Contributor eapache

It would be really nice to have an "Upgrade" in addition to the "Install" option on the Ubuntu LiveCD. This option would keep all existing users, user directories and local (non-system) user settings on the hard drive. The rest of the system would be completely reinstalled (drivers,desktop,etc.), and all installed packages by the user would be erased.

In effect, this option would be a regular install, except that the installer would copy the user directories to memory before rewriting the partition, and then recopy them back onto the hard drive after installation. No separate /home/ partition would be necessary to ensure that the users' files are kept safe.

This option would be extremely easy to implement, and would require virtually no extra space on the LiveCD. It might even be integrated into the regular "Install" option. There would be no need for an extra partition for the /home/ folder, or a backup prior to the installation. I think that users would greatly benefit, and that the Ubuntu would become more promising as an "offline" OS. I imagine that laptop and business users would benefit the most, as neither might have access to an internet connection.

now USB disk looks the same as ordinary disk,
and when I need to find it for unmounting it is little frustrating (and looks unproffesional), because for example SD card has very nice icon for itself..

It will be nice to have one ubuntu login to all ubuntu services (launchpad, brainstorm, forum, wiki, ...). I'm a bit ill when I think that I have to created another account (this time for forum- I have launchpad and brainstorm). Oh wiki too...

If people have webcams, I think its a nice idea to have a face of the cube that is actually a mirror, that is to see yourself in full screen. So let's say you want to have a quick check on yourself, you do "ctrl + alt + up" and it changes to the mirror. Im saying compiz because it can actually make the whole cube more useful, but it can be a separate piece of software, that can be nicely integrated with a good shortcut.

When you have a slow computer, you really don't want to update while working. It slows down everything you do. So i would like to see an option in the shut-down menu update and shut-down. Or when there are new updates detected, you already can choose for installing them on shut-down.
A lot of people i know would find this very handy, especially the ones I've convinced to use ubuntu because it stays fast instead of microsoft.

this is not the same idea as http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea 4511

If a USB disk is plugged in and and all partitions are mounted in, unmounting one partition shouldn't display the message "Safe to remove device" as other partitions are still mounted in the system.

It's impossible to rotate images directly in Writer. I have to open them in Draw first and export the Draw image into Writer. That just sucks. I want to import a picture and rotate it instantly. Please add this function to OO.o!

(see screenshot: http://i37.tinypic.com/296no6t.png )

In System Monitor, there is a list of processes with various information. The idea is that in this process list, when an item is clicked, a panel on the right would give a description of that process. (What package it is part of, link to the man page, link to documentation, typical behavior)

This would be useful, because usually if you are attempting to identify what processes are running, and why - you will find the process name and start googling it to find out what package it is part of.

When I do this, I can usually see that others have googled to find out the same information. (One example is seeing two gdm instances..the info could show that it's typical to see two instances of this)

The info pages could also be set up via 'wiki'

This would also be very educational for getting newbies more comfortable with system processes and familiar with linux architecture.

from:
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=9rh9gj&s=4

to:

http://i37.tinypic.com/296no6t.png

Recent Ubuntu releases have become increasingly buggy. This is personal experience speaking. Also, take a look at this article. I think this is unacceptable. While I'm all for adding new features, this is a dead end. In the end, Ubuntu will be one unusably buggy, though feature-complete distribution. (Fortunately, we're far from it yet.)

The solution?

I'd say "Dedicate more effort towards fixing bugs", but this is too vague to implement. What we need is to do a little housekeeping once in a while. For example, every five distros there should be one which would implement a minimum of new features, concentrating on fixing the bugs instead. (It could be accomplished by pushing forward the feature freeze a month or two and/or delaying the release for a few weeks or so.) This would force developers who want to keep working on Ubuntu to concentrate on the boring task of some serious debugging rather than the merry feature chase.

But wait, I hear, isn't that what an LTS release is?

No, not currently, it isn't. The only difference between the LTS Hardy and previous non-LTS releases that I see is explained in its name: it's Long Term Support. Bug-wise, Hardy is worse than Gutsy. If you want a more or less stable release, you've got to wait half a year for the latest LTS to fix most its critical bugs. But it doesn't help the overall quality of Ubuntu and doesn't fix some long-standing and annoying bugs which transcend from one release to another.

I think this should be rectified. LTS's don't happen so often, after all. I propose that all future LTS releases be dedicated to bug-fixing only, unless the situation becomes radically better during these years.

When an USB-device isn't properly unmounted in Windows you get an error message in Ubuntu and have to force the mount from the commandline.

My guess is that in 99 percent of the cases you DO want to mount the device anyways through a force mount.

If you need root-privileges to do such an operation - fire up gsudo, enter password and mount it.

Many games come with a .bin file, like savage2, quake4, world of padman etc. But if you want to install them you have to open a terminal, then cd path_to_file and ./filename.bin.
It would be nice if the installer started by double clicking it.

Gnome's "Take Screenshot" application should be extended to also allow the desktop to be recorded as a video. This would be used heavily by many power users, including those who like to showoff compiz to friends, to help show newbie family how do to some things they are having trouble with, and those who work on video tutorials.

I think that there should be at least an option for a downloads folder by default where files would be downloaded by any apps

Currently if you select the "remember password" option in Evolution, each time you start the programme and it connects to email server you'll have to type your user password in the key manager. While I understand security reasons this makes "remember password" totally useless. The option that should save you some hassle still forces you to enter password just a different one...

I have never used this menu item, but it must be there for a reason.
It would be great if it only showed up when a blank, writable, or rewritable media was inserted.

Say you want to input 'firefox -profilemanager'.

You can type in 'fir' and hit TAB and probably 'firefox' gets completed depending what's installed on your system. Now it would be sweet to key in a dash (-) to indicate you wish to input a switch and then either hit TAB to see all available switches for the command or type in, say 'prof' and then hit TAB to have it complete the wanted switch. (i.e. just like it now does with commands or file names)

I think that search/file sharing could be improved. I propose that tracker be allowed to share indexing information with other computers on a local area network, providing they all run Ubuntu and have file sharing enabled (sharing indexing information would be optional, maybe a checkbox in tracker preferences?). That way while searching for a file, you could also search for it on other computers on the network. All files would have to have the option to be either public (shared in the index information) or private (not indexed or indexed only on the local computer).

The indexing information would be updated between systems maybe once a day or so. While searching for a file, you would be able to specify where to look for it, ie: locally only, or networked computers only, or both.

Tracker can search for any file stored on the computer. Why not widen this function to include other things as well? For example, browser bookmarks. I don't always want to open my browser in order to find a link to send to a friend I'm talking to in Skype or something.

When I format my external USB drives in windows, I can name the drive, and that name is recognized in every operating system I have used. In Ubuntu, using the partitioning tool, I don't get the option to add names to my drives, which really bothers me. It would clear up problems for other people too, since if the drive is not named Ubuntu just calls it whatever is convenient for Ubuntu at the time. This would be a really useful function to add.

I often drag-'n-drop tabs around on in firefox to order what I am doing (work left, personal right). I do this on the taskbar in Gnome as well. In firefox it gives this little purple arrow showing between which tabs it will be when you release the mouse button.

I would like to see this on the gnome taskbar as well. This would make gnome again a little bit more intuitive.