Contributor mawx

I have a simple and elegant solution to easily differentiate an application launched as root (Adept Manager, Nautilus, Konqueror, etc.) and an other one : I use the same color scheme for both users but I slightly colorize the "standart background" (the textedit/lineedit... background color) of the root color theme (salmon color for me).

This way, all my applications looks the same but I can immediately see which application is in root mode (and be carefull of what I do with them !)


I use KDE but I think this idea can apply to Gnome too.

The same way that it's done now, when a user tries to view a divx movie.

A separate partition for /home has been proposed for a long time in the forums. It implies some risks, though, so based on disk size Ubiquity should estimate the amount of space that should be left for / or whether a separate partition should be made at all. Then...

-The first time an user installs Ubuntu, he is given the option to set a separate /home. This option is selected by default, with a size for each partition based on a sane guess:

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/7958/firstinstallaro2.png

-Of course, he can just choose not to set a separate /home. This option will be selected by default if the results of the system test suggest that's the best thing to do.

http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/6498/firstinstallbfs6.png

-Manual install is also possible. Selecting it greys out everything related to separate /home, since it's implied that the user doesn't want to be guided.

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/7976/firstinstallcvc2.png

-If the user set a separate /home, the next time he installs Ubuntu a new option appears and is selected by default, prompting to use the existing /home partition. All other options are still available, though.

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/9034/secondinstalliq1.png

[....]

Linux does a great job at creating thumbnails for pictures and videos, but music is left as just a generic audio icon. Clearly this is because it's hard to represent an audio file visually. But actually, why couldn't album art be used? Obviously some audio files would stay generic icons as they are not professional albums, but a large majority of audio files could now have a visual representation.

Perhaps there could be some plugin for your file browser that collects the album artwork from your default mp3 software, or maybe the file browser could connect directly to the internet to get them itself?

Maybe the icons could also have a number in the top corner denoting the album track.

Fonts in OpenOffice are horrendously rendered and look thin and 'scratchy' (Times New Roman in Writer being a good example) and additionally there is no sub-pixel anti-aliasing even when the rest of my desktop is using it.

Some horizontal strokes such as on the small letter 'p' are actually invisible - there appears to be not enough weight in them and makes the document look like it has been photocopied too many times.

Currently this is not an application I would like to spend much of my day using (and thankfully I don't have to) - but if Ubuntu is being touted as suitable in an office environment, this could be a serious problem.

I am pushing for Ubuntu to be used in our company but this sort of thing does not help my case.

When you click "Save as" menu item in gnome application a dialog windows appears and you naturally start typing new name but that field doesn't have focus and you have to click it. It would be perfect to give focus to the name field automatically.

Ubuntu needs to go green. Powertop, Lesswatts and other tools have finally hit the Linux scene to pave the way for better power management. It needs to be said, "if you want your battery to last longest, or have your energy bill be the lowest, you better use Ubuntu Linux."

Organize a web-based Debian Recognition/Appreciation Day every year. Doesn't have to be anything formal, but the Debian maintainers are a key factor to the huge success Ubuntu is experiencing these days and they deserve the props.

As of now, if one wants to add/edit a menu item, one has to right-click on the gnome menu title bar, select to edit the menu, and then navigate through another hierarchy. It would be much simpler to add an option to "edit this item" or "add a new menu item" through right-click when you are navigating the menu normally.

edit: Also moving items in menu just by drag and drop.

A GUI for creating and using encrypted partitions. Should be for regular partitions and especially removable media partitions.

Mark ideas that have already been taken seriously and been implemented.

There should be different states:
Considered for implementation
Scheduled for implementation
Currently in implementation
Already implemented

You can list these states like "Latest ideas" and "Most popular ideas".

Possibly there could also be an additional ranking/voting round for ideas that have been considered but not yet scheduled.

The "About me" utility provided with gnome should be integrated with Pidgin and Evolution. The avatar set there should work as a "global" avatar. The utility should be able to manage the main E-mail address, IM accounts, signatures and everything that is related to the user.

I know, maybe time's not ready for such a pervasive control, but we actually have a lot of identities: let's start thinking about an easy way to rule them all.

I'm constantly frustrated by applications stealing my focus. There should be some way for me to ensure that when I begin typing somewhere, an overzealous application will never pop up in front of what I'm working on.

If an application needs my attention, it's task bar button should simply pulse so I can turn my attention to it when I'm ready. Pidgin does this; why not everything else?

On Mac OS X, Growl provides a system-wide way to notify the user that something has happened without getting in the way. I'd very much like to see Ubuntu adopt something like that.

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/

When you plug in something like a USB dongle, it should be mounted synchronously (-o sync) instead of in buffered mode.

For me, this is far preferable to the minute performance gain gotten by mounting the device in buffered mode. You're very unlikely to be using such devices for anything except data storage/retreival, in which case mounting synchronously is a major benefit. Expecting new users (or those used to Windows XP's behaviour) to know you have to right-click, 'unmount', before removing the drive is not a good idea, as well as just being unnecessary if the device is mounted synchronously. It's also irritating for people like me who know you need to do it, but either occasionally forget or don't want to bother.

Mount the thing synchronously by default. This is what Windows XP does, and it allows you to just remove the drive after any file transfers have finished. Yes, problems will occur if you remove it durung a file transfer, but that's gonna happen in ANY mount mode. It's far more obvious to the user that this will cause a problem than removal of the drive before unmounting. Also stop displaying that 'unsafe device removal' message for devices mounted synchronously.

Hard drives have continuously grown in capacity and offer ever more affordable mass storage solutions. It would be great if Ubuntu took advantage of the large storage capacity of hard drives to bring real benefits to the user.

Setting up versioned directories (or /home file systems) should be an easy thing to do for both users and administrators. If set up

(a) old versions of overwritten files in that directory should be recoverable
(b) the entire directory should be easily synchronised (e.g. between desktop and laptop).

It should be configurable that after a merge only one of the hosts (desktop or laptop) keeps the history, the other only the latest version (and all changes since the latest merge).

In normal usage, having versioning should be completely transparent, both in the GUI as in the command line. Commit should be automatic (well, every time you save a file), not a manual afterwards command (as when using bzr).

In versioned directories/file systems, applications should not keep tilde~ backups of the next-to-latest version or use other similar workarounds. In a sense, Trash is also a workaround of not having versioning. For versioned directories, Trash contains "links" to the latest version (in the versioning system) of deleted (trashed) files.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=543626
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=237403 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=434153 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=431039
...

Allow users to log into Ubuntu Forums and other Ubuntu sites (such as ubuntu brainstorm) using their OpenID.

Better way to set monitor resolution and refresh rate. Majority of the new monitors are LCD type. User should be able to specify the native resolution and refresh rate during install.

Then Ubuntu/X must do WHATEVER it takes to stick to that resolution and refresh rate.

In case of multi-monitor setups, must be able to specify the configuration at time of installation.

Also, the login GUI must use same resolution as X. Why different resolutions?

Rant:
I have nVidia NVS440 card with Viewsonic VP2290b monitor. Video card must be set to 1920x1200 @13Hz or @41Hz refresh rate for each of it's four outputs. Desktop must be arranged in 2x2 matrix. Then monitor displays 3840x2400 @13Hz or @41Hz.

This worked very well in Ubuntu 6.06. Installed Ubuntu 7.04 and ended up with something like 800x480, even with nVidia binary drivers. Tweaked xorg.conf for weeks to get this to work. BulletProofX kept messing with my hand crafted xorg.conf file; which did work with 6.06. Eventually gave up and started using Windaz again :-( Will try again when frustration level has come down.

It is very frustrating when you get caught out after 30 boots and the system does a full check. Especially if you are about to give a presentation or you just need to read one bit of information. The Ubuntu team have done a great job of speeding up the boot time but this irritation undoes all the good work.

Possible solutions and further explanation:
http://micrux.net/?p=52

Brainstorm should offer support to marking an idea as a duplicate of another and delete the one with the lowest score or merge them.