Contributor kahrytan

The current Ubuntu website is messy, unlike Ubuntu. I move the website be redesigned to be simple, and more usable for beginning users.

Remember, the first thing a user see's when he wants to download Ubuntu is Ubuntu.com

It needs to be more intuitive!

Mandrivas site (although Ugly) is designed with simplicity in mind: http://mandriva.com/

Wordpress blog is not supporting javascript.
So we can not use the script given in the page
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/countdown

for
8.04 "Hardy Heron" Countdown

Instead giving a Javascript, you can provide a link for a static image.

In http://www.ubuntu.com/ home page, there is a nice count down image.

but, Its URL is
http://www.ubuntu.com/files/countdown/804/ubuntu/804UbuntuCountdown_33days.jpg

The image name is
804UbuntuCountdown_33days.jpg


If you make the URL generic like "countdown.jpg",without mentioning the day in the image name, We can give a link to that Image in our blogs and sites.

Everyone by now has seen the world famous mockups of what Ubuntu apparently should look like. The problem is that what is shown in those mockups is not yet possible with the current way gnome works.

I worry with everyone clambering for this mythical theme and with time running out before 8.10 ships, what will end up happening is Ubuntu will ship with the same old problematic brown and orange theme that is so hated by a lot of people.

There is a solution though...

The Dust theme
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incoming/Intrepid/DustTheme

The Dust theme has gotten a lot of praises on Digg and is easily as sexy as anything I've personally seen for Linux (and I'm not usually a fan of dark themes), bust most promising of all... is actually possible with the current technology we have at our disposal.

It's time to be bold! Stop defaulting to the same brown and orange and make a big bold change. Embrace Dust.

Yes you will get a few idiots who will say it's too like Vista just because it's black, but ignore them people. The wider tech community will praise Ubuntu for finally ditching its dorky themes and becoming sophisticated and sexy. New users will be eager to try out this Ubuntu thing they have heard so much about.

I think it would be interesting. Music is a powerful tool to link people (if the song is good, obviously).
It could be used in some sort of welcome screen after first boot, with some welcome message, the examples, etc. Could also feature in Ubuntu credits screen. Maybe orchestral, like a movie or game soundrack (could be Leon Willet from Dreamfall OST :) ). Maybe it could be an open contest, but i think that wouldn't be very easy...

Given the success (as far as I know) of your Dell partnership, please do everything possible to seek alliances with other vendors, as it will reinforce the idea that Ubuntu is a viable alternative to other operating systems and will provide better hardware support for current Ubuntu users.

Dell is offering new models based on Ubuntu (recently the XPS M1330 in a few countries), proof that the business model makes sense.

New users coming from Windows are often disoriented and don't really know the real advantages of Ubuntu or even how to use some of its basic functions (Add/Remove instead of setup.exe). An orientation would help them.

A couple of ideas for how to help them have come up, including an idea about having pop-ups for every new application that's open. The pop-up idea has a few downsides, of course, not the least of which being that pop-ups are annoying to many users, both new and experienced.

One relatively unobtrusive way to introduce new users to the basic functions of Ubuntu is to show a slideshow during the installation process. New users would probably watch the slideshow (they're waiting for the installation to finish--what else are they going to do?), while experienced users might have the option to turn off the slideshow... or they may just get up and leave, knowing that the installation won't take more than fifteen minutes.

Even though things are simple, Windows uses get lost. These are some points the tutorial could cover...



____How to configure internet connection (Typing “sudo pppoeconf” in the terminal is easy but not intuitive, it should to be written somewhere)

____Where are the Windows files

____How to set up restricted drivers

____How to configure screen resolution

____How to install and uninstall programs (there are many ways to install programs in Linux: add/remove, synaptic, apt-get, and GDebi... it can be confusing in the beginning)

____Setting tracker indexing on (once you install Ubuntu and search for your files it simply doesn't work and nothing tells you need to set the indexing on)

____Automatic mount hard drives on startup (unless there is some technical reason for not doing so. If they can't be automatically mounted then there should be an item indicating the need to mount the drivers before accessing them)

____Where to solve problems ( links to support sites in the Firefox favorites could help...)



These are some ideas for the tutorial... everyone can contribute with other ideas or reject some points.


[....]

OK,MS office new interface sucks and its messy, but look at apple's keynote: http://emiratesmac.files.wordpress.com/2006/02/keynote%20comments1.png
That is a good UI. Powerful but simple, just like Ubuntu.
To simplify OOo interface is a logical step. If upstream dont want to change it, ubuntu devs can create a new front end I think.

This is for OOo 3.0/Ubuntu Intrepid+1

Yes, i know about songbird, i know about amarok, i know about gtk-pod, i know many people don't want DRM in Ubuntu. But if you have a perfectly working iTunes in Ubuntu you will draw more users. Put it in the partner repos, just like Parallels. You can always display a warning about DRM and propietary software when you choose to install it.

Ubuntu’s goal is to be the most popular desktop OS for humans. But new versions of Ubuntu, like most Linux distros, are still marketed towards Linux geeks. They’re concerned with technology, trumpeting version numbers and drowning out the actual things you can do with their software.

We’re picking on Ubuntu specifically because it has higher goals than most distros - it’s Linux for human beings, not Linux for hackers. Unfortunately, the release announcements have forgotten what humans care primarily about: themselves.

http://blog.gobanquet.com/index.php/why-ubuntu-804-needs-better-marketing/

That website seems to be down, but here is the cached version on google:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:B1jvt3wvqC0J:blog.gobanquet.com/index.php/ why-ubuntu-804-needs-better-marketing/

As title says, Update the Firefox default page for Ubuntu. Perhaps, change it up between releases. Either way, I know I am sick of the current firefox default page on ubuntu.

Instead of having Xserver and GDM just popup like they do now, there should be a nice smooth transition effect between them; like a fade effect similar to the way the screen fades before Xscreensaver comes on. This would make for a smoother login process.

So there would be a fade effect between Usplash and GDM, then after logging in it would fade into the desktop.