Contributor Jimbo99

Over the past several months I have installed 8.10 on my desktop and laptop many times. The installations were due to either inexperience with installers, or changes to equipment or just plain old bored and wanted to do a fresh wipe or install.

No matter the reason for it, every time I did a fresh install I would always see these messages go by for xserver-xorg-video-drivername go by; sometimes several in a row, sometimes 1 or 2 every so often.

My last install I decided to go into synaptic package manager and see how many of the servers were being used.

There were no less than 15 of the xserver-xorg-video-drivers installed on each and every subsequent install.

I have to pause and ask the question: why?

I can see a genuine need for maybe 4 of them, but 15? I know that at some point the installation detects my correct video card and installs it, but why aren't the other ones removed? Wouldn't HD space and other valuable resources be freed if they were removed? The trident driver is 250k. 4 drivers we have a meg, and so on and so forth...

Along this same idea, why is so much installed at once? What if I didn't want openoffice.org installed, or Ekiga, or pidgin, or some of the other programs. Perhaps those should be installed at another time or after installation of the base system.

Then again, I have been accused and called a dumb newb who doesn't know any better.

All the packages in the software repository should include a URL hyperlink to the official website of the software.

So when you read about the software, you can click on the link to get to the official homepage, for more information.

My printer, a Laserjet 1200, is pretty common and is supported by Ubuntu automatically. But I rarely print from it because it stretches my print output, vertically. For example, I have a table in OpenOffice Calc, as a to-do list organized by both importance and urgency, set up to print exactly in a certain way from OpenOffice on Windows XP. But when I open the same document on my Ubuntu computer, it prints stretched out more vertically, so that it doesn't all fit on one sheet. This is printing to the same exact printer. This seems to be the same with other programs.

my idea is simple but i know you will like it, it is all about to replace those old default backgound that comes with ubuntu and change them all for new ones;
Now it is the time to do that, and as we know, intrepid is gonna get a new look and a new icon set, so why not a complete new background collection! and for me the best place to find backgrounds comes from http://www.deviantart.com/ if you dont know it go to that page please, it is espetacular!!!

what about adding like 10 more wallpapaer about anime, paradise, etc...
but these must be selected by ubuntu users!!

An OS, no matter how technologically or ideologically advanced it is, should also be visually appealing.
And Ubuntu, being one of the most beatiful (I mean the default appearance here) distribution of Linux still can't compete with Vista (not to mention Mac OS X).
Here I imly the following:
-icons. All the icons should be converted into vector graphics, so that they were scalable (so that they could look the same everywhere).
-fonts. Even Liberation fonts look better than default GNOME's dejavu, but still they leave much to be desired.
-screensaver. Currently, it's just a black screen. Enough said, I guess. Ubuntu should offer aset of nice screensavers, basic, or OpenGL-driven.
-applets. GNOME applets should grow in numbers and functionality. At least I would suggest a wrapper that could display a Web widget as an applet, so that user could simply paste BB-codes from YouTube, Jaiku, Vimeo or else and see it on his desktop.
-3D effects. There shouldn't be a vast number of them, but all of them should be quality-driven. Just look how bad is Compiz rendering as you make anything that drives windows borders into curves - they are edgy and twisted.
-wallpapers. I know, Deviantart contest is on, but here is also another point: Ubuntu should provide numerous wallpapers out-of-box, and all of them should suit the default colour scheme. The same stays for login screen.
-themes. Ubuntu should provide themes that change the appearance more globally. Not only GNOME's appearance, but all the apps, bootloader, login screen, screensaver.
-customization. Changing Ubuntu's appearance isn't really easy these days, since you can't tune up all the aspects in one place. I mean, you can change the theme, but you should work really hard to make your style as sole as the defaut one - Qt, GTK and other (wxWindows, etc) applications share different configs. Just try to switch to a darker theme and you'll learn how many elements would require tuning. Ubuntu can offer great means of customization, but that doesn' mean that an average user is able to make a cool-looking style.
-bootloader. That was already mentioned, but still. Ubuntu should show text mode at all. Currently, it can occasionally fall back to console for a while, which is discomforting.
-hibernation/suspend screen. The same.

[....]

I'm talking about being able to see your CD drives and HDDs from gnome-panel. If maybe they could be accompanied with a usage bar as a preference, that would be great too. You can already put trash, computer, and home folders on the gnome-panel; but my volumes can only appear on the desktop. Why not allow either?

Electric Sheep is a psychedelic, open source screen saver that updates quite frequently.

If you haven't seen it yet: http://electricsheep.org/

I'm NOT saying that it would be the default, but I feel it should be included.

Not only will this help the people get involved, but might inspire more people to contribute other ideas, and in other areas as well.
This could also be promoted on the web and might help to bring some extra exposure to this great distro.

Added bonus: Hours of laughter provided by the no-doubt hilarious ideas for new names!

Make Wine 1.0 available in Hardy (through hardy-updates). This makes it easier for some companies who depend on XP software (which already works well in wine) to make the transition to Ubuntu.

IMHO it would be nice to release wine 1.0 through hardy-updates so everyone who hasn't disabled hardy-updates will get it. The wine 1.0 branch will probably continue to receive important updates making it easier for Ubuntu to maintain.

According to Eric S. Raymond's "World Domination 201" Wine is very important for Linux to become successful on the desktop.

Why wine is so important :
http://www.winehq.org/site/why
http://catb.org/~esr/writings/world-domination/world-domination-201.html

Wine 1.0 will release on june 6th. Hardy will release on june 5th. This makes it impossible to include wine 1.0 in Hardy except through hardy-backports or hardy-updates.

More information :
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardyReleaseSchedule
http://wiki.winehq.org/WineReleasePlan

I created a new Guest account, then I stripped it of all user privileges.

Then I found out, that it could access all MY private data files in MY home directory.

Please fix it so that other users cannot read the home directories of other people. This is a breech of privacy.

When you use multiple USB hard drives you might know the problem: you unplugged one of them and rebooted. Now some drives, even non-USB drives, have changed their names e.g. from "disk-2" to "disk-1". Sounds like no biggie, but suddenly some programs don't find their files anymore and all folder settings and thumbnails are gone.
Idea: Have Ubuntu remember the drives by their unique ID or something and issue the same name whenever it's plugged in.

Greetings
wiberg

Probably this is going to be controversial but...

The majority of people that are into open source/free software probably don't like very much some of the laws the USA got, DMCA, software patents, lots of power to DRM and not so much power to the users... Microsoft threatening Linux with lawsuits! a "Sue them all!!!" policy that threatens everyone...
Lots of countries in the world have more freedom in the aspect of the "digital things"... and it kinda sucks that every ubuntu user in the world gets a system that (in it's default configuration, of course) can't even play a .mp3 file! not because of technical limitations, but because of laws made by the powerfull people of one or few countries, lobbied by the rich guys and companys...

Why not just relocate ubuntu main servers to a more free country? I don't know were they are now, but Sweden, for example, looks good for this kind of things... so a more “complete package” of ubuntu could be offered (I'm talking about software like libdvdcss, etc... software that is free software but is not included only because the fear of lawsuits) I'm not saying: “Lets be the Pirates of Sealand and live in anarchy!”, but most of us agree that the current laws in USA are a bit...... well... I leave it to you to think about it...

[EDIT] This is not about including proprietary software, it is about including FREE software, but that in the current situation is ILLEGAL (link to PDF with DRM) to use in the USA (or at least "risky" or "in a grey area" of legislation).

(This is not getting into stuff like "My country is better than yours!"... they All have good things and bad things... it is just my humble opinion...)
Peace.

While each version of Ubuntu inevitably adds the ability to configure system settings graphically, the community lacks a centralized movement for a higher percentage of graphical configuration overall.

Instead, the solution seems to be to just complain about individual parts that we'd like to see options for.

More proprietary operating systems have a higher percentage of settings that can be configured graphically, which can make it easier for a new user to troubleshoot alone. Ubuntu has a great community, but the experience of a new user can be too dependent on the community. Too often I have found myself unable to 'click around' and figure out what to do, and instead have been forced to use a guide which directs me to use terminal commands which would scare a lot of novice computer users.

I think Ubuntu should incorporate a repository with a collection of wallpapers. Even should include some wallpapers in the default installation.

Wubi is a GREAT program, but one of it's "problems" is that a user on windows, cannot acess the contents of the "virtual disk" of ubuntu, so the easiest option is to always save the things to the windows partition... making it more difficult to "break free" for good...
A simple program, to mount the "root.disk" file would be very nice...

So far, it seems that brainstorm is going at a snails pace. I understand that it takes time to implement ideas, but why not do what Dell Ideastorm does by adding a notification when an idea is under review or reviewed. This really help people know how their ideas are doing.

Many games feature the ability to play with other people. However, the first thing the game will check for is to see if it is currently up to date. When Ubuntu enters version freeze, the games fall out of date, and it can be harder to play them online without finding a 3rd party update or compiling it yourself (Freeciv, Scorched3D, and Battle for Wesnoth to name a few). This also creates issues when different distributions freeze at different times, so it can be hard to play with other Linux users.

Ubuntu should provide a repository for up to date games for games that will always need the latest version to play online.

There have been complaints that Ubuntu lacks a disk configuration utility, which forces newbies to manually edit fstab if they want to use a drive that was not present when they installed the system. Manually editing the file is difficult and frustrating to them, and not an ideal way to handle the issue on the long run.

An application exists by the name of Disk Manager, which keeps tracks and notifies of newly added units, and for extremely easy (automagical) configuration. That is the kind of stuff we want in Ubuntu.

-Disk Manager notifies about new drives:

http://flomertens.free.fr/disk-manager/images/notify.png

-Disk Manager allows the user to mount or unmount drives without any hassle, even by providing a simple name for them:

http://flomertens.free.fr/disk-manager/images/add.png

-Disk Manager allows to easily enable NTFS writing support:

http://flomertens.free.fr/disk-manager/images/main_general.png

-Disk Manager allows to keep track of mounted / unmounted partitions and free space on them:

http://flomertens.free.fr/disk-manager/images/main_advance.png

[....]

I've 2 distros installed on my laptop: Ubuntu Gutsy and Arch Linux! The feel with arch is that it's whippy. From the other side ubuntu is sluggish. Sure I know that my system is not so up to date (a 1.5 Ghz centrino 512 M Ram) but Arch work very well on it with the same services loaded as in ubuntu.

So I think Ubuntu can do something to improve performance.

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.