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Ask HN: Ubuntu Desktop Default Apps

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201–210 of 246 posts

Re: Ask HN: Ubuntu Desktop Default Apps

#201
post #29

I have but one humble wish: when I want to start the calculator app I open the Dash and type "calc". However for some reason LibreOffice Calc has higher priority than the Calculator app, so I always have to select it specifically (instead of just pressing Enter) - even though I might have never used the LibreOffice Calc on this computer. Can you make the LibreOffice Calc app lower priority in the Dash please. Thank y…

Same for me, rename the link to "LibreOffice Spreadsheet" please.

And beautify the Gnome3 UI, add the menu bar back or fork an older Gnome which had still the more normal UI elements like system wide menu bar, etc or revert back to the older Unity shell (not the failed new Unity). Ubuntu 12 LTS was perfect, it all went downhill after that, with awkward decisions, and Gnome3 was never good by default.

Re: Ask HN: Ubuntu Desktop Default Apps

#203
post #29

I have but one humble wish: when I want to start the calculator app I open the Dash and type "calc". However for some reason LibreOffice Calc has higher priority than the Calculator app, so I always have to select it specifically (instead of just pressing Enter) - even though I might have never used the LibreOffice Calc on this computer. Can you make the LibreOffice Calc app lower priority in the Dash please. Thank y…

To be fair, it definitely makes sense that "Calc" would show "Libre Office Calc" first, since it's an exact match. Why not simply type "Calcu"?

Re: Ask HN: Ubuntu Desktop Default Apps

#204
Web Browser: Firefox

Email Client:

Terminal: GNOME Terminal

IDE: none

File manager: Nautilus

Basic Text Editor: GEdit or Sublime Text

IRC/Messaging Client: none

PDF Reader: Firefox

Office Suite: LibreOffice, but in a work environment use MS Office, and even MS Office 2007 (at work) is light-years ahead of LibreOffice in terms of how I use Office. I do like the pop-out right column for editing, but find I have to go through menu after menu for simple things like formatting a text box in Impress. Calc table functions lack MS Office in all aspects.

Calendar: none

Video Player: VLC

Music Player: VLC

Photo Viewer: Whatever the default is. Is good enough to not notice what it is.

Screen recording: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+r. Mainly record screen at work (Windows) where ShareX produces nice quality and file sizes.

Re: Ask HN: Ubuntu Desktop Default Apps

#205
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same but vlc for videos

VLC is indeed superior in comparison with Totem but it does not integrate nicely into GNOME as Totem would. MPV is also a very capable player. There is even an GTK frontend which obeys GNOME HIG and which is called gnome-mpv[0]. Maybe it would be a nice pick for the default video player. [0] https://github.com/gnome-mpv/gnome-mpv

I never really understood this thing about integration into the desktop environment. It stops at the window manager level for me and the overall style of widgets. I don't notice the difference between QT and GTK applications. The only important thing is that they work.

What I see instead is desktop environments reinventing the wheels to have their own versions of applications that often somebody else did better and work across DEs anyway. Either they have too many developers or they can't make them focus on the core. I understand that it's difficult to make people do things they dont want if they're working for free, but are they?

I checked this list https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_Core_Applications and I think I never used any application in the conversation and world categories since I've been using Gnome (2009). Not many of the others too. They are just inferior to other native applications or web services or my phone.

Re: Ask HN: Ubuntu Desktop Default Apps

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> calendar you can add events to (does a modern desktop calendar for Linux even exist)? I don't know about Gnome - but KDE has both a desktop calendar/organizer app (Korganizer) and a (unrelated) Plasma widget for the toolbar - the gorgeous Event Calendar Plasma widget, which shows your Google Calendar events.

There is a Gnome calendar app: https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Calendar .

And then there's also https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/California

And of course elementaryOS has its own GTK+3-based calendar: https://launchpad.net/maya

So basically, the same situation as with mail clients, photo apps, music players, ... I wish the GNOME world would decide to just merge all the features into one app per task and then kill the others.

Re: Ask HN: Ubuntu Desktop Default Apps

#208
I don't really care as long as the Software app is in good shape. It should find common software and maybe even have a link to software that it doesn't find (search for Spotify->show link with PPA installation instructions).

My only wish is OpenVPN (+GUI integration).

Re: Ask HN: Ubuntu Desktop Default Apps

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would echo brudgers sentiment here but would table the suggestion for a meta-package or series of meta-packages that would install R, texlive, octave, iPython and a good selection of other mathematical/data processing software. My 'vision'(+) would be something like UbuntuStudio for data/maths. (+) I can no longer use words like 'vision', 'paradigm' &c without distancing speech marks because of their misuse in the…

> turning off JS by default for a browser Year of the Linux laptop would never come

I'm not suggesting that anyone else run a Web browser with javascript switched off - I interpreted the list as some kind of survey of current use.

However I'm pleasantly surprised at how many Web sites do actually convey their main content with javascript disabled, and the increase in speed and battery life is marked.

The 'year of the linux desktop' meme is a little moot as phones/tablets now provide the mass computing experience for many people, and the primary experience for people under 25 or so (I'm a teacher).

Re: Ask HN: Ubuntu Desktop Default Apps

#210
Gdebi

Meld

KeepassXC

mpv player and SMPlayer

Audacious

Geeqie image viewer

Caffeine (to turn the screensaver off)

Devhelp

IDE: GNOME builder

would be great to add those to the repos for Ubuntu server / command line:

micro editor

terminal_velocity

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