Contributor evil

Advanced power management currently cycles the hard drive once every few seconds even during activity on most laptops. This severely shortens the life of hard drives.

Right now, the most likely successful migrations to Ubuntu happen for *nix experts and total novices who have someone install Ubuntu for them, but the most likely people to try Ubuntu are Windows power users--those who like a lot of configuration options but who are also used to using the GUI for tweaking options and not manually editing a text configuration file.

The most popular requests for editing the /boot/grub/menu.lst file involve changing the default boot option (to Windows instead of Ubuntu) and changing the timeout before a boot option is selected. The other less popular ones would be just bonus features, I guess.

cd/dvd roms come with a technology called "lightSCribe"... I would love to see this integrated into the operating system somehow.
There is a .deb file for it on the main lightscribe.com site but its for i386 not 64-bit...
There is a sdk available on their site so integrating this may be even easier..
Would be really nice to actually use this feature..

Thanks

I'm constantly frustrated by applications stealing my focus. There should be some way for me to ensure that when I begin typing somewhere, an overzealous application will never pop up in front of what I'm working on.

If an application needs my attention, it's task bar button should simply pulse so I can turn my attention to it when I'm ready. Pidgin does this; why not everything else?

On Mac OS X, Growl provides a system-wide way to notify the user that something has happened without getting in the way. I'd very much like to see Ubuntu adopt something like that.

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.

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.

Bluetooth support is still a mixed bag in ubuntu. Ubuntu needs to do a better job of making sure bluetooth devices work with the operating system. Headsets are still an arcane science and Nautilus still can't browse a BT device.

- show free space in a progressbar
- show size of each individual package for the easier decision (remaining free space and download time are important)

(sorry for my bad english)

Most of the planet uses the Metric System. So why does the system default to imperial units? Make A4 the default paper size for printing, only two countries don't use it. Most people don't know what inches are so cm or mm should be the default.

You should do "Manual Duplex" printing in the Gnome Print Dialog. This is my #1 most asked for feature, and it doesn't work well in the driver because you need a GUI.

It would print odd pages (1,3,5), put up a GUI that says "Insert the pages again...", and then rotate and print the even pages in the reverse order (6, 4, 2).

http://foo2zjs.rkkda.com/

Make installation of 64-bit on desktop easier. There are many obstructions such a Flash, Opera, Skype etc. And many MANY others...

Many users still use 32-bit Ubuntu just because they scare - complicated setup of 64-bit means less users > Less desktop users means less topics at support phorums > less help > more (unsolved) problems for new 64-bit users.

All new computers are 64-bit (Intel/AMD). Be more oriented to new "standard" desktop computers and take the advantages!

Yes, it's a 64-bit world ;-)

a lot of times, text is not copied. even if i cut, the selected text disapears in firefox and isn't pasteable in pidgin. sometimes the clipboard is an older version, if i paste.

I browse samba, nfs and ftp-shares daily in Nautilus, and i love the drag & drop between folders.

Sadly though i need to use another ftp-client to connect to my ssl-enabled ftp. It would be wonderful to use Nautilus to browse these too.

Nautilus = An all-in-one solution!

gtk applications especially openoffice, mozilla firefox, mozilla thunderbird, ...

need an advanced & unified printing dialog which is comparable to the ones offered by microsoft's windows' printing drivers

they at least should include support for several pages per sheet (4 pages on 1 paper; 2 pages on 1 paper, duplex, etc etc)

apps like evince already support it but it's definitely missing on openoffice & firefox (where it obviously is needed the most)

a good example for offered printing options is kpdf

sorry if that functionality is already planned for the next upcoming versions of the mentioned apps

thanks ! =)

E.g. synaptic could provide a history of what has been installed when along with the possiblity to remove it again.
Fore the people who sometimes evaluate software and afterwards want to remove it again (alon with all installed dependencies)

e.g.

Installed yesterday:
at 5:21pm (_remove_)
Selected
OpenOffice.org
Selected dependencies
Java (1 package depends on Java, _see list_)

Installed two days ago:
at 12:12pm (_remove_)
Selected
GIMP

at 2:59pm (_remove_)
Selected
Gnucash
Selected dependencies
AQbanking (2 packages depends on AQbanking, _see list_)
libchipcard (1 package depends on libchipcard, _see list_)

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.

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

As a user I want to be able to listen to audio or watch videos with the least amount of setup. I would like to have a single interface (Codec Manager) that lists all of the most common audio and video formats and shows me if I am missing the necessary codec for playback.

Use Case: Enable MP3 playback.
Precondition: MP3s are not currently playable.
1. User logs into the system.
2. User opens the Codec Manager.
3. System displays a list of common audio/video formats.
4. User selects MP3s.
5. System displays some info about MP3s.
6. System displays a list of available codecs.
7. User selects a codec and clicks Apply.
8. System downloads and installs the selected codec.
9. System informs the user when completed.

Other possible features:
- Display a list of audio/video types that are missing codecs.
- An auto-setup function, that grabs the recommended codec for all formats.

Audio and Video formats that should be supported:

Audio:
- MP3
- OGG
- AAC
- FLAC
- Real Audio

Video:
- MP4

[....]

Currently I can encrypt an ubuntu system during install, but if I did not I have to reinstall to get encryption. I would like a simple way to tell ubuntu to encrypt the system or a part of it, such as:

Swap
Home
Root
All

The possibility to restore deleted files with a right mouse click in the trash bin in Gnome