Some Lubuntu feedback

[Zeth]

Hello,

I installed Lubuntu on some old computers and liked it so much I am using
now on all my family’s computers, including brand new ones.

Even on a new computer, I want my computer’s resources (and electricity) to
be used on the programs I am actually using, rather than the GUI Shell
which I only see 5% of the time or less.

I do not want to be another clichéd Unity hater and understand that
Canonical needs to compete with Mac OS X and Windows 8 to reach the mass
market, but personally I prefer the lightweight feel of Lubuntu and prefer
the LXPanel menu over the Unity Launcher which always seems to be in my way.

I am also a parent and Lubuntu is easier to lock down for child use (there
is less to remove to start with), and children seem to get quite confused
by the Unity Dash overlaying the screen (and the automatic shopping results
are not appropriate for children).

So I am a big fan of Lubuntu, and thought I should share some small
criticisms in case it is helpful for the developers to get feedback.

1. When you first install Lubuntu, you are presented with just blue
background. You might want to consider some kind of welcome app? Or open
the browser at a welcome HTML page? Indeed there is not a lot of inline
help in general.

2. When you right click on the empty desktop, you get a second
interpretation of the main menu which is a bit redundant and confusing. I
was expecting a menu with options such as "change wallpaper" and "open
desktop in file manager" etc.

3. In a fresh install, when you put a DVD in, nothing happens - no media
player. When you open GNOME Mplayer, and ask it to play a DVD, it moans
about finding nothing at /dev/dvd/ (probably because the system has mounted
the DVD under /media).

I then installed VLC media player, now when I put in a DVD, it offers me
VLC which then plays the DVD without complaining about mount points. So not
now a problem for me since I prefer VLC anyway but you might need to look
at the configuration a bit. If it can all work with VLC then surely it can
with GNOME Mplayer?

4. When you lock the screen or suspend, you get XScreenSaver, which does
not fit with the look and feel of Lubuntu at all. Can this be skinned in
the same theme as Lubuntu?

5. The monitor settings tool lxrandr is rather limited, there is no way
through the GUI to configure more than one monitor or an external
projector. I installed arandr which solved that problem - perhaps arandr
should be part of the default install?

6. The settings in general are quite a mess, and the default install of
Lubuntu gives you duplicate menu entries for “Online Accounts” whatever
that is (I have installed 13.04 on several machines and you always get two).

7. ”System Tools” then “System Profiler and Benchmark” (hardinfo) doesn’t
fully work. I have tried it on several computers and always the same
results, you get a succession of three frozen pop up windows, which if you
close the main window then eventually renders, some choices in the GUI will
result in more of these frozen windows. Are you missing some dependencies?

8. I am not sure about the choice of Times New Roman as the default font
but in general Abiword is fantastic. However, I do not like how the Lubuntu
file manager is configured to interact with Abiword.

I opened Abiword, then I typed a document, then I clicked on File then
Save, then I typed in a filename, then I pressed the Save button. Instead
of saving the file I get a big red exclamation mark telling me to “Please
select a folder below”.

Having a 'Recently Used' tab is useful, having it as the default is the
most annoying thing ever, especially when I have just installed the system
and have not recently used anything. What is the point of the Windows-style
default 'Documents' folder if it is not the default location for saving
Documents?

9. Gnumeric is also a nice program, and when you press Save without
specifying a directory, it fortunately does not default to ‘Recently Used’
but just saves in the user’s top level home directory, slightly less
annoying but why doesn’t it default to Documents?

10. The Image viewer is not under Graphics which confused one of my family
who was looking for a way to open an image. Also this program allows you to
rotate or flip an image and then save that change, but does not allow you
to crop the image.

It seems to be that the only way to crop an image on the Lubuntu default
install is to use mtpaint. This is a slightly weird program and I am not
sure who it is really aimed at. mtpaint is friendly for casual users who
want to crop their photos but conversely it is not going to be used by any
graphic artist. I would suggest something like Shotwell would be more
useful in the default install.

11. I am not really sure who Leafpad is aimed at. Non-technical users will
use Abiword to type text while technical users will just install their
favourite editor to get syntax highlighting etc.

12. Again I am not sure who Audacious is aimed at here, causal users will
just open media files with the video player (GNOME Mplayer by default),
people really into their digital music collection will probably have strong
views and will install their own choice of music player.

13. I mainly just used Firefox before I started using Lubuntu, one thing
that is nice about Chromium is that on old hardware, when a site causes the
browser to go slow, you can kill that one tab and things go back to normal,
whereas on Firefox you need to kill the whole browser. Maybe my experience
is atypical since I see from the other mailing list posts that Lubuntu has
decided to move to Firefox. Not a big issue for me as I will install both
anyway.

14. Transmission is nice but is only associated with traditional torrent
files, if you go to a magnet link, e.g. this one:
http://magnet-uri.sourceforge.net/magnet-uri-example-no-js.html ) it does
not open transmission until you configure it:
http://askubuntu.com/a/133693this could have been done by default.

15. I have not really used Sylpheed in anger yet but so far it seems nice.
Pidgin is good, I actually prefer it over Empathy.

16. Bundled games are not important, but if you are going to bundle games,
they seem a bit over-focused on card games, what about, say, one of the
chess games in the repositories or something?

17. Sadly there is no presentation program by default. Does Lubuntu/LXDE
already have plans in that direction?

[I have had a bit of a play at hacking on GNOME Ease, which is a nice
simple presentation program (it is a small wrapper around Clutter which
does all the work). GNOME Ease looks very pretty but requires older
versions of the dependencies than are currently in Lubuntu/Ubuntu. I
started to play with getting Ease to work with the current available
dependencies but I’m wondering if it would be better to start from scratch
in QT if that is the way the LXDE wind is blowing?]

18. Perhaps not the usual target machine for Lubuntu, but on a Retina
display Macbook Pro in its full resolution, Lubuntu/LXDE looks a bit
insane. You can increase the font sizes to readable size (e.g. 20px) but a
lot of other things such as the taskbar and program menubars cannot be
appropriately re-sized and just look very small indeed.

Anyway, thanks to the Lubuntu and LXDE developers for such a nice operating
system, keep up the good work!

Best Wishes,
Zeth
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