Contributor ravindranathakila

BACKGROUND:
Schools should be the first place any operating system company/community promotes their operating system. Microsoft figured this out a long time ago. They practically gave away copies of Windows to K-12 schools. Schools said, "It is almost free of cost. That is all that matters to us." The students that used these Windows computers grew up, and had to buy a computer. Windows is what they learned on, so it is what they purchased and used.

WHAT DO WE NEED:
What we need to do (as an Edubuntu community) is to set up a site similar to the abandoned Schoolforge.net designed as a meeting place for everything regarding Edubuntu and Free/Open Source Software in schools. It would provide reasons other than cost as to why schools should switch to Edubuntu and Free/Open Source Software, as well as resources for anyone who wanted to get involved.

WHY US:
Edubuntu is by far the greatest educational GNU/Linux distro on the planet. It is our job to show off this amazing distro. On the Edubuntu site, there is no information whatsoever on the advantages of using it over Windows or Mac. Ubuntu already has a huge community backing it, making it the perfect candidate to start something like this.

THE BOTTOM LINE:
If we want to instill the values of openness in students, promote the use of Ubuntu around the world, and create the GNU generation, we need to make a site serving as a hub for educators and those promoting the use of Edubuntu in schools.

http://www.f-prot.com
This comes in as a requirement these days for two things. One is when mounting and using windows partitions, viruses could spread. The other is, VirtualBox can run a windows os, hence letting in viruses. F-Prot is a no hassle antivirus, free for single users. Updates regularly too.

Gnome needs a revoultion. Ubuntu uses Gnome.
Canonical could help the Gnome3-developers e.g. with money, tips, pc-resources or something else to speed up the development and to create a better Gnome3-release.
(KDE4 has much more features than Gnome, it is faster and looks better (my oppinion). Also it uses the powerful Qt4 as widgetset that is better than GTK+ at time. Gnome is going to leave behind KDE)
[edit] I dont't say that any DE is better, but Gnome needs help and Ubuntu primary uses Gnome. KDE4 is a great DE without help from the Ubuntu developers. [/edit]
[Sorry for my English]

title basically. We need to add this support. Apple already has it (but they sued or something) but we should still get it because lots of people are switching to Office Open XML (darn ms for using a name like ours for their cruddy formats) and we need to be able to use that or some people will not consider ubuntu as ahead in technology- they will consider it behind because of some silly office format.

Microsoft Windows had a briefcase option. This is very useful. For example you have a folder with many docs(100). Now you copy them to your USB. Next day, once you edit them on your pc, you should be able to synchronize the contents with the USB folder and update the files you edited instead of copying all the contents. This would save time and be an intelligent way of handling files. Like a CVS...

downthemall program has been here for a long time now. It is a magnificent free download program which I have experienced, works even faster than download accelerator. So far it can be used as an addon to a browser. But from experience I know it works with Mozilla closed and the bin running. Therefore I think this project can be integrated to the OS when downloading any program as the OS 'Save' default.
http://www.downthemall.net/

This is practically useless. Sometimes it is possible to create folders in a usb as root. Infact some programs tend to save files in usb as root. But it really does not affect permissions. In a windows os, those files are accessible nevertheless. Therefore only enable folder options such as "read-only" and "hidden" but remove ownerships on usb's. Having access permissions infact makes us believe the files are safe but it isn't. USB's are portable devices. Either use a program like Folder Lock, TrueCrypt i it to make it safe, or just leave it plain without any misleadings.

Just like VirtualBox manages to put the guest and it's execution state to hibernation, it would be nice if we could put our individual process to hibernation. It will be very tough to implement this, but its worth it. For example, if we hibernate Rythmbox, it would continue playing the song upon resuming. Integrate the to the top-right-corner menu of a window or the System Monitor's Edit menu. This means we could hibernate games, and all sorts of applications individually. If a system resume fails upon general hibernation, we have no fear or loosing that specific applications status as it was hibernated individually.

After some file cut and paste operations, we might forget what we were doing and occasionally select paste in the wrong place. Having items residual in the clip-board is also a security risk. Enabling to clear the clipboard will save memory as well. Therefore Drop/Clear Clipboard option on right-click menu when there's something on the clipboard will be a great facility.

Right now,ubuntu versions have funny codenames like Gutsy Gibbon,Hardy Heron,etc.

They sound great in English,but many users are not english-speaking(Here in Romania many people that I converted to Ubuntu love it,but they don't know a word in English)

I think it would be a great thing if each language had it's "translation" of the english codename.

Maybe we could involve the Ubuntu LoCo in this project.

The concept of desktop and the menus have been here for a long time. We often end up cluttering our desktop due to work rush and at times laziness. Maybe that's why there is a desktop cleanup wizard for windows. Nevertheless, I believe the desktop concept should be improved. Suppose there were to modes for the desktop, "Clear" and "Work", the 'clear' mode will have the normal clean desktop with your favorite wallpaper. The "Work" should have something like a cockpit-look the ultimate control panel for work. It should have separate zones, for shortcuts, for temporary files, the recycle bin, popular programs and maybe some widgets(weather or an rss reader). This implementation will make the desktop run in two wonderful modes. Maybe the mode switch can be integrated to the desktop right-click. What the final intension should be is to make the desktop like an ultimate customizable control panel in work mode, and a peaceful clear mode.

Google Desktop and many other applications have come by the way for file search. Many users know exactly "Which Area" their file would be which they search. They infact have an idea which folders better be index and which not. Therefore, it is better to have a file for each folder called "Index" which contains its file list. This file should be optional. A user must be able to right click on a folder and select "Do not index" and this file will not be created for that folder. The file should be updated on every file move within/in/out of that folder. Say I have a "Documents" folder with documents from many clients, I would like 'Only' it to be indexed for faster search through thousands of documents. This way users can opt to select only needed folders to be indexed. The "Search" can have an option to select/deselect which folders to search in, along with another option for searching only indexed folders. This would make indexing light-weight and searches more productive.

Make the thumbnail/folder icon be the file named folder.jpg by default. That way when one renames flower.jpg to folder.jpg, it will appear as the thumbnail of that folder. Windows OS has a similar implementation.

File copying has been here for a long time. There are some defaults needed still. One is, when I'm going to overwrite a folder, the copier should ask if to overwrite the folder or add only the missing contents within it(including subfolders). This is needed when one has broken a file copy operation halfway. The copy will ask if to override a folder which we know, got copied halfway. So we should be able to specify if to overwrite the already existing ones or just to add the remaining.