Contributor ka2

Hi,

I suggest to the Ubuntu community, we should have a unique and complete development studio, in order to create great applications very coupled to the Operating System, in order to take advantage of the environment, standardize programming languages and not to fill up the system resources with a lot of interpreters, runtime or whatever frameworks.

For example, on Mac OS they have XCode, in Window$ Visual Studio, inclusive on KDE they have KDeveloper.

From my experience, when I try to make some software for ubuntu, I find great quantity of software development tools which makes difficult the choice.

I know that freedom comes with the liberty to choose too, and is ok, but in this aspect i thought that as a community we need to follow a North, and not everyone go to everywhere without any roadmap, each one going some on foot, some on cars, and in other parts (Mac, Win) going on airplanes...

If you want to read in Spanish go to my website

User directories on ubuntu are easily a mess at the moment. They need more standardisation and more sense to remain clean. If you go to terminal/bash you may discover that your directory looks something like:


/home/auzy/Documents
/home/auzy/.Azureus (Hidden)
/home/auzy/.gnome2 (Hidden)
/home/auzy/Desktop
/home/auzy/.bashrc2 (Hidden)
/home/auzy/readme.rtf
/home/auzy/.Trash (Hidden)
/home/auzy/iffy.rtf
/home/auzy/delete me.rtf
/home/auzy/argggggg.c
/home/auzy/fgdhgfdhd.txt
/home/auzy/Music
/home/auzy/.ooffice (Hidden)
/home/auzy/friendsassignment.c
/home/auzy/friendsassignmentCopy.c
etc.


While you may note that anything with . is hidden normally, what if someone wants to delete the settings for a program? They need to manually unhide it, and sort through the dozens of directories in the home directory to find it. The problems with this is that:

a) Its messy, and certainly not a clean solution
b) Users cannot easily access their settings.
c) Everyones home directory is normally trashed with hundreds of other files, making it difficult to navigate.

[....]

Many games feature the ability to play with other people. However, the first thing the game will check for is to see if it is currently up to date. When Ubuntu enters version freeze, the games fall out of date, and it can be harder to play them online without finding a 3rd party update or compiling it yourself (Freeciv, Scorched3D, and Battle for Wesnoth to name a few). This also creates issues when different distributions freeze at different times, so it can be hard to play with other Linux users.

Ubuntu should provide a repository for up to date games for games that will always need the latest version to play online.

People like games, and while Linux has done very well with the card games, minesweeper and tetris type games, lets get some games that people can really get excited about.

How about starting or supporting one each of a
1)First Person Shooter (FPS)
2)Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG)
3)Real Time Strategy Game (RTS)
4)Other popular game types that Linux lacks (Other people, submit your ideas)

I have seen these types of games on linux, and some of them have been pretty good, but not many people know about them. Start new or support existing game projects that work on most Linux platforms, and make them something to be excited about.

If we can have Linux games that people are excited about and like playing we will have less and less need for WINE and dual-boot machines. (although I personally appreciate the WINE developers, they work really hard).

Make installation of 64-bit on desktop easier. There are many obstructions such a Flash, Opera, Skype etc. And many MANY others...

Many users still use 32-bit Ubuntu just because they scare - complicated setup of 64-bit means less users > Less desktop users means less topics at support phorums > less help > more (unsolved) problems for new 64-bit users.

All new computers are 64-bit (Intel/AMD). Be more oriented to new "standard" desktop computers and take the advantages!

Yes, it's a 64-bit world ;-)

Ubuntu should develop it's own open source game development libraries. This could push for a unified way to develop games on Linux platforms. Fast ANSI C libs that don't act as an engine, but rather as a easy way to gain access to the systems hardware from languages like python,c++,java... Why should Windows attract all the game developers. If a standardized library is developed for Linux it would certainly make anyone Question the need to use Directx.

After the installation of ubuntu there should be a script witch will optimize the linux kernel for each individual computer so that we get high speed and responsiveness!
just like arch linux

We should make it take only 3 or 4 clicks to enable CPU clustering over a network. Every home user these days often have 3 or 4 computers in their household when half the time are simply sitting there browsing the web.

Users should be able to configure clustering in GCC (switch to DistCC), enable openmosix, maybe even set up programs like blender properly in a centralised location, and just need to click a button. That way everyone can use their computing resources more efficiently, and easily.

At the very least we should make it easier (not neccessarily include it in the main distribution). And small polish like this may not benefit many people, but the people who notice (your graphics and developer crowd for instance), will be eternally greatful. And, lets be honest, its a great sales pitch for many businesses :D

OSX already ships with a solution known as Xgrid which people can use, in its clients and servers. Xgrid has only failed because even Apple does not integrate it into their programs. OpenMosix for instance though is ready to go and can be made into an "out of the box" solution.

OpenOffice.org is quite sluggish with its default settings. Every time I install Ubuntu, one of the first things I do is change the OpenOffice.org settings.

I usually change the settings as follows:
MEMORY - 30 steps, 128MB, 20 objects, 20MB per object
JAVA - Do not use Java
VIEW - Open GL, optimized output, dithering, refresh during interaction and hardware acceleration all ticked.


Without the View settings changed, running old powerpoint presentations in slideshow mode literally brings a dual core processor to a halt.


I'm not sure that the default settings should be exactly as described above because I'm not sure what ramifications that might have for other computers, but it seems to be that there is a lot of room for improvement in performance.

As there is almost no lightweight IDE for C++ in ubuntu (and for sure anjuta and kdevelop are not good ones!) i suuggest to add code::blocks IDE to ubuntu repositories. The project already distributes ubuntu-specific compiled versions. It also has a 6-month-release period with date-month versioning system. (like ubuntu)

An online Ubuntu PC hardware store is what people (aka "masses") need to fully make the jump to Ubuntu. Sell the hardware "known to work" (pre-installed Ubuntu computers and peripherals) and support those manufacturers who actually care about Linux compatibility.

when you purchase a Mac you know everything is compatible and everything you purchase at a APPLE STORE also is tested and works 100% with Mac OS.

but when you try Ubuntu on your own, there is always a risk that many of your hardware/peripherals may not work. The worst problem is YOU DON'T KNOW where to Purchase compatible hardware to FIX your problem.

If you can't fix your problem, then you are back once more in Windows... (be it a dialup modem, Usb modem, wireless card, bluetooth, printer, scanner, videocard, webcam, etc)

you always have the community to help + the guys at http://www.phoronix.com/ have always pitched in this area, but is not enough.

We need 100% Ubuntu compatible and tested hardware by canonical themselves to be sold online. Only sell what works (there is no need to test all the hardware in the world)

this would create a real market demand for "Linux compatible" hardware from manufacturers.

we can't support every piece of hardware like we have been doing, we need to support what WORKS NOW!

If this is implemented a few other good things will happen:

1- Less forums posts like these: "i can't get XXXX hardware to work, why doesn't it work! i got working hardware in windows or mac, ubuntu sucks blah blah"


[....]

Currently the Eclipse packages in Ubuntu lack heavily behind other distributions like lets say Fedora.
The packages in ubuntu are outdated and so are the eclipse language plugins like CDT or Pydev.

Properly supporting this top notch IDE should give new linux developers an easier start.

Ubuntu is great but when it comes time to develop php apps we rapidly miss some extensions. Mandriva for example have almost all existing php extensions as separate package you can install and keep up to date easily.

For example have readline and/or libedit extension without the need to recompile php by hand would be greatly appreciated.
Php-gtk2 will be a good thing too (now that there's a stable release out there)

Ubuntu should include a way to add/remove fonts from a repository just like the add/remove program panel. When a user needs a new font, they could open up the window, and the program would download the latest repository fonts. The user could look through the fonts and choose which ones to install by simply checking a box and clicking "apply." A user could search for font keywords to find certain styles of fonts. For example, someone could search for keywords words "serif","sans serif","cursive", and the GUI would display fonts that match the search. This would be a killer tool for designers.

Furthermore, the GUI could be very helpful. When a user browses a font, a sample image of it could be automatically loaded so that the user can quickly find fonts that are appealing to them. A rating system or popularity gauge could be used so that the best fonts can be highlighted.

A tool like this would create inscentive for font designers to make their designs free/public. Credits could be given to designers in the font descriptions.

Fonts in OpenOffice are horrendously rendered and look thin and 'scratchy' (Times New Roman in Writer being a good example) and additionally there is no sub-pixel anti-aliasing even when the rest of my desktop is using it.

Some horizontal strokes such as on the small letter 'p' are actually invisible - there appears to be not enough weight in them and makes the document look like it has been photocopied too many times.

Currently this is not an application I would like to spend much of my day using (and thankfully I don't have to) - but if Ubuntu is being touted as suitable in an office environment, this could be a serious problem.

I am pushing for Ubuntu to be used in our company but this sort of thing does not help my case.

Make it easy to join a Ubuntu Workstation to a Active Directory Domain. Like Windows does for instance.

I've voted for ~40-50 good ideas at this point. Give me a link below "My ideas" that says "My votes" so that I can see all the ideas that I've voted for. That will help users remember ideas that they might want to help with or donate time on in the future.

Canonical should convince Adobe to make their products for Linux.
I came across few petitions on the Internet, but that obviously had no effect.

With the right vision and marketing plan to increase market share, maybe Canonical could convince Adobe to make the native Linux version of their software.

Right now, with 2% market share overall, it is not a lucrative niche for commercial (very expensive software).
On the other side, many windows users are reluctant to switch to Ubuntu Linux because they can not use Adobe products (among other windows applications).

Finding way to join the corporative interests and the customer needs and wishes is the key to success.

My main problem with Ubuntu was my audio not working in the beginning, due to it defaulting to motherboard sound instead of my sound card.

Perhaps during the installation and maybe a button "My sound isn't working" in the Sound preferences, Ubuntu could "test" the sound.

Something like this:

Sound test

----(Announced) Music is about to be played
(Sound played on the first device detected)
-Did you hear anything?
(If yes, stop the test)
(If no, change audio output to the second sound hardware detected)

(Another statement saying sound it going to be played)
(Sound played on second device)
-Did you hear anything?
(If yes, stop the test)
(If no, change audio output to the third sound hardware detected)

...and so on until the right device is found, and that device becomes the default sound output.

If none are found, tell the user something along the lines of "Either no speakers are plugged in, the correct sound drivers aren't installed, or the hardware is faulty. Reverting to default sound card."

I've been thinking about this ever since I had wifi on my laptop (about four years ago).
I was hoping some OS manufacturer (OS X, Windows, any linux distro) would implement it one day, but didn't find anything yet.

At this moment, we have profiles for wireless networks that apply the security method, key, ...
Just one click would try to connect to the network and that's perfect !

But why not implement the shared folders in those profiles ?
You define a standard share policy and make exceptions for some (wireless) networks (Home, Work, public, ...).

An example:
At home i want that my documents from work are accessible on my desktop.
On the other hand ... if I'm connected to a public wireless network (eg train station) ... that folder shouldn't be shared ofcourse !

I think this isn't an easy thing to implement, but it would be something that no other OS has !