Contributor alegra

Suspend and hibernate still seems to be a big issue based on forum posts. Really focus on fixing it, even with proprietary drivers.

This might be a stroke of genius or an utter idiocy, you judge.

I seem to understand that the major shortcomings of wine are with the dlls because not all the libraries are emulated and not all are emulated seamlessly (no guilt whatsoever, I realize that the wine guys are doing their best).

So here is the idea.
When installing wine, or from the libraries configuration menu at a later time, there could be an "import original libraries" option, I choose it and I supply an original Windows cd/dvd that I have lying around (we probably all have a couple, even if we just use them as glass coasters).
Then wine runs trough the cd, borrows what it needs to run smooth with direcx and everything else and configures itself.
Final step, playing that damn brand new game or that damn cad application we need so desperately.

It would not exactly be the ideal solution to bug #1 but for somebody it would be way better than dual-booting.

Like it?

P.S. I do not even know if this would be completely legal, if not perhaps it could be implemented as a separate script.

We already know that Ubuntu can import files/settings from XP, but what about vista?

Some PC operating systems have a reputation for being security "messes" (to put it politely).

So many families ask me about security risks associated with the Internet and Computing. (I act as many of us
do as System/Security admin for friends and family).

Ubuntu (all versions) could gain momentum if it became known as a safe, family friendly OS alternative to the dominant OS products.

Some specific suggestions I have are:

1) Try to always use plain language in communicating
security information to unsophisticated users or
if requested (e.g. at installation time).

Personal note: many of the parents I support are
almost computer-phobic.

2) Security updates (as a special case of the above)
should be communicated to the Ubuntu user with a
very clear summary of their urgency. I also
suggest:

a. "Help me understand this" button in dialogues
b. Updates as much as possible should not require
rebooting but if necessary allow deferring of
these required reboots.

3) To support 1) create profiles that support user
knowledge types.
a. advanced type (e.g. command line savvy etc)

[....]

Wine is a fine way to have a decent use of some multimedia programs, but professionals have higher standards and demand better workflow. Programs like Photoshop, Coreldraw, Lightroom and others schould have their Linux version sometime in the future..

I know that is a huge task but is one thing that I think would get alot of people away from windows, and draw alot of new linux users to Ubuntu. A simple graphical way to install programs using wine would be a huge draw for many people. Personally I spent a long time trying to get WINE to work and with little success in a lot of cases. Cedega does a great job at making things easier but you have to pay for it and set it up. I think an in house program that is set up at install would be an amazing addition to Ubuntu, and would help ease people into making the linux switch.

Working with OpenOffice is like going back 10 years in time to microsoft office 97. OpenOffice's theme is terrible.
2 solutions:
*office 2007 support in wine
*a theme for openoffice, now it seams like there is no theme for openoffice

Ubuntu should have a DSL dialer with a graphic mode which in essence wouldn't require lots of configuration and that could show errors on the same window if connection fails. Pppeoconf is not very reliable unofortunately and if you don't know where does it keep its logs you'll have a hard time knowing why you can't access the web.

Would be nice to see the pictures we want to send as attachments. Right know we can only choose the picture name.i.e. example.jpg. If we could see the picture icon would be great when choosing a few pics to join with our e-mail.
Thanx.

Since there are many applications having installation and access through a web server, there should be a good interface for Apache.

Implement a simple rating system for all the hardware in a user's computer. This idea is somewhat like the "Vista Experience Index" with changes, such as the lowest score does not dictate the overall score. This would help users buy an Ubuntu system by looking at the rating. A certain score could also determine default settings such as if Compiz is enabled by default.

Windows user take benefit of Zeroconf technology widely, they just join their machine and start sharing data (without assigning IP addresses). But this is not the case in Ubuntu. Many ideas for *good* sharing facility has been proposed but those (newbies) who don't know the mechanism of assigning ip's can't share data. So with the help of underlying technology (Avahi) same kind of feature should be added in Ubuntu. So that two newbies can start sharing data just by connecting their machines. (Without even doing *some technical* settings with Avahi)

It should be good if it can be possible to have some shadow behind the desktop icon with a choosable color and choosable alpha channel.
The reason for this feature is to have better visibility with some wallpaper that have region that seems to hide icons.
With this feature the icons should always be in good contrast and fast reachable.

I tried to make an example but I'm not good with graphics program so if someone could make an example , it will be nice.

When a new email arrives a nice large tooltip shows up. Making it clickable, would enable me to open the email directly. It would be even nicer if the 'from' name appears as well in the tooltip.

Merge the three print icons:

SYSTEM>ADMINISTRATION>PRINTING
SYSTEM>PREFERENCES>DEFAULT PRINTER
MAIN>ACESSORIES>PRINT JOBS

When you are activating a compiz effect, you actually don't know what will you get. So these effects (and perhaps tips for using them) can be previewed in a short flash movie so you will know what you are doing. Google Sketch Up already has something like this.

The artwork should be present since grub screen appears until the default desktop is loaded, it should be clean, simple, beauty and easy to the eye... have you seen Mac OS X booting?

Well if you havent here are some videos:
1)Comparison UBUNTU - MAC OSX- WIN XP: http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=xf3vh91KIrY
2) MAC OS LEOPARD first boot:
http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=7vwGap1gSko

Pay attention to the smoothness of the booting and simplicity, the idea is not to make an apple port, the videos are just references I wouldn't like to Ubuntu had an spinning circle, I'd like to see human theme since I choose which OS to boot, for example.
UPDATE: here's a possible blueprint taken from another idea: http://ubuntuforums.org/g/images/430615/1_rhgb.png

In many cases, I can't configure my webcam or I have problems with the microphone. Now I can use my webcam but only with V4L2 and only 3 programas detect my webcam. It's a good idea can use my webcam in all programs as camorama.

An advanced option during the install process which allows for software packages to be selected or deselected. This would allow either for the selection of additional software packages which could be downloaded and installed during the installation of the OS, or for packages to be deselected, creating a minimal installation. I believe that the Fedora installer has this option.

This idea has been mentioned under other headings, but I think that it deserves to be listed as an idea on its own.

When you copy or download a big video file its thumbnail image get generated lots of times.
A correct behaviour would be not to generate those until all the file is written.

Also nautilus totally ignores the setting about maximum file size and generates thumbnails for any video file no matter how big.