Contributor steve196

During a system installation, if you preserve your home directory, the system should detect there is already existing users in there and offer to create those users automatically through the usual method that it normally does if the user doesn't exist in the system yet.

This would make moving/restoring a home directory from one system to another so useful then. Even better would be that you can import a /home directory from another system and then be offered to import the users that are in that home directory. This way if you're moving from one system to another, it would make it so easy. It would be very mac like if you ask me.

Sometimes a person submits a comment that is particularly insightful and may clarify or embellish upon the idea. With comment voting, we'd be able to (like digg.com) hide comments that are not worthwhile, and make the ones that really count stand out to readers.


PS. I'm sure this is already an idea somewhere, but the dupe checking is broken and I can't find it...

Michael Reed identified 10 points that seem to be common sticking points for new users -- that is, problems that have the potential to prevent a new user from adopting Ubuntu in the long term. These problems span the entire Ubuntu experience, but they all have two things in common: they are all serious enough to evoke the dreaded "I tried Linux but it didn't work" excuse, and they are all solvable.

The ten improvable points are identified in the article "Ten sticking points for new Ubuntu users", Michael Reed, June 27, 2008, http://www.linux.com/feature/139214

Short summary (see the referenced article for advised solutions):

* Screen setup
Ubuntu is still bad at properly detecting and setting up the display

* Boot management
I'm against the idea of making things unnecessarily flashy, but GRUB is both feature-poor and complicated to configure.


* Mounting
It's a shame that Ubuntu doesn't come with a GUI tool to configure the boot-time mounting of new partitions.

* Installation
The Ubuntu installer: it's not very forgiving of network errors, often hanging at about 92%.

*sound configuration
Sound under Linux is a bit of a mess. There are a lot of different systems. When things go wrong, users have to hit the forums and the config files.


[....]

To edit formulas is really difficult...
It would be really helpful, if you could edit the formulas like in MS Office.

I love Ubuntu, but I have chosen not to use it on several of my systems because of a single reason, the lack of integrated, automatic support for what is often called "fake" RAID, or software/driver-supported RAID (i.e. Desktop grade Promise, nVRAID, Intel storage matrix, etc.) chipsets.

I use Linux as my primary OS at work and at home and I use Ubuntu on my "single" HDD systems. However due to the lack of hardware detection and support of various SATA RAID chipsets, I am holding off on installing on my main workstations.

Right now my only real option is to have an additional single drive for installation of Ubuntu, and simply remove my array drives from the fstab so that they are not accessed at all so as not to risk corrupting the array.

It would be nice if Ubuntu would support SATA RAID (0,1,0+1,1+0,5, etc.) through the use of a special driver (a-la "BlueHat" and "GreenLizard" distros), thus allowing RAID without having to create special "RAID" partitions (Which can't be done if you simply want to access the data on an array, even an NTFS one without breaking your array consistency, or losing all your data).

While these chipsets are not full on RAID like high end versions, they do offer a significant advantage over pure software driven RAID if they would be properly supported.

Some people stumble upon a bug or unsupported hardware when using Ubuntu, and sometimes, they find a workaround for their problem, either buy using google, the forums, or whatever.

Why not collect those parcels of information, and instead of letting them float around as some sort of arcane, forbidden knowledge, integrate them into the distribution, and let everyone have a smoother operation?

This can be integrated in some form to launchpad, but needs to be simpler.

General execution ideas:

1. Add a "report-workaround" button to ubuntuforums.org".

2. Add a workaround report to launchpad.net, where a user can submit a workaround, and the corresponding URL.

3. When a bug is submitted to launchpad.net, automatically search google for a relevant workaround, ask the user if it fixes his problem, and if so, attach the URL as a solution (even if temporary) to the bug report (yes, it is spoon feeding the users - automating work is one of the strengths of computers, after all).

ndisgtk allows you to select an inf file to install a driver.

However, some companies ship drivers locked up in a Windows exe. In my case, I ran the file in WINE, and pointed ndisgtk at the extracted files, but this step could be semi automated.

I would imagine that most of these zip extraction executables work on a similar format, with a stub, and a zip file on the end, and extracting files from this could, in theory, be automated to make life easier for novice users.

Binary drivers on top of a stable application binary interface makes it feasible for hardware manufacturers to release device drivers without source code. Also drivers can be run with restricted rights.

Idea submission text editor - could have Bold and Itallic Fonts
====================================

It would be handy both for the presentation of ideas, and for the readers (bulk scanning reads), to be able to HIGHLIGHT the salient KEY POINTS of a submission either WITH BOLD of ITALLIC so they don't need to use capitals TO AVOID APPEARING RUDE or LOUD.

Each submission could be restricted to say 5 to 10% of the characters being highlighted, to prevent folks from just going bold the whole way through.

If ever the system gets set up so that users can create their own words for metatag keywords, then these highlightings could be used to automatically generate krywords for archived articles.

When installing a package like texlive-full or tetex-full, hundreds of packages that are included in those LaTeX distributions are downloaded, uncompressed and configured.

Each time a package is configured, "mktexlsr", which does nothing else than "ls -R" on the whole LaTeX directory, is launched.

Then "updmap-sys".

This could be done in the end, after all packages have been uncompressed. Basically, it takes approximately one hour to configure a LaTeX distribution when it could take one or two minutes.

Sometimes some good ideas come from comments.
This is part of "brainstorming" - triggering new ideas through vibrant positive discussion.

These ideas could also be voted on (positive input).

There may also be commenters who are more into brainbashing than brainstorming ie. don't/can't/shouldn't do that - ooh tabu, that's out of place (as if something new or spontaneous must immediately be able to fit an/One existing category), and essentially shut-up.

Commenters would be given the opportunity to receive voters support.

This would help to identify "negative" behaviour. What gets done about this, can be thought about mean time.
Negative attitudes work against creativity and imagination.

Remembering that "Great minds think alike" - thank heavens there are so MANY duplicates on the brainstorm board - Many people are having good ideas - Ubuntu is So fortunate.

When one plugs in a thumb drive or an external hard drive, the mount point is always defined as /media/disk, /media/disk-1, or /media/disk-n. While it is great that the devices are auto mounted, it is not to great that the same device might have a different mount point depending on what else is plugged in. This is very confusing for new users when they configure applications to use the directories of external devices, and then have the mount points for those devices change on them.

I propose that when a new storage device is plugged in, a unique mount point is defined for that particular device, so that whenever you plug it in again it will always have the same mount point. The default mount should be able to be changed by right clicking on the volume and clicking "Properties." The user should not have to change the volume properties themselves first, it should be done for them.

Usage Case:
Bill has all his music on his external hard drive and is mounted as /media/WD-Passport and has Rhythmbox configured to look in this directory. Instead of Rhythmbox getting confused when the mount point changes from /media/disk to /media/disk-1, it always looks in the default mount point for this device.

With this option checked firefox should try all url with https:// even when an url starts with http://
of course if the url isn't available, it try again with http://

maybe apply only for urls from links, not manually typed.

In Nautilus, when you right-click on the empty space in List View you get the options to "Create Folder" and "Create Document".

I suggest adding these options when right-clicking on a folder (perhaps only when using list-view, or perhaps an option to enable this feature). This would place the new file or folder inside the folder you right-clicked on.

Currently, to add a new folder into a sub-folder in list-view, you need to create a new folder, (which appears at the end of the list), rename it, then drag it to the target folder where you want it (or copy an empty folder to the target folder and rename it).

ALSO: Ctrl+Shift+N could add the new directory into the currently selected directory (perhaps an option).

REASON:
I program and have a heavily nested folder structure. I prefer List View over the Tree panel as the Tree panel doesn't have the options to:
#1: open files directly from the tree (Even with "Show Only Folders" off).
#2: change the "root" of the tree, which hides unimportant folders at the top of the tree eg "/bin", "/boot"...
#3: create documents. (without an unnecessary view panel).

I have Kubuntu. Today I tried to install Deluge from the official Ubuntu repository. Apt said that it needs to download 65 (!) different packages. Among them there were some totally unrelated packages like gstreamer, gnome-media and gnome libraries (much of them).

When I downloaded .deb file from official Deluge site, it said that it requires only 6 additional libraries. Not 65!

So I think that Ubuntu should check current dependences and eliminate the unnecessary ones. Otherwise we will all end up with packages that we don't really need.

TrueCrypt already has a package for Ubuntu, so I don't see the reason why it isn't in synaptic or Add/Remove program.

A column displaying package size would go a long way in helping me to find large packages I don't often use, so I can clean up disk space.

You usually click "about" menu entries, if you want to know which version of a program you are running, so that you can ask for help on the internet.
Therefore the "about Ubuntu" menu entry in "System" should show the currently running kernel version and the version of xorg.

I've got a 1 Gb USB storage with an 800 Mb file on it.

When I want to copy an updated version of this file (same name), Nautilus warn me that the operation can't be done cause there is not enought space on the disk.

So I have to manualy erase the old file, empty the trashcan, and finaly copy the new file.


Therefore I suggest that Nautilus check files name when coping or moving operations BEFORE complaining about having not enought space left. (and then simply ask if we want to replace/rename/cancel)

When 'Always on Top' is selected it functions perfectly, but only once! Using GIMP as an example, I always select 'Always on Top', its really useful, I never 'lose' the main GIMP window, even though it still changes colour when another window is selected. Great!

However using GIMP all the time, its annoying having to select always on top on every start-up of GIMP or any application with a 'main' window.

I general happiness throughout the world, but mostly productivity would be improved if these settings were remembered, and once selected, a application, or a specific windows within a app, such as in GIMP, will ALWAYS be 'Always on Top'.

We select a wallpaper, or screen saver, and dont even contemplate them returning to default once used once, ok a stupid analogy but you get the idea now!

Thanks (for clicking the green arrow)