Contributor guyminuslife

I think this is an important feature missing in ubuntu now that ubuntu i offered by dell as an alternative to windows.

Macosx and also windows Vista already have these features installed in their latest operating systems and it is important for users to control the access of their children to offensive adult websites which could be somewhat harmfull as well.

Because sometimes things don't sound like nearly as good an idea when you've thought on it a while. :-)

Next time you sit back and relax, remember to chill out with an ubuntu beer..

Some ideas were talking about making plushy toys, etc. So why not also rebrand some beer, and hand it out at tech conferences. Ubuntu will be the most popular booth around.

And I know it sounds stupid, however, its a very good way to attract attention. For people who have never heard of ubuntu, it would encourage them to come to the booth and hang around with other diehard ubuntu users (and get the word out there).

The current scoring model is flawed. The only way to keep track of fresh ideas, is to wait while they roll by in the 'Last ideas' section. Popularity creates popularity. This generates polarization and bias to old ideas. I propose a better measurement and ranking system:

Each idea should be ranked against more dimensions than just popularity. Sure, appreciation is important, but so is controversy, clearness and time. Let's say we have a brainstorm idea X, which was posted 3 days ago and has 40 votes pro, 20 votes contra and 5 comments. We also have idea Y, 5 days old, which has 300 votes pro, 320 votes contra, and 100 comments. In the current situation, idea Y will be on top - forever. But we can derive several more useful indicators from these ideas.

Average appreciation (AA):

This is the current way of scoring, which is the amount of 'pro' voters minus the amount of 'contra' voters. This is how much the idea is liked by the brainstorm visitors. For idea X the AA would be +20, for idea Y it would be -20. This would indicate that action should be taken on idea X, rather than idea Y, because the nett amount of pro-votes was higher then the contra votes. This would however ignore the fact that idea Y has 300 pro votes, while idea X has left many people indifferent and generated only some 60 votes total. This brings us to another factor:

Controversy factor (CF):

Tells us something about the attention an idea gets from the BRAINSTORM visitors. Does the idea instantly 'trigger' the viewer? The amount of 'pro' voters plus the amount of 'contra' voters, divided by the absolute average appreciation. This would give idea X a CF of (40+20)/20 = 3. This is low compared to idea Y, which has a score of (300+320)/20, which results in 31. Now we see that idea Y has a higher visibility than idea X, even though the average appreciation of the idea is negative.

Comment-to-controversy factor (CC):

Tells us something about the completeness of an idea. If an idea is clear and evident, people will only vote. When information is missing, people will add comments. It would be wrong to confuse the comments with a discussion, because the current implementation of the comment system only allows for comments on the idea. Threaded comments (commenters commenting commenters) are not allowed. So the amount of all votes divided by the amount of comments would tell us something about how clearly scoped the idea is and what has to be done to implement it. Lower values mean sharper ideas.

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With Ubuntu on Dell machines in the USA, I'm sure this means better boot times, hardware integration, sound, network are all nice and good.

Ubuntu should really be pitching to be the default install (an option for the customer) on as many PCs as possible.

Ubuntu is built on the philosophy that every user should be part of the community. Many users help out in various ways, however very few start programming because of the traditional difficulties.

1) Many people just don't know where to begin. Create a developer resource website and a "Beginner Developer Package" as mentioned in idea #4354.
The website should mostly contain articles aimed at new developers. It can link to external resources (e.g. the KDE and GNOME developer websites) for more advanced information.

Both the website and the developer package should be maintained by the general Linux community. Although the project will not be distro specific, The Ubuntu community will benefit greatly by sponsoring the project.

2) Bring back Canonical Code Bounties to motivate new developers.
Integrate them with community bounties as mentioned in idea 1295.

3) Create a Ubuntu Design Rewards website. (Idea 2961.)
Most developers coding for OS X and Windows have never even heard of Ubuntu. Mac OS X in particular has a costant stream of neat new apps. We need to capture their attention and bring them to Linux by way of contests and prizes.

In particular, Canonical should focus on attracting high school and university students. Google has been sucessful in bringing students to open source by using prizes and monetary incentives (GSoC and GHOP). We need to be more welcoming and do the same.

This way, new users who get Ubuntu, and open Pidgin, see #ubuntu, and can click on it, to chat about Ubuntu and get help if they wonder something.

This could also make it easier to get people involved in the community.
To make it easy for them to get help and to help others.
To make them feel that they are not only using Ubuntu, but that they are actually a part of it.

And hopefully also get some contributors. :)

So if they get involved in the community, and feel they're part of it, they will be like "Wow, I'm in this cool Ubuntu club!" and be proud and go brag about it. :D

Currently, if you upgrade a package from a third-party repository (for instance, Sid), Synaptic cannot automatically downgrade it to a stable, supported version--you have to uninstall it and reinstall it from the Ubuntu repository. This can cause problems, especially if you try upgrading something with a lot of dependencies and want to bring it back to a stable version. I propose an option to allow Synaptic to "restore" packages and to the latest official Ubuntu release.

It would also downgrade packages that depend on a specific version of another package, or prompt the user to remove them if they are not in the official repositories.

I have several HP laptops and one of those had 7.10 installed and I was able to use compiz. After installing 8.04 beta compiz is no longer working.

Again, on 7.10 it worked. On 8.04 it does not.

The error when I do a compiz --replace is:

Checking for Xgl: not present
Found laptop using ati driver
aborting and using fallback: /usr/bin/metacity

I can't figure out for the life of me why Canonical disabled this. This needs to be addressed before the 8.04 for fear that, with the massive number of bugs in Ubuntu that this will become forgotten. Forgotten just like the fact that using the auto login feature causes the sound engines to set the system in overload with near 100% constant cpu utilization, or that the wireless on most HP presario class notebooks from 2-3 years ago just refuses to work, no matter what, even with ndiswrapper.

So, before these laptop issues become lost forever, please address these new bugs you have are introducing.

It would be a great idea to not disable working features.

At the moment more and more companies are outsourcing back-office work to Africa. Some companies in India that were asked to do the back-office work even outsource that too in Africa. Slowly Africa is growing in this part business. But the back-office work needs a lot of computers, and those computers need an OS. If Ubuntu creates something to make it easier for companies to such things with Ubuntu. If they can take this opportunity and bring Ubuntu to the working computers you have large group of (to be) middle-class using Ubuntu at their work. And what people use at their work is something they also want to use at home often.
I think this can be a great opportunity for Ubuntu if the right things are done. But I'm not sure yet what those right things are. ;)

The exchange of addresses of ubuntero who are prepared to share their houses or apartments to make them available as a place to stay and sleep, for example during release parties, fairs, and any contact-exchanges related to Ubuntu. This gives participants a cheap alternative for impersonal hotels and strengthens the social bond with each other. In addition, individuals may be able to share and exchange their houses as a cheap address for the holiday period. It must be made clear, who is willing to take part, so that contact can be made with each other.
: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/guesthouse_and_house_exchange

Nicknames in posts and comments should be less human friendly. We should all be referred to as a number, not as a nickname

Another alternative is to just get people to refer to comment posters by post number, and link posts together somehow

My justification is that:
1) We should all be treated equal as a number. Numbers are easily forgotten, and makes it easy to reply to users, but makes us more anon
2) The use of nicknames promotes "powerusers", who people will unfairly vote any idea for because they had a few other ones.
3) I've seen eldmannen be unfairly targetted by someone with a pointless personal attack
4) I know I'm being unfairly targetted by someone too. My comments should be treated the same as everyone elses. Everyones comments should be treated with the same respect each.
5) Brainstorm should be 100% fair, everyone should have the same fighting chance with an idea! Just because they post what seems to be a notoriously dumb idea once, doesn't mean that people who read the idea should be able turned off, just because they remember the first one.

SPAM will be just as easy to catch, and admins could still be shown nicknames.

A system like this also helps stop continuing bitchiness amongst the same members (some people just like fighting).

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

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.