Contributor Mondane

Many computers have a webcam. Movement recognition technologies have progressed in the last years (as in the EyeToy series). However, no operating system has still implemented this interface with the user.

Obviously, this kind of interface is not precise enough to provide a detailed control, but could be quite useful in some fields. For instance, it would be a great option to control document viewers, multimedia players, multimedia centers, and it also has many applications in gaming.

As this technology is quite new, it could be a great way to provide an additional value that other operating systems do not offer. New users could be attracted by this technology, and experienced users could use it in the applications they develop.

The network manager prompts for password while accessing keyring to connect to wireless networks.. This is avoidable by some workarounds, but still doesn't work when automatic logon is enabled

Also in cases when wireless AP is down for sometime, it doesnt seem to connect back automatically when AP is *visible* again.

Please include an Ubuntu repository with the latest WinTV drivers and applications (beta drivers included).

WinTV-HVR-1600
WinTV-HVR-1800
WinTV-HVR-950
WinTV-PVR-150
WinTV-PVR-500


http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/faq/support_faq_linux.html

Regards

Felix

Browsing for project references, I stumbled upon the Leadership Code of Conduct page, on Ubuntu website
http://www.ubuntu.com/community/leadership-conduct

I found this page and its advices very interesting, but I was disappointed not to be able to sign it, as a Project Leader.

I think that, at least, information about this code of conduct should be displayed more obviously for team leaders (since we know who is owner of a team, it shouldn't be hard to display a note on Leadership CoC) ; and these team leaders could be encouraged to sign it, and stick to it.

Summary: backups are important and Ubuntu should provide an efficient tool to do that, simple enough for the newbies and with enough options for people who want fancy features. "sbackup" is probably a very good candidate, but now it does too many stupid things to be really trusted. My idea is that Ubuntu should focus on providing a reliable backup utility.

Backups are boring and seem unnecessary to most people... until shit happens. And of course, it happens. A user-friendly distribution like Ubuntu should provide good tools to perform efficient backups, by hiding all useless technical details. After all, the user should only provide one piece of information: the place where the files are supposed to be stored. All the rest (frequency, file format...) can be set by default (and of course, tuned by advanced users).

When I installed Ubuntu 7.10 for the first time, I was amazed by the "simple backup" software. It really fits with the "Ubuntu spirit", makes complicated but important things easier.

However, just having a look at the reactions in the forum and mailing lists, people appear to be very disappointed by sbackup. I also had a very bad experience with it, not because of big flaws but because sbackup is a bit stupid. The most important bug (see attached bug) is probably that failures are not reported: everything seems OK until you need to restore your data, and unfortunately, in general, it is too late. For instance, the problem I experienced is that I sent my backups to an external hard drive formatted in vfat, and the upper file size limit on a vfat partition is 4Go. Of course, the backup files generated by sbackup were larger than that, but everything went smoothly for months until I realize that. As a result, the archives are all corrupted (tar.gz file truncated).

Fixes are probably trivial: display error messages when the backup fails for whatever reason; split the file in < 1 Go parts to avoid potential issues with the destination file system, etc. The fact that these are not implemented yet probably reflects the lack of interest from Ubuntu in such utilities. IMO a good backup utility is as necessary as a web browser or a Tetris game, because losing important data is always deleterious, even if Ubuntu is not directly responsible for that.

Related ideas:
* http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/4746/ shows that sbackup should be advertised more efficiently.

[....]

Since Brasero is being installed by default, and in order to keep consistency through the system, the "places → CD creator" menu item should launch it instead of Nautilus CD burner.

In order to avoid duplication, too, NCB should be removed altogether.

The Gnome World Clock is an excellent tool and I've added several locations - but I lack the generic UTC/Zulu timezone.

It's an important timezone as it is widely used by developers, in aviation and in several technical fields.

Please add it and make an already great Gnome World Clock even greater :)

When I upload photos I often have one small and one large version of the photo. To see which one was the small one I always need to go back in nautilus to see what the size of the files was.

If we have the file/image-size in the upload window I can see it immediately. This makes using it again a little bit more intuitive.

Ironically, moving to "normal" and "extra" visual effects makes alt-tab display thumbnails of your window choices (good) but cuts the display down to three cycling choices at a time (bad).

When no visual effects are on, it displays all of my so that I can easily tab to the exact one that I already know I'm looking for.

I, for example, have 13 different windows open, so alt-tab makes me see less than a quarter of 'em, which makes it harder to tab the exact number of times to get to the exact right one.

It is opensource, interesting, works under Linux (also, Windows and MacOSX)

http://simutrans.sourceforge.net/
http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php/board,51.0.html

Upon installation of Ubuntu, I provide my Ubuntu Lifesaver username/password.

Periodically & incrementally send my config files (encrypted & compressed) to an Ubuntu hosted service that stores them. Included is my apt-get repos and a list of installed software.

Future Ubuntu installations will then ask me if I would like to clone one of my previous setups. Also I won't need to be re-asked about using restricted drivers or other non-gpl software as my Ubuntu Lifesaver profile will be aware of those past decisions.

Right now they're just gray bars, which look okay if you have the shadows under them that Compiz provides, but for people who can't run a compositor the panels look boring, gray, and flat (like Windows 2000, except it had drop-shadows...)
Linux Mint came up with a nice idea; It has a cool panel background that looks good by default without being distracting. They use the same sort of image in the menu bars (File, Edit, etc.).
To see what I mean, just check this out:
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s236/thevoiceless/mintupload.png

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.

At some point during the Ubuntu install routine, the user is asked to pick their favourite colour, which in turn sets the wallpaper and theme to match when they first login.

This could also apply when creating a new user, and should also impact on the login screen (each user-chosen colour is highlighted around each username).

When installing a package, ask if the user wants to create a shortcut in the applications menu.

A program should be added to ubuntu which rates important aspects of your system - like Security, Performance e.t.c. This would be very useful because it will make you maintain your system very well.

I think that there should be an easy-to-find link to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport/ on the ubuntu website (or somewhere easy to find) so people can find out what hardware is easy to setup, or requires no setup easily before they buy

Make it possible to use files from another filesystem on an another system or an URL like trash:/// (or http://server/ etc) over a posix interface, so any program can use these locations.

Examples:

$ ls trash:///
$ rm -r trash:///

----------

$ cd jeff@server/home/jeff/
$ ./bin/demo
This demo was executed on server from user jeff.

The system should use ssh for this. With ssh it is also possible to execute a file. :)
Note that you use your own local shell the whole time. So if you change the working diretory to another system, you have a direct connection and no tunnel over the first system. ;-) Execute a shell on the other system to use that shell.

----------

$ gedit jeff@server/home/jeff/text

$ gedit http://www.ubuntu.com/

$ gedit ftp://ftp.gnu.org/README

Note: The last two commands are already possible, but not over a posix interface.

The title pretty much says it all... enhance Brainstorm's Advanced Search with the ability to restrict searches to the idea's title only.

Addition per Ubuntu_Daemon's suggestion:
The default should be to search within title and comments.

Transparency can annoy the user.

Some might hate it that windows can get invisible when a window beneath is focused with the cursor. Some might like it.

Some might like the transparent window panels. Some might hate it.

...

It is over all difficult to manage all transparency/opacity options with the compizconfig-settings-manager, because those options are scattered around.
And of course the compizconfig-settings-manager must be installed first.

So please make an easy settings manager for transparency effects. It should be separated from the compizconfig-settings-manager, but nevertheless should affect the compiz settings.