Contributor wattazoum

I guess everybody has experienced the rather long boot up times in Ubuntu (particularly with laptops). I know they are already working on it, but the change from feisty to gutsy was a pain in the ass in terms of boot up speed.
A default WinXP installation beats Ubuntu's boot up time by far!! That shouldn't be allowed fellas!!

I therefore propose to the development team (both Ubuntu and by extension Gnome)to work on the improvement of boot up times in Ubuntu systems.

Currently, Ubuntu comes with GNU Java (gcj/gij) installed as the default Java. (I'm not sure but I think it is because OpenOffice needs Java).

Unfortunately, this is a very slow and incomplete version of Java 1.4, which does not run many Java programs very well. Because of this, many users get in trouble when they want to use some Java programs - they don't work well and run very slowly. The solution is to install a better Java, such as Sun Java 6. Sun Java 6 is not 100% free and open source software (yet), so it cannot be installed as the default Java with Ubuntu.

There is, however, a much better free alternative implementation of Java than gcj/gij, IcedTea: http://icedtea.classpath.org/

IcedTea is based on the source code of Sun's Java, with the non-free components replaced by open source alternatives.

Proposal: Instead of the obsolete gcj/gij, install IcedTea instead as the default Java. (Fedora 8 does this already).

Ubuntu's bootloader is a stark black and white screen, filled with confusing options. It gives newbies a moment of indecision, as they try to figure out if they are supposed to choose something, and wonder why there are three or four Ubuntus listed. Then the timer finishes counting down (starting from 10), and the newb begins to feel like he's getting in over his head as his PC boots into Ubuntu.

Too much information up front, stark text-only display, painfully long countdown timer. What would be the alternative? Well, when a Fedora PC is booted up, the first thing the user sees is a graphical splash screen, and "Booting into Fedora (kernel version) in 4 seconds ... " The user can press a key to interrupt and select from kernel versions or alternative operating systems, or just let it boot into Fedora.

Can't we create our own attractive bootloader? Or, failing that, copy-and-paste Fedora's?

Android is the open source smartphone platform being developed that most handset manufacturers (including sony ericson, nokia , HTC and LG) have already stated they will support.

A team should be created to start investigating how we want Android smartphones to interact with ubuntu (before any handsets are released).

This will allow feature requests to start to be filed in appropriate places, and full integration to be added before the first mobiles are released.

Whilst OSX has the iphone, windows has Windows mobile, we would have excellent support for Android, which will be used on pretty much every phone in the future (and it even runs on slow ones apparently).

Lets get things ready in advance

There are lot of people having troubles syncing their devices (pda, smartphones, etc.) with ubuntu. At this poing there is only one solution available, multisync, and works for only a few devices, and it's very limited on their functions.

And I think, this is a very important point for lots of people.

**Suggestions from duplicate idea 397 work on that idea :

1) Clean up the Opensync and SyncML plugin packages to work properly with Evolution by default.

2) Set up an official Ubuntu SyncML server for Ubuntu users.

3) Possibly clean up open source SyncML clients for the different mobile platforms.

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

[....]

Replace initscripts with upstart events. Our boot sequence is currently slow, full of race conditions and poor interactions, especially with competition between the series of tasks run by sysv-rc, udev and sometimes just with the kernel. We developed upstart so that we could have a truly event driven boot sequence that would be fast, reliable and flexible; we should take advantage of it.