I really would love to an effort to add commonly used Gnome extensions and tweeks to the base Ubuntu install.
I understand both Gnome and Ubuntu’s spin on it is opinionated and designed around specific uses. Nevertheless, I see people install the same exact modifications to their base Ubuntu desktops: dash to panel, dash to dock, alphabetical app grid…
Outside of just having people hunt down the Gnome Extensions and Gnome Tweeks packages with every fresh install, why not package more options in the base settings?
Just because a lot of people want Dash to Panel, doesn’t mean that everyone does. I’d hate it. The three that you mentioned would make my life worse. It’s purely personal, and that’s the point — I’ll bet that you would hate the extensions that I use.
We already have Extension Manager, Extensions, and GNOME extensions, all three of which work perfectly. There is absolutely no need to duplicate any of them in Ubuntu; as you say, there are already several pre-chosen ones (based, I would imagine, on feedback from Canonical’s customers).
People who don’t like Ubuntu’s offering are free to use Debian, Fedora or Arch, and install base GNOME.
The suggestion is to include them as options people can enable in the settings using the existing UX or something equivalent. Users regularly get these things to customize their layout, why not save them the extra step?
A regular complaint I see of Gnome is that new users can’t setup something they are comfortable with without doing extra steps like installing supplemental applications and extensions.
They shouldn’t affect anyone except someone who wants them.
Why send them away? These are Ubuntu users who go the extra mile to customize their desktops a certain way and they are sufficiently numerous to warrant paying attention to no?
The problem with this approach is that they would need to be packaged as debian packages which makes it hard for people to remove them or replace them with forked versions (DING (Desktop Icons NG) is a popular example here, upstream just released their finished GTK4 port with some fancy new features, you won’t easily be able to replace this since there is a preinstalled DING coming from a .deb already (and even when you replace it, the next package update would bring it back)
Along with the above there is that fact that Canonical would have to take responsibility for security fixes for the next 15y for something it ships in the main archive …
Could you reexplain the technical reasoning? I don’t understand what that implies.
In my eyes I see a ton of users go through extra steps to achieve a certain desktop layout. Its a sufficient amount to warrant consideration that simplifying it in an existing settings menu would be worthwhile. It doesn’t need to follow the existing extension structure. The main goal would be for this to be more discoverable for new users who might want and be happy with these layout options.
It would be more discoverable than googling how to get extensions, installing the correct extensions package that lets you add new extensions or understanding any other flow, then finding the name of what you want and setting it up.
Eitherway, if a new set of features is pushed and breaks a commonly used extension, it still becomes a problem. Even if its currently on a maintainer’s responsibility rather than Canonical, their systems would experience regressions while the maintainer fixes it. At some point, a non standard layout becomes popular enough to de facto be as important to consider as the standard layouts.
I feel embracing that to a certain extent would just solve the issue preemptively.
If implementing this in settings or from the base build introduces future tech debt, how about using something that already exists to show the extensions, especially “privileged” ones?
Why not have a section in the App Center? These are “featured” gnome extensions. These are the popular ones.
Maintainers are still responsible, but a new user will find the most common plugins really quickly. Multiple app manager flows are already a thing. Why not allow that for extensions also? How are they packaged? Could be snaps in this scenario?
We’ve actually been removing extensions from the Ubuntu archive where possible.
Extension debs create dependencies which block the release of new gnome-shell versions/updates for weeks at a time. It also makes no sense to effectively fork an extension in Ubuntu and let it get out of date compared to the official source.
As the person who answers desktop bugs for hours every day, I can confidently say your generalisation that “people install the same exact modifications” is not true on a large scale. People customise their systems in ways you can’t imagine, and that causes a constant stream of bug reports for us even when there is no real problem to be fixed. So while Ubuntu supports customisation, we also discourage it in users who don’t have the experience to do it reliably.
What is the problem with https://extensions.gnome.org ? It already allows any user to easily install any desired extension… no need to re-package them as .deb.
Maybe an specific icon to open Firefox directly in that page…?
How would you decide which layout has become sufficiently popular? As far as I’m aware (I could be wrong), there is no official statistical source.
I would also be quite astonished if that were the case, as Ubuntu and GNOME are used by people from hugely varied markets, from US-based hobbyists to Chinese home users, governments and bureaucracies worldwide, business companies, movie studios, aerospace transport, and many more.
Well, it will likely not directly blend in with the configuration options in the system settings, so you will need to configure it in the extension manager…
In order to have it by default, it must be in the repositories, so packaging it was the only way. That said, we’re extremely selective with what extensions we do package, knowing that there is an initiative to have fewer.
Oh, I think having more extensions in the repo is fine as long as they’re not in main, there’s at some attempt at maintaining them by the community, and they’re useful. And looking over the list in Resolute, I think most are useful in and of themselves and as dependencies of an alternate “shell” like gnome-classic.
I’m coming from it from: I just moved from Windows and using Linux for the first time.
How do I know there’s a website with extensions? How do I know xyz thing I want to do even has an extension?
I agree maybe linking it as a valid solution. The extensions manager is another, but it needs to be installed if you want to browse the ones online and the manager doesn’t give previews.
There’s just an information gap between, I booted Ubuntu for the first time and I got an option for little dock that looks like Mac/Windows and now I’m not scared of this new OS anymore.
Just for myself as a returning user having last used Ubuntu in the 2010s, I wanted to have my dock on the top like I could in Unity. Took a little faffing about and it worked out. Still even now when I do a lot of faffing about on a new install because its still a little far. I have to remember which gnome-extension manager to install because there’s several different ones, whats the name of the extension because they are confusing…
Again, really aware of the need to not add a support debt for anything you don’t want/need to support. Resources are always at a premium.
Would just be cool to have links or previews in the App Center. That’s my current thinking, gonna spin that up with snapcrafters maybe? I wanted to help out on some bug fixing and UX work with the App Center.
Thanks everyone for your thoughts and feedback! Enjoyed the challenges.
Why are Apps not always in alphabetical order by default!?
But that’s a me thing and I’m in the minority. I think both Samsung and iPhone app trays do not sort in alphabetical order by default and rather by date installed. So most people seem used to it. Drives me nuts but look I’ll live with it.
That said my preferred option would be to make an extension that gives a little button to sort alphabetically, so then you can resort them anyway you like afterwards. Could be a little project for me if it doesn’t already exist.
Yes some Ubuntu-specific ones were added in the past year, but I was talking about community-driven extensions. Also the Ubuntu-specific ones are all bundled into a single deb now, to make their update entirely atomic.
