We hard coded the ‘jump start your desktop’ alongside the switch to the minimal install by default in 23.10, this felt like a good way to let users who missed the applications included in the full install pick what they preferred. We intend to phase this out or deprioritise it once that decision has settled in for LTS users.
The rest of the store display is more dynamic, coming from the Snap Store, and we’ll be adding more dynamism with some ‘most popular’ style algorithmic content using the new ratings system shortly after release day.
In general the long term preference is for the Snap Store backend to populate the App Center rather than do anything meaningful on the client as you would expect, this means that down the line we can iterate more quickly on featured apps and new sorting methods, as well as provide things like curated stores for enterprise customers who want to restrict the availability of certain apps. For now the logic is mixed between the two simply to enable us to deliver the experience we wanted whilst respecting the various bandwidth constraints between the snap store team and desktop folks.
We’re certainly happy to remove local logic ultimatley, but we also need the confidence that the server side logic and update cadence is ready to take on rotational/featured duties in its stead.
I hope that helps clarify at least the thinking behind the current state of play.
There are certainly quite a bunch of outdated/unmaintained/broken snaps.
Some of them are still showing up. Woudl be cool if whoever is in charge of what is being displayed could take care of this.
There have been a lot of people on X complaining about malware on snaps, but if people only download verified snaps, they won’t have a problem. Also, no one is stopping anyone from installing debs using APT
It’s really nice that you are a big fan of debs, but this has not much to do with the discussion I linked here, given that those suggestions are only coming from a pool of snaps.
The problem is that a quite big bunch of apps that are suggested are either highly outdated, totally broken, don’t start and/or unmaintained nor fit to the current gnome design, which is the design most of the ubuntu desktop apps use, because 1) it useses the gnome desktop and 2) because inside yaru.dart we follow this design (and expand it).
Also it is not about personal preferences or “use my fav app please”. It is about sane suggestions users see when they open up the app center, and the biggest prio should be that those suggestions are def. not broken nor unmaintained. Everything else is a side by side comparison and prbly includes opinions, which… vary.
On topic of the default applications, there are two criterias, in my opinion:
being a working, well tested, solid application
being inline with the visual design currently in use of the desktop, for example there may be a big bunch of KDE apps that are awesome, well tested and rock solid, but they should not be pre-installed because of the Ubuntu uses gnome
Also:
Discussions are nice but it is kind of exhausting that some people high-jack many discussions to talk about how much they prefer XYZ over snaps.
I have not said anywhere that I would be a fan of debs. If you mention people, please make sure you do a good job! I actually am actively against old ways of software installations, or installing other type of package formats with elevated permissions. So…nope. Normal application installations should never have elevated privileges. I write this down only to answer the point I quoted from your rant towards us two.
The word you’re looking for is hijack
The suggested applications aren’t all great, OP’s suggestions like Fragments in the place of transmission, or MusicPod (my god!) to replace Rhythmbox (RBox is maintained, so far I know). MusicPod is barely useful overall, Fragments is a clear regression in comparison with Tmission. Although I don’t understand why a torrent downloading tool would be included as default application. Not a general need, not as much as a note taking tool or music app.
When people here consider applications, what to include or to promote, you all are so f… hung up on UI, the looks only, you sometimes forget to ask yourself: yeah, but what about the functions?! Are also the functions as great, the stability, UX. etc?!
Concerning the default app for music, radio and podcasts I’m not sure if your personal priorities on features match those of the average Ubuntu user.
The issue for porting it to gtk4 is two years old https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/rhythmbox/-/issues/1890
Yes, stability and being well tested is the most important thing especially for lts releases. What comes next is defined by the general goal of the desktop.
If stability is the only reason we would probably use gtk2 apps a lot.
Regarding my typos, I’m on the smartphone, I guess you have to live with them I’m not sure if highlighting them in bold actually improves the relevance of your posts though.
Disagreement is no excuse for poor manners. We work together to resolve conflict, assume good intentions and do our best to act in an empathic fashion. We don’t allow frustration to turn into a personal attack. A community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one.
We take it seriously.
There are consequences for folks who ignore it.
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