For most I would say the current defaults more than suffice. Web Browser: Firefox. Of the two modern web browsers that are applicable (Chromium being the other

For most I would say the current defaults more than suffice. Web Browser: Firefox. Of the two modern web browsers that are applicable (Chromium being the other), Mozilla and Firefox are more in tune with the free software mentality many users of Ubuntu adhere. It is an excellent browser as well. Email Client: Thunderbird? Are there mature alternatives that will work for most people that use a standalone mail application? Terminal: Keep gnome-terminal, it's perfectly fine for most. IDE: None. Leave this to the user. An IDE need not be present by default, as it depends greatly one the language chosen. For simple scripting Gedit suffices at first, and associating code files with Gedit by default is fine too. File manager: I take it Gnome Shell still ships with Nautilus? Basic Text Editor: Nothing wrong with Gedit. PDF Reader: Evince. Mature and fast. Office Suite: LibreOffice of course. Video Player: Something that supports everything you can throw at it. Music Player: I'm partial to Quod Libet. :)