Contributor FireballDWF

Virtualbox was easy to install and configure in my brand new installation of Ubuntu. However, the network was another story. I came to find out that it runs behind some sort of ipmasq behind the host machine's network configuration. It also has performance problems.

I propose that the network connection between a virtual machine and the host be bridged by default (or at minimum, the ability to bridge the connections by flipping a switch) so when you want to run VPN, or other specialty network apps from windows it works. Not to mention that if you are in a home network it behaves as a double NAT and we all know how bad that works. The #1 reason people want to run a VM with windows is to get the compatible with XXX legacy windows app that they have to have for work/school/you name it. And a crappy network install by default just makes things that much worse.

Steve Jobs and Apple have really started a whirlwind around the idea of switching to a mac and having windows installed inside a virtual machine for those "pesky windows apps" that the user just can't live without. In the educational sector (hint: where you can find lots of young users to switch) it is an every day occurrence where people will pay good money to buy VMWare or Parallels, a new mac, and a retail copy of windows xp home to install on the system.

We need this to be a prominent feature of Ubuntu. The first thing I did to show off a new Ubuntu install the other day was put Virtualbox with XP installed and stick it on one of the faces of the compiz cube. Boy was everyone impressed. Half the people thought it was a mac, the rest thought "wow, windows runs in a window and if it gets a virus I just zap it!?"

The imagination of things to come are limitless with VM's, but just to start out, can we have a sane way to run windows in a VM without having to do tons of behind the scenes linux network scripting and configuration?

Kubuntu seems to "KDE Pure". Don't get me wrong, I like KDE and a lot of their applications, but when I boot up Kubuntu from a liveCD and I don't see Firefox or Thunderbird, two really big open source programs, I start to wonder.

It would be like having KOffice instead of OpenOffice, OpenOffice is recognized as THE open source office suite, whether the person is migrating from windows or mac, or even most other linux versions. KOffice may or may not be good, but people migrating over probably want OpenOffice.

People may not be familiar with Konqueror as a web browser, or they may know how they like to set Thunderbird up and not want to start using Kmail instead. Pigden/Gaim is probably more recognizable than Kopete.

I like KDE applications, like Amorak, Konqueror is a good file manager. I could go on, but the point is that Kubuntu with KDE could be a more pleasant experience if we add some more non-KDE applications.

Currently the Eclipse packages in Ubuntu lack heavily behind other distributions like lets say Fedora.
The packages in ubuntu are outdated and so are the eclipse language plugins like CDT or Pydev.

Properly supporting this top notch IDE should give new linux developers an easier start.

Install smartmon tools by default and provide a GUI that will report disk expected life/disk problems and disk tempeture

Ubuntu is the name chosen for a global project and a distro based on Gnome. Kubuntu is another distro based on kde from the very same project.
I believe they deserve the same support from the project since Gnome and Kde are the most popular desktop manager out there.
It seems quite obvious to me, the project is very much focused on one and only distro, its first baby : ubuntu.
And it shows. Kubuntu web site looks quite poor and unprofessional compared to ubuntu. Most graphic choices like the kdm default theme (even if it's supposed to be a matter of taste) look, again, unprofessional. And finally the whole distro doesn't seem to have the same amount of attention when it comes to details (one example among others: the little thing on ubuntu warning the user about the existence of proprietary drivers for display which does not exist on kubuntu).
I've been told once, like a year ago, by an ubuntu dev that the situation is such because the project doesn't feel like fragmenting its market share.
Whatever is the official position of the project, I don't think you should do things half way.
The Kde project is itself in full evolution with Kde 4. It does deserve full support from ubuntu.

Thank you for reading.

So far, when installing ubuntu/kubuntu, Ethernet cards are generally detected, as are many wireless cards, but when requesting a DHCP address during the install it isnt able to connect to a wireless Router with password protection in place.

Can you consider adding a facility to connect to a WPA (PSK etc) protected Router during the install so that updates etc can happen without fussy configuration firstly? Most home users have real trouble with the wireless connection side of things. Not being able to see the wireless router in the very first stages of going to install a new OS is quite unnerving.

Protected Wireless Routers (not WEP which is essentially unsecure) at home are becoming the norm now, rather than cat5 cabled Ethernet connections.

I think more Windows users would try out Ubuntu if they could just double click an .exe file instead of going into a command prompt, browsing to the folder and then typing "wine *.exe" to install the program.

I like how Ubuntu adds shortcuts on the desktop and the "start menu" after you install the program making it easy to run but installing Windows software needs to be easier.

The default Firefox ships with defaults that aren't exactly ideal for speed. If Ubuntu would default to slightly improved defaults (Pipelining enabled for example) it would speed it up and make it more ideal.

Currently I can encrypt an ubuntu system during install, but if I did not I have to reinstall to get encryption. I would like a simple way to tell ubuntu to encrypt the system or a part of it, such as:

Swap
Home
Root
All

On the power management preferences screen it would be nice if the "Blank screen" option actually put the screen to sleep (turn the back-light off).

When I close the lid on my laptop I see no reason for the back-light to stay on. And, for me, having the screen turn off when I close the lid is preferable to putting the laptop into standy or hybernate.

Advanced power management currently cycles the hard drive once every few seconds even during activity on most laptops. This severely shortens the life of hard drives.

Better way to set monitor resolution and refresh rate. Majority of the new monitors are LCD type. User should be able to specify the native resolution and refresh rate during install.

Then Ubuntu/X must do WHATEVER it takes to stick to that resolution and refresh rate.

In case of multi-monitor setups, must be able to specify the configuration at time of installation.

Also, the login GUI must use same resolution as X. Why different resolutions?

Rant:
I have nVidia NVS440 card with Viewsonic VP2290b monitor. Video card must be set to 1920x1200 @13Hz or @41Hz refresh rate for each of it's four outputs. Desktop must be arranged in 2x2 matrix. Then monitor displays 3840x2400 @13Hz or @41Hz.

This worked very well in Ubuntu 6.06. Installed Ubuntu 7.04 and ended up with something like 800x480, even with nVidia binary drivers. Tweaked xorg.conf for weeks to get this to work. BulletProofX kept messing with my hand crafted xorg.conf file; which did work with 6.06. Eventually gave up and started using Windaz again :-( Will try again when frustration level has come down.

cdroms are slow, don't allow to modify their content easily, they are weak and not as easy to carry as USB keys.

It would be great to provide Ubuntu as a liveUSB just as Mandriva does. We should be able to carry our distribution on any computer, manage our preferred settings (do I want binary drivers enabled ? what is my preferred resolution ?), etc.

The thing is not to make something transportable, but really a nomad system that could be used just the best way as it could on any computer.

More support for more wireless chipsets out of the box and "Windows style" ease of set up.

I have spent may a day trying to configure wireless cards on Ubuntu, often without much luck!

Please also deliver more support for what they are both wireless PCI cards and USB, as it is currently very low base of drivers for such devices

Ubuntu needs to go green. Powertop, Lesswatts and other tools have finally hit the Linux scene to pave the way for better power management. It needs to be said, "if you want your battery to last longest, or have your energy bill be the lowest, you better use Ubuntu Linux."

Suspend and hibernate still seems to be a big issue based on forum posts. Really focus on fixing it, even with proprietary drivers.

At the moment it's possible to manage traditional wired and WiFi connections using Network Manager. To connect via a modem, a 3G/GPRS card, over bluetooth to a cell phone or via USB to another device requires that the user installs extra packages, and does a fair amount of configuration that isn't found in Network Manager.

A single unified tool should be provided which allows the user to connect to a network (or internet) via any supported method. It would also be useful to provide an extension to this tool to manage firewall rules and network connection sharing.