Contributor steve196

We should all work together on a donation drive towards a worldwide generic linux advert for TV to boost interest in linux.

Not a day goes by when people aren't be pounded by marketing adverts from Apple about OSX, or by Microsoft about Vista. So when people buy a new computer, they have been pounded so hard that they will buy OSX or Windows. They will forget we even exist.

By displaying adverts worldwide, we will accumulate interest in Linux, and make sure that they at least consider us before purchasing.

A side effect of this advert may also be that hardware driver developers are no longer able to ignore us as easily.

We should get together with the other distributions and organise a donation drive towards a generic linux advert that covers all of us, and organise to show it in as many countries as possible.

Firefox had a newspaper advert in NyTimes, and it was a success. We should do the same to get our message about linux out there, because at the moment everyone from Microsoft to Sun are flaunting their gear on every newspaper, TV station and radio, yet because we are so segmented, we have never organised any proper advertising.

Doing so would help every linux distro, whilst also starting to create the mindset, that next computer purchase, maybe consider linux instead of ignoring it. And it would be more difficult for Hardware Manufacturers to ignore we exist.

Brainstorm Search is really, really, really slow. I find it completely unusable. It is no surprise that folks aren't finding dupes when search is this broken.

My idea is that a Google site search box should be added to Brainstorm until the Search engine can be fixed. (NOTE:I am not suggesting that Brainstorm search should be dropped. I am suggesting a workaround until Search can be fixed.)

Till then, BSers: try
site:brainstorm.ubuntu.com (then search terms)

in your Google search to find things exclusively on Brainstorm.

Problem -- Many generic requests such as "Make Ubuntu faster!" are being submitted as ideas. Making Ubuntu faster is definitely something that everyone wants so everyone votes up but we still don't have any ideas on how to make Ubuntu faster.

Solution -- Split ideas into "Problems" and "Ideas". Problems could be submitted separately from ideas but ideas need to be linked to a problem.

In the "Make Ubuntu faster" example, the submitter would enter a problem such as "Ubuntu boots slowly". The idea could be "Don't start any non-interactive processes such as Apache until the user interactive ones have completely loaded".

Voting would be done on the ideas and problems. This way we could see which problems are most important by vote count.

Idea voting would work a little differently. You could only vote for one idea of each problem but have the option to move you vote between ideas for the particular problem.

Include Mozilla Prism by default.

Prism is a chromeless version of firefox that would allow users to launch a service like facebook, flickr, gmail, remember the milk etc... from the applications menu.

There are quite a few advantages to using web apps in this way.

1, Separate processes - Crash a web app and the only thing affected is the web app. Contrast this with Firefox which uses a single process, a crash crashes all windows and tabs.

2, Minimal UI - Don’t be distracted by unnecessary UI controls, or other browsing tabs.

3, Desktop integration - Launch web apps from an application menu or shortcut. Each app appears in the window list and task switcher.

Also let users choose popular, reliable web apps from the add and remove programs app.

http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Prism

It would be cool if brainstorm could be turned into a kind of social network, like in last.fm one could have a neighbourhood (based on similar promoted / demoted ideas) create user groups and have a list of friends...

This would make ideas that you agree with more visible to you....

what do you think?

Since there are not enough moderators to go around and constantly update all 10,000 ideas, I suggest having a 'implemented' queue, just as there is a 'duplicate' queue, where a user can mark the idea as "implemented" and a moderator has the choice to approve or decline.

Why am I suggesting this?

Because my idea "Fix "Places > Connect to Server..."" has already been implemented between GNOME 2.20 and 2.22 (http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/1549/) and this gentleman's "Fix Major Bug in ShipIt Website " has been fixed as well (http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/6539/).

Both have stayed flagged as 'new' for over 1 month and 2 months respectively.

I am personally very tired of seeing a bunch of so-called "ideas" here on Brainstorm of people asking for features or other aspects from Mac OS or (God help us) Windows.

Now, I'm not gonna say "automatically remove these stupid ideas" but I would like to say "put these stupid ideas in their own category so I don't have to put up with them so I can vote for actual *good* ideas."

People need to remind themselves that Linux is NOT Windows. Linux is NOT Mac OS X. Linux is NOT BSD, Be OS, DOS, or OS/2!

Anyone who suggests these "copycat ideas" is obviously not ready to use Linux. They want more of the same, let them USE the same and leave innocent alternate operating systems out of their own mess.

sounds a very generic but software in repository needs to
be more informative based on rating system,by number of downloads also all packages need to be up to date.Linux mint
opensuse,The linspire CNR does this.already we have some information in update manager but synaptic too needs to
inform more.also use of some color system red,green,blue etc
will be the more attractive look to synaptic.some dialogs should be minimized.

please merge duplicate entries (not only votes), in order to clean up the brainstorm site

When someone new installs ubuntu, kubuntu or xbuntu, brainstorm should be introduced and also made readily available.

I first suggested putting it in the Aps menu but no one liked the idea. So think of a better place to put it. The general idea is sound. More ideas coming in especially from new users. This is how to make ubuntu extremely easy to use. And you enhance the feeling of personal control, something the Windows users don't have. And thats how you speed the migration from XP and Vista.

I'm not sure where would be the best place, but brainstorm should be introduced to the new user ASAP so that they are more in touch with the very idea linux; community development. Stop thinking like elitist tekkies!

It would be great to have a phone number that people could call and ask questions.

It would be quite simple and CHEAP to setup.

It would cost between 30 USD and 60 dollars a year to run. By getting a phone number via Gizmo or Skype. Then simply have calls forwarded to available operators.

Qualified volunteers, could then be ready to answer questions when they have time. The IRC support is great, but it is very difficult to get into a 1 on 1 conversation with someone that actually has time and patience.

I am thinking about a special day for Intrepid Ibex, where all ubuntu supporters burn some CDs, stay in front of schools, universities, shops and other places where we could find our target group and give Intrepid Ibex for free to some people.

I hope there are enough Linux groups and users out there to find some volunteers.

And I hope that we could find something in the newspaper to read about it the day after or before or both.

Store the dpkg available and status files in an SQLite database to improve performance, reduce file size, increase integrity, have better flexibility when searching and simplify updates.

The proof of concept has already started.

http://people.debian.org/~seanius/dpkg-sqlite/

sean finney wrote:

I have checked it out, very nice, besides missing a -ldl flag, everything went
according to plan. The speed is simply amazing, here is a small benchmark I did
on my machine:

omega3:/home/joe/build/dpkg-sqlite# echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
omega3:/home/joe/build/dpkg-sqlite# time dpkg -S /usr/bin/gcc
gcc: /usr/bin/gcc

real 0m4.778s
user 0m0.252s
sys 0m0.152s
omega3:/home/joe/build/dpkg-sqlite# echo 1 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
omega3:/home/joe/build/dpkg-sqlite# time ./poc /usr/bin/gcc
querying as if listing package /usr/bin/gcc:
querying as if for owner of file /usr/bin/gcc:
gcc: /usr/bin/gcc

real 0m1.306s
user 0m0.240s
sys 0m0.096s
omega3:/home/joe/build/dpkg-sqlite#

[....]

When I plug in my old Motorola Razr phone, Ubuntu recognizes it as a music device and opens Rhythmbox. I'm able to drag and drop music onto the phone.

Unfortunately, my phone only has 256MB of storage, and I keep my music library in the FLAC format. Each song is about 30MB in size, and my phone doesn't understand FLAC.

Because of this, I have to re-encode my music into lower-bitrate MP3 files, then copy those files manually onto the phone - instead of using the convenient drag and drop interface.

Rhythmbox should know about 'supported' audio formats for devices it recognizes, and automatically re-encode music on the fly when copying to those devices. If device storage is limited, music should be re-encoded at a lower bitrate to save space.

This kind of thing should probably happen for video and pictures as well. Maybe adding this behaviour to Conduit is the answer.

What about adding an additional column in Synaptic Package Manager that will display the Rating of a package (0-5 Stars)?

That way, anybody can see which are the popular games, video/audio players etc. So when someone installs Ubuntu he/she can sort by Rating and view the most popular packages (that he would probably add too).

It could also be separated in Votes and Downloads.

CANONICAL and all other sponsors of GNU/Linux and FLOSS should have an summit concerning the future of Electronic and Internet voting. There they should devise a plan how to provide the best solution for bot types of voting.
Some countries already implemented at least one of this type of voting. But software and hardware varies from country to countries.
I know that in Slovenia, there is a lot of talking that this software should be FLOSS or at least open. But other countries mainly USA has a different view how this should be done. I remember that I heard at lecture about e-governance that one of states implemented this rather badly. The Governor of that state gave concession for e-voting to company of his relative or something like that. And there are a lot of videos on internet that are revealing problems with e-voting process. Anybody remembers Florida 2000??
Anyway I will add more information as soon I will have more time, as I must translate all documentation that I have from Slovenian to English.

The Desktop is usually used as temporary workspace, with anything else being clutter and distraction.

Most of the time, the desktop is covered by active application windows, so anything that resides on the desktop is hard to reach.

Also - this is duplication of functionality - the places menu provides an easy access to drives, which is not obscured by the windows.

With all the artists Ubuntu has, and Grub not going anywhere soon, could grub at least get a splash screen by default? It's much more appealing than the simple menu that exists now.

English :
-------------
Yep,
Most monitor allow resolution higher than 1024x768 and now in wide.
If Xorg detect default resolution higher than 1024x768 it should be good to set default tty resolution to 1024x768 for nice use/view.

if it was, sorry for my bad english =)


Francais :
--------------
Yep,
La plus part des écrans permettent une résolution supérieure à 1024x768 et même maintenant en wide.
Si Xorg détecte une résolution par défaut supérieure à 1024x768 il serait bon de définir la résolution des tty à 1024x768 pour une meilleur ergonomie.


Take a look at my ideas