I've got two monitors, and right now if I use the wallpaper settings in gnome it stretches the wallpaper across the two monitors. It does this even for the default ubuntu wallpaper. This can look really bad depending on the image. In order to get around this I had to get two wallpaper images and join them into one large one with the GIMP and set that as my wallpaper.

There should be a way in gnome to set a different wallpaper for each monitor.

==== Merged with ideas of a similar scope: Different wallpapers on different workspace ===

Many workspaces option in Linux allows you to separate your work, why not allow users to have different wallpapers on each workspace. This allows for easier identification of which workspace you are on.
When used with compiz-fusion you can rapidly switch between your workspaces and the different wallapaper will allow you to quickly recognise what desktop you are on.

Currently this is natively available in KDE but not in Gnome. In Gnome you can't even let Compiz take over the wallpaper control because Nautilus doesn't allow for transparent backgrounds.

Other solutions like Wallpapoz are slow and when switching between desktops it takes too long to switch WP.

Provide this warning with possibility to solve the problem.

The appeal of the look of Mac OS X does not come the transparency - rather, it comes from how "clean" it looks.

If we can get a "clean" look for Ubuntu, we can start defining its own unique look distinct from Vista and OS X.

For example, I think that the following desktop is pretty clean:

http://www.lynucs.org/index.php?screen_id=110086373547b6419f3c903&p=screen

while this next one is not:

http://www.lynucs.org/index.php?screen_id=1029482457401e40ad34761&p=screen

Peter Chabada, on March 21, 2006, created a page with 40+ Suggestions for Better Desktop which you can find at http://chabada.sk/better-desktop/ . Some of these ideas got implemented, but many did not. It would be nice to have 95% of these ideas in Ubuntu. With our preference of features in the order he listed his suggestions.

If Ubuntu wants to be a serious operating system they need to fix video playing on sites like Youtube and such. My browser always crashes and it is very annoying having to force quit all the time.

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.

There are people out there who love the way Ubuntu looks, but I think the vast majority of people hate the appearance. Just look on digg for a rough idea of what the average tech savy person thinks of Ubuntu's looks. They hate it.

You can't please everyone, but I think you should be aiming to please a lot more people than you currently are doing. The fact any plans for a new theme were dropped from 8.04 kinda sums up Ubuntu's attitude towards appearance.

You don't need to have transparent glass effects or anything like that, but you need to at least come up with a colour scheme that works. People just don't like the brown and orange. It might somehow sum up the ethos behind Ubuntu and its african roots, but it just dont make for an attractive computing experience!

If you want to become a mainstream rival to Windows and OSX then you need to look on a par with them and frankly you don't.

Remove Mono and dependent applications from default Ubuntu Desktop CD. Mono occupies a significant amount of the valuable space on the live cd that could be used for translations and other things. Applications using mono use much more memory than their non-mono counterparts. Functionality can be provided by other applications that are just as good.

This will NOT remove Mono or any of the applications from the Ubuntu repositories, just the default Desktop CD. (Although removing them from the CD may mean they don't need to be in Main anymore)

This affects two applications included by default: tomboy and f-spot. Tomboy can be replaced by either sticky notes or zim and f-spot by gthumb.

In the server install tasksel menu, include a "Domain Controller" option that allows for a (more or less) "drop-in replacement" for Microsoft Active Directory.

This would greatly reduce time to set up a full-fledged network in SMBs.

It would need to be easily configurable (web interface), and have functionality similar to rickyjone's Samba domain controller tutorial (see link), only automated :)

The title says it all , screenlets now run on non composite desktop also , so it can be integrated neatly in a default great looking desktop