Contributor smitlik

First of all: What is the difference between Preferences and Administration? For example: why do I see 'Encryption and Keyrings' in Preferences and 'Keyring Manager' in Administration? What is the difference between 'Default Printer' and 'Printing'? Why do I have to disable the Tracker under Sessions and not under Search and Indexing? And why are these menu's so large? I have 24 items in Preferences (they don't even fit on my screen!) and 18 items in Administration. To put all this stuff in a popup menu is bad interface design imho. Besides, the number of option should be much smaller. A few suggestions:

- Merge 'Screensaver', 'Screen Resolution' and 'Screens and Graphics'.
- Merge 'Network', 'Network Proxy' and 'Network Tools'.
- Merge 'Update Manager, Synaptic Package Manager, Software Sources'.
- Merge 'Encryption and Keyrings', 'Authorizations', 'Keyring Manager'.


Below are all settings I can visit via the System menu. This is just way too much.


-- Preferences --
Universal Access
About Me
Appearance
Bluetooth
Default Printer
Encryption and Keyrings
Keyboard
Keyboard Shortcuts
Main Menu
Mouse
Network Proxy
PalmOS Devices (I don't have one)
Power Management

[....]

Ubuntu is the name chosen for a global project and a distro based on Gnome. Kubuntu is another distro based on kde from the very same project.
I believe they deserve the same support from the project since Gnome and Kde are the most popular desktop manager out there.
It seems quite obvious to me, the project is very much focused on one and only distro, its first baby : ubuntu.
And it shows. Kubuntu web site looks quite poor and unprofessional compared to ubuntu. Most graphic choices like the kdm default theme (even if it's supposed to be a matter of taste) look, again, unprofessional. And finally the whole distro doesn't seem to have the same amount of attention when it comes to details (one example among others: the little thing on ubuntu warning the user about the existence of proprietary drivers for display which does not exist on kubuntu).
I've been told once, like a year ago, by an ubuntu dev that the situation is such because the project doesn't feel like fragmenting its market share.
Whatever is the official position of the project, I don't think you should do things half way.
The Kde project is itself in full evolution with Kde 4. It does deserve full support from ubuntu.

Thank you for reading.

Given the success (as far as I know) of your Dell partnership, please do everything possible to seek alliances with other vendors, as it will reinforce the idea that Ubuntu is a viable alternative to other operating systems and will provide better hardware support for current Ubuntu users.

Dell is offering new models based on Ubuntu (recently the XPS M1330 in a few countries), proof that the business model makes sense.

Some producers of motherboards & laptops are preparing new models with onboard FLASH chip 512MB, containing Linux mini-distribution Splashtop. http://www.splashtop.com
It will be able to boot small Linux just from board, independently external medium (HDD), utilization is for HW examination, dividing HDD partitions and emergency internet acces (browsing web, im).

Example: ASUS Express Gate
http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?newsid=101513

Let's build similar alternative from UBUNTU - modify and reduce classic LiveCD to "LiveFLASH" 512MB, and moreover to Splashtop Linux, retain a possibility to make full installation of Ubuntu to HDD from onboard FLASH (same way as from LiveCD)!

Let's offer this system to producers (DELL, ASUS, ...).

(Maybe also 1GB onboard Flash chip => full LiveCD ... heureka! )

Vote also here: http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/74820/Dell_Dude_Youre_getting_Dell_Instan t_On_OS

Currently, there is no way for users or developers to select their default sudo command, because they all have different command names. For KDE, there is a command like: KDE-sudo. Not sure what gnome uses, but its probably another random command, and for terminal, its "sudo"

By creating a symlink from /bin/sudo-gui to the preferred sudo program (terminal or GUI), developers can easily take advantage of the preferred sudo program by running "sudo-gui". Otherwise its kinda brute force for developers. ie, Try KDE-sudo, if it fails try gnome-sudo, if it fails try bsudo, else, do via terminal based sudo. The user should be able to choose the sudo shell they want to use by default! Some gui based sudo's have security advantages over terminal based, or otherwise (ie, the gui ones may disable keyboard hooks and VNC whilst logging in so keyboard sniffers wont work, and you cant do that to the terminal sudo command or SSH becomes worthless for admins),

It just helps standardise commands for developers, and makes customisation easier for users. It may also provide future security advantages.



If this is already being done, please comment and let me know, and I'll mark this idea to be deleted. I've only used sudo from command line, none of the programs I have written have ever needed to escalate their privileges, so if this wont work, let me know too.

Right now, the most likely successful migrations to Ubuntu happen for *nix experts and total novices who have someone install Ubuntu for them, but the most likely people to try Ubuntu are Windows power users--those who like a lot of configuration options but who are also used to using the GUI for tweaking options and not manually editing a text configuration file.

The most popular requests for editing the /boot/grub/menu.lst file involve changing the default boot option (to Windows instead of Ubuntu) and changing the timeout before a boot option is selected. The other less popular ones would be just bonus features, I guess.

I read about a motherboard from Asus (but I think there are more manufacturers doing this) that boot in 5 seconds to have Internet / messenger and nothing else (I think).

Don't you find interesting to have a boot choice in Grub that only performs this tasks?; I think that, sometimes, I want to turn on my computer only to see a forum, blog or messenger... I think it's possibly to do this in few seconds...

New Boot Option that performs:

Ethernet / Wifi
Firefox
Pidgin(?)

I think is a very interesting idea!!

Include a basic video editor/movie maker by default. Something with the functionality kdenlive or kino, but with an interface similar to pitivi or diva.

There are apparently a number of ways to choose the default application for a given file type. This should be more consistent. Ideally it should be possible when using the "Open with..." menu item to select an application from what is available under the Applications menu, rather than from the often limited list that is presented.