Ubuntu is the name chosen for a global project and a distro based on Gnome. Kubuntu is another distro based on kde from the very same project.
I believe they deserve the same support from the project since Gnome and Kde are the most popular desktop manager out there.
It seems quite obvious to me, the project is very much focused on one and only distro, its first baby : ubuntu.
And it shows. Kubuntu web site looks quite poor and unprofessional compared to ubuntu. Most graphic choices like the kdm default theme (even if it's supposed to be a matter of taste) look, again, unprofessional. And finally the whole distro doesn't seem to have the same amount of attention when it comes to details (one example among others: the little thing on ubuntu warning the user about the existence of proprietary drivers for display which does not exist on kubuntu).
I've been told once, like a year ago, by an ubuntu dev that the situation is such because the project doesn't feel like fragmenting its market share.
Whatever is the official position of the project, I don't think you should do things half way.
The Kde project is itself in full evolution with Kde 4. It does deserve full support from ubuntu.

Thank you for reading.

Add a link to the sidebar showing Brainstorm ideas with the lowest scores, like the Most Popular but in reverse.

Let us all have a laugh, and learn from our mistakes.



(...this is a joke... but go on, vote for it...)

User directories on ubuntu are 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.

[....]

One of the most annoying stuff in Rhythmbox: when you close the window, it quits the application. I just wanted to get rid of the window on the desktop, that's all.

I know some person like this behavior. So a solution would be to add a checkbox to enable/disable the "hide on close" in the preferences.

Edit (24/03/08):
IMO, once an application is in the systray, "close" differs from "quit" (i.e. you "close" the window, but you don't "quit" the program).

Edit (25/09/08):
A recent version of the package in the repository includes a plugin that fake this behaviour.
I think the feature is still important because it should be directly into the Rhythmbox preferences.

Edit (25/09/08):
Apparently the plugin is officially maintained by the devs:
http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/rhythmbox/trunk/plugins/dontreallyclose/

There are absolutely no guidelines at the moment on what makes a good idea. And theres many reasons we need them!

- People keep saying that we are barking up the wrong tree with coding ideas, because "Canonical doesn't do coding" or "canonical shouldn't be inventing new standards".
- We need to know if you want new project ideas, or just enchancement ideas.
- What are you expecting us to write in an idea. You should present examples of ideas, and the format you want us to write them in. And example format may be:
Title: Clear and concise. Mention affected programs if any
Description: Summary/idea, what happens now in the program, benefits of implementation, disadvantages of implementation, etc.
- Without an example, what are you expecting? We need a few examples! So that we know the best ways of doing things
- Should we be targetting certain programs only, do you want us to suggest new protocols, or are they outside the scope of brainstorm? Do you want us to suggest new standards? Without a clear specification of what the ubuntu team actually does, and what they dont do, we cant optimise the process.
- Are ideas posted upstream?
-Help us, help you by explaining why some ideas are particularly good
- Its Software Engineering 101, we are expected to submit random ideas, but we don't know enough about the ubuntu development teams to submit the best choices
- Outline coders strengths in the team. If you have many coders who are good with image processing, let us know, we will place an emphasis on image processing ideas

The situation:

I have worked alot to set up my desktop. I have spent hours to find additional repos and packages to set my system as I like it. Now someone saw my system and he said that he wants the same.

The solution:
We should have an application which takes crucial informations like extra repos, installed packages and prepares an install script which will install on the other machine the same stuff.

The advantage:
Like this we could give ideas to the beginners how to customize their desktops, and they can share their ideas with each other.

for example, when you copy some image, and it is in clipboard, it should be possible to paste it as new file

for usability, it may be confirmed with yes/no (are you sure to create file from clipboard? + preview below) dialog

this could be really useful for pictures, parts of videos (from avidemux for ex.), parts of sound etc, but would be rather annoying for small pieces of text, so there should be some control panel to change settings:

...
type of clipboard content to paste as new file:
= images (checkbox)
= videos (checkbox)
= text (checkbox)
...
ask before creating file? (checkbox)
...
automatically set name? (checkbox)
...

it should also be able to autonaming files like "clipboard2008-12-13.jpg"

It is likely that the situation will occur that you vote an idea up or down, only to then take part in the discussion and change your mind about it. After all, there is bound to be someone with more expertise with a different view on the subject that you hadn't considered. Currently, you cannot see, remove or reverse your vote. I think you should be able to, on the basis that it would give a more accurate and up-to-date representation of user opinion.

The counter-argument to this would be that it could cause an element of uncertainty, but I do not feel that avoiding this should come at the expense of being able to change your mind.