The introduction of a “minimal install” mode in the Ubuntu installer has been one of the distros best-received features in years.
When selected during initial install Ubuntu’s ‘minimal install’ provides users with a complete, fully-functioning Ubuntu system but, notably, with fewer pre-installed apps. The same ISO also delivers a ‘full installation’ mode stacked with a diverse set of software – the default, recommended option.
So naturally, having added a feature a ton of people enjoy, Ubuntu is, er, removing it.
They plan a new “unified default install” that, from the sounds of things, will offer a “choose your own apps” experience. Not awful, granted – an approach I’ve seen a lot of Linux users often suggest.
However the experience will be powered by Ubuntu’s all-new Snap Store app.
Status Quo “Not-Quite-Right”, Say Ubuntu
Ubuntu’s Director of Engineering says the current ‘minimal or full’ choice as “not-quite-right”. Thus they plan — read: have already decided — to try a new unified install approach that lets users select apps to install/add during install time.
“With widespread Internet access today, obtaining the necessary apps is no longer a hurdle. This streamlined approach could reduce ISO size, decrease testing needs, and simplify the installation process,” he says.
Smaller ISO sizes are a much vaunted aim (and something Ubuntu could arguably do with.
But does making users select software really “simplifying the installation process”? To me it sounds like it’d slow it down.
After all, it’s already possible for users to “get extra apps” after install. The Ubuntu Setup Tool (sparse those it is) even ends on a slide promoting this. Shifting the burden on what software is provided (and the default software is a key part of what makes a distro a distro) on to the user feels… Meh.
Plus, it sounds like the “unified default install” will still come with a bunch of software preinstalled anyway in order to, quote, “offer a coherent out-of-the-box experience”.
The current default install, in both minimal and full-fat editions, already provides that, no?
With my cynical brit hat on I have to say that this whole thing sounds like a less-than-subtle way to try and on-board more users into using Snap versions of software they’d traditionally get as a DEB (either preinstalled from the repo or installed by them, later from the repos).
We learned this week that the new Snap Store will demote DEB software in its search results.
I’ve long felt Ubuntu has needed to shake up the software it ships with — Totem for example is no-one’s favourite video player and superior open-source alternatives exist — but making users pick the software they want — assuming they know what they want — feels regressive.
Ubuntu was hitherto all about shipping sane defaults that “just work” for most users and, crucially, shipping the best that open-source software has to offer.
I’m not 100% convinced asking users to pick n’ mix their apps from the (to be blunt, rather weak) selection of apps available in the Snap Store lives up to that.
Let me know what you think below.
