At the moment, if someone wants to backup his documents or prepare a migration from a computer to another there isn't much more than file-roller to create a backup.
Ideally, the user should be able to run a graphic software which would ask what the user wants to backup and where (tape/usb key/remote).
Then the same tool would be able to restore the backup.

It would be useful for both backups and migration from a computer to another.

Update : See duplicates ideas which contain even more great ideas about that idea.

People around the globe that are using/concidering using Ubuntu are afraid that some of their hardware won't work for them. And some are frustrated to buy additional add-on cards to work around unsupportad onboard chips. All this could be avoided with a lookup in an ubuntu Hardware Database Website.

Some problematic hardware can be used with more or less work if helping information is available together with the hardware compatabillity data.

The hardware database can be found at http://hwdb.ubuntu.com/

From idea #47: The data should then be available in a format that is simple for users to browse on-line when considering new hardware.

Pidgin is a good program to chat on all protocols, but a webcam plugin is still missing.
The developers aren't decided to code webcam support, but having this in Pidgin is very needed.

Or why not code this plugin for emesene? But you can only use the MSN protocol at the moment!

Broadcom wireless drivers are still common - see Lenovo V100 laptops etc, and having to fight with NDISwrapper or the terrible bcmxxxx driver is a terrible block for new users.

Ubuntu should now have the clout to get these companies to open up specs, especially for legacy hardware (as I believe the newer broadcoms work reasonably).

There has been a lot of positive talk in the past about replacing Pidgin with a better client that uses Telepathy but now there's one that looks like it's almost ready to do that! Empathy ( http://live.gnome.org/Empathy ) has much more potential than Pidgin since Empathy uses Telepathy ( http://telepathy.freedesktop.org ). Although i don't think Empathy is quite ready for this in Intrepid, it certainly will be for the next release.

(If you'd like to give it a try, don't use the old version in the Hardy repos, look here: http://cass.no-ip.com/~cassidy/blog/index.php/post/2008/04/14/Voice-and-video-c alls-with-Empathy )

The fact that Empathy uses Telepathy to manage all the different protocols it supports is what makes it so great. Why is it that Pidgin supports file transfers on AIM but not Jabber? Why can't i use VoIP to talk to my Google Talk friends in Pidgin?

Empathy will enable more desktop integration, better support for multiple protocols, and a happier user :)

The bottom line is that Empathy has been making much more progress and improving much faster than Pidgin thanks to Telepathy and including it in Ubuntu will only help the process along!

Major Update! Empathy is now part of Gnome-- http://blog.ibeentoubuntu.com/2008/08/gnome-has-empathy-for-you.html

Most business laptops and some of the end user ones too now include a fingerprint reader.
Those are perfectly possible to use on Linux either by using thinkfinger (IBM/Lenovo) or fprint (HP).

The various PAM modules for those should be installed by default or at least be easily installable and integrate correctly in the default desktop.
GDM, gksudo and the gnome screensaver would have to be modified in order to correctly support fingerprint readers.

That way the user would be able to login either by entering is password as usual or using his fingerprint.

Make it easy to join a Ubuntu Workstation to a Active Directory Domain. Like Windows does for instance.

One of the greatest applications for managing servers via a web browser.

I have a Logitech LX-710 keyboard with a bunch of extra function keys, most of which I cannot program. I had a different keyboard before this one and the same was true. I can program the audio keys (which work by default) and the calculator key, but most others do not work. It would be great if Linux would generate scan codes for those extra keys so I could assign commands to them. The same is true of special mouse buttons.

One program I tried works with non-USB keyboards but claimed that kernel support was required for USB keyboards. Strangely, Enlightment recognizes quite a few more of the extra keys than Gnome does.

Alright now that we finally have a GUI tool for ndiswrapper, it should be able to detect the chipset used and if there are drivers available, automatically download and install them.