I'm surprised they spend so much (presumably) time and effort on applications, especially 'Web' and 'Terminal'. How many users are actually going to use 'Web' as their browser?
That said, I wish them all the best, because I use 'Files' (but not the distro) since it's the best I've found for the odd occasion where I think using a GUI file manager will be easier than the command line. I still wouldn't say it's good, just the best I've found. (Not opening everything on a single-click is a vast improvement!)
> I'm surprised they spend so much (presumably) time and effort on applications, especially 'Web' and 'Terminal'. How many users are actually going to use 'Web' as their browser?
Linux distros used to love to do this (maybe some still do?). They'd put whatever the "native" browser was for a desktop in as the default, and do the same for a bunch of other stuff.
Early Ubuntu's success was partly due to ignoring that crap and just installing whatever the user'd almost certainly actually want. Its defaults were way better—actually somewhat helpful, rather than harmful—as a result. Browser, on Linux in 2006? 95+% chance you want Firefox, so here you go. And so on.
I keep wondering about this too, perhaps the intent is that there's some known component that works well with the ux goals - so if someone builds a native application (with vala), they can reference the eos 'web' app when implementing a web view.
It's still something I'm leary about. I switched from a mac to ubuntu (gnome) recently, and wonder how much lack of facilitation/communication leads to so many separate or incomplete apps. For example, I may use the gnome calendar app but also still have thunderbird setup to handle calendar links. Or evince (akin to preview.app) doesn't support drag/drop editing of pages so I have to also install 'pdf arranger' to do this.
I think there's a chaos tolerance one has to have in approaching linux, which is fine! On the plus side I've really appreciated hearing quickly from developers when filing bugs.
>I'm surprised they spend so much (presumably) time and effort on applications, especially 'Web' and 'Terminal'. How many users are actually going to use 'Web' as their browser?
Elementary is aimed in part at non-power-users, moreso than most other distros besides Ubuntu. Most of them don't care or even know what browser they're using.
I find it a little hilarious that any distro is aimed at non-power users. The middle of the Venn diagram of “non-power user” and “will install an OS that isn’t the one that came with their computer” must be vanishingly small.
I see that as "I set my mom up with a nice linux distro that works for her instead of driving her back to her (ransom/ad/whateveriship)ware filled windows life"
So yeah, there's definitely a value IMO. In fact, I know for a fact that my mother in law has been using linux for years because they just set it up for her and installed whatever she needed to get stuff done (libreoffice, zoom, whatever).
Further, I would argue that every user is a potential power user and part of the job of personal computing software should be to be an onramp to power-user-dom.
Based on how they redesign the installation process, its seem vendor-installed OS is the move here. So this might be the OS that came with the computer
But isn't it pretty likely that most of their users will be more tech savvy regardless of who they aim towards, just due to most Linux distros having to be seeked out instead of coming preinstalled and therefore mostly being used by the more technically inclined people?
To that end, why not just go with Firefox, which would appease the more technical users, would be closer to what most other distros out there are doing and would also have a higher chance of it being familiar software to all users?
I think that for the most part custom browsers are only good when you want to include something functional, yet minimal in your distro and want to save space or something like that.
Edit: admittedly, an argument could also be made about having software look and feel consistent with the rest of the OS, where such a solution could be better than off the shelf browsers, at least without heavy modifications.
If this helps maintain GNOME Web then that is very good and important. I use Web to test websites for WebKit support on Linux, so that I don't have to operate a macOS/iOS install to run Safari. There are a few other options such as Nyxt https://nyxt.atlas.engineer/ which also support WebKit, but Web seems the simplest, easiest to install, and most mature / best maintained.
..ok. So they didn't have to put much/any effort in? Still though, how many users are actually going to use 'GNOME Web'?
If I installed this, even for an elderly relative or whatever rather than myself, probably my next step would be to install Firefox. (And for others it might be Chrome of course.)
Because I've heard of it before this evening, trust it'll get updates, it has a decent privacy/security record, I know where things are if I'm asked for help, ...
But mostly it's the first, I couldn't possibly have picked GNOME Web before this conversation, I didn't know it existed!
That said, I wish them all the best, because I use 'Files' (but not the distro) since it's the best I've found for the odd occasion where I think using a GUI file manager will be easier than the command line. I still wouldn't say it's good, just the best I've found. (Not opening everything on a single-click is a vast improvement!)