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The Ubuntu community has contributed 22700 ideas, 138270 comments, 2629576 votes
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Popular ideas Here are the latest commented ideas about Ubuntu.

Installing Ubuntu Linux to an external USB Hard Drive  
Written by todoesnormal the 5 May 10 at 23:41. Related project: Live CD installer. New
I want to install Ubuntu Linux to an external USB hard drive using the Ubuntu Live CD, but the hard disk must be portable and persistent keeping the linux file system
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Solution #1: System Configuration Profile Management
Written by todoesnormal the 5 May 10 at 23:41.
I propose to implement something similar to "System Configuration Profile Management", by which you can install ubuntu persistent and portable in hard drive without limits of size and with the linux file system. This is used in opensuse as you can see here: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/usb-suse-installation-from-linux/ and
http://en.opensuse.org/Portable_SUSE

See the 5 comments or propose a solution (latest comment the 20 Nov 10 at 13:40) >>

Too many hardware support issues after new installation.  
Written by SuNk8 the 3 May 10 at 16:05. Related project: Live CD installer. New
Well, there are a lot of people who try the Live session once or just a few number of times.
And go for the new release directly.
If you have some unsupported hardware, then comes a lot of debugging.

The Ubuntu forums are filled with threads where users installed the new release without checking if all components of their system are supported by it.

Seasoned users easily find solutions to most problems, but the newbies are a bit rattled by the process.
How will new users know if the new release is actually good for their hardware?

Your solutions and comments are greatly appreciated...
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Solution #1: Integrate Hardware Testing into the Official Installer
Written by SuNk8 the 3 May 10 at 16:05.
Prevention is better than Cure.
Ubuntu comes with a very cool System Testing app: checkbox-gtk
Let System Testing be one of the (optional) steps in the Live installer.

So, a newbie user can easily check and actually know if his/her PC will work fine after the upgrade.
If not, they can wait till their issues are resolved and then go for the upgrade.

Testers can just skip the step and go for the install.
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Solution #2: Introduce an Advanced Mode of Installation
Written by SuNk8 the 4 May 10 at 02:52.
Introduce an advanced mode where users are asked questions concerning their hardware. A questionnaire will improve the experience of the user and get the correct information from them about the hardware specs.
The installer will then check on the online database and also include drivers for those entries.

Also, we might move some other entries like bootloader configuration in this mode.
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Solution #3: Report HW that's w/o drivers
Written by snadrus the 5 May 10 at 19:29.
'lsusb' and 'lspci' list all the hardware Linux can touch. devicekit loads drivers for these items or defers it (for scanners, printers, etc). Once done, if we have hardware that we couldn't use, lets report that hardware back to Ubuntu.
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Solution #4: Add option to report hardware deficiencies to Ubuntu
Written by LCollins the 10 May 10 at 04:21.
Same as #1, but have the option the report the lack of hardware capabilities to Ubuntu, to help self-improvement. Also check with Ubuntu that the problems have not already been sorted (in case installation CD is out of date.
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Solution #5: Make use of existing Debian device driver check & report homepage
Written by Richard.Kolodziej the 31 May 10 at 12:06.
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Solution #6: Hardware manufactorer partnership for Ubuntu PC's
Written by Bubble the 13 Jun 11 at 10:39.
Ubuntu should search for a hardware manufacturer, to manufacture Ubuntu-"All-in-One" PCs that just work and distribute them via store.ubuntu.com.

Do it like Apple (or Google ChromeOS), provide a few basic systems (for example Ubuntu Notebook, Ubuntu Netbook, Ubuntu Cube PC, Ubuntu Workstation) with Simple Names (Not like Manufacturer X ELGX-423544ES) and good design.

Example:

http://usrnametaken.deviantart.com/art/UbuntuBOX-211559873

So please Ubuntu, be a non-DRM-fanatic, free and OpenSource Apple.

See the 9 comments or propose a solution (latest comment the 27 May 10 at 22:28) >>

a Tinybuntu sub-distro is very missing  
Written by nitrofurano the 9 May 09 at 11:31. Related project: Live CD. New

When we are envolved on hacklabs (which i reccomend, it is extremelly fun and constructive - people don't know what it is please see definitions at wikipedia and alike), recovering hardware considered old and obsolete, we always think on installing Linux on these machines.
And when we think about Linux, we almost think about Ubuntu, due on it's intensive community, and the useful and simple to use repository.

The problem is even Xubuntu is too heavy to install on some old hardware.

The choices we can find are PuppyLinux, DamnSmallLinux, TinyCore, TinyLinux, etc. - but the problem is it's extremelly hard to install these distributions on their hard disks, and using the Ubuntu repository from them instead.

This reason makes me think: would be interesting and possible existing some kind of Tinybuntu, a Ubuntu-based distro can be considered as light as PuppyLinux, DamnSmallLinux, TinyCore, TinyLinux, etc., and being as easy to install as Ubuntu and Xubuntu are, and being so easy to use the Ubuntu repository as well?

Thanks!
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Solution #1: having an Ubuntu-based distro more appropriated
Written by nitrofurano the 9 May 09 at 11:31.
People know how to make sub-distros based on Ubuntu, and knows well how distros like PuppyLinux, DamnSmallLinux, TinyCore, TinyLinux, and others, works better on low-end and old hardware than Xubuntu, could help on the development of a kind of Tinybuntu which can be as appropriated as PuppyLinux, DamnSmallLinux, TinyCore, TinyLinux, and others are. This Tinybuntu should be able to be installed on machines such as having only 32mb of ram, low hard-disk space, and relativelly slow (below 200mhz-monocore), just like actual distros like PuppyLinux, DamnSmallLinux, TinyCore, TinyLinux, and others used to run fine. Would be great Ubuntu being part of this too!
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Solution #2: Improve current Xubuntu distro
Written by Ferk the 10 May 09 at 08:22.
Why create yet another Ubuntu flavor and divide maintenance and development resources?
Xubuntu is intended to have a particular focus on low memory footprint. If it's not archiving this goal then this should be fixed.

Perhaps removing some daemons running in the background, investigating the causes and trying to find alternatives.
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Solution #3: Option on install for "base only"
Written by corbintechboy the 14 May 09 at 21:51.
Have an option on install that would give only a base install. Then from the command line you could apt-get any package you may need.
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Solution #4: Supporting Ubuntulite (or U-lite)
Written by daas88 the 28 May 09 at 02:35.
It's a ubuntu-based distro that uses the lxde desktop environment, so it's very very light on resources. It only needs an easier installation method, like a live cd or so. There might be other options but that one's more ubuntu-like.

http://u-lite.org/

See the 5 comments or propose a solution (latest comment the 14 May 09 at 19:03) >>