Contributor HDave

It would be nice to have an "Eject Device" Button in Nautilus, in the top toolbar, by:

[Back] [Forward] [Up] [Stop] [Reload] | [Home] [Computer] | [Search] [TimeVault] | [Eject Device]

That way, I wouldn't have to navigate to the Desktop to eject a device. In order to avoid confusion, I would hide the button if the user is not browsing a mounted device.

The current process just needs to many clicks. (Network Manager - Manual Configuration - Enter password - select location from select-box - click on OK button - waaaaaait)

Idea: right click on NM, select location in context menu

MacOS X has a similar way to do it. See http://www.its.queensu.ca/source/msm/img/locationSelection.jpg.
or http://www.codehackers.net/locations/locations-images/locations-menu.jpg (software for osx, though)

This is not a Ubuntu-related problem, but having an option to order icons horizontally on the desktop would be a nice feature!

Whenever the kernel is updated, remember options such as noapic so the system will boot up after a reboot.

At the moment the software sources tool does a few things. It lets the user choose which mirror to use via a combo box, it lets the user choose which sections of the repository to use via tick boxes, it adds keys, and a few other things. What it also does is to allow users to add third party repositories, yet the way it does this is hardly worth making a tool for.

When a user wants to add a third party repository they click the "Add" button, then they're presented with a text box, into which they need to put the line which is to be added to the sources.list file. To me I would not call this a GUI at all, I would call it a text editor. The only advantages of this way are that a) it is arguably easier to see which sources are commented and uncommented and to change their state, and b) it gives Ubuntu some kind of olive branch to the commandline-haters of the Internets.

In my opinion if this is going to be done graphically then at least make it use the abilities of a GUI besides the text box. Obviously I cannot say exactly how this would be done as I'm not a usability or dpkg expert. Perhaps something like a text box for ONLY the URI, which can then be queried for the sections it contains, which would allow dynamic creation of a selection similar to the current main/restricted/universe/multiverse section of the tool. A tick box could be included for whether to include sources, saving the user from having to enter two lines (one deb and one deb-src).

Any thoughts?

I looked in the "Ideas Being Worked Upon" and went to the wallpaper for each workspace link.

It is currently set up so that "Change Desktop Wallpaper" changes the wallpaper for the current desktop. Although this works, i feel it could be better implemented by having options in the Change Desktop Wallpaper window.

I believe a set of Radio Buttons such as:

Apply to:
o Current Workspace
o All Workspaces
o Workspace (Dropdown with workspace numbers)

would work better.

a plugin to allow a user to choose between flash players on the fly. this would
1) allow more widespread testing of gnash/gstreamer
2) allow gnash/gstreamer users to fall back on adobe flash if it fails

blurb:
while gnash is a good video player it fails with certain content. Most new user, and even existing users dont want to suffer a diminished web experienced by using gnash or gstreamer so stick to adobe, this will allow them to get the benefits of gnash/gstreamer without having to put up with the weaknesses of any one player.

valid flash players would include (others also avalible)
gstreamer - video only afaik
gnash - video and some games afaik
adobe flash 9 -buggy & high cpu usage
adobe flash 10-more temperamental w/ lower cpu usage

I think this is best implemented as something like mozpluger as that would make it avalible to all the webbrowsers i can think of. but i can also imagine it
being usable as a simple extension (like flashblock but with options for others) for firefox as firefox is the main ubuntu browser.

Lets forget that I really don't know what a (or "the") keyring is good for and look at the other people who cannot set their computer up by them self.

I don't remember on which occasions I was asked, but the question was something like: "Would you like to add this password to your keyring?"
Or different: "Enter a new password to the keyring."

"No, I don't want to enter a new password, I already have a password! Why do I have to create another one?"

I am sure that there is a good reason for keyring to exist but it wasn't explained to me. I know, I am supposed to look it up on the internet but here comes the idea:

It would be great if there was a short explanatory sentence about keyring - what it is good for and why I have to write another password - when I'm being asked for a keyring password.

The problem:
If a user manually compiles a driver/program, it can break after a system upgrade, which means the user will have to re-compile that driver/program each time his/her system is updated via the update manager.

The idea:
Give ubuntu the ability to re-compile any drivers/programs the user would like to compile when updating the system. This should be done automatically and should prevent drivers/programs from breaking.

Solution 1:
Have an auto-compile directory where the user stores any sourcecode which is to be compiled automatically. The update manager looks at this directory and re-compiles any sourcecode when updating the system. This is very automated as the user can forget about re-compiling once the sourcecode is in the correct directory

Solution 2:
Allow the user to write a post-update script which is launched automatically after a successfull update/upgrade. This will give the user more flexibility and also gives them the ability to perform further optional tasks like, sending an sms when complete, shutting the system down when complete. The posibilites are endless.

Solution 3:
Combine solution 1 and 2 so the user can use both the easy method and the advanced users can click on an advanced button to make manual changes to the script.

End result:
This would give ubuntu a more polished feel to it especially when programs stop breaking after a system update.

Ubuntu has a great implementation for getting a Dualboot-system if one doesn´t want to completely switch over from Windows to Ubuntu.
The installation is easy enough for former Windows users.

But its much more difficult when it comes to silly ideas like "I want to have another Linux-OS on my Computer".
If you don´t have the standart layout (whatever the reason is for that) you run into deep troubles when you are not so experienced.
The other Linux OS, Ubuntu included will overwrite the Grub of the already existing Linux OS when you don´t care about "where do I put the bootloader?".
Or the Grub of the existing Linux-OS will not recognise a new installation if you put the bootloader of the additional Linux somewhere else (not into MBR)

So my idea and question is:
would it be possible to implement some feature into the install and partitioning routine which detects other Linux-Grub installations and asks the user: "there is another Linux. Do you want to keep it?" and two buttons: "yes, please add yourself to the boot-menu" and "no, please delete the old system"

With clicking the "yes"-button Ubuntu should add its bootloading-stuff to the existing GRUB so that after the reboot the user could chose like it is in Ubuntu-Windows Dualboot systems. I mean such an automated mechanism like it is existing for existing windows-installations.

With clicking the "no" Button Ubuntu could proceed like before: overwriting the GRUB and boot-files in the MBR.

How about this? Is it a great idea or... just stupid? :-))

Thanks and greetings

Ubuntu automatically checks a partition at startup after it has been mounted 30 times. A short text is displayed on the screen telling us that the system is checking partitions, instead of the usual graphic bootloader. This unusual message scares some users, especially those who don't speak English because the text is not translated.

I think this text message should be translated into other languages at least. The nicest choice is to replace that text message with a graphic screen but I suppose it will take too work for a simple issue like this (or maybe it's impossible or very hard to do, I don't know).

PS: As usual, sorry for my non perfect English, it isn't my native tongue.

[UPDATE] As you can see in comments thread, I realized that now in Hardy there is an orange text displayed BELOW usual graphic bootloader, not INSTEAD OF that graphic bootloader. This is a very nice improvement but my idea still makes sense: that orange text should be translated into many languages (but I don't know if it's possible or not, it seems difficult because language preferences are not loaded during system boot yet).

I am currently writing my thesis on Ubuntu for which I need to read a lot of pdf documents and because of this I often have up to 10 pdf documents open on the taskbar.

This would be fine if I could easily identify them. The titles which appear on top of the window and on the taskbar are really strange though. They do not show the filenames but some kind of original filename what it once used to be I guess.

I named a pdf for example as follows:
"Acceptability of urban transport pricing strategies 2000.pdf"
but what I see is this:
"Microsoft Word - deliverable 2c_m.doc"

This is very confusing and because of it I often rather work in Windows than in Ubuntu. I guess this is an issue which could be solved easily. I would love to have it fixed asap!

I've run into this in Xubuntu, I can only assume (K)Ubuntu would behave the same as for obvious reasons I'm not going to test it there.

When you fill up your entire disk space and try to delete something you get an error message because since there is 0 bytes free the system cannot move files to trash. AFAIK there is no easy way around this in the GUI, so a beginner will be stuck. It would be great if in such a situation the system would offer to remove the files directly, forgoing the trash. Of course this should not be done automatically, rather a yes/no dialogue should be displayed.

PS. In case anyone wonders how can this happen - a small HDD plus the fact that Add/remove programs does not check whether the required disk space is available...

One of the things I feel could be better with Evolution is the send/receive progress bar.

Here's the scenario:

1. Create E-mail
2. Add reasonable size attachment (photo, or similar)
3. Send
4. The send progress bar (viewable by pressing send/receive) stays at 0% until the e-mail has sent, then jumps to 100%


This leaves the user wondering if the e-mail is actually being sent or not, especially when the upload goes particularly slowly.

I presume that Evolution is showing the number of e-mails as opposed to the amount of data sent/left. The file operation dialog seems to offer a more logical approach showing both the number of files and the amount of data remaining.

I really like to see an option in calculator to switch to tape mode, like in this picture made with gimp:

http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/8210/calcnewnn6.png

The reason people stick to Windows is because of familiarity. They've been using it as kids. While there might be some flaws in Ubuntu, they can all go with increased awareness and familiarity of the OS. More familiarity means more ease of use, more ease of use means more user share, more user share means more developers, more developers means better code, better code means lesser flaws. So what the community should try on a voluntary basis is to push schools to teach Ubuntu in OS basics to kids. The little kiddie book that tells you how to click on the start menu and open paint in windows should also tell you how to click on Applications and open the terminal. If kids are made aware of the existence of another OS, and schools install it on their computers and make it readily available for the kids to use at home (CDs with school books), they won't find using Ubuntu a pain. They'll grow onto it and it'll be natural for them to use Ubuntu.

*EDIT->One more thing: more users->more developers also means more compatibility and supported applications.

We have composited window managers (Compiz and KDE4's kwin to name the two best known), but I'd like to see the content of the windows themselves support compositing. As I understand it, compositors like Compiz treat what's inside the confines of the window as one unit, and do not recognize the individual elements, menus excluded.

An example would be, say, allowing a composited GTK+ theme to alter the opacity of Nautilus, while leaving the content boxes opaque for visibility.

I created a crude mockup to show what I mean:

http://picasaweb.google.com/steampoweredlawngnome/LinuxMockupIdeas/photo#523610 1676680115298

Superficially, this would provide yet more useless eye candy, but even on that point alone, eye candy is often what gets people interested in GNU/Linux in the first place. The other benefits keep them using it once the novelty of wobbly windows, spinning cubes and painting the desktop with fire have worn off.

Aside from eye candy though, I think in-window compositing could have many far-reaching benefits, including providing better usability for visually impaired users and adding powerful enhancements to video & graphic design applications.

If used tastefully, it could also provide a new level of visual refinement.

I see there is something similar in the form of the Murrine GTK+ engine, allowing transparency effects on window backgrounds, but from what I gather this does not provide nearly the same comprehensive set of features of full 3D rendered compositing.

[Sorry for misspell in the title - it should be keep not keed]


For quite long time I was fighting with ssh server. Finally I figured out the eth0 hadn't been set via /etc/network/interfaces (I wonder how my network was set if not in that file - for more see bug 241796 ;/). I'm not sure if was wrong from a very beginning or something happened after installation.

Keeping the /etc/ files in some 'CVS' probably would not help me resolve the issue but for sure help me trace what cause such strange network setting. As a person working in Support I would be really glad to have tool saying that some screw up file that time.

Many of support situation can be describe by following conversation:

Support - Have you changed anything in your system?
Customer - No
Support - Are you sure?
Customer - Yes of course.
Support - by file X looks strange
Customer - Oh yes, I changed my network card. Is it important?

Seeing log with etc changes will be great in such situation.

Interesting links:
inotify - 'cron' like tool working based on changes in filesystem
http://inotify.aiken.cz/?section=incron&page=about&lang=en

when i bought ibm x40 there was win xp by default, it was loaded with special manager for battery - there was an option about charging - you could choose battery saver mode - when you turn it on - your battery first discharges to almost 0%, then charge to 100%

this is of course nice feature, because it saves battery life a lot, but of course it is usable only if you use laptop at home for loger time

i would also like to have an option to refresh battery - in nikon d1 series there is option like this, also there are a lot of chargers for AA batteries, with this function

it just charges to 100% then to 0% a couple of times (i might be wrong with this, expert should confirm it), say 10 times

this would be really great for laptops, and something that windows surely dont have out of the box

PNGs are horrible for icons because you can never predict how big the user will set their icons as, or how big certain programs will need them. Therefore we should replace all the PNG icons with SVG icons, which look good at any size.