I think it is both, the OS does contain a lot of things like basic
FireFox,
and other tools. For instance my Application list shows a list,
Accessories
Games
Graphics
Hamradio , this gets added by the system when I add some
applications for use
in ham radio or short wave radio listening.
Internet, has some things like firefox, but if I add say Opera
browser it will go there and
be there unless I do a reload, and then I would have to reinstall it, my
setting would still be in
my home folder though. Same happens when I install Thunderbird, my email
client, my settings
are in /home, if I upgrade to 10.10 on my laptop with a fresh install, I
will have to reinstall
Thunderbird, but my settings will still be there.
Office, comes with Open Office, any setting you make to your
environment will be saved in
you /home, but upgrades to OO will go to the OS folders in /bin.
Sound&Video, contain some default things like Rhythm box music
player, and a couple of
others, if you add more they will be here, but another fresh install
will not have them and you
would have to reinstall manually.
System tools, can be added to but mine doesn't show anything
but what I added.
Wine, not a default, I added from the repositories, and on
another fresh install would not
be there until I reloaded it and all of the applications from
Windows I wanted.
> What I see is that app's like browsers, email handlers, media players
> word processors etc. etc. actually reside with the operating system
> and need to be re-installed after the OS installation.
>
We all had to go through this even us that have been doing it a while,
each version of linux
has some things done differently and have to be gotten used to.