanaya]

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 → FranOntanaya]

> I prefer SMPlayer to VLC for simple playback

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

[_ieq6 → jhasse]

SM-Player is based on MPV.

[nahtnam]

I just want to say that the web browser should be Firefox for the sole reason that most people will install chrome and having both chrome and chromium would be confusing.

[wasd]

One of my greatest frustrations is the default email client. It's caused a lot of headaches with mailto links. I would prefer if Ubuntu did not ship with one.

[thibran]

The default "simple" console text editor "nano" should be replaced by the much more intuitive editor called "ne" (a less known gem).

[pksadiq]

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: Evolution

Terminal: gnome-terminal

IDE: gnome-builder?

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: Polari/??

PDF Reader: Evince (gnome-documents?)

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: gnome-calendar

Video Player: Totem/VLC

Music Player: rhythmbox (gnome-music?)

Photo Viewer: gnome-photos/eog

Screen recording: ???

[a_humean]

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

[Entangled]

Sublime is all I need. I'll build everything else.

[erazor42]

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: -

[arbeluga]

Web Browser: Firefox, Epiphany

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: Gnome Terminal

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Gedit

PDF Reader: Evince

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: Thunderbird (Lightning)

Video Player: VLC, Totem

Music Player: Clementine

Photo Viewer: EyeOfGnome

Screen recording: "Shift+Ctrl+Alt+R" in Gnome

[tapoxi]

Remove the following:

* Email client

* IDE

* IRC/Messaging Client

* Calendar

* Office Suite

Only absolute necessities in a default install. I still don't understand why Linux distributions insist on shipping so much stuff by default.

[_R_]

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

[rosco18]

Web Browser: Chrome

Email Client: Geary

Terminal: Gnome Terminal

IDE: Eclipse

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: Messenger for desktop

PDF Reader: Default on old version

Office Suite: WPS office

Calendar: Gnome Calendar

Video Player: TOTEM

Music Player: Evince

Photo Viewer: ???

Music Player: Rhythmbox

Photo Viewer: shotwell

Screen recording: default on old version

[tradesmanhelix]

Web Browser: Firefox ESR, Waterfox

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: Konsole

IDE: vim, emacs, Atom

File manager: Dolphin

Basic Text Editor: kwrite, gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: irssi

PDF Reader: Okular

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: Lightning Thunderbird Plugin

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: Clementine, cmus

Photo Viewer: Gwenview

Screen recording: Peek

[supersexman]

Web Browser: Opera non-free (you can also make a commercial agreement with Opera, this would raise their market share)

Email Client:

Terminal: terminator

IDE: Atom

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Gedit

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: Amarok

[vkandy]

Web Browser: Chrome

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: Gnome Terminal, Terminator

IDE: Webstorm (several)

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: pidgin/hexchat

PDF Reader: evince

Office Suite: Libre Office

Calendar: Gnome Calendar

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: Rythmbox

Photo Viewer: Shotwell

Screen recording: Peek

Bonus: htop, KeePass2

[jakobdabo]

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: URXVT

IDE: Qt Creator, Eclipse, Geany

File manager: Thunar

Basic Text Editor: Mousepad

IRC/Messaging Client: Riot, Gajim

PDF Reader: Evince, Zathura

Office Suite: Libre Office

Video Player: VLC Media Player, mplayer, mpv

Music Player: DeaDBeeF

Photo Viewer: ???

Screen Recording: ???

[Jackneill]

Another humble wish: a subl/vscode like ctrl+shift+p multifunctional menu, where you can write commands, launch things, etc.

[zanny → Jackneill]

The Gnome runner and Krunner from KDE both do this. I'm not sure if the Gnome variant supports arbitrary commands like Krunner does, but they at least have opening applications, unit conversion, and web search.

[Shorel → zanny]

It's not the same.

He means something that can access all commands available in a given application, not a launcher.

Ubuntu's Unity has that, giving search access to all the menu entries in the opened application.

Sublime Text implementation is even more powerful, giving search access to all commands, and the list includes commands provided by extra packages added to Sublime.

So I can do, for example: 'ctrl+shift+p', install package, gitsavvy, <enter>; 'ctrl+shift+p', git diff current file, <enter>;

[acchan → Shorel]

https://github.com/p-e-w/plotinus

[blubberblase23]

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: Terminator

IDE: Vim ;)

File manager: pcmanfm

Basic Text Editor: vim/gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: pidgin

PDF Reader: mupdf

Office Suite: libreoffice

Calendar: Thunderbird

Video Player: vlc

Music Player: vlc

Photo Viewer: nomacs

Screen recording: don't know

At the most important: Init System => OpenRC

[brian_herman]

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

[acidburn1995]

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 → acidburn1995]

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.

[mherrmann]

Web Browser: Chrome

Email Client: None

File manager: fman (non-free)

Basic Text Editor: Sublime

Video Player: vlc

[lucb1e → mherrmann]

Three out of your four suggestions are non-free, not just one.

[ajitid]

Most of them are preferring VS Code as their IDE, Firefox as their web browser and VLC for playing media

[ubu4]

Office Suite: libreoffice Video Player: VLC E-Mail Client: Thunderbird Webbrowser: Firefox and Chromium

[someone666a]

Web Browser: Firefox/Chromium

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: Whatever

IDE: No!

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Gnote

IRC/Messaging Client: No!

PDF Reader: Whatever

Office Suite: No!/Libreoffice

Calendar: Whatever/No!

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: VLC

Photo Viewer: Whatever

Screen recording: No!

[nandop]

Web Browser: Chromium

Email Client: Evolution

Terminal: Gnome Teminal

IDE: Atom

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: ???

PDF Reader: Document Viewer

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: Gnome Calendar

Video Player: Totem

Music Player: Audacious

Photo Viewer: Image Viewer

Screen recording: ???

[williamdclt]

Web Browser: Firefox, Chromium, Chrome

Email Client: none

Terminal: gnome-terminal, terminator

IDE: none

File manager: DE default

Basic Text Editor: Gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: none

PDF Reader: Evince

Office Suite: Libre office

Calendar: ???

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: ???

Photo Viewer: DE default

Screen recording: ???

[antouank]

===

Web Browser: Chromium

Email Client: Gmail web

Terminal: xfce4 terminal

IDE: neovim

File manager: Thunar

Basic Text Editor: neovim

IRC/Messaging Client: google hangouts web

PDF Reader: evince

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: google calendar

Video Player: vlc

Music Player: vlc

Photo Viewer: ristretto

Screen recording: xfce4 Screenshooter

===

[akerro]

Web Browser: Firefox with µblock Origin and https everywhere installed system-wide

[mazr]

Web Browser: Chromium

Email Client: None

Terminal: Gnome Terminal

IDE: None

File manager: Gnome default

Basic Text Editor: gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: None

PDF Reader: Gnome Default

Office Suite: None

Calendar: None

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: VLC

Photo Viewer: Gnome default

Screen recording: Gnome Default

[w4rh4wk5]

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: Terminator

IDE: none

File Manager: nemo

Basic Text Editor: Gedit

IRC/Messaging: Hex-Chat, Empathy

PDF Reader: Okular

Office Suite: Libreoffice

Calendar: Thunderbird

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: Audacious

Photo Viewer: ristretto

Screen recording: obs

[Kliment]

Browser: Firefox

Email client: Thunderbird

Basic text editor: Geany

Office suite: LO

but allow users to select defaults at install or at any other time

[holgerrlp]

Web Browser: Chromium

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: Gnome-Terminal

IDE: Geany

File manager: Nemo

Basic Text Editor: Pluma

PDF Reader: Atril

Office Suite: Libreoffice

Calendar: Orage

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: VLC

Photo Viewer: Eye of Gnome

Screen recording: Simple-Screen-Recorder

[NuDinNou]

Web Browser: GNOME Web

Email Client: -

Terminal: Gnome Terminal

IDE: -

File manager: GNOME Files

Basic Text Editor: Gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: -

PDF Reader: Evince

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: GNOME Calendar

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: GNOME Music

Photo Viewer: gThumb

Screen recording: -

[larkery]

Web Browser: conkeror

Email Client: emacs

Terminal: urxvt

IDE: emacs

File manager: emacs

Basic Text Editor: emacs

IRC/Messaging Client: emacs

PDF Reader: emacs + epdftools

Office Suite: n/a

Calendar: emacs

Video Player: n/a

Music Player: emacs

Photo Viewer: feh

Screen recording: n/a

[d12bb → larkery]

There you have a great operating system – it lacks a good editor, though.

[Grue3]

Browser: Firefox LTE (pre-web extensions)

Terminal: guake

IDE: Emacs

File manager: anything but default gnome manager

Music player: audacious

[antihero]

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: ???

[dm319]

ubuntu-mate has a nice software boutique, which I think is a great idea for people new to the world of FOSS. It's a nice curated list of great FOSS software sorted by category.

[nitins]

Web Browser: Chrome

Email Client: Geary

Terminal: Terminator

IDE: -

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: Gedit

IRC/Messaging Client: Pidgin

PDF Reader: Evince

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: -

Video Player: SMPlayer

Music Player: Lollypop

Photo Viewer: -

Screen recording: -

[type0]

Gdebi

Meld

KeepassXC

mpv player and SMPlayer

Audacious

Geeqie image viewer

Caffeine (to turn the screensaver off)

Devhelp

IDE: GNOME builder

would be great to add those to the repos for Ubuntu server / command line:

micro editor

terminal_velocity

[edelans]

===

Web Browser: Chrome, Firefox

Email Client: none

Terminal: default

IDE: Atom

File manager: nautilus

Basic Text Editor: nano

IRC/Messaging Client: none

PDF Reader: default

Office Suite: google apps

Calendar: none

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: Spotify, non-free

Photo Viewer: default

Screen recording: Kazam

===

[rodolphoarruda]

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: Thunderbird

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: GEdit

PDF Reader: Okular

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: VLC

[fatzombi_]

i switched to lubuntu last year (ubuntu had some serious unity problems), i really like unity, give gnome more unity ish design

[itomato]

Crowdsourcing at its worst.

Get with a modern Product Management philosophy, and quit begging the community for ideas.

Crossposting to Reddit, Slashdot and HN on the same day smacks of utter desperation.

[0xCMP → itomato]

Or it's a community project asking for input from the community...

[itomato → 0xCMP]

Why don't they get a website or mailing list or something?

[ovh]

Totally agree with Freak_NL.

For video player, definitely VLC.

[jhasse → ovh]

Why not mpv?

[dcintes]

Web Browser: Vivaldi, Firefox

IDE: eclipse

Basic Text Editor: gedit

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Video Player: Vlc

Screen recording: Obs

[aruggirello]

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: Thunderbird

IDE: Atom

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: Google Calendar web

[sunseb]

Init: Alternative to systemd please. :)

[pratikborsadiya]

Web Browser: Chromium

Terminal: Gnome-terminal

IDE: Sublime text

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: nano

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: VLC

[cromulen]

Web Browser: Chrome, Firefox

Email Client: Various web clients

Terminal: Gnome Terminal

IDE: VS Code

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: vim

IRC/Messaging Client: Slack, Discord

PDF Reader: Chrome, Evince

Office Suite: Google drive web

Calendar: Google calendar web

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: Spotify non-free

Photo Viewer: The default one

Screen recording: None

[sunstone]

Synaptic, geany, vlc thanks.

[chauhankiran]

Web Browser: Chromium

Basic Text Editor: gEdit

Video Player: VLC

[neves]

Music Player: Clementine

[stuaxo]

Terminal: Terminix

[c8g]

Terminal: Tilix

Video Player: vlc

[khc]

web browser: firefox

photo viewer: shotwell

[43224gg252]

I actually use GNOME on Fedora as my daily driver but will probably switch to ubuntu if they can create a better gnome experience. Please try to ship GNOME that way it's meant to be shipped as far as software versioning goes. Please make quarter tiling and the ability to hide windows decoration a thing.

Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client: don't care, I coded my own

Terminal: tilix (integrates better with GTK3 than GNOME-terminal)

IDE: Builder is good (I use vim)

File manager: Nautilus/ranger

Basic Text Editor: Gedit/nano/vim

IRC/Messaging Client: I use irssi

PDF Reader: Evince

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: GNOME calendar, but update it

Video Player: mpv

Music Player: mpv

Photo Viewer: mpv

Screen recording: the one thats built into gnome, but make it better (adjust FPS/quality/convert size/etc).

[frik]

Consider giving Ubuntu MATE even more love. It's the Ubuntu as it should be with a proper shell, not this Gnome3 UI-mess but with great Gnome2 alike UI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_MATE

[mrkrabo]

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

[yAnonymous]

Web Browser: Firefox

IDE: Visual Studio Code

PDF Reader: Firefox

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: Clementine

[frik]

> We asked the HackerNews community, "What do you want to see in Ubuntu 17.10?"

Yeah, and the experiment went horrible wrong :(

The last thing the community wanted was a plain Gnome 3 shell for 17.10.

The older Unity was great, the latest Unity and Gnome3 are crap! (ugly as hell (macOS UI clone for the cheap), and worse usability than older Unity and macOS) So you single handled destroyed the default Ubuntu with some weird decisions. And this systemd trainwreck is still on board.

For applications:

* Web Browser: Chromium (with sane privacy default settings)

* Email client: Gnome Evolution

* File manager: Unity 7 file manager

* Basic Text Editor: GEdit (older version with menu bar, from Ubuntu 14)

* Office Suite: LibreOffice or Callibri

* Calendar: Evolution

[TeMPOraL]

Web Browser: Chrome non-free, Emacs

Email Client: Gmail web, Emacs

Terminal: xterm, fish shell, Emacs

IDE: Emacs

File manager: default, Emacs

Basic Text Editor: Emacs

IRC/Messaging Client: Emacs

PDF Reader: whatever that default one is, Emacs

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: Emacs

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: Spotify non-free

Photo Viewer: whatever the default is

Screen recording: OBS

I'm not joking with that Emacs thing. Please, oh please, ensure Ubuntu has always a recent Emacs version.

[lucb1e → TeMPOraL]

I downvoted because I don't think it's constructive to force Emacs on everyone. In my post, I thought of including vim as the default text editor (I have set it as default on my work and home computers, also when opening a text/code file from a browser or file manager) and definitely as the default terminal editor (instead of nano), but many people are just not going to make use of it. If you want something specific, you should just install it yourself I think.

> please, ensure Ubuntu has always a recent Emacs version.

Outdated software is an issue in general. This is one of the reasons I hear people don't like Ubuntu, Debian or Mint because Fedora is actually up to date. Never mind that Fedora frequently breaks and Debian totally has a testing release, but Ubuntu is just lacking in this.

[TeMPOraL → lucb1e]

Hey, I'm not forcing Emacs on anyone! The poster asked to "submit the apps you find most useful in Linux", so I listed what I use, honest-to-God. I don't see how a legit datapoint deserves a downvote, but whatevs.

[lucb1e → TeMPOraL]

Hmm, I'm inclined to undown. I think the intention of this question is "what should the defaults be", not strictly "what do you use". I don't mean to offend, though. Undowned.

[Shorel → lucb1e]

The few applications I care about having the very last versions in Ubuntu, have a PPA, and I just use the PPA.

Frequent breaks are worse IMO.

[lucb1e → Shorel]

Debian testing never broke for me. The only thing I can recall was Filezilla being unavailable to install for a few months, but that's not hard to solve (find a deb somewhere) and any existing installations were unaffected. I can't recall anything else ever breaking, while I do have the latest (and, presumably, greatest) software.

[d12bb]

Web Browser: Safari.app

Email Client: Mail.app

Terminal: Terminal.app

IDE: NeoVIM

File manager: Finder.app

Basic Text Editor: NeoVIM

IRC/Messaging Client: Messages.app

PDF Reader: Preview.app

Office Suite: Pages.app/Numbers.app/Keynote.app

Calendar: Fantastical 2.app

Video Player: mpv

Music Player: VOX.app

Photo Viewer: Preview.app

Of course, this is for a real world usable operating system, not ubuntu utopia.. If Linux, Gentoo is nice ;)

[d12bb → d12bb]

Ok now for real:

Web Browser: Firefox+VimFX

Email Client: Mutt

Terminal: Urxvt

IDE: NeoVIM

File manager: Urxvt

Basic Text Editor: NeoVIM

IRC/Messaging Client: Irssi

PDF Reader: Okular

Office Suite: LaTeX

Calendar: -

Video Player: mpv

Music Player: mpd+ncmpc

Photo Viewer: cacaview

[dabockster]

I'm really looking forward to seeing how native GNOME will look with official Ubuntu support and not as a community flavor.

Anyways, here's my request list:

---------------------------------

Web Browser: Firefox, Vivaldi (people keep claiming it's open source, so look into it)

Email Client: Thunderbird

Terminal: GNOME default

IDE: LOL

(Serious answer is VSCode since it seems to be a nice in-between for a full IDE and a simple text editor)

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: No preference

IRC/Messaging Client: HexChat

PDF Reader: No preference

Office Suite: LibreOffice

Calendar: Thunderbird, No preference

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: RhythmBox, Spotify (maybe just a downloader program - don't include the full install out of the box)

Photo Viewer: No preference

Screen recording: No preference

Games: Include Steam out of the box?

-------------------

This list also comes with the usual stuff like dump Systemd, continue working on MESA drivers/networking drivers/drivers in general, etc.

Hope to see some great stuff in 17.10!