Contributor vexorian

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Thanks to DanRabbit here is the link to Elementary Project

http://www.elementary-project.com

In my opinion, Dan you and your crew should get involved with Ubuntu Artwork guys in order to this idea become true.



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We could take advantage of the Elementary Icons project, this project came as a response to Oxygen theme for KDE 4.

http://gnome-look.org/CONTENT/content-pre1/73439-1.jpg

http://ddb.fiestapig.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/apr5-2.png

It only needs a little orange approach (in my opinion) ;-).

gtk applications especially openoffice, mozilla firefox, mozilla thunderbird, ...

need an advanced & unified printing dialog which is comparable to the ones offered by microsoft's windows' printing drivers

they at least should include support for several pages per sheet (4 pages on 1 paper; 2 pages on 1 paper, duplex, etc etc)

apps like evince already support it but it's definitely missing on openoffice & firefox (where it obviously is needed the most)

a good example for offered printing options is kpdf

sorry if that functionality is already planned for the next upcoming versions of the mentioned apps

thanks ! =)

An OS, no matter how technologically or ideologically advanced it is, should also be visually appealing.
And Ubuntu, being one of the most beatiful (I mean the default appearance here) distribution of Linux still can't compete with Vista (not to mention Mac OS X).
Here I imly the following:
-icons. All the icons should be converted into vector graphics, so that they were scalable (so that they could look the same everywhere).
-fonts. Even Liberation fonts look better than default GNOME's dejavu, but still they leave much to be desired.
-screensaver. Currently, it's just a black screen. Enough said, I guess. Ubuntu should offer aset of nice screensavers, basic, or OpenGL-driven.
-applets. GNOME applets should grow in numbers and functionality. At least I would suggest a wrapper that could display a Web widget as an applet, so that user could simply paste BB-codes from YouTube, Jaiku, Vimeo or else and see it on his desktop.
-3D effects. There shouldn't be a vast number of them, but all of them should be quality-driven. Just look how bad is Compiz rendering as you make anything that drives windows borders into curves - they are edgy and twisted.
-wallpapers. I know, Deviantart contest is on, but here is also another point: Ubuntu should provide numerous wallpapers out-of-box, and all of them should suit the default colour scheme. The same stays for login screen.
-themes. Ubuntu should provide themes that change the appearance more globally. Not only GNOME's appearance, but all the apps, bootloader, login screen, screensaver.
-customization. Changing Ubuntu's appearance isn't really easy these days, since you can't tune up all the aspects in one place. I mean, you can change the theme, but you should work really hard to make your style as sole as the defaut one - Qt, GTK and other (wxWindows, etc) applications share different configs. Just try to switch to a darker theme and you'll learn how many elements would require tuning. Ubuntu can offer great means of customization, but that doesn' mean that an average user is able to make a cool-looking style.
-bootloader. That was already mentioned, but still. Ubuntu should show text mode at all. Currently, it can occasionally fall back to console for a while, which is discomforting.
-hibernation/suspend screen. The same.

[....]

Firefox 3 has done away with the useful security feature in Firefox 2 whereby secure encrypted connection were indicated with a visually prominent yellow addressbar.

This feature is really useful in quickly determining if a page into which I enter my personal info (login name, password etc.) is secure. Now I have to be alert enough to always keep an eye on some small icons which don't come to attention easily.

This feature can be restored, but its not straightforward and needs some tweaking of internals. Please bring this feature back, at least on the Ubuntu version.

A choice to install without all the applications and game bloat.

I dont want
- calculator
- tomboy
- all the games
- gimp
- open office
- ekiga
- evolution
- pidgin
- transmission
- movie player

well maybe i do want one or 2 of those apps. but hey, there is synaptic..

Just the OS and some admin tools, gedit, firefox, altho firefox could also be installed after 1st boot.

Basicbuntu

A category where we can spit some frustration for things we don't have a solution for just yet.

I don't know if it is specific to ATI or not, but I'm bored to see video playback with Totem under Compiz is always affected by flickering in Windows mode.

Vlc doesn't have such a problem. Maybe create a Totem-Vlc would be great to fix it forever.

Many new users are confused when it comes to the installation of Ubuntu.

They didn't know they need a swap partition, and they're not sure what size it should be, and how to set it up.
They think its difficult to setup partitions and often don't understand how partitions work and the difference between primary and extended partitions.

Swap partitions have limitations, such as a constant size and can't be resized.

Using a swap file instead of a swap partition, would save users lots of hassle by not having them have to setup swap partitions, etc.

As a bonus, it would allow us to resize them anytime we want/need.

This is a small thing. In system>preferences>keyboard shortcuts, the windows key cannot be used as a modifier. It can only be used as a stand alone key. I think it should be allow to be a modifier, as when I use compiz, I like to set cube rotation to windows+#. When I turn off compiz, I'd like to make metacity have a seamless transition in terms of hot keys, but that is only possible if the windows key works as a modifier, not a stand alone key.

I created the mockup of Ubuntu using some elements of other mockups. I think the change of Ubuntu may not be radical. Because it draws its visual identity.

He is easily identified, and its windows are differentiated from all distributions in the first look, as we see in the TV series, Criminal Minds
http://www.meiobit.com/files/penelope.jpg

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Can you see the mockup this link below.
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http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3109/2561095916_3636b12f07_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3126/2561095920_4e56711c57_o.jpg

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Following are some suggestions from users, following the second amendment in the mockup.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3277/2561742679_6324d861e0_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3021/2561742693_aa57b642be_o.jpg


[....]

The Gnome team is not in touch with the average user. They take the "tried and true" route on the development patch. KDE is far too bloated and unstable. Usability had not improved and easy of use remains stagnant on both end. Ubuntu seeks to make linux for human beings, but constantly relies on outside projects to provide that functionality. We need a middle ground interface that is powerful, element, and useful. I want to see new ideas and interfaces, not recycled ones. Gnome is Desktop 1.0 and its time to move the interface forward.

Related:
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/3207/
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/3444/

No more editing .conf files! Lets bring a new level of usability to Ubuntu. All configuration files should have a GUI. I know the old school developers don't want to make things easier for newbies (preserving the l33t?), but this is the direction we need ot head in.

On Brainstorm we vote for things that cost developer time.

But the currency which we use to influence developers (our votes) costs nothing.

Since votes are not a scarce item, people are likely to vote +1 for things that are of little enough importance to them that they would never trade anything of value for. Also they may give a -1 to things that they don't really understand.

The idea is to only give each user, say, 4 new votes a day, but let them roll over. I believe this will cause users to spend their votes more carefully and give a lot more helpful comments and +0's.

It's kind of like Slashdot's moderation system. You only have so many mod points per day. This increases the value of modpoints so you give them out more carefully.

Yes I thought about people creating extra accounts. Consider though that is already the case. You can get more votes even on individual ideas TODAY by creating extra accounts.

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

Summary: backups are important and Ubuntu should provide an efficient tool to do that, simple enough for the newbies and with enough options for people who want fancy features. "sbackup" is probably a very good candidate, but now it does too many stupid things to be really trusted. My idea is that Ubuntu should focus on providing a reliable backup utility.

Backups are boring and seem unnecessary to most people... until shit happens. And of course, it happens. A user-friendly distribution like Ubuntu should provide good tools to perform efficient backups, by hiding all useless technical details. After all, the user should only provide one piece of information: the place where the files are supposed to be stored. All the rest (frequency, file format...) can be set by default (and of course, tuned by advanced users).

When I installed Ubuntu 7.10 for the first time, I was amazed by the "simple backup" software. It really fits with the "Ubuntu spirit", makes complicated but important things easier.

However, just having a look at the reactions in the forum and mailing lists, people appear to be very disappointed by sbackup. I also had a very bad experience with it, not because of big flaws but because sbackup is a bit stupid. The most important bug (see attached bug) is probably that failures are not reported: everything seems OK until you need to restore your data, and unfortunately, in general, it is too late. For instance, the problem I experienced is that I sent my backups to an external hard drive formatted in vfat, and the upper file size limit on a vfat partition is 4Go. Of course, the backup files generated by sbackup were larger than that, but everything went smoothly for months until I realize that. As a result, the archives are all corrupted (tar.gz file truncated).

Fixes are probably trivial: display error messages when the backup fails for whatever reason; split the file in < 1 Go parts to avoid potential issues with the destination file system, etc. The fact that these are not implemented yet probably reflects the lack of interest from Ubuntu in such utilities. IMO a good backup utility is as necessary as a web browser or a Tetris game, because losing important data is always deleterious, even if Ubuntu is not directly responsible for that.

Related ideas:
* http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/4746/ shows that sbackup should be advertised more efficiently.

[....]

The GNOME Panel does not know how to save the positioning of its objects between states.

If I move a panel to the left or right side of the screen and back, it won't remember the previous alignment of panel applets.

If I go to a lower or higher resolution and back (which pretty much automatically happens when switching monitors), it won't remember the previous alignment of panel applets.

This has been bothering me for a long time, and I'm surprised I haven't found any brainstorm ideas on it (and one should be available to mark its precedence or lack of precedence as an issue), although I wouldn't be surprised if there were a bug report.

Linux in general has the reputation of being light and nimble, compared to Windows. However, looking at the memory consumption of a rather standard Ubuntu install with Gnome desktop sadly gives a different picture.

Just looking at residential memory (via top):

345 MB: Firefox
279 MB: Xorg
110 MB: gnome-panel
74 MB: evolution
56 MB: beagled
45 MB: gnome-terminal
42 MB: nautilus
41 MB: beagle-search
32 MB: beagle-helper
20 MB: eog
17 MB: stickynotes_applet
15 MB: nm-applet
11 MB: update-notifier
...
10 MB: cpufreq-applet
10 MB: charpick_applet
8 MB: trashapplet

So, what I'm seeing is that some of the core apps are rather excessive (supposedly Firefox 3 will be better, yes?) But somehow, I can almost understand that.

However, why do little applets and utilities like the update-manager have to consume SO much memory? In fact, shouldn't the update-notifier just be a cron job that gets executed occasionally, and then loads more stuff to notify me on the screen?


[....]

Copy a large file to USB drive or transmit a big file via LAN and the machine will either freeze or become "jerky".

This is because the IO is blocking the CPU. It's a kernel problem that has been around for ages and it's time to sort it out for once and for all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priority_inversion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I/O_scheduling

This is not my idea.

You can get a lot of tutorials explaining how to do it.
But they are very scary for a newbie.


It would be really nice if there were a GUI tool for linux and windows(of course! ;D) to which i could point the .iso file,and it would ask me to boot from the disk on next reboot.
Or better than that, it should have an option to copy all the settings from my current installation and automatically set it up in the new installation.

A new version of Ubuntu is released every 6 months.
Unlike windows Ubuntu is so stable that i never had to reinstall it.No doubt getting an new Ubuntu CD is damn easy.But Since i am in the habit of upgrading to every new version, i have dozens of CDs lying at the bottom of my drawer. What a waste!

I have made my own customized 'Hacked Heron' which fits only on a dvd. I am unable to install it on my friend's computer who does not have a dvd drive and another whose dvd drive is broken.

It is a wonderful CD/DVD image manipulator for Linux similar to DAEMON Tools, Power Iso, Magic Iso etc.Maybe more...

the homepage and screenshot:
http://www.acetoneiso.netsons.org/index.php

The .deb file is available for hardy from here
http://www.acetoneiso.netsons.org/viewpage.php?page_id=2

These are AcetoneISO's Features:

- Mount automatically ISO, MDF, NRG, BIN, NRG without the need to insert admin password!
- A nice display which shows current images mounted and possibility to click on it to quickly reopen mounted image
- Convert 2 ISO all image types:
*.bin *.mdf *.nrg *.img *.daa *.dmg *.cdi *.b5i *.bwi *.pdi and much more
- Extract images content to a folder:
*.bin *.mdf *.nrg *.img *.daa *.dmg *.cdi *.b5i *.bwi *.pdi and much more
- Play a DVD Movie Image with Kaffeine / VLC / SMplayer with auto-cover download from Amazon
- Generate an ISO from a Folder or CD/DVD
- Check MD5 file of an image and/or generate it to a text file
- Encrypt / Decrypt an image
- Split / Merge image in X megabyte
- Compress with High Ratio an image in 7z format
- Rip a PSX cd to *.bin to make it work with epsxe/psx emulators
- Restore a lost CUE file of *.bin *.img
- Convert Mac OS *.dmg to a mountable image
- El-Torito support to create ISO bootable Cd

[....]