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.

Currently it is very difficult to setup and control access to shared folders without editing conf files and reading detailed instructions on all the variables. I propose that sharing (specifically Samba) be given a well worked GUI and some real TLC to bring it up to standard with the experience on Windows or OS X.

Provide this warning with possibility to solve the problem.

I want Gnome to remember and reapply the size and location of all windows / apps / panels that I open.

I'm constantly resizing / maximizing / repositioning the same windows over and over again. It's a productivity drain.

Applications *should* remember / restore their size and position, but they don't.

Apparently, "the Gnome development team will not develop Gnome to handle these issues. Saying it is the job of the application to save its state of size and position". I think that's wrong, and if Gnome won't do it, Ubuntu should patch it.

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When Ubuntu enters version freeze, the games fall out of date, and it can be harder to play them online without finding a 3rd party update or compiling it yourself (Freeciv, Scorched3D, and Battle for Wesnoth to name a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.

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.

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.

I'm a big fan of Images like .iso. However it is not very easy to mount these Images.

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.

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.