If we are sticking with GNOME (pretty much a given), I just want a better desktop icons experience than 20.04. Without the dash and desktop extensions, I’d immediately use another desktop (tried to adapt to vanilla GNOME workflow… I just plain did not like it in the end), but these keep GNOME at least bearable for many of us. It seems like the desktop icons-ng extension is superior, so that’s good.
What frustrates me (please take it as constructive criticism) :
-
Stop forced pushing of Snap format !
I don’t want forced updates and not being able to change the source repository. -
Stop always choosing a kernel that is more than one version old!
Ubuntu 22.04 should come with at least Linux kernel 5.16 to include the FUTEX2 system call and so many AMDGPU improvements. -
The installer doesn’t support encryption and the manual partitioning page is just awful
-
Hibernation doesn’t work
Sometimes I want to hibernate the computer not only sleep or a want sleep with fallback to hibernate. -
The default UI it’s not intuitive and not familiar.
But this is not a big problem as other flavors with better desktop environments are available.
What I want to see in Ubuntu 22.04:
- Newer Linux kernel, at least 5.16
- Better BTRFS support with better defaults for integrity, compression
- Better installer with encryption support, especially in the manual partitioning mode like showing the drives and their partitions in a tree-view mode and as much info as possible like:
Drive1 (SSD - ADATA) - size - checkbox for bootlaoder
- Partiton 1 - size - filesystem type
-Partiton 2 - size - filesystem type
please show all the sizes in IEC instead of ISO and allow to change from MiB to GiB or at least add some toggles to switch between the two
Also show somewhere if we managed to boot it in UEFI mode or not and what’s the satatus of secure boot, if possible
Allow to create and use encryption at this step.
Creating and encrypted BTRFS + snapshots and subvolumes for /home and /swap should be easy.
- Hibernation and hybrid sleep (fallback to hibernate if running out of battery) should work.
- Pipewire should be installed and enabled by default, it solves so many problems !
- Switch from WPA supplicant to IWD, it’s way faster to connect and reconnect
- Update WINE, SDL to latest version and other packages required for proper gaming.
- Give more freedom to Qt and KDE to upgrade their packages and use whatever their developers want.
Thank you very much and good luck !
I have had a private reply to this post suggesting that I need to be more specific as to what is “actionable for a roadmap” for future development of the “desktop experience”. I will have another go; although I can only draw on my experience as a desktop (as opposed to server) user - I’m no developer.
Coming to Linux was a confusing even off-putting journey - we surely need a clearer roadmap as to how to make that journey. Commercially this must impact on take up of Linux or in the context of this site, Ubuntu. That must impact on any development roadmap for either the desktop (as opposed to server) version of Ubuntu or the roadmap for development of various desktop environments and how they mesh into Ubuntu and hence Debian / Linux Kernel.
For Windows it is easy: Windows 10 or now Windows 11. For Android or Mac you take what you are given.
For Linux I felt I had to navigate a complex set of choices. (I may be wrong in the following categorisation - but I expect for a lot of people approaching Linux for the first time their perceptions will be very similar)
Linux “Family”: I chose the Debian “family” rather than say Redhat or Novell SUSE, because Debian seemed less corporate, more likely to run on modest machines but still well established and robust.
Within Debian: I chose Ubuntu (rather than say native Debian or Mint) because it was less “hair-shirt” than Debian and I could effectively piggy-back on a well supported system with clear update paths and LTS policy.
Within Ubuntu: The choice is now confusing:
- Vanilla Ubuntu (although the desktop experience of vanilla seemed to change regularly with different releases having different desktop environments) or
- a close sibling (Ubuntu Budgie or Ubuntu Mate - clue is in the naming?) or
- a more distant cousin (Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Kubuntu - which seem to have a separate additional development team).
At the time I chose Lubuntu (LXDE) because I wanted to run the same system on my main 64bit laptop and also on an old 32bit netbook with very restricted resources.
(You can then choose to install a totally different - but unsupported? - desktop environment - e.g. Cinnamon - but I did not go there! )
Presumably within the development roadmap there is some sort of progression to get to a specific release of a distribution:
(Kernel Version > Debian Version) > Ubuntu Core Version = Vanilla, then
either
Ubuntu Core plus Ubuntu supported Desktop environments (Gnome, Unity, Budgie, Mate etc.)
or
Ubuntu Core plus another development team’s work > “cousin” flavour (Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Kubuntu etc.)
I appreciate that knitting this all together is complex and users are not really meant to “backtrack” when they have made their choice of distribution journey, but sometimes you want to and for ordinary home users doing a complete reinstall effectively from scratch is time consuming daunting and possibly risky. (That is where I have got to with Lubuntu 18.04 - we are warned we have to reinstall to go to Lubuntu 20.04 - because of incompatibilities between LXDE and LXQT? Leaving individual users in such a cul-de-sac should not happen.)
Therefore, what is “actionable for a roadmap”? For development how easy is it to review the stages / interfaces (I’m not sure of the correct terminology - I am so confused by the “choice of distribution” road-map!) at which the above progression takes place?
Why can’t the development teams get to a situation where once you have made the general Ubuntu choice, you just download “Ubuntu” and in the installation stage get prompted to chose the desktop environment? Then there is a simple common process (preferably GUI based) to later change your mind without a complete reinstall. I know I can install Ubuntu and then apt-get install LXDE but my understanding is that does not equate to Lubuntu/LXDE - but is possibly what I personally seek!
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Good afternoon, I immediately apologize for poor English, I use a translator.
I have been using Ubuntu since version 12.04, I have a small YouTube channel dedicated to the following topics: linux, ubuntu, linux gaming.
link: https://www.youtube.com/c/UbuntariumbyRedroot/featured
I have been using Ubuntu as my main home system since 2014, so I have something to say 
DESIGN:
I Never understood the imposition of a bright Unity theme in Ubuntu, and its interface (yes there is a choice of a dark theme, but this is not enough). Over the years of using Ubuntu, I found my ideal option based on using Ubuntu for: Internet, multimedia, office work, programming, work in audio / video / 3D editors, where there is only one small panel from the top with a dock of selected programs, a desktop switcher and other useful information. In this case, it is very convenient to use many windows of programs, quickly switch between them and desktops.
Perhaps you should do as DE MATE developers and create templates where you can choose options \ schemas for the layout of the desktop interface, for example: as in macOS, windows, gnome2, gnome 40, Unity
Separately please make it possible to select wallpepers for the user’s login screen and the ability to blur it like a user’s lock screen.
SYSTEM:
A lot of people praise btrfs, but I see no reason for you to put this FS as the main one, who knows its tricks, chooses it himself. And newbies are better off with ext4 so far
You are now actively developing a new installer, I recommend that you focus on a set of programs in it or completely give the user the opportunity to choose which programs he needs during installation. As it is done in Ubuntu studio, for example, if a user installs Ubuntu for games, offer him a set of programs: steam, obs studio, Lutris \ PortProton, etc.
ARCH systems are very popular now, I found out on my YouTube streams that it’s all about aur \ pacman. They are very simple to understand and do not force you to learn how to build software from source. I am not a supporter of this approach, but as a result, I had to make my own utility for Ubuntu: bzu-gmb, which is essentially a set of scripts for installing \ assembling useful software for ubuntu in silent installation mode, many users greeted this idea with enthusiasm
The standard set of programs in Ubuntu seems very strange to me …
For example, in Linux Mint, the boot-repair utility is installed by default, which is very convenient when restoring the bootloader in live mode. The inxi utility - which will tell everything about your system in the console. TimeShift is the creation of pickups, a simple and convenient program and, most importantly, reliable.
Yes, you can install all this yourself and it may seem to you that all this is not a significant trifle, but it is in such trifles that Ubuntu loses to other Linux distributions. I highly recommend that you review the set of utilities that are included in the standard Ubuntu package.
I’ll probably stop at this
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try running xonotic, last time i tried it was a month ago and it didnt work for me 
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Please support working with an actual desktop…
Ubuntu flavors offer LOTS of great, fully supported, actual desktops. Pick any one you like.
If what you really mean is “I dislike Gnome’s design decisions,” then get involved with Gnome design and development. That’s where you will have influence.
Snap. I’ve had plenty of…
Please file bug reports when you discover these little problems. Testing software and filing bugs is a very welcome, longstanding role for volunteers who lack free time or who are not interested in coding.
Killing of all .deb packages…
Debian, our source for most debs, is chronically short of maintainers and packagers.
- More volunteers leads to more and newer debs.
- Fewer volunteers leads to fewer and older debs.
Folks who like debs should be stepping up to package and maintain them. If you’re ready to help keep debs plentiful, start your journey at https://mentors.debian.net.
If Pipewire solves the mess…
There is already a Pipewire integration thread: Pipewire on Ubuntu . Testers and bug reporters are welcome.
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I think that the person who said that Canonical and Ubuntu has lost its ambition for the desktop is right
Ubuntu is a distribution that I like a lot, but I noticed that there are few new features from version to version
Gnome DE is an great project, but it can be confusing by breaking our traditional way of using desktop, and ubuntu makes it more usable by adding some features (desktop icons, application dock, etc)
For me, Ubuntu has to rethink its Desktop, to make it more pleasant to use, and maybe the new Ubunt Frame and the possibility to develop applications with Flutter will change something
A feature I would really like to have on Ubuntu is a modern clipboard history, like in Windows
A modern dock is also welcome!
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there are few new features from version to version…
That’s intentional. Ubuntu releases are calendar-based, not feature based. Ubuntu releases are supposed to be incremental.
Gnome DE is… and Ubuntu has to rethink its Desktop…
Ubuntu flavors offer LOTS of great, fully supported, actual desktops. Pick any one you like.
If what you really mean is “I dislike Gnome’s design decisions,” then get involved with Gnome design and development. That’s where you will have influence.
A feature I would really like to have on Ubuntu is…
You can accomplish this. Here’s one way to do it.
- If somebody has created that software, please link to it.
- Work to get it packaged in Debian. You might need to join the Debian Gnome Team to help that process. They need more volunteers.
- After it’s available in Debian, open a thread here on Ubuntu Discourse.
- Help test the new feature.
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Themes
New themes generally appear from the community. Community theme designers and coders would love your help.
Workspace Templates
Feel free to open a thread here on Ubuntu Discourse to share templates.
Choose applications during install
Gentle pushback: The Ubuntu Desktop installer is designed to provide a great general-purpose experience to new users. Being new, those users don’t have opinions about what to install. Asking them for opinions that they don’t have can be stressful and confusing, so the Installer Team tries to minimize those questions.
The use case you are describing seem to be experienced users who do have opinions. There are already several methods for skilled, experienced users to tailor their Ubuntu install. Volunteers to help improve those methods are welcome.
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I had to navigate a complex set of choices…
I’m not sure how anyone can make the choices simpler: “Ubuntu Desktop” is the default. That’s where https://ubuntu.com/ sends you to. You don’t need to make any choices if you don’t want to.
LXDE transition to LXQT
Agreed, that was turbulent.
The best way to be mitigate such issues is to get involved with the Lubuntu Team so you have a full understanding of the issues, and so you have influence.
Choosing the Desktop Environment during install
Gentle pushback: The Ubuntu Desktop installer is designed to provide a great general-purpose experience to new users. Being new, those users don’t have opinions about what to install. Asking them for opinions that they don’t have can be stressful and confusing, so the Installer Team tries to minimize those questions.
The use case you are describing seem to be experienced users who do have opinions. There are already several methods for skilled, experienced users to tailor their Ubuntu install. Volunteers to help improve those methods are welcome.
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What about end users? So to get a feature you have to develop it yourself?
This is the reason why I say that Canonical seems to have lost its ambition for desktop. Ubuntu is certainly a community project, but it also intended for everyone as an alternative to Windows and macOS
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What about end users?
The primary support for end users, and most influence upon Ubuntu by end users, is through the volunteer community.
- The legion of translation volunteers are end users and care deeply about their fellow end users.
- The enormous corps of support volunteers are end users and care deeply about their fellow end users.
- The huge number of packaging volunteers are end users and care deeply about their fellow end users.
- The constant stream of testing volunteers are end users and care deeply about their fellow end users.
They participate. They contribute. And that means they have greater influence than non-participating end users. You can join them. It’s not hard. And then you will have greater influence, too.
So to get a feature you have to develop it yourself?
That’s not what I wrote.
- Advice: The culture here is to avoid hyperbole and to abide by the Ubuntu Code of Conduct. The developers you want to convince do read these threads; don’t give yourself a poor reputation.
If somebody is unwilling to do the minimum effort to move their idea forward…then their idea likely won’t move forward.
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- Let user choose between snaps or flatpaks
- Add ligatures and slashed zero support to Ubuntu Mono font
- Replace pulseaudio with pipewire
- Improve battery life
- Improve nvidia optimus switching experience (not exactly problem of Ubuntu)
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Honestly Unity type of computing could be easily recreated with KDE Plasma. I think it is better to stop wasting resources on GNOME, and making it look similar to Unity and switch to KDE Plasma desktop and modify that with Yaru theme/icons, and have Unity Dock with Latte dock, and have a bar at top with global menu.
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I’ve selected bits of your paste to reply to; but Ian has already replied expertly in my opinion.
Lubuntu announced they were switching from LXDE to LXQt years before the switch occurred; the only unknown was when. Lubuntu Next ISOs were released for a number of cycles so people could see what was planned, and where the future was (again this should have provided a clue as to what was happening).
Anyone watching upstream would have known it was occurring; after all it a very large portion of the LXDE developers who’d joined with Razor Qt to create LXQt as the replacement desktop; given GTK2 that LXDE needed was deprecated, and the early ports of GTK3 were found heavy and didn’t meet the goal of LXDE being light as was blogged about (by PCMan).
The Lubuntu team even created documentation on converting a Lubuntu 18.04 LTS system into a Lubuntu 18.10 LXQt system; but the result wasn’t always clean, and problems were often encountered; thus in the end it was not supported as we lacked resources (but for anyone who asked about it; I provided the link so they could read what was suggested to complete the upgrade by themselves).
Lubuntu QA-test re-installs over an existing partition; I recently documented for QA-testing impish or 21.10; though the testcases were written for 19.04, so aren’t new (just difficult to find sorry). I regularly use that method of switch systems from one flavor to another; it was one of the things that really impressed me about Ubuntu when I started using it about Ubuntu 10.10. Switching desktops isn’t difficult either; I always used Ubuntu ISOs (quota free download) then added the desktop I wanted to use on top of it (also bandwidth free) avoiding my ISPs quota restrictions for years (they no longer exist), where as downloading a Ubuntu flavor was not quota free for me.
If an ISO contains all flavors it would be huge and no-one would want it. I recall downloading and writing Debian ISOs (fullset) and they used 5-9 DVDRs each release… and whilst it was nice to have the installer ask what packages/desktop/etc you wanted to install; it was a pain to download, then keep swapping the ISOs in the DVD tray during install. Even if it’ll all fit on a 32GB thumb-drive today; it’d still be a HUGE file to download. I think picking the ISO you want to install, then grabbing just that makes much more sense.
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As an user I’d like if Snap apps asked for permissions when needed, just like Android and iOS. Want to open a file in another partition but the Snap is sandboxed? Just type your password when prompted and the correct permissions will be given. Want to give an app access to your camera and microphone? Type your password when the prompt appears after the app tries to access them.
I realize this kind of functionality might be complicated to implement and might even need support from apps themselves, but it would really help with the user experience and make using Ubuntu be more safe while at the same time giving more power and freedom to the user. That’s what Linux is all about anyway, no?
Cheers.
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Something that hasn’t been mentioned, I think it would be great if swap on zram is enabled by default in 22.04 LTS.
Fedora 33+ enables swap on zram using systemd-zram-generator (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/SwapOnZRAM and https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Scale_ZRAM_to_full_memory_size), and if not enabled by default, at the very least systemd-zram-generator should be packaged in Ubuntu’s repositories.
I’ve found swap on zram to be extremely helpful when memory is running low:
- While running KDE Neon 20.04.2 on an i3 laptop with an HDD and 4 GB RAM, creating 4 GB of swap on zram with zstd compression made a night and day difference for me having Firefox, Discord and Visual Studio Code open at the same time. The system felt far more responsive overall, with no freezes when opening more apps or tabs.
- A friend of mine installed Ubuntu 20.04 to use Blender, but since he only had 12 GB of RAM, when rendering a project on Ubuntu, Ubuntu would freeze and take 4-5 minutes to complete a render, while rendering the same project on Windows would take a bit over 2 minutes. Creating an 8 GB zstd zram device as swap brought render times for the same project down to 1m57s.
- I also use 4 GB zstd zram on a Debian server with 4 GB RAM to run a few extra apps without suffering from major slowdowns, as well as 8 GB of it on an Ubuntu server with 64 GB RAM, and so far I have experienced no performance degradation, mainly since the kernel only uses zram when it is about to swap, and swapping to compressed memory space is significantly faster than swapping to the hard drive/SSD.
This is largely anecdotal, but I’m sure these experiences are not only limited to me. Since Windows does something similar by default, and Fedora enables this by default as well now, I’m hoping that Ubuntu can consider doing the same by 22.04 LTS, at least on Ubuntu Desktop, if not Ubuntu Server, since it provides a much better user experience on systems with relatively low RAM, or when a system is under memory pressure, by providing some extra breathing room before resorting to swapping to hard drive.
Hoping you can look into this suggestion, thanks for reading and thanks for all the work you guys put in Ubuntu!
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I read the code of conduct, and I find this sentence:
We want a productive, happy and agile community that can welcome new ideas […]
Your way of answering to other’s proposals is cold and does not give desire to join the community
My question is simple though, and it’s not really related to the community: is the desktop a priority for Canonical like before?
I’m following with interest what’s going on with Ubuntu Frame and Flutter, and I want to get involved with the community
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This is a good idea. It is essentially the default on windows and mac os. I also enable it on all my linux devices.
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Thank you for your detailed answer, most of which I vaguely understand. As is clear by now I use an OS because of what it enables me to do - communicate, research and write, listen/watch media etc. in the same way that I drive a car because it gives me personal mobility. In both cases I try to understand sufficient of what goes on “under the hood” to keep myself out of trouble and to do very basic preventative maintenance - but I would not attempt to swap out my diesel engine for a petrol/hybrid.
The link you provide on Install using existing partition is I think of potential great interest and I will study it in detail. That however is a “support” solution (for which I am grateful, and for which I may turn out to be very grateful) to what was only meant as an illustration of why in response to a request for “Comments and Feedback on the Desktop Experience” - which I received because I do try to follow some of what is going on on planet Ubuntu - I was trying to advocate a particular route on a road map.
Your reply detailing the needs for massive download files almost makes my case for the need for different thinking!
If I am changing my car, I want the controls to at least remain familiar - approximately the same function and in approximately the same position. Possibly I am wrong in imagining that Linux Desktop is still in the evangelising stage - a minority wanting to attract new followers - in particular disaffected users of two “majority systems”.
I did an OU course on Linux (using Ubuntu 8.04/10.04 in VirtualBox if I remember correctly) and did not like the interface - too much change. I think this was also at a time when the vanilla desktop environment was going through spasms of radical change. However I found flavours and Lubuntu and saw that it was an easy learning curve to get to using the OS to do things that I wanted to do. If I was starting now and was not directed to Ubuntu by the OU course I might have ended up elsewhere.
I was not suggesting an ISO with all flavours (or even multiple flavours) but just wondering if the installation process (which I imagine for most is now download and install rather than buy DVD and install) could install a “base Ubuntu” and then in a late stage of the install prompt users to selected Desktop/Flavour, which would then be downloaded. Will many ordinary users be too bothered about the distinction between a Desktop Environment and A Flavour - is the distinction useful or necessary? The prompt can be a user-friendly guided prompt “Select X for most Mac-like, Select Y or most Windows 7 like, or just try any flavour - Run “Swap Desktop Experience” if you ever want to change your mind - your data and application configurations will be safe!”
Can Ubuntu be developed so that to most users (as in people who send emails, browse the internet and Word-process) the flavour or Desktop Environment is no more than a Skin or Theme that can be easily swapped at will (and with a bit of investment in download and processing time)? I suspect that will be an architectural issue with significant development effort required - can we distinguish between a common base Ubuntu layer and DE layers? But as the original invitation to contribute comments and feedback said “If releases were a roadtrip, this is when we pull over, have some snacks, and find the best way to get to our next destination.”
The advantage is that people exploring Linux opportunities will then see a “one Ubuntu” offering not a further array of choices, and the single installer will guide them to an initial “experience”.
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