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The Ubuntu community has contributed 13716 ideas, 65290 comments, 1273844 votes

Contributor jsnow




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Give applications and folders more usable names  
Written by openartist the 29 Feb 08 at 00:44. Category: Look and Feel. Related to: Nothing/Others. New
Linux and opensource has a long history of giving names to applications that make no sense to new users and are difficult to remember. Examples range from Synaptic whose name bares little to no connection to how is functions as an application downloader". Grub, compiz fusion, K"whatever", Gimp, etc. are all examples of poorly named and branded programs that do more to confuse humans than inform them.

Similarly Linux uses terms such as "Root" (compared to "Admin") represent a new vocabulary that users must learn in order to feel comfortable with the system. Similarly the folder structure uses abbreviated forms of words that while make it faster to type when in the command prompt confuse users who can't understand their meaning. Examples are plentiful here: /bin, /sbin, /etc, /root, /dev, /mnt, /lib, /boot, /tmp

Obviously this is a "hard" problem with the structure of the OS, Renaming folders isn't an easy thing to do. But the fact that these folders and many programs don't use "natural language" makes the OS and experience inhumane and provides another learning curve.

My proposal would be to give natural language names to all parts of the OS and to also support abbreviated forms when in the command line.

I would also propose changing application names that are ambiguous and confusing in favor of sexier natural language versions (preferably single words). Applications that have their names changed could have a footnote stating the original name in an About/Info dialogue box.


See the 19 comments >>

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Show how to install software with apt if user tries to do it from source  
Written by nflamel the 4 Mar 08 at 14:34. Category: System. Related to: Nothing/Others. New
First time users tend to install software from source code instead of using binary packages and Ubuntu repositories. It would be a good idea to give some kind of warning to users.

For example:

* Bob downloads foo-1.0.tar.gz
* Bob extracts foo-1.0.tar.gz and runs ./configure (or any kind of source-code-installation script)
* Ubuntu tells bob he can install foo 1.0 by running sudo apt-get install foo or using synaptic.

See the 4 comments >>

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Intelligent mouse with automatic movements  
Written by ddimaio the 4 Mar 08 at 13:38. Category: Look and Feel. Related to: Nothing/Others. New
Sometimes the mouse arrow should really move on its own where it's needed. For example if a window pops up with a question the arrow should move automatically to that box.

See the 4 comments >>

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Create and Ubuntu Service Pack (SP) like Microsoft Windows  
Written by felixcorrales the 11 Mar 08 at 17:18. Category: Installation. Related to: Nothing/Others. New
Please create and Ubuntu Service Pack (SP1, SP2, etc) like MS Windows.

If the user have to install Ubuntu, and there are a lot of updates, it will be easier to download an Ubuntu Service Pack (SP) with all the new updates, fixed bugs, etc.

Also it is very helpful for an IT team when they have to install or reinstall Ubuntu into several machines.

Regards

Felix

See the 17 comments >>

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Be Able to Fix Brainstorm Title  
Written by Cryophallion the 6 Mar 08 at 14:04. Category: Brainstorm. Related to: Nothing/Others. New
I just put in a Brainstorm with a typo in the title. You should be able to fix this.

See the 9 comments >>

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Please provide moderators contacts information  
Written by develvic the 17 Mar 08 at 11:30. Category: Brainstorm. Related to: Nothing/Others. New
Please provide e-mail or another contact information to communicate with Brainstorm moderators.

See the 2 comments >>

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Ubuntu 64-bit install should be hybrid 32/64, optimize most things for size  
Written by theosib the 4 Mar 08 at 20:39. Category: System. Related to: Nothing/Others. New
Making every app on your system compiled for 64-bit is an over-optimization that buys you nothing but bigger binaries. The fact is, as long as your CPU isn't pegged at 100%, making most apps faster isn't going to be noticed. Aside from a few exceptions like office apps and web browsers that can occasionally be compute-heavy enough to impact responsiveness, most apps spend most of their time completely idle, only responding to keypresses and mouse clicks for tiny fractions of a second, passing off most of the heavy work to the OS or X11. Gentoo takes this overboard by having one single system-wide setting so that cron (which uses no CPU time for itself but launches other things) is optimized as aggressively as Ruby or Firefox or bzip2 which really need it. Since Ubuntu distributes mostly in binary form, there's no reason why different packages couldn't be optimized for their usage, most things optimized for size.

Of course, an exception to the exception are things like Firefox that take plugins. Yes, Flash is evil because it's proprietary, but if you want complete Flash support, you have to use Adobe's plugin, and you can only do that with 32-bit browsers. As such, it would make a lot of sense to default to 32-bit binaries for Firefox and Konqueror. Still, they need more optimization (renderers and javascript interpreters, etc.), so perhaps there should be multiple packages, optimized for different architectures, but all 32-bit.

The one major hole in my analysis is that having a hybrid system actually COSTS you disk space because you have to have duplicates of all your libraries. I don't have a good solution to that other than to say that it's moot as long as you include 32-bit browsers, because you need them anyhow. And I think there's good reason to default to 32-bit Firefox.

BTW, statistically, optimizing for size may hurt your application's performance a tiny bit (but again, if your CPU is 99% idle, you can't tell), but it also has the potential to make other apps faster. If you near the limits of your memory, smaller apps will mean less swapping. Saving only one page doesn't help much, but saving dozens of pages per app can make a difference.


See the 7 comments >>

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Community Votes on Release Names  
Written by supersonicdarky the 5 Mar 08 at 22:48. Category: Others. Related to: Nothing/Others. New
If the community could vote, I don't think the next next release would be dubbed Intrepid Ibex. (Although you have to admit finding a good name for I would be somewhat difficult).

See the 4 comments >>

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Make GRUB open when hold docn Ctrl and make it stop steal 2 seconds  
Written by Eldmannen the 15 Mar 08 at 23:41. Category: System. Related to: Nothing/Others. New
Every time Ubuntu starts, you first have to wait 2 seconds for GRUB todo nothing. This steals 2 seconds of your start up time.
2 seconds everyday...

I propose to change so GRUB boots Ubuntu immediately without wait 2 seconds. This will be faster startup times.

For people who need to access the GRUB menu, they can just hold down a key such as CTRL, ESC or F8 or something.

See the 15 comments >>

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Ubuntu TV Commercial Featuring Chuck Norris  
Written by donaldduck the 4 Mar 08 at 06:33. Category: Others. Related to: Nothing/Others. Won't implement
Praise the ultimate Chuck Norris.

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Chuck Norris counted to infinity - twice.

See the 4 comments >>

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Easter Eggs  
Written by ..... the 7 Mar 08 at 20:20. Category: Others. Related to: Nothing/Others. New
Ubuntu needs more easter eggs, for example an embedded Rick Roll video which plays on loop indefinitely on a certain keystroke

See the 8 comments >>

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Make people aware brainstorm isn't for bug reporting  
Written by YSH the 15 Mar 08 at 16:06. Category: Brainstorm. Related to: Nothing/Others. New
Many ideas on brainstorm are just bugs, and brainstorm is not for bugs, its for ideas. If you got a bug, go to launchpad. Obviously not everyone new to ubuntu knows that, so they post it here as an idea. There should be some warning, most likely when you're submitting a new idea, that that's the way it is.

See the 13 comments >>

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Other name for a Ubuntu versions  
Written by rafa_pradella the 5 Mar 08 at 18:14. Category: Others. Related to: Nothing/Others. New
Ok,the next Ubuntu is called Hardy Heron,the others is called
Feisty Fawn (oh,my god) Gusty Gibbon (gosh!) Edgy Eft (blargh!)

It isnt a good marketing for a Ubuntu, it isnt had a security for a user, it isnt had a professional face.
(I am a marketing analisator)

Had better names cause these names is ridiculous

Or some use this codenames for beta versions

See the 16 comments >>

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Use more RAM memory (Yes really) !  
Written by Agrou the 28 Feb 08 at 15:59. Category: System. Related to: Nothing/Others. New
Today most of the computers are providing 2Go of RAM or more. When I'm looking at the memory consumption of ubuntu it is about 400Mo.

I think that Ubuntu should look at the RAM capacity of the computer and take the full advantage of the hudge amount of memory that we have today.

I'm sure it will be possible to preload most usefull apps and to bring a more efficient, smooth and fast system.

See the 23 comments >>

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There should be a key combination to kill whatever program is using the most cpu  
Written by days_of_ruin the 3 Mar 08 at 19:41. Category: System. Related to: Nothing/Others. New
So if you run some cpu heavy app and it freezes your computer
you can kill it easier.

See the 5 comments >>

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Dinamic wallpaper  
Written by dagotariel the 2 Mar 08 at 03:05. Category: Graphics. Related to: Nothing/Others. New
change the picture in your desktop Automatically, every time when you turn on the computer your wallpaper is different

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Familiar Look to the File System For Windows Refugees  
Written by abbott_costello the 29 Feb 08 at 00:18. Category: System. Related to: Nothing/Others. New
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.

See the 15 comments >>

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Two words: iPhone ubuntu  
Written by allthegoodusernamesaretaken the 29 Feb 08 at 23:28. Category: System. Related to: Nothing/Others. New
the title says it all

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