I think most people (including myself) prefer a minimal desktop by default, and then proceed to install only the software they need. Nevertheless, it always surprises me when I log in to a system that doesn't have vim.
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For almost all users, especially beginners, nano is just simpler faster and better. A lot of distributions are bundling it, and I am finding indeed systems without vim at all.
Although most of the times while vim is not installed vi is. Even often together with nano.
Man I tried to use vi once because I started with vim and wanted to see what all it was before, and holy shit vim really is IMPROVED
I disagree. Don't get me wrong, vim is amazing and all that, but I think nano is easier for new users to grok out of the box, making it a better choice most of the time. What it lacks in features it makes up for in transparency.
100% agree about the minimal set of desktop apps, though. That drives me crazy.
Just my 0.02$.
Edit: silly mistakes and clarification
less
, I don't remember what distro it was, but there wasn't less
. There was more
though.
Sometimes, more is less.
There's a LESS_IS_MORE env var for less
which makes it behave like more
. Or something like that. Check the manpage
Git. I feel like that is a pretty important part of any linux os nowadays
KDE Connect on KDE distros, just feels part of the KDE experience
git really should be installed by default these days
A Doom-clone. I mean, come on.
Seriously tho, Gparted for how useful it is.
Nano (or pico). I had to use vi one time 😭
Which distro doesn't ship nano? I've only ever seen this in embedded or docker contexts.
Condolences for your vile experiences, though.
🤕 <-- he was forced to use vi
I am surprised that vi is often available, but not vim. It's really annoying on many RHEL based distros, because I am so used to typing vim. Otherwise there is just git I deem essential.
netstat curl and git
IMO nothing. As long as it can detect network I can install whatever tools I need.
useradd
- I just wanted to give a friend my notebook for a python lecture and thought I could just add him as a new user. Apparently not by default.
openssh-server, how can you connect to your PC from elsewhere without sshd ?!?
vim
- Multimedia/ h264 codecs ??
- KDE/GSconnect
- Something like Arch's downgrade package + an archive of package versions
- Hardware video acceleration support is sorely lacking
- Picture-in-picture in Gnome's Wayland (bug that a gnome-shell extension fixes!)
Multimedia codecs have a different license agreement than the OS so they aren't bundled by default for a reason
ncdu
for analyzing disk space usage in TUI.
First installs for me are always vim and tmux.
I'm always shocked that other distros haven't made their own version of Yast from opensuse
Debian, sudo, at least when ever I install it without a desktop.
edit: I'm dumb af, it tells you right in the installer, I just never read it
htop, distrobox and in some cases Flatpak!
Edit: after reading the comments I want to add curl and git, seriously, why aren't those a default?!
Let's try the other way around: what default apps are pre installed that really don't need or should not be?
I get that most distros try to give a good out of the box desktop for the average user, while also saving time for who is (trying to) providing services or building machines to sell but it can get annoying booting into a fresh install, take a look at the defaults and go "nah, that's going away, and that, that and the other".
I'm not advocating for LFS but sometimes I wish we could get an option to install just what is necessary to make the hardware run and a chosen desktop or window manager and from there install whatever we may need.
nslookup
quite a few times I'd try and resolve a domain name only to find out the command isn't available and I'd need to google what package adds it.