Contributor doughy

This should only apply if the logged in user has an entry in sudoers..

If I try to create a new folder, and I don't have access it should prompt me for my password (gksudo), and preform the action. This should occur for copy/paste, and all sorts of other functions that instead we have to drop to the shell..

I mainly 'sudo nautilus .' when I need to do this, but its a little clunky, don't you agree?

Advanced users of Ubuntu like to use the terminal for many tasks. Often these users leave a terminal open on the desktop, and must switch to it when they want to move from a graphical program to run a command. It's sometimes a hassle to have to find, click, type, click back...

I propose that a "Quick Terminal" be created. When the user hits a certain keyboard shortcut, the desktop fades and a terminal comes up with immediate keyboard focus. The user can then enter a command (or many) and then quickly jump back to the regular desktop. When the user returns to the terminal that is in the background, it remembers everything that has been typed before.

This would create a seamless transition from the normal GUI desktop into the terminal world. Having both the GUI and terminal tightly woven will allow advanced users to very quickly accomplish their tasks in the most efficient way possible.

The quick terminal could be integrated with stuff like Compiz so that the animation of going from desktop to terminal could be changed.

While requesting features to the open source community which consist mainly of free workers, we may often forget to say how much we like Ubuntu and look like costumers requesting.

So you can say thank you to the thousands of developers and users who gave their time by voting for this article :)

In Mac OS X when you try to copy/move a file in a protected folder appears a pop-up that asks you to insert admin password.

In Ubuntu the same thing become very difficult, especilly copying multiple files: you have to access to the terminal and write a command. This could be really stressing for a new user.

Could you implement the same function seen on Mac?

Currently there is no way to easily share files between multiple local users. I am talking about full read-write access to particular folder, eg. music folder.

Example: Alice and Bob uses the same computer. Alice has read access to Bob's home folder. Bob has read access to Alice's home folder. They want to fully share (read/write) their music. So they should ideally create /home/music folder, put all the music there and use it. Everything Bob puts into there, Alice should be able to read and remove, and vice versa. This is currently impossible in Ubuntu. Bob has to manually fix permissions every time Alice wants to delete something Bob's (Bob creates /home/music/Britney, but Alice can't delete /home/music/Britney/song1.mp3).

I have discussed this issue with several linux gurus and there is currently no easy nor difficult way to achieve this in Linux on the same (ext3) partition. With every proposed solution I can give you counterexample (group permissions, ACLs, local Samba, local NFS, etc - there is always problem when moving files). There would have to be created utility to set shared folders and some daemon would have to monitor changes and modify permissions.

Currently the easiest solution known for me is to share files on separate (ironically) NTFS partition, because when mounting NTFS you can force user/group/permissions on file access. What a shame, we use Microsoft technologies just to share files between Ubuntu users.

This problem is quite serious, give it a thought or two. Everyone who is not using Ubuntu computer alone and wants to share music/films/etc between multiple users knows what I am talking about.

//New info:
Atany has proposed in the comment that BindFS project can be used to achieve this functinality:
http://code.google.com/p/bindfs/
I have tried it and it works very well. Developers which would like to implement this idea should have a look on BindFS, it's very promising tool, it could provide all necessary background for this.

Many times a brainstorm idea is marked as "Done" but I can't figure out where/how the idea was implemented. It would be extremely helpful if there was an explanation that addressed how the idea was implemented at the top of the page. For example.

"The idea has been implemented in the upcoming release of Ubuntu 8.10 in April. To use the new feature, click on System->Administration->New Feature."

Google could put Ubuntu-style logo on their homepage on Hardy release day :). By the way, they use Ubuntu on their desktop computers.

There has been some confusion, but to clarify this brainstorm:

There is an official deviantart "theme" competition which requests new wallpapers and allows new themes to be inside the submission. However, there are two issues:
1) the contest requires the construction of a wallpaper
2) themes and mockups are ungraded and unacknowledged.

This brainstorm argues two amendments:
1)Mockups-only submissions with previous ubuntu wallpapers should be allowed. Wallpapers should not be required. Mockups shouldn't have to be GTK themes.
2)Even if only wallpapers get prizes, there should be a best-mockup recognition award to the best non-wallpaper aspect of submissions. (arguably, themes are harder to judge than wallpapers.)

This would allowed skilled UI designers who are unskilled artists to compete to win consideration by the ubuntu team. I'd like to see mockups of theme ideas that are abstract and un-artistic, like https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incoming/Hardy/Alternate/round_edge , be able to be in the running for this competition. We want to improve the ubuntu look and feel, not just reskin it.

Sorry for the confusion. Here's the original brainstorm text:

Recently, a brainstorm idea was created for a DeviantArt theme mock-up competition for Ubuntu 8.10. It was accepted, but canonical changed the competition's scope from themes to just wallpapers only.

There's a great deal of interest by the general ubuntu art community to create a new theme for ubuntu, as seen by the Hardy incoming "alternate looks" page, yet this competition was changed from its original scope to a far less interesting scope.



[....]

Ubuntu's bootloader is a stark black and white screen, filled with confusing options. It gives newbies a moment of indecision, as they try to figure out if they are supposed to choose something, and wonder why there are three or four Ubuntus listed. Then the timer finishes counting down (starting from 10), and the newb begins to feel like he's getting in over his head as his PC boots into Ubuntu.

Too much information up front, stark text-only display, painfully long countdown timer. What would be the alternative? Well, when a Fedora PC is booted up, the first thing the user sees is a graphical splash screen, and "Booting into Fedora (kernel version) in 4 seconds ... " The user can press a key to interrupt and select from kernel versions or alternative operating systems, or just let it boot into Fedora.

Can't we create our own attractive bootloader? Or, failing that, copy-and-paste Fedora's?

When you click "Save as" menu item in gnome application a dialog windows appears and you naturally start typing new name but that field doesn't have focus and you have to click it. It would be perfect to give focus to the name field automatically.

There is a wide community of online artists capable of creating brilliant, unique artwork.

heading: Get your artwork on 10 million desktops

Ubuntu, the world's most popular Linux distribution, needs a new theme. The winner will appear in the default desktop of Ubuntu 8.10.

We're looking for original wallpapers, that match Ubuntu's color palette. You entry should also include a suggested combination of application, icon, and window themes. These can be existing themes, or your own original works - you only need to submit a wallpaper to win.

Work must be CC licensed, and be openable in either Inkscape or Gimp (rest of criteria continues)

Submit your works to DeviantArt and include the words [Ubuntu810].


Good luck!

Change start page of Brainstorm to show latest ideas or something, else people will probably push for the already high-graded ideas and won't care of other newer ideas.

Maybe a page with random ideas?

And remove the grades if not specifically requested, since it will affect peoples voting.

Ubuntu should include a way to add/remove fonts from a repository just like the add/remove program panel. When a user needs a new font, they could open up the window, and the program would download the latest repository fonts. The user could look through the fonts and choose which ones to install by simply checking a box and clicking "apply." A user could search for font keywords to find certain styles of fonts. For example, someone could search for keywords words "serif","sans serif","cursive", and the GUI would display fonts that match the search. This would be a killer tool for designers.

Furthermore, the GUI could be very helpful. When a user browses a font, a sample image of it could be automatically loaded so that the user can quickly find fonts that are appealing to them. A rating system or popularity gauge could be used so that the best fonts can be highlighted.

A tool like this would create inscentive for font designers to make their designs free/public. Credits could be given to designers in the font descriptions.

The box that pops up when the admin password is required doesn't integrate with compiz and is pretty hideous and intrusive by default. It's pretty pointless for it to take over the whole screen and it could use some styling.

My printer, a Laserjet 1200, is pretty common and is supported by Ubuntu automatically. But I rarely print from it because it stretches my print output, vertically. For example, I have a table in OpenOffice Calc, as a to-do list organized by both importance and urgency, set up to print exactly in a certain way from OpenOffice on Windows XP. But when I open the same document on my Ubuntu computer, it prints stretched out more vertically, so that it doesn't all fit on one sheet. This is printing to the same exact printer. This seems to be the same with other programs.

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.

Improve the boot sequence to reduce the number of mode switches and jarring look and feel changes. While our current boot sequence has evolved beyond a verbose scroll of text on the console, it is still not as elegant as it could be. Increased elegance would result in a much improved user experience, and increase user confidence in the distribution.

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