apps choice for Ubuntu and installation choices [Was: cross-platform virus]

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Sat, Apr 22, 2006 at 01:12:14AM +1000, Alexander Jacob Tsykin wrote:
> On Friday 21 April 2006 23:24, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> > On Wed, Apr 12, 2006 at 09:41:21PM +1000, Alexander Jacob Tsykin wrote:
> > > A home user most definitely does not need the Gimp. It is overkill, it
> > > has far too many features, is hard to learn, and difficult to use.
> >
> > Are you suggesting an alternative?
> >
> kolourpaint for kde would be a good start. I don't use Gnome, but I'm sure 
> there is something similar.

I'm afraid that doesn't help us very much.

> > > Gnucash would be useful to almost any body who owns their own business
> >
> > I personally use gnucash a great deal; however, I consider it far from an
> > appropriate choice for the casual user.  The business-related features are
> > especially incomplete at present.
> >
> better than nothing, because something is needed.

I don't agree; our goal isn't to provide every possible type of application,
but to provide the best desktop experience overall.

> > The web is, increasingly, a multimedia environment, as is email.
> >
> but considering that multimedia most definitely does not work "out of the
> box," there's no need to have useless applications installed by default.

Multimedia is a very broad subject; there are definitely multimedia
scenarios which do work out of the box (open the "Examples" folder).

> > > A tool to convert measurements is useful for almost anybody.
> > > A desktop choice for kids would be good. It could include mainly games,
> > > some educational and some not.
> >
> > http://www.edubuntu.org/
> >
> doesn't really mesh with what I said. One which will not focus on education, 
> but on entertainment generally, although educational games have their place.

A fine idea, but it won't appear from nothing.  It needs someone dedicated
to making such a project happen.

> > They don't need to have heard of it; it provides a handler for .torrent
> > files.  This allows hyperlinks to .torrent files in Firefox (including
> > those popular for downloading Ubuntu CD images) to work.
> >
> not many people download torrents. Those that do, usually have enough know-how 
> to install their own favourite torrent program.

The few hundred kilobytes occupied by the client are worth the benefit.
Users don't even need to know that they are downloading a torrent.

> > We would be thrilled to have an open solution for flash, but none of the
> > available options, including Gnash, is suitable at present.  Have you tried
> > it?
> >
> I have used Gnash, it's not perfect, far from it, but a lot better than 
> nothing.

I'm afraid I don't agree.  An incomplete Flash plugin is worse than none at
all, because it complicates the process of installing the Macromedia plugin,
which is what users need when they encounter content which doesn't work with
the free plugins (which is very common).

> > It is impossible to know in advance what kind of printer the user might
> > have, or might purchase later (the printer won't arrive with a driver disc
> > for Ubuntu).  Disk space is a trivial price to pay to have a wide range of
> > hardware Just Work.
> >
> they don't work out of the box, you still have to configure them. It's not so 
> much bother to install the packages first.

Currently, the user must select "New Printer" and (in many cases) the
printer device is detected and the driver selected for them.  Surely you can
see the difference in usability between this, and searching for drivers in a
package manager.  There is no contest.

> I am not attacking the Ubuntu developers here, if you look at the context, 
> then my suggestion was to have multiple install options on the install disk. 
> Like office, games, multimedia, whatever the developers think is needed and 
> feasible. I merely presentend some features which a lot of people wouldn't 
> use, which might belong in one category, but which maybe (I stress the maybe) 
> don't belong in the general install.

It is an option which has been considered in the past, and considered to be
a less functional solution than what we have today.  Rather than attempting
to divide desktop users into categories, we offer something which will
satisfy a broad range of users, and make it easy to add more specialized
applications as desired.

-- 
 - mdz