Contributor loonyphoenix

Every time I install ubuntu, the first thing I do, is open a terminal, and when pop up a ugly terminal with white background, thats scary....

We can do it better, maybe some black, with some transparency, or anything else, no matter what color, but something less ugly... plz!!!

I think that there should be at least an option for a downloads folder by default where files would be downloaded by any apps

Like the title says, I want to turn off my monitor sometimes. With a hotkey. Complete with LCD backlight. Sure, you can usually do it by pressing the power key, but on a laptop you've got to close the lid, and sometimes I want to turn off the montitor without closing the lid, for example, when I'm using the notebook as a substitute audio player. Conserving the energy, yet having access to back/forward/volume/etc...

If you liked this idea, check out my other ideas.

Shutdown needs to be as seamless as the fade to screensaver effect. This is what should happen:
- You click on shut down

- If there is a unsaved file open, then

-Show a notice explaining this at the corner of the screen have a button on the notice to "Force Quit" the program. (Guifications esque) Use Compiz, if enabled, to focus that app, but have everything else darkened, sort of like the Alt-Tab effect. Then the users saves and closes, and the shutdown process continues. (Notice that no apps have actually started being turned off yet)

- If another user is logged in, and that user has unsaved files, then:

- Show a notice window stating what the problem is. The window should have two options: "Switch to the other account to save files" and "Force Quit the applications"

- If the first option is chosen, then present a password box, which will accept either an administrative password or the users password. Once the user has entered one of the correct passwords, fade to the other account, and do the same window focus effect described previously. After that, continue the shutdown process.

- If the second option is chosen, ask for either the user or administrative password, and then terminate the programs. Then continue.

- Show a black screen with a spinner. (like the firefox progress spinner) while processes are being shut down.

- use compiz, if enabled, (It hasn't been shut down yet) to fade the transition to the usplash. Shut down all remaining processes (The processes compiz needs to run) and finally shut down the computer.

As you can see, this proposition is clearly better than the current one. I'm not sure if this can be implemented, but Mac OSX can do it, so why can't we? I know about the similar ideas, but a search didn't turn up something that proposes what I do. The other ideas make up this more consolidated idea.

[....]

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.

[....]

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.

At the moment the software sources tool does a few things. It lets the user choose which mirror to use via a combo box, it lets the user choose which sections of the repository to use via tick boxes, it adds keys, and a few other things. What it also does is to allow users to add third party repositories, yet the way it does this is hardly worth making a tool for.

When a user wants to add a third party repository they click the "Add" button, then they're presented with a text box, into which they need to put the line which is to be added to the sources.list file. To me I would not call this a GUI at all, I would call it a text editor. The only advantages of this way are that a) it is arguably easier to see which sources are commented and uncommented and to change their state, and b) it gives Ubuntu some kind of olive branch to the commandline-haters of the Internets.

In my opinion if this is going to be done graphically then at least make it use the abilities of a GUI besides the text box. Obviously I cannot say exactly how this would be done as I'm not a usability or dpkg expert. Perhaps something like a text box for ONLY the URI, which can then be queried for the sections it contains, which would allow dynamic creation of a selection similar to the current main/restricted/universe/multiverse section of the tool. A tick box could be included for whether to include sources, saving the user from having to enter two lines (one deb and one deb-src).

Any thoughts?

Ubuntu 8.04 comes with the GCC compiler but without the 'build-essentials' metapackage.
This makes GCC useless; its not even possible to compile a simple "Hello world" program.

Either have GCC not installed by default or have the 'build-essential' metapackage installed by default so that GCC works.

if i have 1GB or 2GB of ram, it would be really nice, if i could choose an option at the beginning of liveCD - "load all files to RAM" - this way i wouldnt have to listen to loud CD, also system should work much more better and faster

is it possible to implement?

In Ubuntu Ubiquity needs about 20 minutes to copy the contents of the CD to the HDD. Redhat/Fedora's Anaconda needs about 5 minutes for this task. I think this is because they copy the content as an image, rather than individual packages - I'm not entirely sure how the implementation is different - Anyway, make the copying as fast as in Anaconda!

And maybe /mnt/.

Treat everything except those folders like dot files in Nautilus. I don't see why I should see so many directories whose contents I have no control over as a regular user unless I use sudo.

Maybe create an unhidden /system/ or /ubuntu/ folder with soft links to everything else in /. Maybe allow root Nautilus to see those files by defualt.


If you liked this idea, check out my other ideas.

In Xubuntu I use one wide panel instead of two thin ones. There most things can be collapsed to use two lines when necessary, such as the quick-launch plugin, viewport switcher and, most notably, the taskbar. But the notification area doesn't do that; instead, it uses an unnecessary amount of real estate on this space-intensive area. I think this should be rectified.

See what I'm talking about.

If you liked this idea, check out my other ideas.

PS: Come to think about it, this might be useful in other Desktop Environments, too :)

PPS: Reported this as a bug to Xfce.
http://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4326

PPPS: Apparently this will be fixed in Xfce 4.6 :)

Does anybody else find this odd? I mean, it looks like they confused < with >. It's like writing 8 > 10. It freaks me out a bit, frankly.

Could < and > (vertical versions) be switched somehow? Or at least given the option to switch them?

If someone knows why they made it this way, please explain it to me. :) And check out my other ideas, please, if you liked this one.

Make it harder for the new user to stumble upon the root folder with all the confusing system folders.

Make the Parent Directory button in the Home folder and different Media folders redirect to the Computer virtual place rather than the actual parent directory (/home or /media). Also put a link to the user's home in Computer. (Probably also put Network there, but this is kinda off-topic.)

The root directory (Filesystem) would still be accessible through Computer and require only two operations to enter.

For new users, Linux's way of organizing files may be confusing at first, because it's a bit irrational. I mean, think about it: A logical partition on a hard drive is chosen as the root partition, which is the start of all things. Then suddenly, seemingly on this partition, there are directories like "dev" or "proc" or "mount". "Devices on a hard drive partition? Other partitions on a partition? WTF??? And where is the place where everything is?" This is what the new user thinks.

What I'm proposing is just another level of abstraction, a different angle from which to view the file system. In my opinion, a more suitable one for new users, even if one disregards the fact that most people come from Windows, which uses a similar scheme to mine.

If you liked this idea, check out my other ideas.

PS: Please, if you're voting it down, explain why :) I'd appreciate positive reviews, too, of course. Thank you ;)

PPS: This idea is the result of the negative input on my other idea, which was mercilessly voted down.

only autocomplete what you are typing if you hit tab,
just like in a terminal.The way it is now is just annoying
and slow.

If you don't know what I am talking about and don't use the
terminal, don't -1.

32-bit -server kernel or 64-bit -generic kernel ARE NOT A VIABLE OPTIONS.
This has been submitted many times, but people keep burrying it because of misinformation and plain ignorance.
Not having this thing makes Ubuntu worse for many.
Come on people, 4 GB RAM is becoming the standard.

32-bit -server kernel: unstable with nvidia/compiz, not configured for desktop, can open far fewer windows before start getting "black window" problem.

64-bit -generic kernel: on 4GB systems it actually results in having less usable memory than going with the standard -generic kernel which supports only 3GB.

Thanks for supporting this!

Nautilus is curently very slow especially when opening folders containing many files and sub-folders.

It takes 10 seconds for example to display /usr/bin directory with Athlon XP 2500+ CPU and 512 MB RAM machine. Thunar does the action with no lag on the same configuration.

hiyas the idea is put gecko for wine in the repositories.

Network shares are becoming increasingly common for home users, and many laptop users routinely connect and disconnect to networks with shares.

Ubuntu should have an option to automatically mount designated shares when they are detected, and unmount them when they disappear. At present the system requires a sudo mount -a to go and check the /etc/fstab and mount any strays.

Users have already posted a script that does this in the forums.

I sometimes have little things in Ubuntu which I would like to have changed and I often would even like to pay something for it. For example this idea I just inserted: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/12325/

I would like to pay somebody for it and at the same time give something back to the community by making the solution open source immediately. So we would need a website (maybe extention to launchpad?) where I could put my question on, people could bid for how much they would do it, and once it is done it is just uploaded to that website as open source software. Other people can simply download it and use it as well, and people working on those specific applications can simply include the additions to "their" software if they want to. Everybody wins.. :-)