Contributor arand

Ubuntu currently doesn't upgrade the kernel, it just keeps adding newer and newer kernels to the system.

Currently, the list of kernels installed on a Ubuntu system grows over time. This takes up additional disk space and adds clutter to the boot loader.

Ideally, older kernels should be removed automatically.

Maybe leave current and current-1, but not _all_ of them...

Sometimes, when a USB pen drive or hard drive is plugged in, it is auto mounted, but,sometimes, the icon placed on the desktop overlaps with the existing icons on the desktop. A manual refresh is required to rearrange the icons properly. Gnome should do it automatically.

This is concerning the graphical and the text based installer.

It`s a bad habit introduces by microsoft. Do not ask questions in the middle of the installation after you did already started to copy things.

(1) The user starts the installation.
(2) He is asked if he wants to install.
(3) Make as many hardware tests as you need.
(4) Now ask all needed questions.
(5) Install Ubuntu in one run. Tell the user he can no go away for perhaps X minutes.

Otherwise it`s annoying. Input answer, wait a bit, input answer, wait again over and over again. You can improve this!

More support for more wireless chipsets out of the box and "Windows style" ease of set up.

I have spent may a day trying to configure wireless cards on Ubuntu, often without much luck!

Please also deliver more support for what they are both wireless PCI cards and USB, as it is currently very low base of drivers for such devices

When trying to access folders and files that I don't have permissions to, actions like "Create folder", "Create document", "Cut", "Paste", "Rename" and "Move to garbage bin" in right-click menus are all greyed out. I think they should be available, but when clicked, the administrative password is prompt. In such way lots of inconvenience can be prevented.

It's annoying when you've become in love with Ubuntu, but realize your Laptop functions don't all work properly.
Backlighting, Power Management, the Function Buttons, etc..

Orange Brown theme should not be the only one included
There should be color themes based on all the basic
colors e.g. blue theme, yellow theme, red theme, black theme
green theme.

Expansion of Add Remove Programs - show user-provided descriptions, feature lists, screenshots, comments, ratings, integration with launchpad. Initial page should be top-rated apps, or newest apps. Managed by a webapp?

Or... leave it as it is, but create a website displaying all the great software available for ubuntu including all the features mentioned above with apturl links to install.

From #4613 (merged):

It should be indicated how much I'll have to download to install something.

We have download limits here and well... quite often I exceed them. It would be useful to indicate how big the download is going to be.

Many games feature the ability to play with other people. However, the first thing the game will check for is to see if it is currently up to date. When Ubuntu enters version freeze, the games fall out of date, and it can be harder to play them online without finding a 3rd party update or compiling it yourself (Freeciv, Scorched3D, and Battle for Wesnoth to name a few). This also creates issues when different distributions freeze at different times, so it can be hard to play with other Linux users.

Ubuntu should provide a repository for up to date games for games that will always need the latest version to play online.

cdroms are slow, don't allow to modify their content easily, they are weak and not as easy to carry as USB keys.

It would be great to provide Ubuntu as a liveUSB just as Mandriva does. We should be able to carry our distribution on any computer, manage our preferred settings (do I want binary drivers enabled ? what is my preferred resolution ?), etc.

The thing is not to make something transportable, but really a nomad system that could be used just the best way as it could on any computer.

People around the globe that are using/concidering using Ubuntu are afraid that some of their hardware won't work for them. And some are frustrated to buy additional add-on cards to work around unsupportad onboard chips. All this could be avoided with a lookup in an ubuntu Hardware Database Website.

Some problematic hardware can be used with more or less work if helping information is available together with the hardware compatabillity data.

The hardware database can be found at http://hwdb.ubuntu.com/

From idea #47: The data should then be available in a format that is simple for users to browse on-line when considering new hardware.

All the packages in the software repository should include a URL hyperlink to the official website of the software.

So when you read about the software, you can click on the link to get to the official homepage, for more information.

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.

This is not a Ubuntu-related problem, but having an option to order icons horizontally on the desktop would be a nice feature!

When placing icons on the desktop, it's very easy to space them horizontally, as there's a grid that they attach to. There's also a vertical grid but it's so fine-grained that it's hard to arrange icons in any satisfying way.

Some power users may mind this. If they do, it could just be an option in gconf-editor.

I think it would be useful to be able to open multiple pdf files within the same viewer window. I know that I would use this feature a lot, because I like to multi-task, so I read multiple ebooks or whatever a the same time a lot... but yeah, it would also be cool if there were an option to view your tabbed documents side-by-side somehow for comparison purposes, Im sure that would come in handy sometimes...

but yeah, we have a tabbed text editor, and web browser, so why not a tabbed pdf viewer?

Currently the Examples folder seems under-utilized. The Mandela video explaining Ubuntu, the pdfs, the "Sour Grapes" audio recording from LibraVox, the "Sax" audio file...these could all be updated, or expanded upon, per release even, so that they tied in more with the theme of the release, or simply filled additional duties. There could be filetype examples which also maintain a secondary role as help files. Video or audio interviews with developers, explaining the new features/goals of the current release. Or a vid or document about getting around the desktop. Basically, the Examples folder, which no one seems to check after their first install, could be used in a way where new users can go and find practical info, as well as giving older users a reason to check out what's new.

This is total pie in the sky but it would be great to see some kind of partnership with the big gaming companies such as EA, Blizzard, Bethesda or some such where we could actually work with them in bringing their outstanding game releases to our platform.

Ubuntu should take full advantage of all available mouse buttons.
Integrate this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/146160

When you get a home directory, all the folders are capitalized. This really hurts when using the commandline. If they can't all be converted to lowercase by default, at least have an option do do so.