Based on feedback, the Lubuntu developers decided to change 4 of the applications installed by default:
1. Browser: Chromium
This is a great choice for 2 reasons: it's fast and it's great for screen real estate. Since netbooks are one of Lubuntu targets (and old hardware computers), Chromium has a clear advantage over Firefox which needs a lot of customizations to be as efficient as Chromium from the screen real estate point of view.
This is a great choice for 2 reasons: it's fast and it's great for screen real estate. Since netbooks are one of Lubuntu targets (and old hardware computers), Chromium has a clear advantage over Firefox which needs a lot of customizations to be as efficient as Chromium from the screen real estate point of view.
2. Video player: gnome-mplayer
SMPlayer was ditched in favor of gnome-mplayer, mostly because of the QT dependencies needed by SMPlayer (I still don't understand why SMPlayer was chosen in the first place).
3. Network Manager instead of Wicd
Wicd is far superior to Network Manager (at last in my view), but the latest version (1.7.0) has some issues such as using 2 instances which doubles the amount of memory used and also wireless is not supported in some cases.
4. Filemanager: Pcmanfm2
Pcmanfm2 instead of Pcmanfm is an obvious choice as there would be no reason to work on the old one which will be deprecated very soon.
The other default applications in Lubuntu remain unchanged: Aqualung for music player and Sylpheed for e-mail.
A test ISO will be released very soon with all these new default applications. You can read our Lubuntu Lucid Lynx Alpha 2 review, HERE.
SMPlayer was ditched in favor of gnome-mplayer, mostly because of the QT dependencies needed by SMPlayer (I still don't understand why SMPlayer was chosen in the first place).
3. Network Manager instead of Wicd
Wicd is far superior to Network Manager (at last in my view), but the latest version (1.7.0) has some issues such as using 2 instances which doubles the amount of memory used and also wireless is not supported in some cases.
4. Filemanager: Pcmanfm2
Pcmanfm2 instead of Pcmanfm is an obvious choice as there would be no reason to work on the old one which will be deprecated very soon.
The other default applications in Lubuntu remain unchanged: Aqualung for music player and Sylpheed for e-mail.
A test ISO will be released very soon with all these new default applications. You can read our Lubuntu Lucid Lynx Alpha 2 review, HERE.
