Contributor YannUbuntu

Probably this is going to be controversial but...

The majority of people that are into open source/free software probably don't like very much some of the laws the USA got, DMCA, software patents, lots of power to DRM and not so much power to the users... Microsoft threatening Linux with lawsuits! a "Sue them all!!!" policy that threatens everyone...
Lots of countries in the world have more freedom in the aspect of the "digital things"... and it kinda sucks that every ubuntu user in the world gets a system that (in it's default configuration, of course) can't even play a .mp3 file! not because of technical limitations, but because of laws made by the powerfull people of one or few countries, lobbied by the rich guys and companys...

Why not just relocate ubuntu main servers to a more free country? I don't know were they are now, but Sweden, for example, looks good for this kind of things... so a more “complete package” of ubuntu could be offered (I'm talking about software like libdvdcss, etc... software that is free software but is not included only because the fear of lawsuits) I'm not saying: “Lets be the Pirates of Sealand and live in anarchy!”, but most of us agree that the current laws in USA are a bit...... well... I leave it to you to think about it...

[EDIT] This is not about including proprietary software, it is about including FREE software, but that in the current situation is ILLEGAL (link to PDF with DRM) to use in the USA (or at least "risky" or "in a grey area" of legislation).

(This is not getting into stuff like "My country is better than yours!"... they All have good things and bad things... it is just my humble opinion...)
Peace.

There are many great components in Ubuntu that just not everybody needs. So they should be made uninstallable or deselectable during installation easily, without breaking the dependency to meta-packages like "ubuntu-desktop". Some of them are:

- Tracker: Some people rather like their "classic" folder structure to organize their files, emails etc., and just don't make use of a desktop search engine. So there is no need for a background process constantly indexing files.
- NetworkManager: A great tool for mobile and notebook users, but for a desktop PC that's permanently connected to the same network, it's just not necessary.
- SCIM: For languages that come out with a simple keyboard layout and don't need special input methods (e.g. English, German, French, ...) , this additional layer is unnecessary.
- Avahi: Only necessary if there's more than one network device around speaking mDNS.
- "Legacy" cronjobs (updatedb, scrollkeeper): For a strictly "desktop" user, these will never be used.
- Bluetooth services: Clearly, for computers without a bluetooth device, the bluetooth daemons do not need to be running and even installed.

These features could be configurable on an extra page with checkboxes an a short, neutral 2-4 sentences explaination on the installer and an "Optional Features" applet on the System->Administration menu.

Linux offer great tools to develop software, but there is little effort to promote them to beginners.

If you look at the competitors, they offer unified development platform and associated documentation. Have a look at XCode+developerConnection and VisualStudio+MSDN, this is ideal infrastructure to get new programmers.

It would be nice to have a dedicated website to inform people about the development on Ubuntu. The website could help people to make their first software, help them to begin with the main IDEs, and give links to get further information on the official website of the language/IDE/framework.

Such a website should be very appealing and simple to help the beginners. Help in lot of language would be a plus since lots of people don't speak English.

More developers means more people to implement the idea of Ubuntu Brainstorm :)

[Disclaimer: English isn't my language - please forgive the errors in what follows]

Most of the software is written in English. Then the strings it contains are translated to various target languages, but at release time, some applications are only partially translated.

For example, an app may come with an "Edit" menu containing the following items (in French):

Annuler
-------
Couper
Copy --> still in English
Coller
-------
Tout sélectionner

To solve this problem, I suggest that *every* string in *every* app has an unique ID. When the user sees an untranslated string, she/he should be able to translate it using a special combination (e.g. Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Click or whatever).

The system would then show a popup dialog to type in the translated version of the string, and this translated version (this is the important part):

- is stored locally, so that the item is *immediately* translated locally
- is sent, along with its unique ID, to a central translation database so that other users may benefit trom the translation

It's currently way too difficult to set up fonts and input editor for languages such as Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.

Take a look at this complicated HOWTO:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Japanese_Input_and_Fonts_in_Ubuntu_7%2e10

Setting up SCIM / SKIM should be easy regardless of what language you log in with. Many people need to use multiple languages.

In Windows, all you need to do is open the Regional Settings and check the languages you want and possibly insert the original disc.

In addition, the fonts installed for CJK by default are horrible. Ubuntu should include more readable fonts out of the box.

I feel this is a very important issue and is blocking Ubuntu from being a serious option for CJK users.

Many users want to install all available updates. The current update process, however, is unnecessary complicated. I recommend changing update manager as follows:

When the update notification icon is clicked, an admin password entry dialog (using PolicyKit) with 3 buttons should appear: "Install all updates" (selected by default), "Select updates", "Cancel".

"Install all updates" silently (minimized to tray) installs all updates. (and silently notifies via tray when finished)

"Select updates" shows the current updater dialog. There should be an option to ignore this and all further updates for a package.

I know that there is an "Install all updates" entry in the context menu, but it is well hidden and not the default.

INDIA is a big country in Asia,prominent in IT.All over india,Ubuntu and Linux isn't quiet popular,but
microsoft and vista.campaigning is going on great guns.ever since launch of vista,people in India think that Linux is
useless etc.that i and many of indians disagree,infact
kerala,recently introduced Linux as only choice in schools.
i want to make Ubuntu popular in India,make Indian website.
whatever,support regional languages,hardware,optionally support multimedia(
here there is no restriction on multimedia codecs).Support
urdu language(most of the world use this language and optionally some tools for Muslim users like zikr).make tv
ads,hoardings etc.LASTLY get some donations from
BIG PLAYERS IN IT like IBM,wipro,satyam etc and strike
deal with reliance company etc.

Currently the documentation is very poor in relation to fully automated network installs. It seems that there is very little focus on the large deployments in both a desktop environment and server. In our organisation we currently use Debian fairly extensively, the documentation for the installer is not fantastic but it is complete. When we follow the same processes we use for debian on ubuntu the installer is never fully automated which requires additional man hours to deploy ubuntu on desktops or servers. I feel its not much more than documentation that is lacking.

I have included a launchpad bug id as an example of something that appears simple on the surface and maybe just a lack of documentation.

I've spent way too many hours on the Ubuntu forum figuring out what to do to install, configure, test and subsequently "try to" roll-back video card drivers.

It's a pain in the freaking neck!

Possible solutions:

- Integrate Envy (as Linux Mint does)
- Develop whole new Envy-like tool
- Add features to the Video Settings dialog, or
- Develop documentation (with visual diagrams) that explains what does what.

Am I alone?

If not, any other possible solutions?

Everytime that I want to type something up in spanish, theres always some crazy hoops that i have to go through. Be it dead keys, or inserting a symbol every time i want a letter with an accent, it's all around pretty hard.

Windows had the alt + that made it really easy to do so. I think it would be really cool if Ubuntu had a way to type in stuff like that. I'm not sure exactly what the "official" name for this kind of thing is, but hopefully my idea makes sense.

This problem affects non-english languages.
At the end of installation process, Ubuntu downloads directly from internet the packages needed to install complete support for selected language (i know that complete language support for 20 languages doesn't fit in a CD!).
That's a good think.
In case there isn't an internet connection available, it can't, and the user after the reboot, finds a system part in english and part in his own language.
The user who is new to linux&ubuntu doesn't know that he has to install complete language support package "by hand" from the appropiate utility, and doesn't know that, in that utility, "-" means "basic support" and "v" means "complete support".
So he simply uses the system as it is and thinks "mmm... strange!"

I think that something should be done about it, expecially for the "ubuntu promise":
Ubuntu includes the very best translations and accessibility infrastructure that the free software community has to offer

If we all agree that complete language support is important, and that the system should provide it out-of-the-box, than the system should take care of it also in this case (that it is not uncommon!)! Always or never!

There are a lot of ways to do that, i will suggest a solution, a simple example to explain better what i mean.
The system could use a "baloon tooltip" to remind that complete-support for the current language is available but not installed.

Have a tutorial obviously available from the command line that hits the highlights of things that you might want to do, especially as a new user. This is for the situation where a new user, familiar only with the GUI, ends up on the command line perhaps because something went wrong. I'd like to see something that users would stumble into, maybe something that comes up if you enter a few invalid commands. You shouldn't have to 'just know' some command to get this option.

The current 'help' command is not a tutorial, and is not very friendly. When you type help from the command line, many of the commands scroll off the top of the screen. Nor are man pages a tutorial - help and man are both references for people who already can get around a bit on the command line.

You know what's really obnoxious? When you're looking for the semantics of a command, say "basename", and then fire up "man basename" to get the manual only to find a cruddy shell of a man page that refers to a TexInfo manual and explains that you'll have to use "info" to get at it.

I appreciate the passion of GNU folks for creating robust documentation that is nicely segmented, but in most cases, it's just much easier to have everything in a single file that is searchable. Also, have you ever tried to explain "info" to a new user. If they've never used emacs, they're screwed. Even if they have used emacs, they're in trouble..."What's the key combination to follow a link again?" "Now how do I go back?" It's time we recognized GNU Info for what it is, the Edsel of the documentation world. Let's give it the boot and provide a nice common interface to everything through "man".

I'm using the German version of Ubuntu and I saw a screenshot of the english System menu with many list entries: http://www.ubuntu.com/files/u3/helpmenu.png

In the German version you just have one unuseful Documentation of Ubuntu, which is on top of that mostly written in English.
I don't know how that is in other languages, but I think it will be the same or even worse.

It would e.g. be a much bigger help if there is the Wiki of ubuntuusers.de included (-> Prism?), which might not be an official website of Canonical, but the only really helpful documentation.

Hello,

New users will find themselves in the situation of trying to change or set up something that is not provided "out of the box" by ubuntu like setting up hardware or looking for the software that does exactly what a certain software in their previous operating system could do ;-).

The first thing to do? Google it. Loads of results, outdated information... In the end you mix up different procedures and don't get your problem resolved.

Maybe would be good to have a "How do I...?" help button, lets say, under the same menu where "About Gnome" is, which will bring a "What do you want to do?" dialog. There the user could enter his question, for example "Set up canon scanner" or "edit video for portable device" and this would bring a knowledge base and/or forum thread search with related how-tos.

This would really simplify and centralize the way we find and share information relatied to advanced tasks.

What do you think?

A seperate "help/documentation" category would be nice.
I think, the biggest remaining weaknesses of modern linux systems are in the area of documentation. Lots of good ideas needed there.

One of the biggest problems with internal documentation is that it is made for the present and as such is out of date once the product is shipped. This means most help docs for an OS are stupidly out of date and as a result useless. I suggest using a support Wiki link in the Help menu that allows people to enter in their fixes to problems they encounter. This means that the system docs will always be as accurate as possible.

Would like to see online ubuntu documentation in pdf or ebook form so that I can save to disk

It is great that Ubuntu is translated in so many languages including Bulgarian. The problem is that the fonts included by default with the system are designed for Latin characters. Currently, I am using the Bulgarian version of Ubuntu, and some letters appear blurred (like ъ,ж, etc, especially in bold). It is really tiring for the eyes. A font that is specifically created Cyrillic characters should solve any problems of the kind. It should be set as the default system font when the user switches the language to Serbian, Bulgarian, Russian, Macedonian, Ukrainian or any other with Cyrillic alphabet.

I've been surprised by the number of different packages I've had to hunt down when setting up a Ubuntu system for C/C++ development.

Most surprisingly is that manpages-dev and manpages-posix-dev had to be installed manually.

I propose that Ubuntu offers some high-level virtual packages for various kinds of users, just to save us some time hunting down missing documentation/tools. Each of these packages should be fairly liberal in what it includes, because disk space is cheap.

I'd suggest at least the following:

C/C++ development package: gcc, g++, kdevelop, valgrind, manpages-dev, manpages-posix-dev, emacs, kate, vim, etc.

Documentation authoring: lots of latex packages, kile, image file conversion packages ( xxx2pdf, xxx2ps, imagemagick, etc.), kpdf, evince, etc.

Graphics work: scribus, imagemagick, gimp, image file conversion packages, inkscape, etc.

I think it would be *very* little work for Ubuntu to maintain these virtual packages, but it would be a nice convenience for users. (It could also be used to help users discover tools for their work that they didn't even know existed.)