Ubuntu Web: A Disappointing Experiment
By: Kai Lyons
Tags: Experiment, Linux, Ubuntu, Ubuntu Web, Chrome OS

Ubuntu Web: A Disappointing Experiment

EDIT: There have been fixes to my main gripes on the system. A new article will be made giving reasoning behind why I feel this is inadequate and problematic for the whole Linux community. It will not 100% focus on Ubuntu Web, but Ubuntu Web will be prominent. https://twitter.com/ubunweb/status/1335949109035819009/photo/1

Ubuntu Web is a remix of Ubuntu that is severely disappointing in it’s current state. Not that the project is not usable, just not what I expected. Here are the things I feel like went wrong so far, and how the developers can fix it.

The /e/ Problem

Ubuntu Web has a lot of /e/ made applications. For those who don’t know /e/ is an operating system that is a fork of Android to be better open-source and privacy respecting. The reason this is a problem is because this creates confusion when Firefox opens when you click something like the file explorer on the dock.

This is a screenshot of Ubuntu Web

See all those icons on the dock? Other than the application menu (farthest icon to the left) all of those open in a web browser. This normally wouldn’t be an issue, just a strange idea, but it caused me confusion when I downloaded YouTube and the file explorer icon took me to a website. Speaking of downloading.

Downloading Applications is a Mess

Here, let me do a step-by-step guide on how to install an application because it is a disaster.

Step 1: Open up the web store

Step 2: Click on a Category

Step 3: Find the tiny download button on the application you want (Don’t worry, there is about five applications total)

Step 4: Click the application menu and find Local Storage

Step 5: In the Local Storage app, find your downloads

Step 6: Right-click the installation file and click properties

Step 7: Make application executable with the checkbox at the bottom

Step 8: Double click the installation file

Step 9: Enter root password

I had to do that for YouTube. Now my issue isn’t that this is verbose and annoying for new users, but it doesn’t really work well. I feel like one of the major issues is that Ubuntu Web here is that this isn’t user-friendly yet. Maybe making them executable on download by doing “chmod +x download-file” first before uploading said files would be a huge help.

Ubuntu Web Isn’t Even Web-App Based

This is my biggest pet-peeve about the OS, that it is simply not actually a web-app based distribution. While yes, it has applications that run in the browser, I feel like this is a cheat. NW.js exists, and would save the developer a lot of hate because it actually feels like separate applications.

Screen Recording of me opening the YouTube App from Ubuntu Web

This feels like a very severe cheat to me. I mean, why use Ubuntu Web when I could download a lighter remix of Ubuntu like Ubuntu MATE and use no other application than Firefox? This feels like an idea that is coming close to what it wants to be, but still is a problematic mess.

Using NW.js would be that ounce of required fixing that would make this distribution worthwhile. It wouldn’t be too difficult. I have a video for anyone who wants to use NW.js, it is a tutorial, and something I feel would make this OS worth the while.

Literally this one change will make this OS worth it’s name. It would make it look like an actual OS, still be web-based, but not wasting time with just being Ubuntu with some mild theming, and Firefox-based “applications.”

Conclusion

This OS suffers from poor design choices. Using Firefox for all of its “applications” being the major issue here. However I will give the developer (who happens to be the same developer as Ubuntu Unity) the benefit of the doubt. Is this OS worth your while? Well, almost. I really think this OS needs few changes, and it is so close to perfection, but the issues are still in place.

Personally the fact everything opens with Firefox and otherwise is not too different of an operating system from plain Ubuntu with different theming and applications being more web-based.

Edits

There are work-in-progress fixes to the issues I brought up: https://twitter.com/ubunweb/status/1331286055274770432