Contributor fwolfste

On startup Ubuntu will sometimes say the disk "has been mounted x times without being checked, check forced". Then it will make me wait to use the computer. Why not do this at shutdown instead of startup? When the user starts up the computer, they're sending a message to Ubuntu saying "I want to use my computer now." Not later. When they shut down, they're telling Ubuntu "I don't want to use my computer now." Do it then.

Searching synaptic for packages is all well and good, but as soon as I commit any changes, that search is gone. Synaptic searches are fast for what they are searching through, but it does take time and is really annoying to lose. Can't search result lists be kept the entire session, or even kept across sessions?

I like the Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded initiative. I think it would be really cool to have a phone with my favourite os on it :P
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MobileAndEmbedded

I faked some screenshots of how I think Ubmob would be brilliant.
http://www.2shared.com/file/3162217/70eebbb8/ubmob.html

Ubmob should have:

- Applications/places/system menu structure
- Task bar
- WiFi/Bluetooth/IrDA/3G
- SD/USB
- Web browser (Firefox 3), RSS/Podcast reader, email (Evolution), chat (Pidgin), command-line bittorrent, VNC viewer
- Media player (Gstreamer), Nautilus with thumbnailing, Terminal, advanced calculator, notes (not tomboy), baobab
- Full GnomeVFS, gedit, python, pygtk
- It's one repository and update system
- Multi-user support
- NO shutdown, only lock/standby/switch user/hibernate
- Special interaction program for Ubuntu Desktop
- NFS/UpnP for file sharing by default.

On my desktop (AthlonXP 1700+ 512mb) the update/install process is HEAVY and slow down all the applications.
It would be useful to set a low priority level for this kind of tasks.

When I type a command in the command-line, and the program is not installed, I get a suggestion which program I should install in order to make this command available. When I press Alt+F2 in gnome, I get an execution window where I can type in any command. I would like to get a suggestion gui which asks me wether I want to install the package.

This idea will probably dive like a broken torpedo, but eh, what the heck... I'm brainstorming here.

Make a new terminal application with dropdown menus for commands.

When you select a command, it shows the -h or --help text in a scrollable field at the top of the window and you get another dropdown for adding in dash "-" arguments or a browse button for adding files to the end of the arguement.

essentially, it would let you build command line strings without fear of misspelling, and with help text there to guide you along the way.

This might make the command line a little less scary for some.

UPDATE
Thanks to the community. Feature was allready implemented (alt+mbr)!


I use Alt+Mousedrag a lot to move windows around in gnome.
I would like to have a feature like this for resizing as well.
Problem is that resizing with the mouse is sometimes a bit tricky (window might be bigger than screen, no task bar to access context menu with right click etc).
For example CTRL+Shift+Mousedrag (or Alt+Rightmousedrag) would work nicely i think, as ctrl and shift are really close to each other and i do not know any application that uses this combo.

synaptic > settings >repositories
add 'close and reload' button to save one click ;)

The "About Me" utility under System->Preferences is a nifty way to store information like your name, phone number, etc.

Do many people use it? I think not. Why? Because you have NO idea which applications read this information and what they do with it.

Either allow me to control which applications read this information so I can restrict access on a field level or get rid of the thing entirely. For example, I do not want Pigin/IRC channels to have access to my home phone number, etc.

As it is, it has that creepy, privacy-invading feel of Windows that made me move to Ubuntu in the first place. Time to fix it or lose it.

I'm mostly opening and saving to the same directory across different programs.

It would help if every time I Save or Load a file, the dirname of the file would be stored in a small (say 4 item) list in the left pane of the Save/Load dialogs.

The list doesn't need to be long and would easily fit below the Bookmarks (if you don't have many bookmarks).

Using the directory history list, I can then easily open and close the same files from different applications.

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!

When I logged into Ubuntu 8.04 Beta, my CPU was pegged. Using top, I found it from a process related to Evolution. I think evolution-data-server-2.22.

This is annoying, because I never use Evolution. And with the advent gmail, yahoo mail, etc. I suspect fewer people each day use non-browser mail clients.

Similarly, when Beagle indexing was enabled by default, we once again had a case of imposing a nasty, unexplained CPU burden on users who didn't even want to use the service. Same thing for 'updatedb' for mlocate.

Now, to make things worse: in order to prevent evolution-data-server from hogging my CPU, I tried to uninstall it. But doing so would have uninstalled, among other things, ubuntu-desktop. If I had uninstalled ubuntu-desktop, then I wouldn't automatically receive other packages were later added it. So that wasn't a good option either.

I propose:
1. Do NOT include these annoying packages in the base installation.

2. Having a post-install (for the person doing the install) wizard. Here, prompt the users about installing sometimes-desired but sometimes-actively-undesired packages such as the ones mentioned above.

3. Haveing a post-first-login wizard, run the first time each account is logged into. Have it ask users about whether or not they want Beagle's indexing to be enabled, evoluation-data-server to be enabled, etc. This will both make them aware of these services, and let them avoid the unexplained CPU peggings.

The home page of epiphany should contain an overview of all bookmarks.

Not like bookmark-manager, but like tag-cloud with more popular bookmarks and history items on the top.

Together with my other epiphany improvements (crumble-bar instead of addres-bar, and search-bar in the status-bar) this would work as a starting point for navigation.

One can use the search field in the status-bar to filter the list of bookmarks/history items.

When clicking control+H at any time we go back to the home page and focus the search field. The up and down keys should allow to travel through the bookmarks

An application able to detect bad configuration and
able to suggest new parameters.

Few months ago, after an update, my swap partition was not mounted anymore. My PC was badly slow, but i didn't guess immediatly what was going wrong.

It's better now but i still believe it s not quick enough. I am sure there are still bad things to optimize on my configuration.

Sorry for my pathetic english.

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.

One good thing about brainstorm is that it gives the community a solid way of getting involved. let's add to that.

if a person likes an idea, and wants to help make it happen, they should be able to sign up publicly on brainstorm.

several benefits of this:
- make it even easier to get involved.
- community can see which users are helping with which ideas.

wouldn't be too hard to generate an email list from the users who volunteer.

I've wasted many hours of my life clicking "Skip" more than 15.000 times while doing full backups of my home-directory.

Nautilus simply HAS TO offer more buttons than "Skip", "Abort" and "Retry". A simple "Skip All" in the fashion of "Overwrite All" would have saved my hands, arms and mousebuttons severe strain!

Secondly, a "Skip this folder" should also be introduced. For example, Nautilus could offer this functionality after 3 files of the same folder could not be copied successfully (Just an idea).

These functions are really easy to implement & they would help so much! Please fix this!

P.S.: Alternatively, make Nautilus simply copy everything without trouble. I really do not understand why it always complains over 15.000 times when copying my home-directory... even when I'm root. This is bad. But offering Skip-functionality might be the easier choice!

Apt-build is a utility similar to emerge in gentoo.
It fetches the sources of a deb and then compiles them on one's machines.
However, it's writen in perl and it's not maintained anymore.
I think if someone want more out of is old hardware or just 'best tune' his sever it might be another good way to do it !
So, bottom line, I'd live to use apt-build, but it's a little bit to old for me and needs updating and need new featurs.
Perhaps, we could rewrite in python ?

We all have to admit, that every now and then there is a need to boot windows. Like when you and your friends want to start playing starcraft again. The problem is, I constantly miss the grub menu because I'm grabbing a beer (to help me deal with windows a little better), which is a pain in the ass. A practical easy way to fix this would be to have a "boot to windows button" option in the shutdown menu.

Currently using Normal or Extra Visual Effects in Ubuntu, you can't use Shift while alt-tabbing, which is unbelievably annoying. It must be fixed!