A simple right click menu on a printer on your ubuntu computer for "Sharing Properties" which would allow you to choose whether or not to share on a wired/wireless network and its limitations.

There has been some confusion, but to clarify this brainstorm:

There is an official deviantart "theme" competition which requests new wallpapers and allows new themes to be inside the submission. However, there are two issues:
1) the contest requires the construction of a wallpaper
2) themes and mockups are ungraded and unacknowledged.

This brainstorm argues two amendments:
1)Mockups-only submissions with previous ubuntu wallpapers should be allowed. Wallpapers should not be required. Mockups shouldn't have to be GTK themes.
2)Even if only wallpapers get prizes, there should be a best-mockup recognition award to the best non-wallpaper aspect of submissions. (arguably, themes are harder to judge than wallpapers.)

This would allowed skilled UI designers who are unskilled artists to compete to win consideration by the ubuntu team. I'd like to see mockups of theme ideas that are abstract and un-artistic, like https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incoming/Hardy/Alternate/round_edge , be able to be in the running for this competition. We want to improve the ubuntu look and feel, not just reskin it.

Sorry for the confusion. Here's the original brainstorm text:

Recently, a brainstorm idea was created for a DeviantArt theme mock-up competition for Ubuntu 8.10. It was accepted, but canonical changed the competition's scope from themes to just wallpapers only.

There's a great deal of interest by the general ubuntu art community to create a new theme for ubuntu, as seen by the Hardy incoming "alternate looks" page, yet this competition was changed from its original scope to a far less interesting scope.



[....]

This is concerning the graphical and the text based installer.

It`s a bad habit introduces by microsoft. Do not ask questions in the middle of the installation after you did already started to copy things.

(1) The user starts the installation.
(2) He is asked if he wants to install.
(3) Make as many hardware tests as you need.
(4) Now ask all needed questions.
(5) Install Ubuntu in one run. Tell the user he can no go away for perhaps X minutes.

Otherwise it`s annoying. Input answer, wait a bit, input answer, wait again over and over again. You can improve this!

Whenever users plan to buy new hardware for their ubuntu machines, they first have to search the web to find informations about kernel/driver support or incompatibility issues.

It would be really helpful if a sticker on the outside of the box of a scanner/printer/usb-dvb-tuner/mp3(ogg)-player/digicam/... simply said "works with ubuntu" or "designed for GNU/Linux" to guarantee that the product runs "out of the box" with Ubuntu or other Linux distributions.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/darkomen/155060941/
http://forum.ubuntuusers.de/topic/88743/next/

Edit (2008-03-04): This project seems to be on the road already: http://www.ubuntu.com/partners/hardwareprogramme

The Fridge is the main news center for the Ubuntu community. Everything about the community, from what exciting projects LoCos are working on, cool new community happenings, newly approved members and LoCos, to points of interests that get posted on Team Reports should be promoted on it.

In many ways, the Ubuntu Planet has become the defacto news source for the community. While the planet is definitely enjoyable to read, content slips off the front page too quickly. The planet's focus is also quite different: "Planet Ubuntu is a window into the world, work and lives of Ubuntu developers and contributors." There is a lot of non-Ubuntu material that some readers may not be interested in. The Fridge on the other hand is only about the Ubuntu community. A lot of content on the planet should be on The Fridge.

While the Fridge is read widely, there is simply not enough content on it. Adding editors to it is not easy at the moment. The release of the LP SSO plugin should make it easy for community members to submit content.

There should also be several calendar feeds (the current one doesn't work with Google Calendar): one for IRC meetings, one for LoCo (real-life) meetings, one for Ubuntu-related events (anything major like an UbuCon). Editors who have access through LP should be able to add meetings as needed.

A feed of The Fridge should be on the main ubuntu.com site. Pre-made widgets should be available so bloggers can post a feed to their site. Placing a feed on the Firefox start page could also be beneficial.

"E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.
E: _cache->open() failed, please report."

→ This is very frequent problem and a lot of beginners dont'know why fix the problem/resolve it.
Just please look here: see - https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+faq/52 - this FAQ located/placed on Launchpad website and during 1 month there are already 15 "related questions", so that means this is very often problem.

It would be fine thing to have some automatic utility to fix this problem, but it will be enough to make this error message more user friendly (for now it's very misleading information).

Ubuntu is built on the philosophy that every user should be part of the community. Many users help out in various ways, however very few start programming because of the traditional difficulties.

1) Many people just don't know where to begin. Create a developer resource website and a "Beginner Developer Package" as mentioned in idea #4354.
The website should mostly contain articles aimed at new developers. It can link to external resources (e.g. the KDE and GNOME developer websites) for more advanced information.

Both the website and the developer package should be maintained by the general Linux community. Although the project will not be distro specific, The Ubuntu community will benefit greatly by sponsoring the project.

2) Bring back Canonical Code Bounties to motivate new developers.
Integrate them with community bounties as mentioned in idea 1295.

3) Create a Ubuntu Design Rewards website. (Idea 2961.)
Most developers coding for OS X and Windows have never even heard of Ubuntu. Mac OS X in particular has a costant stream of neat new apps. We need to capture their attention and bring them to Linux by way of contests and prizes.

In particular, Canonical should focus on attracting high school and university students. Google has been sucessful in bringing students to open source by using prizes and monetary incentives (GSoC and GHOP). We need to be more welcoming and do the same.

We switched to Daylight Savings time last night; when I started my computer this afternoon I noticed that the clock had switched to DST as well - but it would be nice if there was a small notification dropdown that reminded the user of the switch to/from DST and confirmed that the system time was still right.

That little distro from Redmond does this, and when I was still using Billware it was a useful reminder to switch the *rest* of the clocks in the house.

Many post request new or improved features for programs that are available for use with Ubuntu. Ubuntu should organize programmers within the community who are willing to volunteer their time to help projects develop or improve features the Ubuntu community is asking for.

Think of it as our (modified) version of Google Summer of Code. As an example, say the community is asking for a web cam feature in Pidgin Ubuntu can ask for volunteers to help get the feature implemented then move on to the next third party feature request or bug fix.

Basically its Ubuntu saying to the community “hey, Ubuntu would benefit if this third party program had this bug fixed or new feature added. Please help by donating your programming skills or a few bucks”

A community mentoring program would also be great that created more programmers to assist in the future.

Add a security category in brainstorm.