Default Ubuntu applications

[Tero Pesonen]

On Tue, 2010-03-02 at 14:56 +0000, Chris Puttick wrote:
> Ok, time to get myself some flaming/adulation, depending on how this
> particular !innocent question is taken...
> 
> 
> I count myself lucky to use Kubuntu (rather than Ubuntu), and I guess
> by proxy lucky to have started Linux life with SuSE; it means I know
> about some really great applications. One of those is Gwenview, which
> I just reminded myself of when looking at some test photos from my
> Milestone. It just made me wonder why some of these great apps are not
> included in default Ubuntu; surely great applications is what you want
> new users to see? Home computer usage (and to some extent corporate
> computer usage) is all about applications and the user experience.
> Like other considerations should be secondary; you know, things like
> the desktop environment...

If good applications are the issue, then a better, or more profitable,
question in my opinion is why is Ubuntu using GNOME to begin with. New
users do not install kubuntu.

Compare, say, Kmail/Kontact to Evolution, k3b to the Gnome alternative,
Krita to Gimp, Amarok to the Gnome alternative, Kaffeine or smplayer to
the Gnome default, and so forth. I am not surprised at all that new
users, who typically try Ubuntu, and hence Gnome, think the Linux
desktop is horribly boring, and, as one put it, like going back to
Windows XP. Add to that that Gnome isn't anywhere near as stable as
Windows XP, and you can only wonder... 

I can see why Gnome is used for enterprise desktops, since they need to
be boring by their very design, but home desktops are a whole another
matter. Perhaps Ubuntu isn't even targeting home users, as I have heard
some people occasionally say? The enterprise market (desktop, server)
is, after all, the only segment you can make (or envisage making in the
future) money with Linux.

Tero Pesonen

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