Bug 449261

> If it's not possible to get a list of things installed by default by the distro
Unfortuntately I don't think it is. Perhaps Aleix can answer the question definitively.

> Dolphin, Kate, Konsole, KSysGuard could be assumed to be part of the system.
You might be surprised. I think there's a legitimate use case for wanting to do something use Discover to remove Kate and install KWrite, or vice versa. Or uninstall Konsole in favor of Yakuake or Terminator. In this case, making a distinction between "pre-installed by the distro" and "installed by the user" would probably not be helpful IMO.

It's just kinda of a mess trying to clean your system a bit, you open Discover hoping to uninstall a bunch of weird things you tried 6 months ago that you don't even remember, only to being bombarded with System-stuff. It makes uninstalling anything uncomfortable since you can't be sure if it was part of the distro or not. The logical extreme is that users should manually write down everything they manually install, which is bollocks.

Couldn't Discover make a list the first time it is opened or something hacky if there's no official means? Like, I can't really stress enough how much the lack of knowing what isn't shipped by default make managing apps/packages a pain to deal with in comparison to Android and Windows

Why does it matter what is shipped by default? That is a somewhat subjective decision made by the distribution. Some distros ship the entire Kontact suite by default, some don't. That doesn't say anything about whether it's a good idea for you to remove it. There is no clear line of what is a "system" app and what is not. The important thing is that Discover doesn't let you remove critical stuff, like the entire Plasma desktop, by accident

The idea of using the "Installed" page to manage the system is in question if the user has to know what he installed manually, at that point he could just type the name of the app in the search bar. And if he needs to know what he probably shouldn't uninstall, then the installed page starts to look like a dangerous place to them. To an advance user this is laughable, but it's not really a nice experience for all the other types of user. 

It's not enjoyable looking at a list of installed apps hoping to tidy the system up, only to have to remember what is important for the system to function. Every other OS has a place where a One Dot User can safely uninstall things they installed, but with Discover you need to know what you are doing at every step of the way.

Dolphin is an example of something safe to uninstall if you know what you're doing, but it's fairly easy to imagine a user not realizing what exactly they uninstalled, and let's be honest: Such a user wouldn't even know Dolphin is the name of what they uninstalled, so they wouldn't be able to easily reinstall it. It just doesn't feel right letting users making such a mistake without some sort of warning. Also, just so you know: I can uninstall my Software Manager GUI and Kernel through Discover(?????).

A category of "Shipped by default" to me looks like a compromise(that is, if it was possible), it wouldn't require manually adding every single important package to a list of "maybe the user should be warned?", and wouldn't mess up with packages that are installed on some distros but not others.

> And if he needs to know what he probably shouldn't uninstall
This seems like it would be solved by making more things "Critical" and hiding critical things from the page.

> only to have to remember what is important for the system to function
...Is that actually the case though? Other than Discover and Plasma Desktop, what things are listed on this page that you can break your system by removing?

> Also, just so you know: I can uninstall my Software Manager GUI and Kernel through Discover(?????).
Making Discover not removable through Discover is being handled already. The only way kernels could appear in Discover is if your distro gives them AppStream metadata, which seems totally wrong. Are you sure you're not seeing a GUI app to *manage* kernels? I very much doubt the kernel itself appears in Discover.

> A category of "Shipped by default" to me looks like a compromise
Yeah, maybe we could do that.

>...Is that actually the case though? Other than Discover and Plasma Desktop, what things are listed on this page that you can break your system by removing?

Don't try to think about the breaking the system in a technical sense, try to think about what a one dot user considers to be a usable system. Again, I mentioned Dolphin as an example: A two dot user would probably figure out what it is and will not uninstall it without reason, and even if they did, they would probably figure out how to get it back (or an alternative). 

A one dot user would either see the installed list as too imposing, or wouldn't understand what Dolphin is, if they uninstalled I don't think they would be able to reinstall it without external help.

My idea of having a category called "System", made from shipped by default packages, isn't to protect tech enthusiastic users from ending with a borked system, it is to prevent one dot users from making preventable mistakes, by labelling those stuff as "System" would at least warn them. 

>Making Discover not removable through Discover is being handled already. The only way kernels could appear in Discover is if your distro gives them AppStream metadata, which seems totally wrong. Are you sure you're not seeing a GUI app to *manage* kernels? I very much doubt the kernel itself appears in Discover.

I didn't mean Discover, but the GUI app made by the distro. Also pretty sure it is the Kernel itself, that one can be blamed on the distro, still weird tho.

(In reply to WS from comment #6)
> Don't try to think about the breaking the system in a technical sense, try
> to think about what a one dot user considers to be a usable system. Again, I
> mentioned Dolphin as an example: A two dot user would probably figure out
> what it is and will not uninstall it without reason, and even if they did,
> they would probably figure out how to get it back (or an alternative). 
> 
> A one dot user would either see the installed list as too imposing, or
> wouldn't understand what Dolphin is, if they uninstalled I don't think they
> would be able to reinstall it without external help.
> 
> My idea of having a category called "System", made from shipped by default
> packages, isn't to protect tech enthusiastic users from ending with a borked
> system, it is to prevent one dot users from making preventable mistakes, by
> labelling those stuff as "System" would at least warn them. 
There is actually a "System" category that pretty much all apps add themselves to (or not); it's just a keyword in the app's .desktop file. This is a separate thing from what apps are installed by default by the distro.

Conceivably we could group all such apps into their own category in the Installed view. Not to prevent removing them, but to simply separate them from other apps to provide this hint to users that maybe they shouldn't remove them unless they really know what they're doing.

Then it would simply be up to apps and distros to give these apps the appropriate "System" keyword in their .desktop files, which is easy to fix.

What do you think about that?


> I didn't mean Discover, but the GUI app made by the distro.
The thing is, Discover doesn't have a way to distinguish this app. So there isn't really a way to give it special treatment in the UI. However if that app is marked with the "System" keyword, it would appear in the "System" category in the installed view, should we implement the above idea.


> Also pretty sure it is the Kernel itself, that one can be blamed on the distro, still weird tho.
Could you attach a screenshot of it?

Created attachment 146018 [details]
Kernel on Discover

>What do you think about that?

That sounds more related to a discover redesign to allow categories inside the Installed page. Wine and GSmartControl use "System" as a category.

I'm more partial to installed by default by the distro if it was possible, the only reason I insist on calling them as "System" is that I hope it would provide a hint to the user just by the word itself.

(In reply to WS from comment #8)
> Created attachment 146018 [details]
> Kernel on Discover
That is extremely weird and I would report it to your distro as a bug. Kernels probably should not have AppStream information.


> That sounds more related to a discover redesign to allow categories inside
> the Installed page.
It wouldn't necessarily have to be. The Installed page could have just a few groups:
- Applications (all apps minus apps with the System keyword)
- App add-ons (all KNS items for apps)
- Plasma Add-ons (all KNS items for Plasma)
- Fonts (all fonts)
- System tools (apps with the System keyword)


> Wine and GSmartControl use "System" as a category.
That's a metadata bug in those apps. Wine is definitely not a system app. That's ridiculous. It could maybe be an "Accessory" or "Utility".

But it betrays the issue here: Discover has to use *some* source of data to determine what is and isn't a system app. If that source of data has issues, then the UI will have issues.


> I'm more partial to installed by default by the distro if it was possible,
> the only reason I insist on calling them as "System" is that I hope it would
> provide a hint to the user just by the word itself.
It's not possible, sorry.

While not perfect, It would be an improvement, so it gets a thumbs up from me.

>It wouldn't necessarily have to be. The Installed page could have just a few groups:
>- Applications (all apps minus apps with the System keyword)
>- App add-ons (all KNS items for apps)
>- Plasma Add-ons (all KNS items for Plasma)
>- Fonts (all fonts)
>- System tools (apps with the System keyword)

Yeah, this works, I have only one complaint:

Consider making "Applications" show only apps that have a start button, everything else could be thrown in a new category called App Dependencies(or make it a toggle inside Applications). Gnome-Software has a way less cluttered installed page due to this, even on the same system.

Yes, app add-ons would be in a separate category, or we could even collapse them into the apps themselves, on a sub-page. I think we are actually trying to do that, so maybe it' a bug.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 423344 ***