Contributor keen101

The idea is to have an easy way to have a local repository in Ubuntu.

Not sure how to implement this but the end user should be able to just point APT/Synaptic at a directory to use for a local repository. Perhaps there is a script I don' know about but could it not be done with Python?

This would reduce bandwidth usage, this is good for every body.

I know this is possible now but it would be nice if it was simpler.

For me it doesnt make much sence that you should only be able to use the guest session after another user has logged in , i mean you can only access the guest session from inside another person session...

So a Gdm guest session should be provided

I think everybody knows Ubuntu repositories are based on Debian ones, and people may ask why both repositories are not so compatible, specially when talking with dependencies between them.

Maybe this is a naif viewpoint from me, but would be more confortable for both Ubuntu and Debian users if both repositores could be more closer.

Many brainstorm ideas are simply bug reports. Maybe there could be a link to launchpad somewhere on this page together with some easy instructions on how to report bugs, as many users seem to prefer brainstorm for its easier interface.

(Maby some sort of reminder while posting like "is this idea a bug, please see 'this page' for instructions on bug reports")

Some funny people here in brainstorm.ubuntu.com used to post ideas here in castillian-spanish, french, etc., instead of having a minimal effort on trying to post them in english.

The problem is some of the posts are really interesting - the idea is these ideas being markable as written in foreign language, and having so a text field for people wanting to translate them.

This is a game proposal that could be included in Edubuntu, it teaches kids about velocity, angles, gravity, physics, ballistics, external factors, mathematical calculation and estimation, etc in a fun, easy and entertaining way.

You can play versus the computer or against another player.
You both have a cannon each, your goal is to fire a cannon ball that hits the enemy cannon which destroys it, then you win.

To hit the target you have to decide the angle of the cannon and the velocity of the cannon ball. You must use the right angle and velocity to hit the target, else you will miss.

This teaches kids physics by ballistic trajectory of a projectile with variables such as velocity, angle and estimation of where the cannon ball will hit.

You may also need to take into account external factors and put into consideration stuff such as terrain and wind and compensate for this.

Mockup - illustrative image

Canonical should start a student program as Ubuntu or Canonical Ambassadors at colleges around the world. This would help in promoting Ubuntu in particular & Open Source in general everywhere. Canonical will oficially be in touch with selected students across the globe who will share all the news & softwares at their colleges.

It would be nice if you could select a repeating video and set it as your desktop backgound.

The movie can be just about anything, although "leaves in the wind" and non distracting ones are the best.

There's roughly 10 million Ubuntu users, if we were to all speak up to companies like Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, and others, we could get versions of their software for our OS.

I would love to get Worldwide Telescope, Microsoft Office, iTunes (that's a big one), Photoshop, and more natively built for our OS, so we can run them without Crossover, or Wine.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not another idiot whining about not being able to run his programs, I use Crossover and Wine to run a majority of mine, but I'm just saying it would be nice to have some good software.

A GUI driven application that does a few simple things.

1. Lists all USB ports (with any device attached to them or not)

2. Ability to select any port and switch it off.

This could lead to new fancy things. For example, all those USB electronics we have - USB desktop lamps, foot warmer, or other crazy electronics that only connect with the USB port to take power - could be switched on/off from a GUI on desktop. :)

Additional stuffs like,

1. Time for when the port will be set active or setting alarm that switches on a specific USB port could be added.

2. Select a multiple USB ports, and make a group. then being able to switch off the group altogether. Would be helpful for gadgets that use dual USB ports.

3. Support for controlling the GUI via Infrared port. So we could use a remote to take it one step further. :D

Maybe most of people realized how hard is having a wireless connection when the strength is smaller than 15%.

I don't know much about wireless (and i don't know how possible it is), but it seems in theory we can have slow connections when the strengt is too low.

The wireless management could be the best as possible, and maybe allow us to tweak it by hand as far as possible, even if we use native drivers or ndiswrapper ones.

When disclosuring the clock (like when the calendar appears), it's nice seeing we can have it plenty of clocks of different parts of the world in the Locations disclosured tab.

But one thing really missing is the weather from each city we have choosed for Locations tab, whithout having to do mouse over (as option).

It's also missing a possibility of changing their order by dragging.

And as well, as the Location can be disclosured, the calendar could be disclosured as well.

The quality of ideas on Brainstorm has degenerated greatly, because there is no obvious way of marking that an idea has been tested by users, and a percentage of users who suffer the problem (which will also help identify bugs).

It should be possible for users to confirm that the current behavior does or doesn't exist with one click.

One example is "Files copied from a CDROM should not be read-only" which 300 people voted for. However, I myself have tested it, and it seems that it is not consistent behavior between installations and CD's. In fact, from what I can see, it appears to happen to UDF volumes (not all volumes seem to suffer). Had more people tested this though, and had the tests been more obvious, it might not have received as many votes.

This is an idea I've been tossing around, and is very similar to Keduca and Keduca-editor but on a much bigger scale.

Imagine an online school to complete school before you ever arrive and pay for classes. Do and pass the exams with the knowledge you've earned for free on your own time with the assistance of an open source community network by assessing your self (where you are now), picking a career (where you want to be), and then pick from a list of rated user-made course packages the peer-made online-class of your choice to prepare yourself for taking a real school exam and passing without spending a dime on the real courses. This would be a monumental study guide for college students and a world wide community driven homeschool.

The idea consists of three elements. A Server Network to manage one of two packages. A sleek User Client for students. And lastly a user friendly Course Creator for teachers.

The two packages are as follows.

The first is a Course Package which includes within it all the media required for the course (Lecture Videos, Text-Books, Homework, Quizzes, Exams, Tests, and Final Exams) in an interactive linear layout separated into different Units where users can study material, complete quizzes and optionally review material before taking tests and exams and be graded by the package. Each unit in a package will have a Final Test, and each course package will have a Final Exam. Authors may specify credentials and references to be put on your printable certificate. You will be given a certificate upon completing and passing the Final Exam for a Course Package.

The second package is a Advisory Package acting like a school advisor at a college or university. It would consist of the user inputing what career they wish to get into, and taking an assessment test to place their current skills. After completing the Assessment test the package would then bring up a list of Course Packages that are recommended to be completed for a degree or certificate at a real college. Of the courses recommended there will be varying versions by different authors as with the Advisory Packages. Again authors may specify credentials and references to be put on your printable certificate. You will be given a certificate upon completing and passing all the required Course Packages and their Final Exams to show you learned based on these packages.

[....]

Create a category "what not to post on brainstorm" and move implemented ideas, bug reports, "not an idea" etc to this category. This is a better option than deletion, and it would serve a purpose of telling other users what not to post.

Related to this idea/discussion: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/70/

"You know that annoying "Welcome to Windows" tutorial that pops up the first time you boot into Windows (or every time thereafter if you forget the checkbox (Or at least it did in Win2k and XP I dunno about Vista))? For new users, there should be an option for that in the install - an opt-in choice like "Please install a tutorial to use the first time I run Ubuntu." Then, when booting up, it wouldn't just pop up, but there would be an icon on the desktop titled "Tutorial" or something of the sort. Click on that, and a little animated paperclip would... I kid, I kid. No, you click on that, and it would give you a basic overview of things that trip up new users: installing programs, home vs. My Documents, sudo/root, what the pre-installed programs do (i.e. OpenOffice Writer = Word), etc. It wouldn't go into more advanced stuff like compiling your own program - that would scare people off. But it would explain what people need to get off the ground.

Do y'all think it's a bad idea/ I dunno, I'm just brainstorming out loud, so feel free to shout me down, or suggest something better. *shrugs*"

-darth_indy

Create an Ubuntu-stylized screensaver that displays random quotes reflecting the "Ubuntu-philosophy".

The next version namely 9.04 should have not just visual refresh meaning just a theme change but also overhaul of visual appearance of ubuntu. Ubuntu next version will catch up as said by Mr. shuttle worth will match to its competitors that should also mean it will match not just usability but in appearance and themes and better looking desktop than xp if not as good as vista or Mac OS X.Give next version a best shot at visual appearance there should be change in Elements like
1. Grub screen and usplash (I like the present usplash but sure can be made better) .Grub screen should have nice background and some elements in grub should be renamed like When grub detects xp it should show only particular name as Other os: Windows xp profession (as read from mbr). Looking at Suse and Mandriva has gone great deal in making it better than any os. Even kde4 has nice touch in visual style
2. Nice Visuals for Shutdown and logins,GDM needs nice change just like GL Based face browser and nice splash screen on boot(login) and on ” logoff, shutdown”.
3. Icons everywhere should get visual refresh or new theme that’s more glossy,modern,attractive
By Icons I mean new icons for openoffice, gimp etc too.fix some missing icons issues. In addition, some great web icons for google, gmail etc, and gOS have some nice icons.
 Whole new icons for every application like New hard disk icons which shows vista like indication of space,computer,search icons etc,also new Color schemes like green,blue,red etc
 New suite for nautilus as put up by mockups willwill,deviant art would be great
 Even taskbar should look cool, I mean ditch those big ,huge taskbar layout make it small
 Ability to change the size of icons in nautilus. Add and remove some elements inside nautilus file browser. System elements on desktop(icons )can be resized
 System elements and folders need to have special icons.
 Shared folders and network drives need special icons maybe use some Samba logo, local drives and removable drives should be distinguishable.

After finally having a proper Linux set up with most issues out the way, I feel I and others would greatly benefit from a tool that shows diagnostics of the system and configuration and offers advice or links to other areas of the control panel which the user may not have thought of going to before.

The tool could:

- serve as a check list for things that are yet to be done or should be done, e.g. enabling any restricted drivers, restarting to enable certain software/settings, ...

- advise the user of conflicts, redundant files and packages, improper configurations etc.

- analyse hardware and recommend packages to make full use of the hardware

- analyse hardware and identify unsuitable hardware combinations, known issues with hardware (especially some NVIDIA graphics cards), etc.

- be an interface to documentation and support methods and resources, e.g. trouble shooting guides, wikis, forums, IRC, ...

Note: I didn't know what to put for "this idea is related to" and put Gnome in there. The idea is meant to be for all desktop environments.

Background:
The minimal install CD is the only way to get exactly the programs you want without any extra "bloat" unless you know exactly what pre-installed programs, libraries and drivers to remove.

Problem:
There is currently no support for wireless or dialup and these users are unable to access this functionality

Solution:
Include a method (and drivers) for connecting to the internet using all possible methods as part of the installer in the minimal cd. Some examples are wireless, bluetooth, PPPoe, dialup, and other connectivity capabilities that Debian and Ubuntu already have

Additional comment:
Even with this essential function added, it would still fit on a business card sized CD