Contributor Auzy

A separate partition for /home has been proposed for a long time in the forums. It implies some risks, though, so based on disk size Ubiquity should estimate the amount of space that should be left for / or whether a separate partition should be made at all. Then...

-The first time an user installs Ubuntu, he is given the option to set a separate /home. This option is selected by default, with a size for each partition based on a sane guess:

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/7958/firstinstallaro2.png

-Of course, he can just choose not to set a separate /home. This option will be selected by default if the results of the system test suggest that's the best thing to do.

http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/6498/firstinstallbfs6.png

-Manual install is also possible. Selecting it greys out everything related to separate /home, since it's implied that the user doesn't want to be guided.

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/7976/firstinstallcvc2.png

-If the user set a separate /home, the next time he installs Ubuntu a new option appears and is selected by default, prompting to use the existing /home partition. All other options are still available, though.

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/9034/secondinstalliq1.png

[....]

I'd like to see a way to make kiosk users on ubuntu (ones with only access to one application fullscreen, which has the close/min/etc buttons removed. One way of doing it would be to allow a user to be set to run a specific program instead of a Desktop environment (like firefox3 in kiosk mode, which would open the touchscreen page by default).

Proper support would also offer additional protection for kiosks. I have noticed a few crashed touchscreens here that are proudly letting users mess around in explorer.

If firefox crashes in this mode, it would go straight to KDM/GDM, so users would need a password to screw around with anything else. Better then sending them to nautilus and letting them discover the infinite uses of the trash can ;)

The profilation of affordable NAS devices for the home network has made the need for an easy way to mount shares on these devices on boot.
At the moment if you wan't to have samba shares to be mounted on boot you have to manualy modify the fstab.
This can be a frustrating and dangerous job.
What is needed is a simple tool with a GUI that allows a user to select the share or shares they want mounted click OK and fstab will be updated correctly and the share mounted.

Integrate apt-build in the package manager as a option, so the user can choose if download a package compiled for x86 or compile a optimized-version to his/her PC (for example, Core 2 Duo, AMD64, etc).

Use case:
- Tom wants to install a dvd ripper and his computer is a Core 2 Duo. Tom knows that the software is always compiler for 686 machines that don't use many of the 'hacks' (SSE extensions, SSE2, etc.) of the new processors.
- Tom choose the dvd ripper software (acidRip, for example).
- Tom selects in Synaptic: "compile optimized-version for this machine".
- The package manager downloads the source and compiles an agressive-optimized-version of this package. At the end, it installs the software.

Of course, instead of using apt-build (wich I see It's the easiest way), it can be a something like has Gentoo Linux in its Portage Package Manager (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portage_(software)).

JFS is a robust, modern filesystem that performs not only well over all kind of usage, but also with the least CPU time consumption.
By default, it already supports features that are still developed for ext4 (extents, online defrag) or still need to be manually activated for ext3 (B-tree-index, extended attributes).

Basically, it is a filesystem that 'Justs works', without the user having to worry about mount options and the like.

Hide the /usr /etc ... from the user. Just show him his home directory an the mounted media. Keep it _accessible_ but dont show it to the user if he/she doesn't want to see. Experts will know where to find what they need.
It just pops up too often by default or accident.

Tabs allows us to quick navigation to files,features,docks,pallete,brushes etc,adding tabs to make it look better than Photoshop,here is a mockup
http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php/GIMP+3?content=49951
Hope developers listen.If there are plenty of Windows docking
inside single window and treating all windows inside on big window is solution.also there should be a property in "Windows" menu like
windows>>reset docks to original location,reset pallete,reset
presets for brushes etc.

Then you could e.g use this as your desktop:
http://people.mozilla.com/~vladimir/demos/photos.svg

EDIT:
The idea was updated with a test of Bitswash - a new BT client for Ubuntu?

http://getdeb.net/app/Bitswash

FINAL CONCLUSIONS:

Bitswash has the best features of the two previously tested applications: is FASTER than Deluge, and merely as LIGHTWEIGHT and SMALL as Transmission. Furthermore, it has pretty good and well looking interface.
Definitely, You should test it.
_______________________________________

I made some comparisons of the two popular BitTorrent clients for GNOME: Transmission and Deluge, using different versions of Ubuntu (based) distros, Fedora (unstable) and Mandriva. The tests conclusions are as follows:

Deluge is always at least twice as faster as Transmission and more stable while consuming about twice as much RAM.
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

For example, a TEST made on Xubuntu 8.04 with all the updates installed.
Download time in both cases: 6 minutes.

Transmission version 1.06
(the results for version 1.11 on Fedora were similar).
Downloaded 5,3 MB of data, average memory usage: 9,3 MB.

Deluge 0.5.9.0
Downloaded 31,6 MB of data(!), average memory usage: 19,6 MB.

[....]

gnome-system-monitor provides a cleaner interface than Windows "Task Manager", and provides many useful features including list of processes running, memory and network usage, etc.

This functionality should be more accessible by key binding it by default to CTRL-ALT-DELETE as Windows does--as this is more familiar to users coming from Windows. The current key binding for CTRL-ALT-DELETE brings up the shutdown/logout options, which is already accessible as a desktop button, which is redundant for a relatively less used function.

gnome-system-monitor is an idle interface for monitoring the system and killing processes without using the terminal and provides an interface for doing this that most are already familiar with. Changing it's key binding would make it's functionality much more accessible.

The Programmer Dvorak keyboard layout is a modified Dvorak layout designed so programmers can type more efficiently.

Although not hard to add, this layout has been missing from the Ubuntu repositories.

If Ubuntu wants to be a serious operating system they need to fix video playing on sites like Youtube and such. My browser always crashes and it is very annoying having to force quit all the time.

Upon finishing the initial install, a small slick movie clip lasting a few minutes could be made available as a icon on the desktop. After clicking on it, the option for the codec install could be offered. Upon finishing installing the codec, the professionaly produced clip could show all the features and such of Ubuntu linux.

A kind of introduction/promo for first time users.

ZFS Features

* Pooled Storage Model
* Always consistent on disk
* Protection from data corruption
* Live data scrubbing
* Instantaneous snapshots and clones
* Fast native backup and restore
* Highly scalable
* Built in compression
* Simplified administration model

Source code:
http://opensolaris.org/os/community/zfs/source

What Is ZFS?
http://opensolaris.org/os/community/zfs/whatis/

ZFS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS


FreeBSD has ported ZFS:

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2006-August/065306.html
http://www.freebsd.org/releases/7.0R/announce.html

[....]

Similar to my idea #248. It got voted way down because of a miscommunication in the title.

So essentially, when a user starts to drag the icon of a disk, (except the primary / ), the recycle bin's icon changes into an eject icon. The disk is unmounted when the icon is over the eject button and the mouse click releases.

Sure, its like OS X, but
1> There is no lost functionality in doing this.
2> It is intuitive. I'm done with this USB drive. Lets remove it, just like we would remove a file when we are done with it.
3> OS X users are used to this method. I sure as heck am, and sometimes do it on Ubuntu without thinking.
4> For those that don't like it, its not the only way to eject a volume, so whats the problem?

Everyone is familiar with Open Office’s office suite or Firefox/Mozzilla’s internet suite of Firefox and Thunderbird. Both suites have found homes in Linux and are a staple in many Linux distros.(IMHO) These two application suites have made Linux a viable OS in desktop computing. Yes, I do know other alternatives to OOO and FF are available and, competition is a good thing.

The time has now come for a multi-media Application Suite for the OSS community. Lets face it, Linux lacks many of the creative and multi-media tools that it needs to be a real desktop OS. Many new users to Ubuntu/ Linux just need a simple way to edit video, audio and pics. I know that many apps already exist for these needs but, most of these apps fall short and do not integrate with one another(IMHO).

Is there a really solid OSS video editor for the home video enthusiast? This is what I see with many OSS video editors: Cinelerra is overkill and it lacks the ability to capture DV video. Kino and Diva are just to basic. Pitivi just combines clips, Kdenlive is still very buggy (in beta) also, getting firewire to work is also a real pain for video editing applications too.

A simple to use video editor is much needed in the home user Ubuntu/ Linux desktop. While were talking about video Apps how about integrating a video editor with a separate DVD Video creation app? Is this starting to sound like iMovie and iDVD?

Image editing in Linux needs work too, Gimp is OK for simple editing but should combine a photo manager and needs some work with some of the core tools and its UI to make it easer for the home user. Once more, the Image app should be able to work with the video editing and DVD creation software.

If these apps were created and worked well, a natural side effect could be a push in the use of free or open source formats for media such as ogg. Having a multimedia application suite for creation that pushes open media formats such as OGG would be huge!

So the BIG question is how do you make money off developing this Application suite? Easy, all of these apps create multimedia files that either have hard copy equivalents or can be uploaded to sharing sites like youtube or flicker.

[....]

I just read the blog post about the new boxed retail version of Ubuntu available and this image was used to show the box art.

http://blog.canonical.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/bestbuy.jpg

Sorry, but since when did a professional company with millions of users just dump a lame ass blurry picture like this into an official press release/blog post?

Shuttleworth talks about aspiring to be as good as OS X. Do you think Apple would have a blurry snap shot of Leopards box art in a press release? Man it bugs me so much that you guys don’t take this stuff seriously. IMAGE IS EVERYTHING when attracting new users.

I love what you guys do, but you need to pull the finger out and realise that you’ve got to look professional at all times. Canonical come across as a half arsed amateur operation far too often.

You need to make sure that every document, press release, blog post, and piece of information that comes out of Canonical looks professional at all times, otherwise you need someone to say "No way is that going out in its present state. Fix it!".

Hi guys!
packagekit gets more and more attraction, i don't think that i have to explain it here, someone who knows this page knows also packagekit and its possibilities i.e. share package discribtions & news, openoffice.org can use it for the installation from additional packages/art; automatic printer driver download from lsb-site and so on...

more here:
http://packagekit.org/
and a really hot presentation from fosdem08:
http://people.freedesktop.org/~hughsient/public/introduction-to-packagekit.pdf

Windows Vista is capable of automatically recovering from a graphics driver crash without any of the users programs having to be restarted, whereas, in Xorg's case, the only solution would probably be to kill X, or restart the computer.

We should ensure that Xorg is able to do the same. Whilst it is obviously ideal for graphics drivers to never crash, it can happen. And crash recovery is definately an important component of a high-availability OS.

Hey,

Why do i need to restart my pc to get the nvidia driver working?

insmod nvidia and a X restart should be enough right!

So with that knowledge again: Why do i need a restart?
It's not modifying the base kernel which is about the only thing that requires a restart on linux and you can only get it that far if you install a new kernel or compile a new one.

My suggestion:
Kick out the restart demand and just restart X.

Edit//
If you vote this idea down tell me why because i can't think of a reason where a reboot would be better then my suggestion.