Contributor ajjeckmans

There was recently an article that return rate of linux netbooks was higher

http://blog.laptopmag.com/ubuntu-confirms-linux-netbook-returns-higher-than-ant icpated

“Unclear selling is happening, typically online. The customer will get their netbook sent to their home and they imagine to find something like a Microsoft desktop, but they see a brown Ubuntu version. They are unwilling to learn it and they were expecting to have Windows.”

therefore i purpose a interactive app which tells different settings and features in ubuntu like getting started in xp

-it should be the first app to start
-there should be option to disable it
-there should be the option to remove it from desktop useful for netbooks were space is less
-it should link to online or should have installed updating database of hardware that is compatiable
webcams
printer
tv tuner
scanner
bluetooth
usb devices
database should be user update able but should be maintained by canonical in professional manner

I'm aware of this getting a lot of negative votes, but it seems to me as a good idea. The other problem is that it could be an dupe. But I'll take the risk.
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Prologue:
I recently installed Windows back on my computer (don't ask why). And I Noticed that I would really like to have some of the Linux apps on my Windows. Off course this was to some extent possible with KDE4.1.1 for windows, but there are "millions" of apps that are not ported to Windows.

Why is this a good idea?
Because of Firefox, OpenOffice and GIMP. All of these programs are free and GIMP was made especially for Linux and then ported to windows.
With more application that were developed for Linux ported to Windows, Linux will get a bit of limelight with them.
Meaning that someone is interested in Linux but isn't sure if this would be a good decision they could be persuaded with known apps that they were used to have in Windows.
One of apps that I know that it would be a really good for windows is K3b (but I know it will be ported in future when KDE4 for Windows reach stable state). I'm sure that there are other products that you can't imagine living without them.
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!Main idea!:
I know that porting all of the apps is an daunting task, so there is a simple and effective solution to this problem.
What "we" need is an "anti-wine" that's in "opposite direction" as Wine. So there should be a program which would provide a compatibility layer to Linux apps in Windows. I know this is probably very hard to program, probably even harder than wine was (as Linux uses totally different approach to organizing files as Windows). But in a long run this is still easier than porting one app at the time.
So you could just download tar.bz file and the "anti-wine" would compile it for you and install it on your computer. It should also support deb and rpm files.
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So why should Canonical do this and how is this helping Ubuntu?
I know that Canonical first obligation is Ubuntu and its flavours but this could be a way to promote Ubuntu and Linux.

[....]

Currently, if you upgrade a package from a third-party repository (for instance, Sid), Synaptic cannot automatically downgrade it to a stable, supported version--you have to uninstall it and reinstall it from the Ubuntu repository. This can cause problems, especially if you try upgrading something with a lot of dependencies and want to bring it back to a stable version. I propose an option to allow Synaptic to "restore" packages and to the latest official Ubuntu release.

It would also downgrade packages that depend on a specific version of another package, or prompt the user to remove them if they are not in the official repositories.

I think, a lot of people like to help with ubuntu development, but they don't know where to start. This includes not only programmers but also designers, music composers or just the normal ubuntu user.

So how about creating a website "howcanihelp.ubuntu.com" where everyone (except for C/C++ programmers ;-) ) can find out how to contribute?

Examples:
PHP Programmer -> help with Brainstorm Development, someproject.ubuntu.com needs a new Website, ...
Music Composer -> (don't know where this should link)
Graphic Artist -> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork
Foreign Language Native Speaker -> Translate Subtitles at screencasts.ubuntu.com,...
Beginner Ubuntu User -> (don't know if we find something for them :-) )
Advanced Ubuntu User -> Help people at IRC #ubuntu, https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WikiToDo, join the Documentation Team...
Marketing Expert -> ...


and so on!

It's silly to be pushing open standards when we don't follow them for our own sites.

Improvement went from 54 errors to 4.
Ubuntu.com Failed: 4 Errors
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fubuntu.com&charset=%28detect+aut omatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0

All Ubuntu websites should pass the W3C validation checks. (none appear to currently)

For reference:
Microsoft, Redhat, Sun, Novell, openSuse and Apple fail.

Debian, Fedora, Linux Mint, Gnome, KDE, Opera, Firefox and OpenOffice.org pass

Fedora is currently working on improving the startup experience by implementing Plymouth:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureBetterStartup

By doing this, transition from Grub to GDM (or KDM or whatever) would be done almost instantly. Plymouth will use a graphical boot mode with a fallback method to text for those computers that don't have hardware support.

Ubuntu should develop it's own open source game development libraries. This could push for a unified way to develop games on Linux platforms. Fast ANSI C libs that don't act as an engine, but rather as a easy way to gain access to the systems hardware from languages like python,c++,java... Why should Windows attract all the game developers. If a standardized library is developed for Linux it would certainly make anyone Question the need to use Directx.

***Update - I believe this has been fixed/implemented***


In Gutsy we had the ability to synchronize our computer clock with that of an internet server, to keep accurate time.

With Hardy Heron, that feature has been lost. :(

This may not seem like a big deal, but it is, because daylight savings time came early for us. My Ubuntu clock is two hours behind, because the new timezone clock feature thinks it's a different time. If I could synchronize with an internet server, I could fix this problem.

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http://tf.nist.gov/service/its.htm

Set Your Computer Clock Via the Internet
NIST Internet Time Service (ITS)

The NIST Internet Time Service (ITS) allows users to synchronize computer clocks via the Internet. The time information provided by the service is directly traceable to UTC(NIST). The service responds to time requests from any Internet client in several formats including the DAYTIME, TIME, and NTP protocols.

In many companies, the home directory is stored in a server (NFS, samba).
Thus, it would be interesting some integration with gdm (kdm) so that make the authentication of network authentication before the operating system authentication.
An example of this functionality happens with use of the windows and securew2.
My ideia is: create a checkbox in gdm or in networkmanager with "Enable 802.1x authentication with remote home dir".
With this function, xsupplicant uses the gdm user and pass to make the 802.1x auth instead the hardcode user and pass from the /etc/xsupplicant.conf.
Important: the auth of the operating system (ubuntu) is in ldap, and home dir is in samba or nfs.
The network auth is necessary because only after 802.1x authentication other protocols are allowed (for example: ldap, samba, nfs, http, ftp).

Tiago

Right now, setting download speeds in applications is a common necessity for working with a shared Internet connection. However, no two applications present that option the same way, and some don't present it at all! It is also an option that, when available, must be accessed very often.

I recently discovered a number of neat tools that fix this for me. One of them is called "wondershaper", which lets me change the downstream and upstream speed for a particular device, on the fly, for everything. The results are instant and quite satisfying.
There were other tools that could do the same idea for particular processes. It stood out to me that they all demanded to run the process themselves, but it doesn't seem like it would be impossible to selectively shape networking for a process once it is running.

One major benefit of the graphical user interface is that windows can be traced directly to processes. In this way, the user can select a window and have a program know exactly what process to kill / limit.

Granted, moving network speed limiting outwards sounds weird. How dare we pull control from the applications?
Actually, this is already being done for many other kinds of resource! That is what "nice" is all about, for example. The difference here is that this would be a "nice" control for resources outside of the local ones, which we may not necessarily see. That is what the window management stuff is all about, with reserving space that programs can draw to. We are not expecting the program to manage system resources for us; the program just has to go with the flow, and the operating system keeps it all organized as the end user would like.

How to implement it?
This would be an upstream type of thing. Somebody will have to persuade the GNOME people. I think, done right, this would be a positive adjustment for GNOME since it simplifies the user interface in the way we like, while adding functionality across the desktop. No longer must you hunt across menus to find out how to limit network resource usage in Download Tool X; it is always in the same place. Big, big plus for usability, and that's not even counting the benefit of easily controlling network usage for the forward-thinking applications that don't think to include the option!

[....]

Usually what keeps me from updating is just the bandwidth. I don't like to update if I'm not going to be nearby to address any issues that arise, and I don't like to have all my bandwidth (which isn't so great) taken up by a 200MB set of updates.

I would like to see the ability to throttle how much bandwidth the update process takes. Also, having the ability to do this in Synaptic would make it much nicer for when you wish to download some of the bigger games.

When you press ctrl alt f1 ect you get a terminal indepenant of X and is wonderfull if you know what your doing, but say my mum accadentally presses ctrl alt f1. Not knowing really what she is doing or the cat lands on the keyboard and puts it into a terminal. She would think the computer is broken and be very confused on how to fix it I think we should put a discription as to what it is and how to get back to X

Hello All,

I am working in a multi national IT company having over 10 millions employees and top 7 Global top 10 firms as the clients incluing GE,IBM etc.

I got the chance to understand what should an OS contain to being accepted by any corporate enterprice ?

Ubuntu is having many essential features like securety, regular updates release,support availibility,office suit, mail like evolution, native languages etc. and also offers advantages like less need to antivirus,lower configuration of HW support etc. but I am not sure weather Ubuntu offers certain most important features like..

1) Integrated or Supported VPN client- In any company most employees works from home so connecting to office network especially in US and Europe it is most important thing.

2) Connectivity SoftWare like Citrix clint or Tuxedo- In any organization many CRM,ERP tools like clarify,SAP etc.. are used and to access their thick clients from local machines we need Software like Citrix and Tuxedo so incorporating these will them will be great advantage.

I think rest is included in Ubuntu. Please provide your feed back if am skipping something to promote Ubuntu the real alternative to MicroSoft Os.

Thanks

Medibuntu is now available for all Ubuntu 'family' except "Hardy Heron". Should be also available there.