Contributor johno

I have TV tuner card I would like to use, but there is no simple procedure for using it.
I already posted same question / proposals on Kubuntu forums
and I learned that that TV tuner programs don't really work well
and the only program to use is VLC, but even there it's very hard to make it happen.
So making this a bit more user friendly would not be such a bad idea.
Maybe an Ubuntu supported TV tuner program and drivers for tv tuner card.
I think this could really make life easier for a lot people.

I can't post link to forums (don't know why) so here they are:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=4124768#p%20ost4124768
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=3093348.0
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=3085164.0

I guess everybody has experienced the rather long boot up times in Ubuntu (particularly with laptops). I know they are already working on it, but the change from feisty to gutsy was a pain in the ass in terms of boot up speed.
A default WinXP installation beats Ubuntu's boot up time by far!! That shouldn't be allowed fellas!!

I therefore propose to the development team (both Ubuntu and by extension Gnome)to work on the improvement of boot up times in Ubuntu systems.

I've 2 distros installed on my laptop: Ubuntu Gutsy and Arch Linux! The feel with arch is that it's whippy. From the other side ubuntu is sluggish. Sure I know that my system is not so up to date (a 1.5 Ghz centrino 512 M Ram) but Arch work very well on it with the same services loaded as in ubuntu.

So I think Ubuntu can do something to improve performance.

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

Currently there is no way to easily share files between multiple local users. I am talking about full read-write access to particular folder, eg. music folder.

Example: Alice and Bob uses the same computer. Alice has read access to Bob's home folder. Bob has read access to Alice's home folder. They want to fully share (read/write) their music. So they should ideally create /home/music folder, put all the music there and use it. Everything Bob puts into there, Alice should be able to read and remove, and vice versa. This is currently impossible in Ubuntu. Bob has to manually fix permissions every time Alice wants to delete something Bob's (Bob creates /home/music/Britney, but Alice can't delete /home/music/Britney/song1.mp3).

I have discussed this issue with several linux gurus and there is currently no easy nor difficult way to achieve this in Linux on the same (ext3) partition. With every proposed solution I can give you counterexample (group permissions, ACLs, local Samba, local NFS, etc - there is always problem when moving files). There would have to be created utility to set shared folders and some daemon would have to monitor changes and modify permissions.

Currently the easiest solution known for me is to share files on separate (ironically) NTFS partition, because when mounting NTFS you can force user/group/permissions on file access. What a shame, we use Microsoft technologies just to share files between Ubuntu users.

This problem is quite serious, give it a thought or two. Everyone who is not using Ubuntu computer alone and wants to share music/films/etc between multiple users knows what I am talking about.

//New info:
Atany has proposed in the comment that BindFS project can be used to achieve this functinality:
http://code.google.com/p/bindfs/
I have tried it and it works very well. Developers which would like to implement this idea should have a look on BindFS, it's very promising tool, it could provide all necessary background for this.

Ubuntu needs to go green. Powertop, Lesswatts and other tools have finally hit the Linux scene to pave the way for better power management. It needs to be said, "if you want your battery to last longest, or have your energy bill be the lowest, you better use Ubuntu Linux."

When I use small screen (e.g. eeepc), the gnome theme steals too much space of the desktop
As in Clearlooks Compact http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Clearlooks+Compact?content=69357
we could gain some space reducing the bottons and sidebar size (look at the .gif)
http://pollycoke.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/clearlooks-compact.gif
(thanks, felipe)

Actually, we have 5 wallpapers, 9 themes and 80+ SCREENSAVERS!!!

WHAT THE HELL!

Who need that amount of screensavers?

I think we should vote five to the default installation, and the other ones comes with a optional package?

Isn't gnome "keep it simple"?

For me just a "dim screen" is enough for default.

In both Compiz and Metacity it would be nice to have smoother windows movements. You realise this after you go back to the Mac for a while. It just gives you that nice feeling of a sturdy environment.

It is very frustrating when you get caught out after 30 boots and the system does a full check. Especially if you are about to give a presentation or you just need to read one bit of information. The Ubuntu team have done a great job of speeding up the boot time but this irritation undoes all the good work.

Possible solutions and further explanation:
http://micrux.net/?p=52

if we must have screensavers give us some useful ones. Educational and Informational.

-- Clock and Weather Screensaver.
-- Alarm Clock and Weather Screensaver.
-- World Clock Screensaver.
-- Local Weather with Weather Around the World Screensaver.
-- Count Down to Specific Date Screensaver.
-- World Atlas Map (Countries and Bodies of Water) Screensaver.
-- Human Body (Muscles and Bones) Screensaver.
-- System and Network Status Screensaver.
-- User Photos Slideshow Screensaver.
-- Panoramic view of landscapes screensaver.
-- Destination Photos from Around the World Sceensaver.
-- Icon which shows up when new Mail or Instant Message Arrives.
-- RSS Screensaver.
---- World News screensaver.
---- Word of the day screensaver.
---- Today in History screensaver.
---- Nutritional Health Tip Screensaver.
---- Screensaver with Collection of Jokes.
---- Various Dictionary Screensavers (Programming Terms, Linux, Mathematics, Science, Legal, Tech...)

I'm the "happy" owner of an ATI Radeon 9200 PRO... Neither Envy nor Restricted Drivers interface can install the proprietary driver on my PC... Why??????

Like the title says, I want to turn off my monitor sometimes. With a hotkey. Complete with LCD backlight. Sure, you can usually do it by pressing the power key, but on a laptop you've got to close the lid, and sometimes I want to turn off the montitor without closing the lid, for example, when I'm using the notebook as a substitute audio player. Conserving the energy, yet having access to back/forward/volume/etc...

If you liked this idea, check out my other ideas.

Gimp is a great graphics editor we all know. Congratulations to all developpers!

My Idea:
- Adding a Selection for "Using Gimp in one Window"

IMPORTANT
- That should NOT be default, but an option, which doesn't go in trouble for users liking this multi window management with its advantages!

I guess that more than 20% of the gimp users where really happy for this important feature. I know that Gimpshop and other Plugins are available, but this couldn't be the end solution. Gimp should bring this "little" feature with it in future! Thanks!

F-Spot is a relatively clumsy photo-manager. One major issue is the fact that it completely ignores my organization of photos into folders and imposes its own schemes and tries to make a duplicate copy of all photos to "import" it into the F-spot collection. Why can't the organizer respect the organization that the user already has and build up on that?

gThumb is so much better in this aspect. Moreover, you can also choose to work with your collection in Nautilus if you feel like, without having to open the photo manager every time you need to touch your photos.

I think it is very confusing that during installation, the screen suddenly becomes black. It would be much better if there would be at least a simple image, so that the screen does not look like the computer just crashed.

In Mac OS X when you try to copy/move a file in a protected folder appears a pop-up that asks you to insert admin password.

In Ubuntu the same thing become very difficult, especilly copying multiple files: you have to access to the terminal and write a command. This could be really stressing for a new user.

Could you implement the same function seen on Mac?

When someone wants to unmount a volume and the mount point is used, he gets a message telling him that the volume can't be unmounted because an application uses it. The user has no idea which application is actually using it and can't remove the device.

I propose that the popup tells him which application(s) is(are) using the device and propose to terminate them (that list should be kept up to date when the app. dies).

I find it hard to resize windows. The borders are not big enough to grab easily. I think it would be good if there was an extra invisible gap of a few pixels around the borders that you can grab on to so you don't have to visually make the borders thicker.

Programs stealing focus from each other is a very annoying UI problem.

I think a solution to this would be to have the window manager handle input focus and window raising on a per-application level rather than a per-window level. This way, if one application is in use, another application cannot steal the focus. But an application with multiple windows can still force one of its own windows to have the focus within that application.

This could possibly be extended to task management. Applications like the Gimp or IM programs are quite painful to use, creating huge quantities of windows. In order to switch to that application, each of its windows must be raised separately. Yuck!

It would also be possible to have the taskbar flash whenever an application other than the current one moves its focus to another of its windows.