Contributor neon

There are over 500 requested packages on Launchpad that has been confirmed as in need to be packaged for inclusion in the repository.

Some of these packages are very old, example Flock still hasn't been packaged, and it was requested a year ago.
Fedora Directory Server was requested 2-3 years ago.

We need more package maintainers. We need to recruit more package maintainers.
We need to make it easier to get involved in maintaining a package.
We need to make the work of package maintainers be easier and more efficient.

There is a wide community of online artists capable of creating brilliant, unique artwork.

heading: Get your artwork on 10 million desktops

Ubuntu, the world's most popular Linux distribution, needs a new theme. The winner will appear in the default desktop of Ubuntu 8.10.

We're looking for original wallpapers, that match Ubuntu's color palette. You entry should also include a suggested combination of application, icon, and window themes. These can be existing themes, or your own original works - you only need to submit a wallpaper to win.

Work must be CC licensed, and be openable in either Inkscape or Gimp (rest of criteria continues)

Submit your works to DeviantArt and include the words [Ubuntu810].


Good luck!

I've got two monitors, and right now if I use the wallpaper settings in gnome it stretches the wallpaper across the two monitors. It does this even for the default ubuntu wallpaper. This can look really bad depending on the image. In order to get around this I had to get two wallpaper images and join them into one large one with the GIMP and set that as my wallpaper.

There should be a way in gnome to set a different wallpaper for each monitor.

==== Merged with ideas of a similar scope: Different wallpapers on different workspace ===

Many workspaces option in Linux allows you to separate your work, why not allow users to have different wallpapers on each workspace. This allows for easier identification of which workspace you are on.
When used with compiz-fusion you can rapidly switch between your workspaces and the different wallapaper will allow you to quickly recognise what desktop you are on.

Currently this is natively available in KDE but not in Gnome. In Gnome you can't even let Compiz take over the wallpaper control because Nautilus doesn't allow for transparent backgrounds.

Other solutions like Wallpapoz are slow and when switching between desktops it takes too long to switch WP.

Nvidia drivers are not free. So for example, we can't install nvidia driver during the installation of ubuntu.

But there is a project to free nvidia drivers. It names Nouveau project :
http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/

If you read the progress of the project :
http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/FeatureMatrix
2d works but not 3d.
So how to help this project :
-Ubuntu should ask to make a dump and send automatically the dump to the nouveau developer after installing the proprietary nvidia driver.
see : http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/MmioTraceHowto
-Ubuntu could give money to support this project.
-Ubuntu developper should imply in this project.
-Maybe you have another idea, don't hesitate to write it.

As the default boot splash gives no useful information, we may as well allow the user to (optionally) replace the boot splash with something more interesting than a progress bar. I suggest holding a 128k demo competition [1] for things we could replace the boot splash with. Although 128k is tiny compared to Hardy's 7MB initrd, it gives a lot of flexibility. Things that could easily fit in 128k include a game of Pacman, a calendar/organizer, an entire Mac Classic like OS [2] ... or theoretically* even a Doom 3 like game [3].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.kkrieger
* although kkrieger requires under 100K of storage it takes too long to start to be useful as a boot splash.

Think of your backgrounds. They never move, except for windows vista, and that still sucks.
I believe in functionality, such as interactive backgrounds.
Think about this...

You have a tree as the background. Just a bare tree, except that you will see devices as leaves (usb, network drive, Wireless network etc.) every time you have a system in use it moves slowly as if in a breeze.
Such as a USB drive that is in use will jiggle to signify to you that you are accessing data, and that signal will be very subtle in the background, no pop up windows.
No pop up windows.
You could store icons in shelves or in hallways that look like backgrounds. I believe if implemented properly it will add the illusion of space to the desktop.
Lets say you have a instant messaging program open. you minimize it to your background that happens to look like an ordinary (customizable) room. The IM goes to a dark lamp until you get a message then *click* a slight light in the lamp.
While I'm on the room theme a toybox to open gadgets that look to slide from the background to the foreground.
I have more ideas such as this, but I just wanted to briefly describe a scenario.
Please contact me if this is even worth considering.

Wacom tools is fine and cool. But is Terminal based and most of the people don't know or use the Terminal.

My idea is to create a simple GTK interface for Wacom Tools.

PS. Sorry for the poor English.

Ubuntu is Linux for human beings and it follows the principles of the Ubuntu philosophy. Creative Commons licenses also follow the principles of freedom and openness associated with Ubuntu. Maybe we should encourage the use of creative commons licenses in the Ubuntu desktop. I suggest we integrate creative commons licenses throughout the Ubuntu desktop so that more users become aware of them and so that it is easier for them to use the licenses.

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Gnome_Integration
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/GnomeMockUps
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_commons

I often have several media players of one sort or another open at once - quod libet/rhythmbox, totem, Flash (YouTube) - switching between them. But (if I understand it right), the media buttons on my PC only control the music player.

So, it would be good if the buttons could be set to control whichever of them was last used.

A particular challenge in this would be to get the Flash music/video players like Youtube, presumably via a browser plugin and a flash API (like http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/js_api_reference.html).

(My idea from a while ago, taken from https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IdeaPool to get some feedback)

I think there is far too much redundancy in the desktop at the moment. For example, icons on the desktop, in the menus, in a file manager, on a panel, a window on the desktop, tabs within windows, taskbar entries, notification area icons and panel applets can all represent the same thing. This is a complete waste, and it makes things confusing as to where certain options should be placed. At the moment it seems GNOME is following a put-it-anywhere-it-might-be-wanted philosophy (which results in such awful UI as the Microsoft Windows Control Centre, traversible only by remembering where developers ended up sticking the options you're after rather than by using common sense to find them) rather than a simple, logically layed out system.

For instance many applications can be closed via a widget on their window, an enty in a menu inside the application, right clicking on a taskbar entry, right clicking in a notification area icon, etc. but there is more relevant functionality which isn't as dispersed, for example setting an IM status or changing track in a music player, which can be accessed by notification area icons or panel applets but not by taskbar entry or desktop or application menu icon.

It would make a lot of sense to bring some of this stuff together, for instance the "desktop widget" idea for little snippets of information is a good one, but why not have that information in the application icons*? If a taskbar entry is flashing, does a notification area icon also need to flash? What is the difference between a panel applet and notification area icon (aside from the fact that panel applets can be moved around)? What is the difference between the taskbar showing the windows on a desktop and a bar of tabs showing the pages in a browser (most noticable for fullscreen windows)? What is the difference between a launcher icon and a taskbar entry (nothing, according to the Avant Window Navigator, and some apps even write their own hacks to do this, ie. switching to an open window when an icon is launched). What is the difference between a viewing application showing a document and the icon for that document? Should icons be static, so users can rely on them always being exactly the same, or should they include dynamic content, such as Evolution's icon showing the number of unread messages, or Pidgin's showing current status and new message notifications? Should icons exist at all now that we have the computing power and software to display large numbers of whole documents at any size? Should applications exist as standalone things or should their functionality be built into the file managers?

[....]

I think it would be neat if, just after enabling desktop effects, it offered the user the opportunity to customize Compiz via a Wizard, which would basically ask them some yes or no questions. Questions like, "Would you like to enable the Scale plugin?", and next to the question somewhere is a "Demonstration" button that shows the plug-in in action.

DEMONSTRATION BUTTON: Instead of a pre-captured video (which would make for a larger footprint in bytes), you could actually make the effect happen live onscreen with the elements they already have present -- a live demonstration with an animated cursor or subtitles showing keyboard shortcuts on the screen and perhaps some temporary popup windows to manipulate if necessary for demonstration, so they could really SEE an effect in action. It would be better than a little video looping over and over, in my opinion. It could also work as a tool for teaching keyboard shortcuts, if not reconfigure a binding to something they like.

The Wizard should be aimed at new users who aren't familiar with Ubuntu or Compiz yet, who would appreciate the simplicity of answering just a few questions to get Compiz to do what they want it to do.

I think this is necessary because there is probably a chunk of new users out there who aren't aware of ALL capabilities/features Compiz has to offer. And if they are led via a Wizard on a "tour of Compiz" of sorts, they'll possibly discover a feature they've never seen before and love it.

Is ALSA enough for sound quality, or better than Windows' sound?

I heard that OSSv4.0 released with source codes in 2007.
* http://www.opensound.com/press/2007/oss-gpl-cddl.txt
* http://www.opensound.com/

I read a post about OSS and want to share.
* http://insanecoding.blogspot.com/2007/05/sorry-state-of-sound-in-linux.html

If you read the post in the address i gave, the writer says that OSS was good enough in architect and was reliable, there was no need to write a new code. Also he says its easier to develop software and its crossplatform (OSS), and ALSA has lots of functions which are not used and slow. I read it and want to hear about these arguments. The post sounds me true but i wonder if OSS can be integrated in Ubuntu without any license problem. Is there any way to be default?

Maybe some parts of OSS can be taken to ALSA, so we get more hardware support? Or architect of ALSA may be changed like OSS and can be cross-platform? Or OSS can be used by default.

Many friends don't use Ubuntu because they say Ubuntu's sound is very bad. I'm an Ubuntu and open source fan, and just want to hear replies about sound quality improvement news and ideas*. I don't know much about OSS, I just want to learn.

* For example maybe an integrated enhancer in Ubuntu would be perfect. (Sorry for bad English.)
* An equalizer can be added to Ubuntu's volume manager maybe?

Please support the Integrated Media Management Project
http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gnome/appinfo.html?csaid=15C2B5BC19A9276A

In my opinion, this is an really important project and if ubuntu/canonical can do some magic here to speed up the progress of developing, we could have some new interesting applications for the GNOME desktop.

Look at my idea http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/8195/. This could be a possible use case for such an media manager integration.

Mythbuntu and Ubuntu Media Center are sweet distro's and all, but it's not good enough for an operating system for a device that you hook up to a TV. I mean: we can do better than Windows Media Center. The mouse and keyboard should be optional from the moment that you put the LiveCD into your computer to the moment you start your first movie on your freshly installed system.

What Media Center-like OS'es have now is a two-layered desktop environment: the normal DE is almost unusable with a remote control, and the second layer (10') is unusable with a mouse. A Media Center shouldn't function as a computer, but as a very advanced, menu driven, user friendly video recorder.

I'll try to be a little more detailed now.

The Remote
The remote should be automatically detected and work. If it can not be detected, Ubuntu should prompt for it. This is the *only* place where the use of a keyboard can be necessary. The minimum of buttons to use should be six, like Apple's remote control (I think that's impossible in Mythtv for now): directional buttons that also function as volume up/down and skip buttons, an OK/Play/Pause-button, and a Menu-button. Clicking the Menu-button brings up a context menu. Double-clicking the Menu button would open the system menu.
More advanced remote controls can of course take advantage of the extra buttons.

General System Menu
* Back-arrow or close button (a typical symbol that is easy to recognize and always in the same place in every window)
* Tasks (default; replacement of the task bar, brings up something Compiz Scale-like but with larger icons and extra task options... plus maybe some launchers, something Dock-like)
* Applications
* Locations
* System (replacements of the panel buttons, these menus should contain the same as they do now in Gnome... Maybe add something mythwelcome-like to System)
* Power (brings up something like the Gnome red power button)

[....]

I would never posted that if wouldn't have an class this year about group politics.
Believe me when I tell you that even I was a bit sceptic about this at first, but more I read ideas and comments more I see that "six hats" theory works in Brainstorm, it just has to be easier to recognize.
========================
So what is this theory? thankfully we have Wikipedia for answer.
To make an quick summary for those that didn't go to Wikipedia:
There are 6 hats each has different colour:
1. White: An fact about Ubuntu that should be made better; Example: Easy mounting...
2. Red hat: Used more for comments, is more subjective; your look why this idea is good / bad
3. Yellow hat: Why should Ubuntu should implement this idea
4. Black hat: More for comments: Criticism of an idea, why would be bad but it should be objective.
5. Green hat: more for comments: Alternative to an idea
6. Blue hat: For moderators and for big picture of Ubuntu or Brainstorm future.
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My ideas are more or less taken out of the white hat, and maybe a bit of red, yellow and black and my comments are mostly from green or red.
-------------------------
The point is that we tend to use one hat more than the others.
I can make an idea that is pure white hat; meaning there is facts about new feature or problems about old, but no real reason why this is good for me (red) or why this is good for all of us (yellow). But someone has his or hers green hat very developed and he or she should use it in comments to mark alternatives for this idea...
Also it would be good to know when someone wears black hat so there would be no hard feelings.
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Sorry that I bother you with my study but I thought that this is and should be even better implemented in Brainstorm.
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Please use hats in comments....

[....]