Contributor rorymccann

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

Would it be possible to add an option for seeing two windows in one filebrowser, in order to push files around ?

this is one of those things which, once you've used it, you ask yourself how you ever did otherwise. i have used 'norton commander' (DOS) in the past, and 'total commander' (for MS Windows, google it), and also the kde file manager 'krusader'. all of these are split into two windows. its much more compact, and much easier to keep order on the desktop.

(Or is this something that the Gnome people would have to do ?)

As a seasoned user of the terminal, the issue of an application having an icon embedded into it is something that I didn't even notice until I started converting others to Ubuntu. I propose adding a non-obtrusive section to ELF applications that provides this functionality and can be accessed through GNOME's thumbnail capability. This idea is meant to compliment the icons provided through the package manager and take advantage of the extensibility of the ELF specification.

Many users expect applications that they've downloaded to have recognizable icons, this icon is usually something familiar from visiting the website for the program. A good example of an application that's not already included in the Ubuntu repo is "songbird", which has a large egg right next to the download link and for its Windows icon.

In addition, provided that this technology is adopted by different segments of the development community (GNOME, automake, and developers) then icon handling will no-longer require any action for packagers. GNOME could easily check the ELF binary for an icon, so no configuration file would be necessary for the appropriate icon to appear. By storing a GUID in the binary it would also be possible to theme icons for all system applications (over-riding the icon stored in the binary) by using the GUID as a unique id for matching the application with an icon stored in a theme.

For a technology demo and screenshots visit
http://www.compholio.com/elficon/

(NOTE: Modified 03/27/08 to clarify and better explain impact)

When you're represented with a yes / no / cancel buttons in KDE, it's presented as:

Yes, no, cancel.

In windows these buttons are displayed in the same order as KDE.

In gnome, the placement is no, cancel, yes.

Now this is *quite* confusing for those who're used to diffrent placement, not to mention the times they'll press the wrong buttons by old habit. I suggest to offer a choice to the users of which placement they'd rather have.

Run some system software in a sandbox for security.

Example Tracker Search Tool, weather applet, and system services, etc.

Perhaps also calculator, character map, etc.

Mac OS X does this;
* http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/300.html#security

Many apps do not recognize unicode characters. For example my mp3s with Japanese names appear only as a bunch of squares or similar in all the media players I've tried. CheckGmail tells me I've got new mail but it's in Swedish and looks weird in the little infobox that pops up. That sucks >:(

During install offer the option to not format the / partition, but instead delete and recreate all directories, that have a special role in the system (like /bin, /usr, /etc and so on) and leave those, that the user himself created for other purposes, as well as the /home directory alone.

Make the Ubuntu Launchpad platform and other web based community tools fully available under Affero GPL license to counter propaganda of RedHat and the like against the Ubuntu distribution.

Very often the firewall blocks some of my network communcation and it takes me hours to realise that. Some kind of popup or notification would help the user.

Linux does a great job at creating thumbnails for pictures and videos, but music is left as just a generic audio icon. Clearly this is because it's hard to represent an audio file visually. But actually, why couldn't album art be used? Obviously some audio files would stay generic icons as they are not professional albums, but a large majority of audio files could now have a visual representation.

Perhaps there could be some plugin for your file browser that collects the album artwork from your default mp3 software, or maybe the file browser could connect directly to the internet to get them itself?

Maybe the icons could also have a number in the top corner denoting the album track.

Offer choice during installation: system + programs or clean system only.
I have to install OpenOffice even if I never use this.

I know that's not ubuntu-team fault..but i think that would be nice to have in ubuntu repository sure-stable ati graphic drivers in order to have a better and a painless experience with linux..especially for beginners..

PROBLEM: The user decides that he/she wants to share the Ubuntu software. He/She has plenty of disk space and is connected to a LAN at work. How does he/she go about it ?

SOLUTION: Create a GUI for mirroring and then sharing the software. The GUI takes note of the Ubuntu version /etc/apt/sources.list and makes reccomendations. The GUI shares the repository via Apache2, SAMBA, vsftp,rsync and P2P. The GUI also leaves an instruction page in the Apache2 web root on how to use the local repository. The end of the setup should present this page so that the local user can send it via email to interested users.

UBUNTU PRO: Ubuntu spreads like wildfire.
UBUNTU CON: Develop the GUI.

Further to the 5-a-day idea, provide certificates and / or awards to contributors who complete a certain amount of bugs / issues. For example, a bronze ubuntu medal and certificate for completing 100 issues, silver for 500 and gold for 1000. Then show a regularly updated table on the web which also shows the countries and ubuntu locos that are winning the most medals.

There should be a button "Set as standard" in the Gnome Volume Control. My Front Speaker is always at 80%, I have to turn it up on every system boot.

Make Tracker Search Indexer be able to todo mathematical calculations.

Spotlight on Mac OS X does this;
* http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/300.html#spotlight

There is no AM/PM format defined for the en_IE format. Launchpad bug #199899 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/199899 is about this and has a patch to make it work.

Integrate online map services such as Google Maps with application software such as Evolution Mail contacts and the GNOME "About Me".

So that you can click on your, your friends or your business associates to open an web browser and see their home or office address on a map.

How about creating a universal interface (together with some file format) for configuring applications?

The problem: when user needs to configure e-mail client, instant messenger, some other software, he always have to do it by hand. Reading manuals and setting values s/he can barely understand.

Here is how I see a solution. There should be some application that can "play" some configuration files (a-la .reg files in windows). So, for example, when I need to set up SIP client, I can just download configuration fragment from the service provider and run it with configurator. It will then set up only those parameters, which present in downloaded file and leave all others as they were.

It has a potential to become a security nightmare, but if implemented correctly can be a big win for linux usability.

I have found it to be very hard to install software after downloading it, (NEXT TO IMPOSSIBLE) This needs to be changed to a easier way of installing software also it should say which version do i choose from for Linux.