Contributor guyminuslife

I think, a lot of people like to help with ubuntu development, but they don't know where to start. This includes not only programmers but also designers, music composers or just the normal ubuntu user.

So how about creating a website "howcanihelp.ubuntu.com" where everyone (except for C/C++ programmers ;-) ) can find out how to contribute?

Examples:
PHP Programmer -> help with Brainstorm Development, someproject.ubuntu.com needs a new Website, ...
Music Composer -> (don't know where this should link)
Graphic Artist -> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork
Foreign Language Native Speaker -> Translate Subtitles at screencasts.ubuntu.com,...
Beginner Ubuntu User -> (don't know if we find something for them :-) )
Advanced Ubuntu User -> Help people at IRC #ubuntu, https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WikiToDo, join the Documentation Team...
Marketing Expert -> ...


and so on!

Probably this is going to be controversial but...

The majority of people that are into open source/free software probably don't like very much some of the laws the USA got, DMCA, software patents, lots of power to DRM and not so much power to the users... Microsoft threatening Linux with lawsuits! a "Sue them all!!!" policy that threatens everyone...
Lots of countries in the world have more freedom in the aspect of the "digital things"... and it kinda sucks that every ubuntu user in the world gets a system that (in it's default configuration, of course) can't even play a .mp3 file! not because of technical limitations, but because of laws made by the powerfull people of one or few countries, lobbied by the rich guys and companys...

Why not just relocate ubuntu main servers to a more free country? I don't know were they are now, but Sweden, for example, looks good for this kind of things... so a more “complete package” of ubuntu could be offered (I'm talking about software like libdvdcss, etc... software that is free software but is not included only because the fear of lawsuits) I'm not saying: “Lets be the Pirates of Sealand and live in anarchy!”, but most of us agree that the current laws in USA are a bit...... well... I leave it to you to think about it...

[EDIT] This is not about including proprietary software, it is about including FREE software, but that in the current situation is ILLEGAL (link to PDF with DRM) to use in the USA (or at least "risky" or "in a grey area" of legislation).

(This is not getting into stuff like "My country is better than yours!"... they All have good things and bad things... it is just my humble opinion...)
Peace.

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

Make Wine 1.0 available in Hardy (through hardy-updates). This makes it easier for some companies who depend on XP software (which already works well in wine) to make the transition to Ubuntu.

IMHO it would be nice to release wine 1.0 through hardy-updates so everyone who hasn't disabled hardy-updates will get it. The wine 1.0 branch will probably continue to receive important updates making it easier for Ubuntu to maintain.

According to Eric S. Raymond's "World Domination 201" Wine is very important for Linux to become successful on the desktop.

Why wine is so important :
http://www.winehq.org/site/why
http://catb.org/~esr/writings/world-domination/world-domination-201.html

Wine 1.0 will release on june 6th. Hardy will release on june 5th. This makes it impossible to include wine 1.0 in Hardy except through hardy-backports or hardy-updates.

More information :
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardyReleaseSchedule
http://wiki.winehq.org/WineReleasePlan

Please, make the repositories hold all the applications I like, even if they are proprietary and it is illegal to include them.

why negative points and a lot of energy spent on the wrong system + frustrations for the undocumented, just .

Negative vote just add an unhappy degree of complications - also for a good idea someone can vote negative just without good arguments even without read this idea ...just see the title, so this is a bad criteria.

A correct system should put a single button > VOTE THIS IDEA.

Don't like, don't vote. Clean & clear.

So the total are made from pure Votes.
You don't like - you don't vote, no more time spent on the Universe, no more frustrations or flames.

-- my 1024 bytes on this nice, but not yet mature system

The bird in the Hardy wallpaper (Fela Kuti) has very strong colors of red, orange and yellow.

This is great from a marketing perspective, but from a usability perspective the use of signal colors in the background is not a perfect choice. Our eyes and brain will inevitably give some attention to the strong colored figure, which is not optimal during daily use.

The color strength on the bird figure should be tuned down just a *little* bit, to improve the long term user comfort. Not much, perhaps a 5% lean towards the background swirl tone.

Many new eager users who have been using Windows often feel disheartened at the fact in order to install some software they need to “compile” something or run a “sudo” command line. The same goes for changing settings of a hardware device. I do not mean to sound like a whiny Windows user. I actually am pretty good with computers, I build my own. But I REALLY want to use Ubuntu without having to know UNIX or Linux.

---correction---
I really would like to use Ubuntu without having to know about advanced tweaking, compiling, or tarballs. And please understand, I think I can deal with all of that, but I am speaking in general terms about the average Joe or Jane that may know how to install a program or configure a sound card in Windows, but does not need to know how to compile source code, or edit *.ini files or jump to DOS to issue a command line in order to install or configure something.
---end correction---

I like the user interface, the way it looks and of course I absolutely love the price. Ubuntu just needs to offer easier software installation and hardware device settings. Unfortunately most of the world is used to the ease of installation Windows offers. In order for Ubuntu to became more attractive to Windows users (and it is almost there) it needs to equate that ease of installation.

Now, I know a lot of packages are available through "click to install". I think ALL installable software for Ubuntu should be like this. Now, we still want installation options, you know, “Express” or “Normal” and “Custom” installations, where we get to tweak installation settings. Also installation percentage, time remaining, and the ability to minimize installation to the taskbar or system tray (sorry, I am using Windows terms, I do not know their names in Ubuntu). I strongly agree that there should be one global repository with multiple mirrors, so ALL Ubuntu software is available to ALL at the same time, without having to go from one to another to find different programs to install.

The Ubuntu Device Manager needs to be more of a report or a list and really allow user to tweak ALL settings and aspects of a specific piece of hardware, yes I hate to say it, but kind of like Windows. Maybe even go beyond the Windows Device Manager allowing the user to create hardware profiles for the whole computer, including all devices and sub devices connected to these devices. For example, the profile of “My computer” would contain information about the motherboard, maybe through a device driver or a motherboard profile, and once clicked a graphical representation of the motherboard’s architecture shows up on the screen, complete with clickable components, like south bridge, expansion slots, and if something is connected to this slots, like a sound card, it would show it graphically as a card installed in the specific port. The port and the card are independently clickable and tweakable. Maybe under the port properties there could be a link to the sound card properties. Too hard to make a graphical map? I’d settle for a tree representation, but please don’t make us compile something, or run “sudo” commands or edit some configuration file, or deal with "tar balls". I had enough of that when working with MS-DOS back in the 80’s. Still offer this as options for “advanced tweaking” for “super users” if you will, but also offer configuration windows with more complete options for us “regular” or “semi-advanced” users, when it comes to software installation and hardware device manager.

[....]

Make a new application or improve Beagle, Tracker or Deskbar.

It do acronym lookups, math calculation, fact lookup, data generation, unit conversion, etc.

So that when I ask it something, it answers me.
RAM? = Random access memory
91*74-26 = 6708
Capital of Sweden? = Stockholm
22 inch in centimeter = 55.88 centimeter
chemical formula for water? = H2O
#0000ff = shows the color blue
01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 = hello
68 65 6C 6C 6F = hello
Hello in Italian? = ciao
Time in Tokyo? = 19:46
Weather in Paris? = 7°C, sunny.
rot13 hello = uryyb

So right from the Deskbar (or something) on the desktop, I can ask something, and it will answer me.

One thing that's always bothered me, no matter which OS I've been on, is the way I can be typing in one window when another program tosses up a notification or error which immediately gets closed because I just pressed space or enter. I propose a mechanism be developed by which keyboard input is temporarily paused or halted if a window appears when more than X number of keys is being pressed per ten seconds.

I realise the difficulties inherent in this; a daemon or service would eat up unnecessary CPU cycles, it's impractical to patch every program in existence to follow this behaviour, and most other ways of doing this have one argument against them or another. However, if this were presented as an opt-in behaviour, I believe it would benefit a fair percentage of people for a relatively small amount of coder output.

Add 'gksu' to the launcher command line for Update Manager so that password is requested when the application starts and not when you click 'Check'. This would then make it consistent with Synaptic Package Manager.

Hands aloft, who's still running a machine with 32-bit CPU? Make the 64-bit compile the focus, dump Gnome and make KDE rock solid.

Now you just see your idea going under zero and never learn why that piece of genius is not worshipped by others :)

Almos all games for Pc are maked for microsfot... so we need something to run those games in Ubuntu. Are some programs like cedega (not free) wine but dosent work fine we need a different solution, One solution could be to make a viertual machine to soppurt 3d for games other solution is a way to migrate games for windows to ubuntu.

Maybe it's just silly, but what about a top 10 of users with higher scoring ideas? (not that I would be in it anyway especially after this)

I would like to have the choice at install time whether I want to use GRUB or LILO and especially where I want to install the loader. Currently, GRUB is default AND the loader will be put at the MBR by default. Therefor, I need the alternate CD but this is NOT for noobs. Please give a user the choise. I know that Knoppix and Kanotix works this way.

In the vast majority of keyboards distributions comma is next to dot. Many people mistyped those characters were entering address. Firefox should replace automatically wrongs commas whith dots (anyway, comma is not a valid part of a full featured URL)

Do NOT use a web 2.0-esque, glossy theme. Everything looks glossy these days, and Ubuntu should be different because:

-Ubuntu is brown in order to be different. Why then is it glossy like everything else?

-The gloss clashes with the brown and orange theme. It should be less glossy and more organic or earthy looking.

-Everybody is sick of gloss by now.

The look of Ubuntu needs to be original and unique.

I firmly believe there is no reason why Ubuntu can't work together with a company like Apple. I would love to see some of apple's proprietary software ported to Linux. A more user friendly way of accessing Apple hardware would be nice too. The idea behind such a merger would be the idea of kicking Microsoft when it's down. With how poorly Vista is doing, now is the time to team up with all of Microsoft's rivals and kick Microsoft off it's high horse.

The standard linux filesystem starts with / as opposed to c:\.

To encourage windows users, there be a way to spoof the look of a windows style filesystem. The idea is to alias root as C:\ and mounted drives under other letters,and show reverse slashes throughout the filesystem. To a windows user, the / root is intimidating, and the "reversed" (from their perspective) slashes are a different look and a strange feel to adapt to. This change is a good opportunity to make users feel at-home.