Your Comments and Feedback on the Desktop Experience AND the Community/Contributor Experience

Community
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I’ve been using Ubuntu since the first day it was released. I was shipped my free CDs and still have them. Moving from Debian it was amazing, clean and very polished. I’ve had some bumps along the way and brief switches to other distros, but in the end I’m happy with Ubuntu as my daily primary work (mostly) and home (always) desktop.

Some of the main niggles I have are:

  • Wayland, let’s make it a first class citizen. I don’t know what’s missing, but it’s clear that some apps don’t work well with it, or are completely broken. I have to switch between X11 and Wayland all the time. Screen tearing on the default video player in X11 is unbearable. It doesn’t look great when I’m showing someone something and say “oh wait, let me log out, switch the graphics engine and start again”.
  • Sometimes packages get into a bad state, my most recent one was nodejs. Oh and the nodejs ecosystem of packages is horrible.
  • I have to agree with some of the snap discussions. I like snap, it seems to just work. But the snap apps are slow. I have to tell my partner “just wait” when Skype does not immediately open.
  • Software - it’s very slow. This should be fast and easy to search. But I find it’s difficult to use, the search button is hidden in the top left (thanks Gnome). A search easily takes 10 seconds and the results are underwhelming. Also the search results don’t have much information. Some of the reviews are pretty bad and it’s difficult to judge the software based on the user reviews. Having “expert users” or “editors” make detailed review of software would be great.
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Snap improvements:

  • Biggest is finding a better solution for compression. The findings here are not refuted and not addressed.
  • Allow multiple repos simultaneously activated, or at least allow switching the store without recompiling through simple cli commands to update the config. This would be the easiest way of adding a feature without having to do things you obviously don’t want to do like open source the snap http server. Other distros could add their own additions or use the system with a different repo altogether (i guess they technically can do that one now but not worth the hassle)
  • Allow option for on-demand mounting for desktop users. It really took me by surprised how much slower the initial OS boot becomes when you have a lot of snaps.
  • Likely not to happen: Just open source the store

GNOME:

  • The GNOME team doesn’t have distros or users, or even devs not following their every whim, in their priority lists, but only devs making GTK GNOME apps.
    • However, it’s the only desktop that has a good single-entry workflow (just hit super between any task to accomplish what you need, not 5 different multi-key shortcuts old people can’t remember)
    • KDE is too modular, and each modular piece is in a different state of usign new technologies like qml, etc. This modularity currently makes such a workflow and stable experience hard to achieve.
  • My hope is Canonical, System76 and others will continue to stand up to GNOME for things users are asking.
  • If GNOME ends up pushing everyone out, hire developers to help work on 2 things using KDE technologies
    • Coding a new performant unified overview for KDE that allows window, desktop management, plus app, file, and plugin search, all using the super key, but using a better layout (a lot like gnome 3.38) that properly uses whitespace and gives each area room to breath and function, instead of how GNOME 40 crams everything opnto 1 axis. This video shows it’s an area they’re working at but need help. This option would probably take multiple cycles of work while still shipping GNOME.
    • Working with Maui devs on their apps that looks better and use CSDs, or work to enable an official CSD option for main KDE apps by just moving the close button to the toolbars, and removing the titlebar/rounding corners.

Flutter:

  • I’m a fan
  • Please keep pushing to improve desktop features and support
  • Like drawing it’s own titlebar without GTK to enable easy CSD creation just with dart/flutter only
  • Improving multi-window capabilities of parts of the widget tree so people can “dock” and undock specific widgets, or reorganize if designed that way (that is probably currently possible)
  • Adding a system config that flutter apps look to for accent color so users can pick an accent color and flutter will use that variable. (hopefully this can be a same thing that other apps use to look for int he future, like what do you call… a standard)
  • Just anything to improve an already good platform for people to easily make more apps for Ubuntu. I personally think Dart/Flutter is a joy to use and there’s actually documentation and help to get started.
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  • Gnome 42
  • Better support for Gnome Software, I have been using in recent versions of Ubuntu and it hasn’t been working well… I don’t use Snap Store as Gnome Software supports Snaps, Flatpaks and .deb at the same time. Update the system over there without errors. An example of a Gnome Software that works well is Debian or Fedora.
  • An option in the settings to switch to Gnome vanilla layout? (No dock or desktop files) ¯_(ツ)_/¯

**
Nvidia 495 + GBM driver still working on version 21.10 :ok_hand:

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A post was split to a new topic: Does Ubuntu have a Light/Dark Mode?

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That’s good, considering that Ubuntu uses the very same gnome-software source as Debian does.

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  • Use the vanilla Gnome Launcher (and apps)
    I know branding is good, but with unity gone, it would be good to just use the default settings from the gnome launcher so its more compatible, instead of diverging. Spend the resources on something provided by Canonical that stands out Ubuntu in a better way, like maybe working on an app exclusive for Ubuntu (yet still opensource), that then can be embraced by Gnome team

  • Improve the App store
    It feels a bit outdated, and it takes long to load the content. You guys have done a great work with https://snapcraft.io , why not make it look just like that? So speedy and elegant. Maybe use an electron app?

  • Support snaps better.
    I currently have a new AMD CPU and have been months without being able to run my favorite snaps, as the app developer has to update them and some owned by the snapcrafter team have gone unmainted for a while. Maybe have some universal packages to be patched on the fly the snap when installed on newer systems so they don’t have to be maintained by app developers.

Thanks for reading all our feedback =)

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That’s really strange, since I have an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (the latest 5000 series) and am running many snaps without any issues.

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Well, I am really excited with Ubuntu 21.10. the best Ubuntu yet :wink:

There were a lot of migrations lately to new technologies and I would love to see the last ones being tackled for future proofing.

*BTRFS should be the default FS for new installs, it is finally as speedy as ext4 and should be very stable as it is being used by Facebook on their vast amount of servers for years now. I don’t see any reason where ext4 should be better.
*Pipewire for audio works around some conceptiona limitations of PA, it is shipped already for Video and should be the default now for audio as well. It is stabilizing at a rapid pace and is already deemed stable for Fedora for some time and should be super stable when the LTS arrives.
*Hardware video acceleration and extensions support for the Firefox snap, the two missing pieces to make the snap feature complete. Maybe add standard support to snaps as well to have better compression at luo speed. I am very impressed with the current Firefox so far, thank you for all your work.
*Maybe switch to IDW as the new wifi stack. It was community tested here and deemed ready.

Those new technologies are around for quite some time now and Ubuntu was always maybe a bit too cautious to jump the gun. I would love to see those adopted. Those are not that new and experimental and well tested by other distributions, partly for many years now.

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Please add a filter to search only for “Free Software” in in Ubuntu Software app so I can distinguish Open Source or Closed Source.

It would be great to have a permanent “Software License” switch in settings.

This setting will be useful for all type of package you have on your system (e.g deb, snap, flatpak)

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I can pretty much live with anything as long as the panel can be put on the bottom of the screen, applications can be ungrouped and you can have launcher icons on the bottom left like dash to panel.

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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.

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What frustrates me (please take it as constructive criticism) :

  1. Stop forced pushing of Snap format !
    I don’t want forced updates and not being able to change the source repository.

  2. 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.

  3. The installer doesn’t support encryption and the manual partitioning page is just awful

  4. Hibernation doesn’t work
    Sometimes I want to hibernate the computer not only sleep or a want sleep with fallback to hibernate.

  5. 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:

  1. Newer Linux kernel, at least 5.16
  2. Better BTRFS support with better defaults for integrity, compression
  3. 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.
  1. Hibernation and hybrid sleep (fallback to hibernate if running out of battery) should work.
  2. Pipewire should be installed and enabled by default, it solves so many problems !
  3. Switch from WPA supplicant to IWD, it’s way faster to connect and reconnect
  4. Update WINE, SDL to latest version and other packages required for proper gaming.
  5. Give more freedom to Qt and KDE to upgrade their packages and use whatever their developers want.

Thank you very much and good luck !

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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 :slight_smile:

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.

ubuntu-moding-style-for-notebook
ubuntu-moding-style-for-notebook1920×1080 384 KB

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 :slight_smile:

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 :slight_smile:

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try running xonotic, last time i tried it was a month ago and it didnt work for me :frowning:

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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.

3 Likes