Contributor Magnes

Wouldn't it be great to have an undo function?

Then, if you make a mistake, you can undo it instead of trying to figure out what you just did.

EDIT: I'm not talking about opening and closing programs. I'm talking about when you are trying to get some poorly documented thing working, and then screw it up, badly. You can do undo and go back to where you were.

"I'm Human" could be a slogan of Ubuntu marketing campaign.

Why gnome and Ubuntu does not have a Gui like KDE to change the Keyboard and Mouse configuration that give predefined options like Windows (Winl key, Alt Space, etc), MacOS(other), etc. With the actual program you cannot make keyboard shorcuts with de Win L oherwise in KDE we can use it.

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.

As far as I can tell, there is no simple way to extract the contents of a win-32 self extracting exe in *buntu/Debian. Including the ability to right click on these and extract them or even a command line utility "exetract blah.exe" would be nice...

I am using Luks encryption for /home, /swap and /root partition on my Ubuntu 7.10 system but these day some research papers and USB boot application have show it is easy to get encryption key in ram by reboot linux system.

papers and the operation process are in following links
[quote]
Creating bootable USB drives for capturing the contents of memory
http://mcgrewsecurity.com/projects/msramdmp/

Cold Boot Attacks on Encryption Keys
http://citp.princeton.edu/memory/
[/quote]

So Ubuntu need to introduce some way to gradually clean info remained in RAM during system shutdown process to prevent this encryption key disclosure through cold reboot.

After some early discussion in the "Jaunty Jackalope Testing and Discussion" category in the Ubuntu forum, it seems there is support for implementation of new features Early On with the new Version. When Intrepid was in development we were still fixing problems left behind with 8.04 and it seems this will be the same with 9.04 from 8.10.
I think Alpha 1 of JJ NEEDS to have most of the big new features implemented right away so that testing and bug fixing can begin from the get go so that we don't have this problem with KK and by the time the next LTS is out we will have an exceptionally STABLE, EVERYTHING Working, FAST version.

Requests for Alpha 1:

EXT4
Grub2
Kernel 2.6.28(Until 2.6.29 comes along)
OOo. 3
LSB 4.0
Firefox 3.1
A new Theme
Plymouth
Packagekit

If you dont agree with everything here then just write what you support instead of clicking the negative arrow please?

You'll every once in a while hear about benchmarks and stuff, the deal is that users, they don't care... If mp3 encoding took twice the time, they wouldn't notice it, if people wanted to have mp3 encoding finish ASAP, they would probably do it all from a terminal in a batch-system like setup...

What the user looks for is not to see tasks finish faster, what he wants is simpler... he wants the computer to react to his input faster. Yes, really, I wouldn't mind mp3 encoding taking twice the time if when clicking the gnome menu I would INSTANTLY get to see the menu with all icons rendered.

It is also noticeable when there's some heavy operation, I don't care if I am doing a heavy operation in another window, I should still be able to get responsive UI in the other window, in fact, the window doing the task should be responsive as well, if I click the cancel button, I should get to see its push animation... Instead what we have now are windows that take ages to "react" to mouse clicks when another process is busy, perhaps they do react but the thing that draws them just isn't drawing them...

So, really, if the idea is to 'improve performance' forget about benchmarks or silly things like that, this is a desktop OS, it is 100% about a responsive UI, really.

ubuntu has come one of the best OS nowadays, so i thought about this:

Canonical must SELL a new magazine about ubuntu (a printed journal like, pc magazine, linux + magazine, pc world magazine, etc..) every month, so they can get money from it, this magazine should come with alphas, beta, rc, and final release of ubuntu, this magazine should be sold around the world... language? english by first!, It is a universal language!

What should be the magazine about?
1. HOW TO do many things in ubuntu
2. Mark Shuttleworth Should talk about the future of ubuntu
3. About the cd (alphas, beta, rc...) that comes with it.
4. About technology, etc, ect, ect...

i know that most of you don't like to pay and less for something that is open-source but I think that canonical invests a lot of money on ubuntu, so we should help them as a community, i would be the first one to buy this magazine, i promise, and we need it, that should help too, that a lot of new people will know about this awesome OS!

When a software crash or when we find a bug, we fill up a bug report. This bug report ends in Launchpad where we can work a solution.
This works very well for all software that have enough momentum (Gnome, X.org, etc). For others software, developers should be able to receive bug report in their own system (e.g. the project page on sourceforge).

The idea is to give bug report as a courtesy of the operating system. A software distributor should be able to specify (in a config file?) where the reports should be sent. If a software crash, Ubuntu collect the data, and send it in a standardized way (email, flat file, xml...).

This can also be interesting for proprietary software because they are usually shipped with their own bug report tool, and this could be simplified with an unified system.


Pros:
-as a developer: no need to write wrapper to do this
-as a developer alone on a project: you can get all the information in your favorite place
-as an user: you always face the same interface to report a bug, even for proprietary software.

Cons:
-have to be embraced by others distributions and bug trackers to succeed

I think the volume of the startup sound should be on a fixed 25% of the total volume or so.

Reason being I often times bring my laptop to bed after my wife is asleep, and the welcome tune wakes her up because the volume is on max. I try to always plug my headphones in to avoid this, but sometimes I forget, and then I get it in the neck for waking her up!

In fact I'm gonna disable that welcome sound now, but I still think forcing it to a low volume would be a nice touch!

I really like the fact that Ubuntu releases are time based. However I think that we should not let so easily core/main features just stop working and let the release ship nevertheless.

Some examples with Intrepid :

* CD drives eat your fingers (LP: #283316)
* GNOME session is not remembered (LP: #249373)
* Bluetooth file reception cannot be set with the default tools (LP: #290875) and doesn't work anymore by the way (LP: #211252, LP: #289836)
* Samba printers can't print when no authentication is needed (LP: #283811)

I mean basic printing, burning/using CDs not working in a 2008 operating system, than can't be real, right ?

My (humble) proposal :

* Any default feature that was previously working and is not working anymore should be a release blocker (of course explicit exception could be granted on a case by case basis).
* There should be an easy way in launchpad to mark and track such regressions.
* Release dates should be planned in the beginning of the month instead of the very end of the month so that if more time is needed we won't have to renumber the release.

The fact that Intrepid release notes are so big should be an other indication as to why it was too early to release Intrepid IMHO.

I'm not whining or blaming anybody here, I can fix all these problems for my specific computers. However I think that users expect that what was working before will continue to work in the new release (I'm not speaking about performance regressions, regressions in packages not in main here, I know that we cannot avoid every regression). This is far more important than releasing on the exact planned day.


[....]

Currently when copying data to and from the clipboard, if it is text, instead of copying it there, instead it requires the application remain open. So when paste is done, then it queries the application for the text and then pastes it to where you wanted it. This is inefficient as it requires me to keep the application I am copying it from remain open. Windows and OS X doesn't do it this way, so shouldn't linux. Instead it should be copied to the clipboard right away so that I don't have to keep that application open. And when closing that application, if there is something that is stored in the clipboard that is taking up a bit of memory, it should ask me if I want to keep it or clear it.

Lot's of people are using a dial-up modem, and need an app to manage it. (If NetworkManager dosn't quite work right) You should include Gnome PPP so people can easily connect with their dial-up modem.

Forget about the Ooo thingimibob. ;0)

The Ubuntu installation process could use more idiot-proofing with respect to checking that the Minimum System Requirements are being met BEFORE the end user gets into a frustrating situation that completely "turns them off" from Ubuntu (before they can even install it).

Namely: what if a novice user gets an Ubuntu Desktop install CD, but the Live CD grinds to a painful, eternal stall because there is not enough RAM, or the CPU is too slow?

These users wouldn't know what to do next if their computer froze on them: is their computer broken? Who is to be blamed? Themselves (making a wrong choice)? Their hardware? Ubuntu? Who? Most users haven't got any sort of troubleshooting skills or experience to narrow this down, and could very likely just give up, which would be a shame.

They should be warned about any basic hardware inadequacy BEFORE X windows starts, and they should be gracefully pointed towards doing the right thing if necessary: locating (on the internet), and downloading, and booting from the Alternate Installation CD instead.

A timely, simple script on the Live CD (run at boot time) that checks the current hardware, then prints a helpful text message on the console if necessary (halting further booting) would go a long way to saving these users a lot of frustration!

This relatively simple fix would go a long way towards making Ubuntu more "humane."

Most users installing Ubuntu will by default attempt to install from the Live CD (Desktop version). But for people with older computers that do not meet the Minimum System Requirements, they are currently expected to be technically knowledgeable enough to intelligently choose the right kind of installation CD first: Desktop Version or Alternate Installation CD.

This could be a huge stumbling block to A HUGE NUMBER of potentially new Ubuntu users, who are such novices that:

-they never RTFM, (namely https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/SystemRequirements ) and know that they should instead install from the "Alternate Installer." Moreover, these novice users don't even know what RTFM means. It would be prudent to assume that must users DO NOT READ ANY DOCUMENTATION WHATSOEVER before they attempt to use the Live CD.

[....]

I propose to develop a virtual chemistry lab, it could be included in Edubuntu.

It comes with virtual chemicals like water, ethanol, ammonia, butane, helium, kerosene, acetone, calcium sulfate, acids, etc.

Then the user can mix two or more chemicals into a bottle and observe the following chemical reaction.

This would be a quick, easy, safe, cheap, and fun way to experiment with chemistry.

Ubuntu offers to programmers many choices of programming languages and integrated development environments. However, although programming in Ubuntu may be easy, advanced features, such as the implementation of a graphical user interface or the deployment of the finished application to other computers are not intuitive.

For instance, GTK and WxWidgets are great options, but integrating them usually requires a lot of routine coding and some expert knowledge in order to integrate them in the IDE.

It would be great to work with the available IDEs in order to offer an easier integration of the graphical interface in the application developed with these IDEs.

Screensavers are a relic of the olden days, and no longer work very well in modern society. Watching a movie, or playing a game with a foreign control device causes the computer to think its idle, which will wrongly enable the screensaver. In fact, the screen-saver will wrongly turn on even if the screen is displaying a movie full screen (in which case, there is no chance of burn in anyway). What is it trying to protect?

I propose we make it optionally possible for screensavers to only engage when the image on the screen doesn't change for a long time. Plasma TV's have been doing this for a while to protect themselves if someone pauses a movie for a long time.

BENEFITS:
- More accurate screensaver behavior. The screensaver would no longer try to protect a screen that needs no protection!
- Screensavers will no longer ruin the movie you are watching.
- Can be turned off for old behavior still.
- CPU efficient. Whether or not the screens image is changing only needs to be checked at a minimum of minute intervals when the computer thinks its idle. And it could probably even be done onboard the video card VERY efficiently (especially with GPGPU's like the geforce 8800) with no slowdown whatsoever.
- Nobody else seems to be doing this yet!


This would totally fix the problem of screensavers enabling themselves during games or movies wrongly, and would make it possible for people to leave the monitor power-off and screensaver enabled without frustrating them constantly.

Add option to play background sound during screensaver.
Most of the screensaver play better when accompanied by sound like the Skyrocket.

Thumbnails for videos currently show only a single frame. A random frame does not give a good preview of an entire movie.

Solution:
The video thumbnailer should take four snapshots at 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% into the video. Each snapshot should be shrinked to half of normal thumbnail size and the four snapshots merged into a single combined thumbnail image, one in each quadrant (not animated). This will give a much better overview of the video.

This should be *optional* and not the default, since many users would prefer speed.

The idea would require very little programming effort to implement as it is just repeating the existing procedure.

EDIT: When you demote; please explain *why* you think it would be a bad thing that people could have this option if they wanted.