Contributor olskar

Compiz is a step in the right direction, but human/computer interface could be much farther along.

I would like a "Desktop" to more closely resemble a 3d world of unparalleled graphical beauty, a la "Crysis", complete with lapping water, 3d sound, and instant VOIP interaction with any friend as a 3d avatar on this "Desktop" (automagically culling their availability to 3d chat via Pidgin, and any protocol in pidgin). Any application could be shared real time as a floating texture inside this 3d world, or run privately as a texture in the 3d world. Making an application into fullscreen is just a basic key press. There is also a way to instantly minimize all the applications into a virtual pile of pages on the ground in the 3d world, that can be restored at any time with the same keypress.

This infrastructure in place, any movie, video game, photo, document, program, or other file should be instantly shareable between all connected Pidgin partners graphically in the 3d world. Multiplayer games can be started and shared instantly as a texture in the 3d world, and with continued VOIP communication. For example both parties could automagically load an emulator (zsnes, mupen64plus, dolphin, pcsx, pcsx2), and then play simultaneously while chatting, with gamepads on opposite sides of the planet (with good enough bandwidth).

Video chat should also just be one key press away with any avatar near by. Any two avatars should be able to connect in any way easily, privately, with strong encryption, via p2p.

The image says it all:

http://www.kde-look.org/content/preview.php?preview=1&id=84583&file1=84583-1.pn g&file2=84583-2.png&file3=84583-3.png&name=New+sysinfo

However it should be nice to change the layout a bit, because its too vista-like, but the main idea is good. (from my perspective)

When you visit http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download to download the latest Ubuntu release, you currently get a huge dropdown menu. Then you have to scroll down a huge list filled with continent names, and a lot of strange looking server names -- where is Mirrors.brianm.name located anyway? I don't need so see all that.

We can do better. How about a world map that lets you click on your current location - or relative location?

To paraphrase user-interface guru and recent mozilla hire, Aza Raskin, whenever you ask a user to make a choice they don't care about, you fail as an interface designer. Me and probably 99.9% or the people who visit the Ubuntu download page don't care which specific server we download from. We just want our download. Give us a map, ask us to click on the part of the continent we're on, and leave the rest up to you.


REVISION:

Following our discussion below,

* we can use the user's IP to narrow the possibilities of which servers will best handle the request.

* possibly add an algorithm which takes into account both geographic proximity to user's ISP, as well as real-time server availability.

* returning a short list (of possibly three) servers which might best handle the request.

* naming the servers by city, state/province, country, and not by their (sometimes arcane) server names ...
continued ....

[....]

for example:
"this is hard to implement"
"i have read and understood this"
"i have not understood this"
"i do not know good this problem"


(these would be added to current
"promote this idea!"
and
"demote this idea!")

Ubuntu is a free software operating system.

Unfortunately some of the artwork is not free. :(
The 'human-icon-theme' and 'tangerine-icon-theme' packages are not free.

We should strive to have free artwork to go along with our free software. Artwork that is compatible with the four freedoms. Artwork that can be used in the creation of derivative art, mixing, improving, altering, modifying.

Add GIMPshop to the repository.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMPshop

GIMPshop is a modification of the free/open source graphics program GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), intended to replicate the feel of Adobe Photoshop. Its primary purpose is to make users of Photoshop feel comfortable using GIMP.

Alright, so when you look at the debates about cleaning up the file system, one thing that always comes up is "The average user shouldn't have to navigate out of the Home folder". So, why shouldn't we have /media linked in the Home folder as Devices or something? Or would that not work, being as /media is owned by root and all? =/

Often after doing an update the double arrow icon will appear indicating a need to reboot. But if you click it, no reason is given as to why reboot is needed.

My idea is that clicking on the icon (or a "Why?" link for more information) should indicate why the OS thinks a reboot is needed so I can make a decision about whether to do it now or later.

my other ideas

The xsane frontend is the most feature-complete gui scanning program, but the interface is complicated and difficult to use.

There are a ton of buttons for adjusting contrast and gamma and resolution etc. that most users don't need. And there's the histogram window, which is just plain confusing

Would it be possible for a simplified version of it to be made with the more complex options visible only under an advanced tab? Just do something to make it less scary-looking.

Example, I am listening to music in Rhythmbox while chatting to my friend Bob in Pidgin or chatting in #friends with X-Chat.

Now, I wouldn't it be cool, if I just typed;
/song
And it would tell Bob the song I am listening to?
Or, I type /song in X-Chat, and then it says the song.

I type /song, and it says "Eric Clapton - Tears of heaven".

I thinks it's best linux file manager avalable: http://www.krusader.org/ will be great look it with new release of Ubuntu. Also some popular arhivators like unrar for linux will be great.

There are beginning to be enough games available for the linux platform, that having a separate partition for all of them might be a good idea. This new type of partition would be designed with speed in mind. Maybe a journaling system that can defragment and only do so when nothing else is going on in the system. Another simpler method might just be to use a ext4 file system for the game partition.

I know the Idea sound stupid . first time it hit me I said to my self what stupid idea too, but let me explain please
The first thing windows users said when you tell them about Linux/Ubuntu is "it is hard, u need to learn commands to use it" and they don't understand that 95% of the time we use CLI because we love it.
imagine this title in Ubuntu website "Ubuntu 8.10 is so easy you don't need terminal any more" thats will encourage windows people to try it, and for all of old Ubuntu users I'm sure if you know how to use CLI you will know how to install it

Make more options for screenlets and get rid of the oanel.

I think it would be nice to be able to rate the projects in Launchpad.

I think a star ratting system would be more appropriate.

And a way to list projects by rank would also be nice.

Users could be able to vote for bugs in launchpad, in order to know which bugs are more important by Ubuntu users and give them more priority.
At style is done in KDE bugs.

I find it very annoying when I update my Ubuntu box, only to find that after the update I need to reboot. I suggest a solution similar to Apple's software update*, where the update has the reboot icon located next to it to signify that a reboot will be needed or a reboot icon on the panel, similar to the way the new red down arrow in hardy signifies an important update.

*Image for reference: http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l25/CATSCEO/update.png

Though the title speaks for itself, it would be nice to see a notification when you plug-in any hardware and make the system offer you many options to do with it, like installing drivers or tell you that there are no drivers for your device or something like that, it sucks when i connect a webcam and the system doesn't react to it.

As a user I want to be able to listen to audio or watch videos with the least amount of setup. I would like to have a single interface (Codec Manager) that lists all of the most common audio and video formats and shows me if I am missing the necessary codec for playback.

Use Case: Enable MP3 playback.
Precondition: MP3s are not currently playable.
1. User logs into the system.
2. User opens the Codec Manager.
3. System displays a list of common audio/video formats.
4. User selects MP3s.
5. System displays some info about MP3s.
6. System displays a list of available codecs.
7. User selects a codec and clicks Apply.
8. System downloads and installs the selected codec.
9. System informs the user when completed.

Other possible features:
- Display a list of audio/video types that are missing codecs.
- An auto-setup function, that grabs the recommended codec for all formats.

Audio and Video formats that should be supported:

Audio:
- MP3
- OGG
- AAC
- FLAC
- Real Audio

Video:
- MP4

[....]

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

[....]