I think an accent color picker would be a good addition for the Ubuntu desktop. So we can change accent colors without changing the entire theme.
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For me it’s quite simple: Ubuntu/Canonical has to have ambition in the desktop again. With visibility on the official website, aimed not only at developers, but artists, gamers, average users.
It has to have either the ambition of being the best debian-based GNOME desktop, or it should adopt another DE (which I would personally feel sad about, unless it means reverting back to Unity).
Being the best GNOME desktop means: adopting the latest version of Shell and the core apps, using Gnome Software and the core apps for updates and to communicate with the notification center, and finally: offering a vanilla GNOME workflow. Theming is OK (better than Pop_OS in this regard, because Ubuntu at least respects third party apps’ official icons, save GNOME’s), but I agree with some that the default backgrounds have grown a bit stale.
Other than that, long live Ubuntu!
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Some integration with the Unite GNOME extension, perhaps?
It really does bring the Unity feel back.
The following two items are a couple that I frequently hear, while discussing Ubuntu within various linux/FOSS communities.
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SNAP packages. Personally, I think that snap packages are a great step forward, especially when compared to PPAs. Advanced users have no problem vetting, checking, and updating their PPAs as needed. But for new or non technical users, PPAs can be quite a problem. Snap packages are great to avoid that. Snap packages for server are great but for desktop applications, they need more love. They are often slower than debian packages to open, and also often times come with integration issues for example desktop themes, or access to file system. Now with more desktop packages pushed to snaps, it would be great if community team could keep updating us on progress, so that we could keep the morale up and avoid situations where people get hostile toward snaps.
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Hardware Enablement. This is a big deal nowadays, since hardware is being released at faster pace, I often see people getting their new computer, some times a couple of weeks after feature freeze of Ubuntu. Some times that means they cannot even boot up or their screens are just black, especially with AMD systems. While I understand, AMD and other vendors should do better with partnerships, the issue stays the same for now. Which is, users that need things to work move to other distributions. I love the stability of Ubuntu so I don’t want to suggest to change the world and move Ubuntu to rolling. However an approach like Fedora, which has fixed releases, but Kernel and Mesa keeps rolling, could be nice. Another approach. maybe more in line with Ubuntu, would be a second type of HWE, updated on a weekly basis. Optional to install, but supported by Canonical. This would, in my opinion, solve quite a bit of issues, and make Ubuntu really exciting for most users. If we can have Ubuntu stability and great ecosystem, but with always up to date hardware compatibility, why would someone like Valve bother going to Arch for their new Steam Deck?
Cheers
Mauro
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For Ubuntu Desktop?
I would like to see a rationalisation of the “muddle” that I feel between there is between Ubuntu with a specific desktop installed and the flavour which majors on that desktop.
I’ve been on Lubuntu since 14.04? From Lubuntu 18.04 (with LXDE) there is no upgrade path - not good for an ordinary desktop user. But I don’t like LXQt so I am “stuck” at 18.04 and facing a complete reinstall to either go to Lubuntu 20.04 with LXQt or to goto another “flavour”.
In Virtualbox, Ubuntu with LXDE installed looks viable, but why do I have to reinstall to get there? Why technically can’t I (in Lubuntu) uninstall LXDE to get back to vanilla Ubuntu, upgrade that now “vanilla ubuntu” to 20.04 and then install my choice of desktop - LXDE (or Cinnamon if LXDE is on its deathbed)?
Flavours are “obviously” more than just core vanilla ubuntu with a choice of desktop - but the subtleties escape me.
I’m not a developer just a user who decided years ago to just dive into the muddle that is Linux distros. For a user who is sick of Windows the “roadmap” to Linux is not a map; it’s a horrible tangle of options - which almost certainly puts off a lot of potential new users. Can Ubuntu become an island of sanity?
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Ubuntu really lack a lot of important things for modern gaming on linux in it’s repos, would be interesting to have those packages in the ubuntu official repos:
- Lutris (install game launchers and games that are not available on steam)
- vkbasalt (it has an awesome must-have sharpening filter and supports others shaders for vulkan games)
- mangohud (overlay for vulkan games, useful for debugging and benchmarking)
- gooverlay (to manage vkbasalt settings, mangohud settings, etc)
- Corectrl (AMDGPU overclocking)
also would be interesting for the next LTS to get up to date mesa drivers more often, since now with the steam deck getting attention for developers across the globe we need a solid base for gaming but with a bit more bleeding edge user space drivers…
and maybe a option in the software properties to get a newer kernel (even if it has a warning about it being unsupported and could cause damage, options are never a bad thing).
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Thanks for joining the discussion, and for sharing some really useful insights! @local-optimum - tagging you in the reply here because I think this definitely speaks to your curiosity about gaming on Ubuntu and on Linux in general!
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My major pain points in Ubuntu Desktop are:
- Please support working with an actual desktop. That is: Having files on the desktop, using shortcuts to applications (.desktop files) and a better file manager integration (e.g. Drag&Drop). Essentially make my desktop a Nautilus window. I know this is how GNOME handles it, but I’m not running a mobile OS for a reason…
- Snap. I’ve had plenty of hickups, huge downloads, slow startup times, missing icons, broken functionality with snap, so I completely uninstalled snap support in 20.04. Switching to Flatpak fixed most of my problems. It would be great to have an option there (if not in the installer, then at least don’t make my Flatpak life harder by requiring Snap).
- Killing of all .deb packages. Both Snap and Flatpak packages still have unsolved problems as-in things that used to work fine, but don’t work anymore (e.g. this). When you don’t have an alternative .deb this makes using Ubuntu very uncomfortable for a lot of people.
- Please open source the whole of the snap infrastructure similarly to Flatpack.
- If Pipewire solves the mess that PulseAudio is, I would welcome its integration.
- I second @ilvipero s stance towards Hardware Enablement.
- I don’t care much about the fancy-schmancy optics, themes, background images. I’m fine which what there currently is.
And last but not least: Thanks for making Ubuntu!
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Core applications (such as gnome apps) should not be snaps. This defies the point in my opinion, they are already secure and built with the system. Unless you make the whole environment a snap stop doing this.
The biggest problem I have with snaps are the constant audit denied messages. There should be a mode to easy allow a trusted app do whatever it wants rather than deal with endless sandbox tweaking . This is not the job for the end user. I know this is bad security but the packagers don’t seem to do a proper job.
On the favorite apps bar. On 21.10 the icon wiggle occasionally when they want attention can we have permanent indicator as well.
Please ensure the software store doesn’t blow up in memory when it isn’t being used.
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I actually support the idea of gnome apps and other system apps being Snap because since Ubuntu LTS need’s to be stable it should not touch system-wide libraries for such apps, so with it Canonical can provide more up to date versions of these apps, for example: GNOME 42 is released but Ubuntu uses GNOME 41 libs system-wide: canonical can update “gnome system monitor” to the 42 version without having to upgrade all the packages to the newer version and becoming a “full rolling release” distro and with that you avoid breakage or any other small bugs.
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Thank you for joining the discussion! The Ubuntu MATE flavour (which is what I run on my desktop) has an accent color picker and it’s fantastic. I mean, I love that Chelsea Cucumber, but I also do love teal and purple and other colors too!
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Tbh, this behaviour is driving me away from Ubuntu. I can live with slower start up speeds. I get the desirability of sandboxing… But I cannot abide being told how I’m allowed to use my computer. You’re not my real dad. This is all a pretty fundamental part of why I moved to Ubuntu in the first place: empowering users.
Taking this control away from us and restricting it to some set-list is infuriating and not at all in the spirit. The setting of for where a snap can operate has to be user-defined.
(And it’s okay most of the time, confined-by-default is okay! But not being able to turn it off is the worst.)
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Stop asking for meaningless questions and feedback. Get your brains together and finally decide if you want to be a proper Desktop Operating System or not.
If not:
- you don’t need any feedback, just keep doing what you are already doing.
If yes:
- ask yourselves if you want to keep poorly copying things over from both Windows and MacOS, while also letting the gnome stuff mix the whole situation into an even poorer experience.
- if you want to keep copying, at least do it properly, copy over the most useful and positive stuff.
- again, you don’t need any feedback. It is just a matter of whether you have the vision to design a proper desktop, or if you don’t have it, just do a proper copy of Windows.
- Lastly and most importantly, try using your own operating system for everyday tasks. Then you’ll know exactly what corrections are needed.
Things are very simple.
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I don’t see your point about not touching system wide libraries. If the core apps were built for the system it should be fine.
The previous experience when ubuntu tried this was calculator taking 15 seconds to open and system monitor slowing the system down as it hit constant sandbox violations as it was just trying to do its job.
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Prime example of what I was trying to say…
and this (admittedly rather awful) experiment to gain wide user feedback resulted in the improvements that allow you today to have a firefox snap on the system that does not start noticeable slower than the deb …
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My opinion
- Bring Unity back.
- Improve snaps starts
- Make Ubuntu more efficient to use less resources, to a Celeron with 2 cores and 8gb ram use it without a long wait to open an app
The most important, fix the bugs. You have a lot of bugs now about touchpad, without anyone touching them
Regards
Miguel
PS: Unity for me was/is the best DE to work with
yeah, i guess i would know …
note that it is not only taking control away from you but also from us, snaps are designed to give as much control to upstreams/packagers in a way that do not require a ton of manpower for reviewing each and every line of code …
i know that you have been around in the community at the time where we tried to allow third party apps packaged as debs into the software center … and it took man weeks/months to actually approve them (see AppDevUploadProcess - Ubuntu Wiki)
in the long term snaps should work not differently to apps on your android/apple phone and simply pop up a permission dialog on first access of a resource an app tries (microphone, camera, audio playback, you name it) which gives you 100% of control over the app …
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Popup for updates is annoying as hell. This update thingy should be integrated with gnome as fedora has it, but on the shutdown dialog it should be disabled by default.
As others have said pipewire and btrfs.
For gaming latest or latest lts kernel. Faster flatpak updates. In 21.10 it is still 1.10 while 1.12 fixes a problem with pressure-vessel for steam.
If I’m not mistaken, gnome-software is not installed by default and when manually installed, it defaults to snap packages - imo this should stay on Deb/flatpak. Ubuntu store should do snaps.
Consider replacing default video player with celluloid.
Since the browsers are now snaps, gnome extensions cannot be installed via browsers by default (saw it reported online). Either epiphany or some other way is to be used. If possible, extend the gnome-extensions-app to be able to install extensions from web and have it installed by default also in minimal install.
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