Contributor ntetreau

Powertop is kind of confusing, and it seems like actions taken with it expire after some time. Something graphical and permanent would be preferable, built into power management.

One of the suggestions powertop (a tool that helps to save battery power) told me is to turn off my notebook's bluetooth when it is not being used.
"Disable the unused bluetooth interface with the following command:
hciconfig hci0 down; rmmod hci_usb"

I think it would be nice to have a way to turn off/on bluetooth graphically using bluetooth applet.

At least when running on a laptop/on battery (but it would be good for a desktop on AC power too) it would be good to by default turn on all the things that powertop suggests. e.g. ALSA power save mode, increased writeback time, hald-addon-storage polling for the CD drive, USB autosuspend.

The only reason I don't use Vinagre (a GREAT vnc client if you ask me) is due to the fact that it doesn't do SSH tunneling like "vncviewer -via". Vinagre's bookmarking system would make it simple for me to connect to a vnc server through an SSH tunnel quickly without fussing with the command line typing the server's name every time.

This request for enhancement is found on GNOME's Bugzilla at http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=478036 .

I was trying to find the version numbers of some new programs I wanted to install, but I couldn't find them anywhere in the add/remove programs manager. They are, of course, listed in synaptic and other places, but I think this is an important piece of information to include in the add/remove programs place also.

my proposal is fairly simple:

if i use a theme that's installed in ~/.themes/, running an application through gksudo breaks the current look and feel of my desktop.
since ubuntu disables the root account, there shouldn't be a a difference between running apps as user or with gksudo.

not to mention that the fallback-theme looks like 1981 ;)

You can get read-only files in several ways, but the most common way is to copy files to your computer from a CDROM. Is there any reason to keep read-only permissions when copying files from cdrom to hard disk?

There are several situations to choose a whole folder, like when you import the folder to the Rhythmbox library or scanning a folder for space-wasters with Baobab.

So when you have once clicked on the folder you want (double-click for opening it and browse for subfolders) to mark it, the button you will have to click is labelled with "Open" (well, at least it says 'Öffnen' in the German translation). But this is confusing. With "Open" I understand that I execute the folder so I can see what's inside. When I'm choosing a file, "Open" is ok (archives are arguable), but when I'm choosing a folder (but don't want to open it literally (in the CHMOD meaning of execute)) the button should be labelled with "Choose" or sth like that.

If a file or directory is deleted (moved to garbage bin) provide the option to use Edit+Undo or Ctrl+Z to undelete files for say 30 seconds after.

This way is a file or directory is deleted accidently it can quickly be restored with an Undo command.

Brainstormers should see which ideas are being considered for, and/or will be represented at the upcoming Ubuntu Developer Summit for Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope.

According to the recent announcement outlining sponsorship requests for UDS
http://www.jonobacon.org/?p=1278

The first step in applying for summit sponsorship is:

"Go to Ubuntu Brainstorm and pick out a bunch of ideas on there that you are interested in working on for the Ubuntu 9.04 release. Remember, we expect all sponsored participants to lead at least one discussion for a Brainstorm idea, but we also expect you to attend a number of additional sessions. Note down the brainstorm ideas you are interested in."

The Brainstorm website should be linked with the application site, so that Brainstormers can see which ideas are being considered and/or will be represented at the summit.

First of all: What is the difference between Preferences and Administration? For example: why do I see 'Encryption and Keyrings' in Preferences and 'Keyring Manager' in Administration? What is the difference between 'Default Printer' and 'Printing'? Why do I have to disable the Tracker under Sessions and not under Search and Indexing? And why are these menu's so large? I have 24 items in Preferences (they don't even fit on my screen!) and 18 items in Administration. To put all this stuff in a popup menu is bad interface design imho. Besides, the number of option should be much smaller. A few suggestions:

- Merge 'Screensaver', 'Screen Resolution' and 'Screens and Graphics'.
- Merge 'Network', 'Network Proxy' and 'Network Tools'.
- Merge 'Update Manager, Synaptic Package Manager, Software Sources'.
- Merge 'Encryption and Keyrings', 'Authorizations', 'Keyring Manager'.


Below are all settings I can visit via the System menu. This is just way too much.


-- Preferences --
Universal Access
About Me
Appearance
Bluetooth
Default Printer
Encryption and Keyrings
Keyboard
Keyboard Shortcuts
Main Menu
Mouse
Network Proxy
PalmOS Devices (I don't have one)
Power Management

[....]

Suspend and hibernate still seems to be a big issue based on forum posts. Really focus on fixing it, even with proprietary drivers.

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

[....]

"The only other major gaps in Ubuntu's functionality are the result of weaknesses in the GNOME desktop environment. As I mentioned in my recent GNOME 2.20 review, GNOME's file dialogs are still woefully inadequate, lacking support for multiple image thumbnail display and basic file operations like delete and rename. GNOME's feature-anemic file manager also lacks many of the more powerful user interface features found in KDE alternatives like Dolphin.

Although Ubuntu isn't directly responsible for these problems, the distribution still suffers from the defects. The Ubuntu developers could help to address these issues by encouraging upstream developers to revisit some of their design decisions. Canonical could also potentially invest some resources to resolve these problems upstream by contributing the necessary fixes. At this time, Canonical still isn't nearly as involved as Red Hat or Novell in upstream GNOME development. Usability improvements are an area where the Ubuntu development community would really be able to bring something useful back upstream."

From: We're only Human after all: a review of Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/ubuntu-gutsy-gibbon-review.ars/5

While requesting features to the open source community which consist mainly of free workers, we may often forget to say how much we like Ubuntu and look like costumers requesting.

So you can say thank you to the thousands of developers and users who gave their time by voting for this article :)

This Intel-released product is very nice as it lets laptop users see what is using most power and enable some options to make batteries run longer. However, it is run from command-line only and thus most "human" users will never think of installing it, if they ever become aware of its existence.

My suggestion: create a graphical client for this program so that laptop users can see quickly what's causing the biggest amount of energy using. As part of the system monitor, that'd be awesome :)

And please, if you do that, please create this tool for BOTH Gnome and Kde (3 or 4). Kubuntu needs some love.

This package enables a user to drag an image from firefox directly to gimp. This way you don't have to save and open. Saves a lot of time...

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.

It would be to save all the .Config folders for programs in a subfolder /HomeDirectory/UserConfig instead of directly in the home folder as a hidden file.

When navigating with Nautilus it shows hidden folders and when I want to have fast access to my Music folder for example ITS A PAIN IN THE ASS :D

I guess everybody has experienced the rather long boot up times in Ubuntu (particularly with laptops). I know they are already working on it, but the change from feisty to gutsy was a pain in the ass in terms of boot up speed.
A default WinXP installation beats Ubuntu's boot up time by far!! That shouldn't be allowed fellas!!

I therefore propose to the development team (both Ubuntu and by extension Gnome)to work on the improvement of boot up times in Ubuntu systems.