Contributor Kent88

I have not heard of a single university computer store that carries _any_ type of Linux preloads.

Exposure to Ubuntu is a great educational experience due to the lack of artificial barriers to learning about the underlying system (source is available). The fact that preloaded machies are not commonly available runs counter to a university's central mission.

The popularity of MacOS on university campuses in the 1990's was largely due to aggressive educational discounts and dealmaking.

What would it take to change this??

I'm bored with dual-screen on GNU/Linux, it really has to have a graphic configuration, and better features.
I would like to move windows from a screen to another, but when I maximize I need it to be in a single screen.

Update: Xrandr GUI blog post by Bryce Harrington

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.

Would be really nice if Canonical make offers and proposals programs to governments of informatic education in general, on public schools, not only that, but included in that programs, along with the good Edubuntu, trained professionals to assist teachers on the informatic laboratories on the first months, and these Canonical trainers could teach and prepare some teachers and students to replace the Canonical trainers on the basic daily informatic issues. I think it would be a good thing on under development countries, and why not, super developed countries too.
And not only in base education, improve some features on Edubuntu to attend some university needs, and offer similar programs to these public universities too.

Whenever users plan to buy new hardware for their ubuntu machines, they first have to search the web to find informations about kernel/driver support or incompatibility issues.

It would be really helpful if a sticker on the outside of the box of a scanner/printer/usb-dvb-tuner/mp3(ogg)-player/digicam/... simply said "works with ubuntu" or "designed for GNU/Linux" to guarantee that the product runs "out of the box" with Ubuntu or other Linux distributions.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/darkomen/155060941/
http://forum.ubuntuusers.de/topic/88743/next/

Edit (2008-03-04): This project seems to be on the road already: http://www.ubuntu.com/partners/hardwareprogramme

This is total pie in the sky but it would be great to see some kind of partnership with the big gaming companies such as EA, Blizzard, Bethesda or some such where we could actually work with them in bringing their outstanding game releases to our platform.

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.

What I would like to see from Canonical is an Ubuntu Home Server similar to that of Microsoft's Home Server solution with ease of setup and use as well as the ability to back up workstations on a small network like WHS (Windows Home Server) does. But without the 10 client limitation that WHS server currently has, as well as the ability to easily securely and remotely connect for multimedia content use while working from a remote location. It should be streamlined and easy to setup, maintain and implement both on the server and client(s) side of Ubuntu.
Thank you.

Sometimes it's unconfortable when you're searching some files (for example when compiling and installing a program) and when you are "inside" the folder in the file manager, you want to compile. You need the terminal.

So, you need to reach the folder and reach that folder typing all the way to do it, and it's very tedious when the program name is too long.

I suggest that in the menu (File menu) it would appear an item called "Open Terminal in this folder" or simply "Open terminal".

E.g. synaptic could provide a history of what has been installed when along with the possiblity to remove it again.
Fore the people who sometimes evaluate software and afterwards want to remove it again (alon with all installed dependencies)

e.g.

Installed yesterday:
at 5:21pm (_remove_)
Selected
OpenOffice.org
Selected dependencies
Java (1 package depends on Java, _see list_)

Installed two days ago:
at 12:12pm (_remove_)
Selected
GIMP

at 2:59pm (_remove_)
Selected
Gnucash
Selected dependencies
AQbanking (2 packages depends on AQbanking, _see list_)
libchipcard (1 package depends on libchipcard, _see list_)

Request Google to update the programs. We Linux users have been waiting a looong time for these updates and don't want to use virtual windows to get our fix. Native programs are better than those using wine but virtualizing is just getting painful.

When a file in Nautilus is deleted, it is moved to the trash. This is a great thing and easy to understand.

But if files are overwritten, they are really deleted and not moved to the trash. I think, this should be changed!

As a developer I can understand why this behavior was not implemented when the trash bin was introduced. But for a normal user this behavior seems to be inconsistent.

Let me explain why. Let's say I have some photos from a digi cam. Unfortunately the photos always have the same names (let's say starting from 001.jpg to 999.jpg). There is a folder "photos" where the user always stores his photos.
When the user deleted the old photos and imports the new ones, he can find the deleted ones in the trash bin. But when he directly imports the new one without removing the old ones, they are lost forever.
In my opinion this is inconsistent. The problem is, that the new 001.jpg is not an updated version of the old 001.jpg - instead it contains completely different and independent information.

This could be fixed at least by providing an option in Nautilus to move overwritten files to the trash.

a mini app or addon to add/remove programs that allows easy donate favorite apps, maybe use paypal,

or, make it possible for someone to develop an OS Flash dev alternative.

Ideas which are done (or work in progress) should have the voting arrows removed or replaced with a tick for done(or working symbol).

That makes it immediately obvious to people the idea is being actively worked on, or is going to be, at which point, voting no longer has any influence on the idea anymore anyway.

The status of projects isn't obvious enough, so doing this will make it more obvious, and make more sense overall.

How many times have you been to the help files for your ISP, and found they relate to XP and outlook Express (::YUK::)?
Why not include the ability for ISP to put in their own settings(eg dial-up numbers, nameservers), and have printed out for them the most common methods of setting changes in (X/K)Ubuntu.(For apps like Firefox/Konqueror/Thunderbird/Evolution/Kmail). This could be done with a scripted website. The result is a multi-page document that the ISP can put on their own website, advertising that they support Ubuntu, and then the mom+pops will feel more secure in using ubuntu because it is supported at their ISP.
The ironic thing is that most ISPs use linux in their back-end systems.

In the forum, have a section for 3rd party software with it's forum hosted in a dual-effort with that software project's forum.

Example: If someone has a firefox question, have them able to access the same forum whether they go through mozilla or ubuntu forums, so that they can get help from both communities.

This can help both Ubuntu and the software developers improve their software and how well it fits in with Ubuntu.

Anyone with ideas how to organize it, please suggest in a comment.

Some programs automatically get added to a graphical menu, which is nice. Others don't which isn't nice. Provide a menu for all installed programs. Have a menu that shows recently added programs. Show an entire list of programs which will show how recently they have been used, when they were installed, how often they are used, etc. Often times I install an app for one time use and then forget about it, but then need to use it later, but don't remember the command.

If my ideas have been merged with somebody else's or were duplicates of them, I would still like to see them under "My ideas" as I am specially interested in them obviously.

Also I would like to be able to list all ideas I voted for: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/1577/

Thunderbird's new mail notifications should be visible in the system tray just like in kde, windows, etc