Play application and system sounds with the volume and timing relative to where the sound is coming from. Yes like in games.

Suppose I'm running Compiz with three virtual desktops side by side and the middle desktop is in focus. On the right virtual desktop, Pidgin is running and generates a sound. It would be nice if the sound would seem to come from the right side.

We could take this further by muffling sounds coming from minimized applications or have compiz generate a cool wave effect (similar to the rain) that would come from the generating window - not too much, subtle but enough to provide a clue to where the sounds are coming from.

It would be good to have a quick & easy way to change from different speaker/sound card set-ups as depending on different conditions i need to change the way sound is played through my computer:

When I'm home alone I listen to music via my speakers, but I'd also like to pipe it through to my media box.
When I'm not alone I listen via headphones.
When I'm playing World of Warcraft I would like to have the game and Ventrilo sound playing through my headphones, deactivate my main speakers and activate my mic.

Changing between these setups can be annoying and more difficult than it needs to be.

The developer of the game Braid has had several problems with making his game run on Linux:

http://braid-game.com/news/?p=364

It turned out that this experienced developer was really frustrated about the current state of several Linux tools. I think this could be a great opportunity to get feedback on low-level APIs by a rare type of developer (game devs on Linux) and improve them.

My proposal is that the Ubuntu community / Canonical should contact that developer and try to improve base utilities/libraries (Sound, X11 and development IDEs) so we get a port of the game but - more importantly - to end up with a higher quality and better integrated Linux ecosystem.

Every time I install Ubuntu, the first thing I do is turn off the login sounds.

Much to my dismay, after I turn it off by going to
System -> Preferences -> Sound -> Sounds -> uncheck "play system sounds"
There is still the drum sound at the login screen!

To turn off the drum sound, you need to go into
System -> Administration -> Login Window -> Accessibility -> uncheck "Login Screen Ready" sound

Is this sound not considered a "system sound"? It sure is a system sound in my book. Is it really there for "Accessibility"?

There should not be two places to turn off system sounds. The "Login Screen Ready" option should be moved to
System -> Preferences -> Sound -> Sounds

This is a big putoff for newcomers, I hope it can be fixed!

One thing that should be implemented is a PulseAudio sound applet that works extremely similar to the wireless network applet, in order to keep consistency and simple use. The at first visual difference would be that instead of showing signal bars there would be a volume control in its place (Similar to how the VLC player 0.9.x volume control looks.). Then instead of network streams obviously audio streams by application ( for the default ), make sure to place an application icon on the left spacing that will make it so people can easily and efficently spot what that stream relates to.
Also by right clicking on the stream in the applet it shows options for controlling the stream in a more advanced fashion.

Optionally maybe a control can be integrated with metacity and allow control through the window manager. Though this may get complex over time vs a central control applet.

If anyone doesn't know PulseAudio allows you to control the audio streams by either application or by each audio stream. The applet you can currently do that with now is part of the ' padevchooser ' package(s). Though personally I say this applet isn't as easy to use or elegant as it could be, though yes it is fairly easy.

There should be an option to mute sound on resume/wake up from suspend/hibernate. My daughter often watches Youtube or play Flash games on my laptop and leaves them on (just close the lid). The next morning, when I open my laptop in a meeting, the funs keep going on and the volume buttons don't work until I unlock the screen.

Let notification-sounds use Surround/stereo sound to help the user finding the source where something happened.
That can be helpful for multiple virtual desktops and multiple monitors

Please add the ability to configure specific additional sound effect options namely: open, close, minimize, maximize, restore, roll up, unroll windows. Maybe clean up some of the existing options that haven't changed since Gnome 1.x.

I know that some of these options exist in some form, however instead of click on menu option sound, I'd like to hear a sound for clicking on a menu item, then another when the window opened.

If possible, tie it to window manager hints so it works with any window manager used.

Obviously, make sure they can be disabled along with all of the other effects by folks that don't want GUI sounds. Maybe even leave them set to no sound or a non-annoying sound by default.

Ubuntu has been using PulseAudio by default for almost three years. I think that all the nice features PA offers like per-application volume control, audio routing through different sound cards, playing audio over a network, easy configuration of surround sound like 5.1 channels, on-the-fly switching between analog and S/PDIF, Bluetooth audio devices support, etc. are very useful, and sometimes necessary.

That is why I think PA can be part of Kubuntu, like many other KDE-based distributions actually do.

The other problem is that the current mixer information exposed by ALSA is neither user friendly nor useful for everyone. Therefore we also need a Qt/KDE GUI for PulseAudio configuration, like volume managment, etc. (maybe a Plasma widget).

One thing i must admit I miss when I switched to ubuntu is when you plug in a USB device a sound plays to let you know it is connected. I believe it would be a great idea to include this in upcoming ubuntu releases.