For Ubuntu Budgie 22.10 the project team have embarked on a fundamental review of what applications we ship by default.
This is primarily needed due to GNOME core apps shipping libadwaita and the inability to have such apps looking the same across the whole distro in-accordance to a users wish. If you want to see the state of play now - just install Debian Testing into a VM and install the same applications as Ubuntu Budgie ships. Look to see how they look and work now.
We as a distro want to give that choice to users - workarounds such as “copying gtk4.0 into a users .config folder, or using a GTK_THEME=themename executable name” fundamentally break those GNOME application authors wishes - i.e. they have designed their apps look and work with the default GNOME Shell adwaita theme.
Shipping any application is a positive endorsement into the application author(s) creativity and zeal. We should be all proud of software creators and their vision.
We would like to have a consistent out-of-the box look and feel - but we are very cognisant that some GNOME Apps do not have alternatives. So this is going to be a multi release strategy all leading to the next LTS in 2024.
The review will be a game of two half’s … first look at apps in the repo.
Second where we cast our net over the wider non debian based ecosystem.
So how are we going to approach this?
- The list of packages we ship are called seeds. The jammy list is here .
- We are going to look at the upstream software authors source repository current issues and current code-base to see what their current and future intentions are (assuming this info is available)
- If the app is/will be libadwaita based this app will be a candidate for re-evaluation.
- We also will look at the list of current issues, last release date and how active the author/team are in responding to issues.
This is critically important. If the app is not maintained / or maintained only periodically then that app is part of the evaluation to be potentially replaced.
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We should consider how well any application is maintained in Debian / Ubuntu. Primarily, packages for evaluation need to exist in the repositories. By looking at the debian changelog for the package and seeing how the package maintainer deals with issues (timeliness / critical & stability patches) will guide us whether such a package should be part of the evaluation.
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If a potential candidate replacement application is not part of Debian we need to ask the fundamental question - why not? Does the application simply not work in a system wide install basis? Remember that’s where packages install stuff - for multiple users not just for a single user.
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Likewise, taking on the production of the package, looking for sponsors, working through package production issues and upkeep in Debian & Ubuntu is a long-term commitment. Who is going to-do the work? Volunteers who put their hands up are more than welcome.
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We also will look critically at the dependencies of the application. There is little point to include an application if it required hundreds of megabytes of dependent libraries i.e. No KDE based applications. Qt applications possibly but theming is key here.
We will maintain this current post with a list of apps that are going to be replaced … and with what.
Whilst we appreciate your insight here with posts - if you want to make a suggestion then please state clearly how all of the above is met with your suggestion. We will ignore anything that just says “why dont you choose X” with little or no reasoning.
Use the following PPA to install and test the following:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntubudgie-dev/switch
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt autoremove
GNOME-Calculator → Mate Calc
GNOME-Calendar → drop from the install
GNOME-Maps → drop from the install
GNOME System Monitor → Mate System Monitor
Evince → Atril
File Roller aka GNOME Archive Manager → leave as is and monitor
Deja-Dup backup tool → leave as is and monitor
GNOME Screenshot → drop from the install
GEdit text editor → undecided
GNOME Font Viewer → font-manager
Cheese → guvcview or webcamoid
Celluloid → Parole
gThumb → leave as is and monitor
GNOME Log → leave as is and monitor
GNOME Disks → leave as is and monitor
Rhythmbox → Lollypop + Goodvibes + gpodder - open question
GNOME Characters → leave as is
Transmission → leave as is and monitor