Contributor kiddo

This is what's being used in the OLPC's, which allow small villages to essentially build their own wireless mesh networking infrastructure that works and shares traffic overhead (IEEE 802.11s). You could imagine having a little utility on your Ubuntu PC that would scan for such wireless mesh networks, allow you to connect, act as a server/client node, share files, chat, and the sky is pretty much the limit from there. People could begin hosting their own webpages from their PC for free, using nothing but radio waves.

If you utilize the bandwidth and full-duplex potential of 802.11n wireless networking, you could create large decentralized mesh networks that could be very fast, much faster than cable Internet access.

http://blogs.gnome.org/calum/2008/10/14/step-back-in-time-2 Acording to planet.gnome, Open Solaris 2008.11 will have an automatic way to backup your data on the same disc called Time Slider which http://blogs.sun.com/erwann/entry/zfs_on_the_desktop_zfs ALREADY WORKS ON GNOME. This can be a great solution for the "rm -rf ooops!" problem.

Also Mac includes a solution for this called http://www.apple.com/es/macosx/features/timemachine.html Time Machine. Both programs revise the hard drive and make a snapshot, Time Slider does it using zfs filesystem developed by Sun.

Possible issues: Have a security copy on the same hard drive don't means total secure. The possible solution is to support saving data on other hard drives.

At the moment, if someone wants to backup his documents or prepare a migration from a computer to another there isn't much more than file-roller to create a backup.
Ideally, the user should be able to run a graphic software which would ask what the user wants to backup and where (tape/usb key/remote).
Then the same tool would be able to restore the backup.

It would be useful for both backups and migration from a computer to another.

Update : See duplicates ideas which contain even more great ideas about that idea.

I was surprised to find out other users in my computer are allow to browse and open my files in /home.

At least user should have a tick box option to set his home dir as private.

which is equivalent to give 0 rwx access to the world. Shouldn't be too difficult to do this.

I think this would be nice, because having a lot of windows open can often be confusing an inconvenient. Especially for newbies

(Sorry for my poor level in English)

Hi!

Today, a phoronix article is released, "Ubuntu 7.04 to 8.10 Benchmarks: Is Ubuntu Getting Slower?" (Website: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_bench_2008&num=1

In many tests, Ubuntu 7.04 is the faster version of Ubuntu.

I think and hope 9.04 will have to get faster than the previous versions.

I'd like to use evince for PDF-based presentation. Using LaTeX beamer for making professional presentations is great.

However I'd like to have some improvements on Evince. I miss something like the presentation mode of Apple's keynote.

It would be nice to be able to show the current slide on the second screen (which might be connected to a beamer) and see the current slide and the following slide on the internal screen of my notebook. Also I'd like to have a big clock on the internal notebook screen to make sure, that I've enough time for my presentation.

I'm thinking about writing a seperate application for it using Vala and Poppler it should not to be hard. But integrating this into Evince would be better of course.

Many of us use the trash as a "just in case" tool, just in case we make a mistake. We don't use it as a backup of deleted files. I'd like a way for the trash bin to optionally manage itself, and delete the oldest files automatically as my harddisk is running out of space. This would ensure that I always have a second chance, whilst not having to worry about maintaining my trash can.

To ensure that the files don't disappear immediately after being trashed ruining the safety margin, there could also be an option for files deleted to be locked for a certain time period, to ensure that files don't get deleted instantly. (such as where you delete a 500MB file when there is only 500mb of space, and then 1 minute after immediately install something).

In fact, it actually adds a greater level of trash safety, because files in the trash will persist as long as they can, as opposed to now where if you don't empty the trash, there may be 300gb of files in there, and the only easy option is deleting all of them unnecessarily. However, files could still be manually deleted

I've tried several times to get my AC'97 to have proper output, whether it be 6 separate channels or 3 copies of the same two channels, this has always been a painful process. There just really, really has to be an easier way to do this, out of the box.

Hardware specifics would be a problem, but for the most popular chipsets, like the AC'97 and Creative whatevers, they really should be consistent enough to make presets for, but for everything else a step-by-step setup could be made for finding each channel and letting the user decide where it is and what it should do.

The notification area original goal is to notify the user. Sadly, a lot of applications abuse it and use it as a simple icon dock (like under Windows).

This is a violation of the HIG ( http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/desktop-notification-area.html ), makes the notification area clutered and a lot less useful.

For people with no prior Windows experience, it also seems to be completely counter-intuitive and non understandable (why are some application there and some other in the panel).

I suggest to consider each abuse of the notification area a bug and that, by default, application use the notification area according to the HIG. (Gaim for example, can use the notification area only if you have a new message, which is the way the HIG recommands to use this feature).

AbiWord is a lightweight word processor. Unlike OpenOffice.org Writer, AbiWord loads fast and has a smaller RAM footprint --meaning it doesn't slow down your computer.

The latest released version is 2.6.2 which includes many improvements and better integration with the ODF (the ISO standard). However, there is no .deb package to install it in Ubuntu.

Please, build a .deb package of the latest version of AbiWord and include it in the repositories, so people who want a light alternative of a word processor can use AbiWord.

When keeping the same /home/ for years, it quickly becomes an unmaintainable mess of hidden folders.

You can't even delete them without being sure because it might contain important data.

Freedesktop has issued a recommandation to solve this problem :
http://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/latest/ar01s03.html

Implementing this would allow to easily reset your configuration to the default one without loosing any data. For Ubuntu beta testers or people that care about having the default config, it would be a big advantage. It would also solve a lot of upgrade problems that some people have and that cannot be reproduced because it's a particular preference migration bug.

The problem and its solution is described here for the GNOME desktop but it applies for any application : http://ploum.frimouvy.org/?184-cleaning-user-preferences-keeping-user-data


My suggestion is to make the FD.o recommandation an official Ubuntu recommandation, trying to lobby so applications in Ubuntu follow this spec, at least the one in main.

A suggestion for the GNOME desktop has also been issued :
http://live.gnome.org/GnomeGoals/XDGConfigFolders

Implement the drag & drop action on appointments between days.

Ex : We are monday, I click on my appointment at 10AM and drag it on any day in the calendar on the left to move it. It will appear that day at 10AM.

Really really handy.

Like in Outlook :'(

:-D

Synchronizing between computers is currently impossible. I have a laptop and a desktop , and despite attempts with rsync, unison, ifolder, even with using ftp drives (which is not easy) I am unable to move files. this is beyond the simple networking problems, i want folders to synchronize. mainly just documents/homework. If i could go beyond that, to actually incorporated program files, such as firefox extensions, great. but the fact that I, after 2 months of trying, cannot find a way to have easily access/store files on 2 machines makes it very hard to solely use ubuntu.

Please do not doubt my faith though, as I have actually converted 7ppl!!! to date. 4 in my frat, 2 out, and my girl!

Replace the awfull NWF by GTK. (like NeoOffice with Cocoa) NWF is often unstable and inconsitent. A clean GTK version will also run on multiple plattforms like OSX or Win32! In addition it might be more portable for mobile devices like OpenMoko based ones.

its kinda cool having those "powered by ubuntu" stickers and take that "powered by windows" sticker off. what you guys think?

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"


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Adding a "Secure Delete" feature to shred files in the trash can beyond recovery.

I recently switched to linux mint, I must say it is very nice and based on gutsy 7.10.

They use the red hat liberation fonts by default and OMG It looks amazing.


The default ubuntu fonts are painful to look at once you know how good it can look.


https://www.redhat.com/promo/fonts/

Currently it is very difficult to setup and control access to shared folders without editing conf files and reading detailed instructions on all the variables. I propose that sharing (specifically Samba) be given a well worked GUI and some real TLC to bring it up to standard with the experience on Windows or OS X.

For example, by default a share should be accessible as Read Only by anyone on the network without a username or password (guest access). While guest access should be turned on by default, it should also be easy to turn it off, and if desired to give guests read/write access to the folder.

You should also be able to specify local users who will have read/write access, and these local users should sync with smb users invisibly (ie: the user doesn't need to know that there are two password databases being used).

I propose the Properties window for a folder should contain a Sharing tab with all the options available to choose. I also propose a Shared Folders option in the Preferences menu should list the currently shared folders along with their settings, and provide a button to take you into the dialogue where you can set the options.