Contributor oblique63

Many people have trouble installing Ubuntu alone. I will list here some common problems people find and in the end I will propose some solutions.

Attitudes like: "If the user doesn't know how to partition he/she should ask for help from someone else more experienced" are not really the solution to attract new users (mainly people having their first Linux experience or without internet access).

Some problems:
1. One of the first things the partitioner does is to ask what kind of partition should be created. Well, more than 50% of the users would say: What is a partition ? (before even have to ask themselves "Why should I do it?").

2. People don't know they should create a "/" partition (does it sounds any intuitive at first glance ?)

3. People don't know why do they have to do it because "in te system X I don't need to do it ! Everything simply works out of the box". We should not think it as any natural concept.

Off course it has many more problems. Let us stop here and show some possibilities:

- An introductory screen with short and acurate information. One suggestion is:

First screen:
"Now you may choose to have your disk partitioned. This process can make your system more secure, responsive and easy to manage. "

Second Screen:
"Some advantages of partioning:
-Frequently people have their personal data (internet content, projects, documents under construction), system data (installed programs, configuration files, etc.) and some shared data (like music, video, documents, etc.). If you have more than one system you should use partitions to organize it. If you have only one system you may use partitions to separate the contents from each other. This technique permits, for example, one to erase the whole system data preserving your personal and shared data and allowing you to install a new system with your old content.

[....]

I can't seem to find a way to open MS-Publisher files on Linux. Everything else works fine, i.e. Word documents, Excel documents and so on, but Linux seems to be missing the ability to open MS-Publisher files.

Release 8.04 (hardy) contains tools for checking and reporting hardware compatibility (System Tools → Hardware Testing).

This is good start. Thanks for it! However I am missing few important questions. Many people are begging for suspend/hibernate support and sound recording fixes. Following questions will help to determine problematic hardware.

Is suspend mode working?
Is hibernate working?
Is sound recording working?

I had to generalize to keep the subject line short, however I'm noticing some very common trends on brainstorm as found on other internet forums (slashdot, digg, generic forums).

Especially via the comment system, we're rushing towards a scheme of developing "regulars" and people who dedicate themselves a bit too much to the preening of the system and micromanaging other peoples' ideas.
This is instead of simply allowing brainstorm to become an endless foundry for improvements.
Our comment format is starting to result in many people coming on trying to oppress ideas out of existence. No idea should have to suffer somebody's lack of sympathy or interest. It will eventually result in a gridlock of ideas as only the most mainstream will be promoted by cliques.

I don't know if this would require skilled moderation, applications for comment removal or if it would require an overall ***REDUCTION*** in functionality.

I myself have had people make the argument of:
o An idea not being valid because it could "take up mindshare" (which to me seems kind of vulgar in essence).
o Disagreement based on preference.
o Disagreement based on lack of endearment to the situation or criteria.
o Cited qualifications as a valid basis for reasoning.

This needs to be addressed lest we all be reduced to a mob of "citation needed" shouting snobs. I wouldn't be surprised if participation from both amateurs and professionals alike has been impacted by this sort of behavior if I'm encountering it now.

["I want my mom to feel welcome here"], but from what I've seen she'd be chased out by a bunch of neurotic self-appointed moderators.

Either way, we're headed for this on brainstorm and it would be foolish to think we're going to avoid the problem without trying.

Many users (including myself) are suffering from lack of sound due to the hda-intel driver, the bug is commonly found on Acer Aspire laptops as well as other laptops. So far there are no definite fixes and someone really needs to jump in and take a look at it.

Ubuntu installation disk i.e. LiveCD must have format hard disk option in the main menu to format HD completely. The installation process formats hard disk only if ubuntu is being installed in the system. So, if anyone wants to completely empty his/her hard disk it is not possible with ubuntu. Also, for software to be successful its rejection should be as easy as its acceptance!
wot is ur opinion?!!

Wot if u want to format the OS itself...u don't get any help on this from gparted!!!!
there should be some way of doing it.

I really like gEdit, it's a simple app and abides by all gnome standards. Any changes in preferences are reflected in the editor.

I do wish however that ith ad more features. The first of which is code folding.

Plain and simple.

While the default Ubuntu theme in Gnome is OK, there is room for A LOT more refinement. I would like to see things like:

- Beautiful icons like those in OSX
- Cutting edge, highly readable fonts

I would especially like to see tremendous attention to detail paid to all kinds of small things, such as default icons, etc. Much of this may come in the form of enhancements to the default Gnome/KDE themes.

There is just something incredibly pleasing about the look of OSX, and Ubuntu deserves to look at least as good.

With the right input from top designers, this is possible.

example from duplicate idea 5581 :
http://fc02.deviantart.com/fs22/f/2007/321/2/f/Ubuntu_Theme_Mockup___Light_by_b radwjensen.jpg

Change the theme to use square corners instead of round corners.

Square corners are nicer.
Round corners are ugly.

Have you ever had a folder inside of another folder in which you had some files? Now say you wanted to take the files in the innermost folder and move them up a level. You'd have to cut and paste all the contents and then remove that folder. So more visually it would go like this Folder 1 > Folder 2 > files. Then you want the files in Folder 2 to be placed in Folder 1. So the finished product would be Folder 1 > files. It's almost like un-taring a folder, in fact this could apply to compressed archives as well. You would right click a folder and "Explode" it's contents to the current location. It would save a lot of clicks whether you're unzipping/untaring a compressed archive or unpacking a folder. This has only happened a few times to me so I understand if this isn't worthy of being voted up. Just an idea I had.

My girlfriend had a really hard time giving her presentation to her class mates in college and if M$ save formats were default that would not have happened.

I am sure this is not the only case of this and it would be a real convenience for compatibilities sake if we simply changed the default install to office formats.

I think it would be useful to be able to open multiple pdf files within the same viewer window. I know that I would use this feature a lot, because I like to multi-task, so I read multiple ebooks or whatever a the same time a lot... but yeah, it would also be cool if there were an option to view your tabbed documents side-by-side somehow for comparison purposes, Im sure that would come in handy sometimes...

but yeah, we have a tabbed text editor, and web browser, so why not a tabbed pdf viewer?

May be creating a web page featuring / centralizing videos around ubuntu. Could be a good idea. This could encompass :

- tutorials / screencasts (compiz, openoffice, installing ubuntu, installing software...).
- lectures about ubuntu / linux.
- videos from / about ubuntu community.
- ...

There are allready some intersting solutions around, like http://unixtube.com, but may be some solution driven by the active ubuntu community could be a plus.

Partitionning hard disk is the most anxious moment for new users when they are installing Ubuntu. I have seen some users cancel installation because they didn't now how to set it up. Some of them where Windows power users. Notions as "mounting point" have no sense for them. The consequences of each choice are not obvious.

And then they say "I tried to install Ubuntu but it's too complicated for me, so I prefer stay with Windows for the moment"...

(Sorry for my bad english)

there should be an easy way to install mac4lin. A deb package would be great, this should also automatically configure keyboard shortcuts to match OS X key bindings...

I refere to this project: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mac4lin

And the goal is to make linux look like OS X

Made popular by Apple, kinetic scrolling is a much more intuitive interface for navigating pages. Not only making touch-screens more interactive, the "real" feel of a kinetic scroll provides a more natural grasp of what is being done. It is easier to control and predict, and streamlines the work process. In addition, it's fun to look at. Ubuntu would benefit from this both through an asthetic boost and by providing an interface that is truly "for human beings".

Video of kinetic scrolling on an Open Moko: http://youtube.com/watch?v=k9eDkhHdNLI
Note: there would be an option to revert to the normal way.

I see so many impossible ideas listed on this website.

People want Canonical to "make Hardware manufacturers work with us"
They want Ubuntu to "get the games industry to make games for us"
We ask the devs to "stop a bunch of people arguing (like KDE/Gnome), and to work together to make an ueber-Desktop"

All mega ideas. All nice pie-in-the-sky ideas that I want too. All impossible.

So... since impossible ideas seem par for the course, I want my Operating System to go where no operating system has gone before:

I want Ubuntu to bring World Peace.

Come on Mark Shuttleworth - you went into outer space - you made a Debian system I can actually install, with a bunch of devs who aren't actually trying to kill each other because they disagree on what style of commenting to use in the source code - surely, surely... you can do this too??

I stuck this in marketing, because, if Ubuntu brought World Peace - everyone would want to download it. And I attached bug #1 for the same reason.

http://ebupof.deviantart.com/art/Ubuntu-website-84984292

Some of the members at our swedish forum sugested to post it here. I just did what they told me to do. :)

This is my version of the Ubuntu.com website.

When I login to a GNOME session, the windows appear glitchy and fragmented until the desktop is done loading. When i login to a KDE(4) Session, I see a very nice splash screen, which then fades out to a fully loaded desktop. A default GNOME installation should support complete loading of the desktop before it is displayed.

i dont know what u call it but default gnome rendering
of new windows and application is bad.it represents look
like i have windows 98 classic look.boxed look,see
default firefox 2 without a patch
gnome-firefox something,
Options develop a look which has
Trunsclency(whatever) more eyecandy and glossyness that
vista has or office 07 has.its not imitation but rather
appealing.i installed opera but it looks terrible in
gutsy.