Contributor sebsauvage

Ubuntu is secure online but its very insecure due to physical access.
people can always hack your system by using the Live CD, and they can access files and re-install ubuntu.
When Live CD is inserted and a user wants to upgrade/re-install ubuntu should ask for a password (simillar to the sudo box that appears when you want to install software)
so what you think?

When you have a slow computer, you really don't want to update while working. It slows down everything you do. So i would like to see an option in the shut-down menu update and shut-down. Or when there are new updates detected, you already can choose for installing them on shut-down.
A lot of people i know would find this very handy, especially the ones I've convinced to use ubuntu because it stays fast instead of microsoft.

this is not the same idea as http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea 4511

I know a lot of libraries in my area hate windows, but it's the only operating system that they can afford (discounts).

If a version of Ubuntu was made for libraries, maybe a modified Edubuntu with book cataloging software, I bet a lot of libraries would be willing to make the switch. If there was a program to catalogue books, it might be more widely adopted in schools and libraries, since they need those capabilities.

Bookbuntu maybe?

I am using the GIMP for a while now and although you have to get used to it, it is fine for pretty much everything. There is one thing in photoshop cs3 however, that I always need to boot to windows for; photomerge.
This function merges photo's together so you can get beautiful panorama's from several pictures. I love it! This should be an option in the GIMP as well.

I know there is something called "hugin" for the GIMP which claims to do the same. It is however in no way comparable.

I would like to see some monitor calibration software in the repository.

To calibrate the brightness/contrast, etc of the monitor to get good accurate natural colors.

This is very important for people who work with media and graphics.

When an external NTFS hard disk is not cleanly unmounted because you unplugged it wildly on Windows, or because of a Windows crash, there is an error when you try to plug it on ubuntu, explaining what to do on the command line.

There should be an easy way to mount the volume anyway, by giving the choice to the user to mount it anyway, or not to mount it. A clear dialog box should do the trick.

VMware Workstation is one of the best cross-platform virtualization software out there (without forgetting VirtualBox!), so why not at least talk to VMware to include it the Partner repositories, or multiverse, or something?
VMware is very "Linux friendly", they develop software for Linux, offer freeware versions of products with the basic functions, they support Linux as a "guest" operating system... they even have pre-configured settings for ubuntu!

Also, at the moment I think it is the only software for linux capable of virtualizing a copy of Windows (XP) with easy 3D support (version 6.5, still in beta, but open to the public)

I don't see the problem in having it in a different repository (if VMware agrees, of course), disabled by default... it would be good for everyone: the users, the developers, and even for the adoption of Linux itself...
Doing that would be giving more freedom of choice to users, freedom to use more programs, freedom to do more things, without taking the freedom of the ones that don't want it or don't need it, not even a bit...

I think Linux shouldn't be like:
"Proprietary Software: against it at all costs!"

instead sould be more like:
"Free Software: the more, the better..."

(just my opinion...)
Cheers

Linux big problem in getting more user's has been technical in the past. To some extent I suppose it still is. But now the more important problem is getting the average computer user (AKA not a geek) to embrace Linux. I think having a more defined Linux Operating system would go a long way to achieve that. Their is simply too many flavors of Linux out there. Sure we may have one kernel but as with Microsoft having too many Vista versions. The same confusion can happen to Linux.
I see questions like which version is right for me?, how do I get it?, how does it install?. In fact the real problem is getting a copy of Linux on a computer. Some just are used to having a disk and throwing it into the CD/DVD drive.
Sometimes, I do think the thing that holds Linux back is the same thing that pushes it forward and that's open source.
We have seen commercially available versions of Linux such as Red Hat and Susie make headway into corporate environments.But they have not pushed too far towards a consumer desktop OS. What needs to happen is things like Dell implementing a line of Linux desktops and laptops. That makes Linux a viable alternative to Windows when average user's see that a company like Dell supports it.
I would like to see Ubuntu continue on its road but with more of a emphasis on making a visual and marketable product with Ubuntu. Rather then a Windows replacement.

My computer has a single bad memory address in it.
I should be able to use my computer.

Currently I am forced to limit the amount of ram it is able access by a simple cut off. There is a better way:
http://rick.vanrein.org/linux/badram/

I am not even requesting this be on by default. Just the patch/source included in the repos.

Currently we let people test that they have badram, let's give them the best solution we have.

Hi! I ask to include the plugin "IE Tab" in Firefox 3 in Ubuntu 8.10.

https://addons.mozilla.org/es-ES/firefox/addon/1419

Reason? IE is a bad web explorer, but our politicians do not know it. Why? because in my case, in Spain, the Public Administration ONLY work in Internet Explorer, when I want to watch my personal information in the University, I need IE, when I have to send information (form) by the website of the ministry of X (jod, culture, education, industry...), I need IE!!! oh my good!! WHY??? WTF!!! Firefox doesn't work well, o directly, doesn't work.

If we want that everybody (at less in Spain) install Ubuntu in their PC, and they can work well, we need this (a lot of people don't know that this plugin exist!!).

Create a website similar to the Mojave Experiment, except for Ubuntu. This is a great marketing idea. It would help show that Ubuntu is an easy to learn alternative to vista and xp.

I've been thinking... there is a lot of trouble with mp3, avi, wma, and all those multimedia formats. (I know legal issues) So, why not making EASIER and a smoother transition to free formats like Ogg. Ogg is actually BETTER than mp3.

Its about giving information, making easier things.
Example:

- When user tries to reproduce mp3 file:
offer 2 options, 1) convert to Ogg format and talk about advantages of this format, 2) download proprietary codecs

- Every media player should ask this to the user on first run and convert it too if needed.

This could be a solution with all the trouble with proprietary media files.

FEEL FREE TO SUGGEST ANY OTHER WAY TO GET TO THE SAME OBJECTIVE, USE FREE FORMATS.

[Sorry for misspell in the title - it should be keep not keed]


For quite long time I was fighting with ssh server. Finally I figured out the eth0 hadn't been set via /etc/network/interfaces (I wonder how my network was set if not in that file - for more see bug 241796 ;/). I'm not sure if was wrong from a very beginning or something happened after installation.

Keeping the /etc/ files in some 'CVS' probably would not help me resolve the issue but for sure help me trace what cause such strange network setting. As a person working in Support I would be really glad to have tool saying that some screw up file that time.

Many of support situation can be describe by following conversation:

Support - Have you changed anything in your system?
Customer - No
Support - Are you sure?
Customer - Yes of course.
Support - by file X looks strange
Customer - Oh yes, I changed my network card. Is it important?

Seeing log with etc changes will be great in such situation.

Interesting links:
inotify - 'cron' like tool working based on changes in filesystem
http://inotify.aiken.cz/?section=incron&page=about&lang=en

After adding a new hard drive to the Ubuntu machine and formatting it to ext3 using GParted, I was surprised that I could not write anything to it.

The permission tab in Nautilus was of no help and I was disappointed to find out that the only way to resolve this is by recursively changing the drive mode to 777 (enable user writing). Why isn't there any GUI that explains this or at least, prompt the user to format under their ownership? [Otherwise people will just use FAT32 and ignore permissions altogether?].

This idea may be related to the Disk Manager suggestion.

It would be nice to have an option put somewhere in administration to disable the requirement of entering your password to do administrative work. It reminds me a lot of vista's notifications, constantly asking for confirmation, although it does not hassle as much. I'm not asking to do away with it, just have the option to have this feature on or off.

I think adding Tahoma from Wine package (it's free software) to the set of default fonts may significantly improve view of some web pages and opening MS Office documents.

I think that applet 'Places - Connect to server' may have option for manual selection of encoding for displayed filelist on connected FTP server. Many FTP servers still have CP1251 or other non-Unicode international filenames encoding, and in this cases, applet can't display content of FTP server correctly.

Since I don't think many people would be scared of an extra button to configure their selected screensaver, it would be really nice if it could be included (like it is in xscreensaver-settings).

I think Ubuntu should show an alert when a USB drive is unplugged "hardly", that is without selecting the option "umount drive". Or, another way, could be to add a message in notification bar, when he plugs-in the USB drive, remembering he should umount the device before plugging it out.
I prefer the first idea.

I it was a great thing to include some partitioning software in the default ubuntu install, Gparted is on the LiveCD, but not after, in the installed system...
I think it is a very useful thing to have something like that by default... Formating pen drives, external HDDs...