Most popular ideas this month

gnome-system-monitor provides a cleaner interface than Windows "Task Manager", and provides many useful features including list of processes running, memory and network usage, etc.

This functionality should be more accessible by key binding it by default to CTRL-ALT-DELETE as Windows does--as this is more familiar to users coming from Windows. The current key binding for CTRL-ALT-DELETE brings up the shutdown/logout options, which is already accessible as a desktop button, which is redundant for a relatively less used function.

gnome-system-monitor is an idle interface for monitoring the system and killing processes without using the terminal and provides an interface for doing this that most are already familiar with. Changing it's key binding would make it's functionality much more accessible.

There should be a more efficient format for apt-get (or the update manager) to download updates. Firstly, it should only need to download the files that have changed in a package (not the whole package), and secondly, it should download a DIFF of those files.

My latest update contains a 34.2 WHOPPING MB update to the linux restricted modules. Here's the changelog:

* Fix broadcom Makefile to get correct objects from split-module.

I'm downloading 34.2Mb just to get a *Makefile update*??? I don't even use any broadcom stuff. Even if I did, I probably wouldn't care enough about a Makefile to make it worthwhile downloading 34.2Mb!

Problem: The current system for voting makes an idea that has never received a single vote (0) be INDISTINGUISHABLE from an idea that has had lots of votes, both positive and negative.

Solution: Show us the total right next to the current vote tally.

One of the things included in Hardy was ufw (Uncomplicated firewall wall), but everything has to be done via CLI. There is a very nice GUI frontend being developed for it and it would be nice if it is bundled as a default package.

Links to the project:
https://launchpad.net/gui-ufw
http://gufw.tuxfamily.org/index.html

Developers need easy access to a _official_ developer package. They are free to choose but there should be a standard way to (gnome) development in Ubuntu. And it needs to be official. New developers should now that there is a easy way to start developing for gnome in Ubuntu. Supported and well documented.

everytime i shut down 8.04 i see all the text come up and tell me everything that is happening behind the scenes and frankly i dont care.

on start up i have a nice animated logo type thing.
would be nice if i could have this on shutdown like on shutdown of pclinuxos

http://www.pclinuxos.com/

when it does a shutdown it has a nice logo and says press the escape key for verbose mode.

very professional

It seems that for interpid openoffice 2.4 is planed as the office suite. I use openoffice 3 beta 2 every day and it seems that this ab is very stable. So I propose that you include the 3.0 version or an RC of it in the final interpid.

They have made really a lot of improvements and everyone will benefit of it.

I know that you would have to create a packet yourself and can't just import from debian, but I would really appreciate your work.

ATM it is very uneasy to edit system files as root with a GUI.
E.g. if you want to edit files in /etc, /boot/ etc... you have to go to the console, get root and edit the files either with nanno or with "sudo gedit" (GNOME) or "sudo kate" (KDE).

It would be a good idea to integrate a "Administrator mode" button or something like this with policykit backend into nautilus/dolphin.

I think for nautilus is something lika that underways, but for dolphin not.
To access root-only directories a question while entering the dir would be ok, but for editing files e.g this is not enough.

Other solution would be - every time I don't have the rights to do something (save /etc/samba/smb.conf e.g.) the systema asks me for the password.

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.

[....]

Fedora is currently working on improving the startup experience by implementing Plymouth:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureBetterStartup

By doing this, transition from Grub to GDM (or KDM or whatever) would be done almost instantly. Plymouth will use a graphical boot mode with a fallback method to text for those computers that don't have hardware support.

When you visit http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download to download the latest Ubuntu release, you currently get a huge dropdown menu. Then you have to scroll down a huge list filled with continent names, and a lot of strange looking server names -- where is Mirrors.brianm.name located anyway? I don't need so see all that.

We can do better. How about a world map that lets you click on your current location - or relative location?

To paraphrase user-interface guru and recent mozilla hire, Aza Raskin, whenever you ask a user to make a choice they don't care about, you fail as an interface designer. Me and probably 99.9% or the people who visit the Ubuntu download page don't care which specific server we download from. We just want our download. Give us a map, ask us to click on the part of the continent we're on, and leave the rest up to you.


REVISION:

Following our discussion below,

* we can use the user's IP to narrow the possibilities of which servers will best handle the request.

* possibly add an algorithm which takes into account both geographic proximity to user's ISP, as well as real-time server availability.

* returning a short list (of possibly three) servers which might best handle the request.

* naming the servers by city, state/province, country, and not by their (sometimes arcane) server names ...
continued ....

[....]

Display the levels of ink left in the printer cartridges.

This way, the user can know which ink is getting low, when its getting low, and when and which to replace.

Some conceptual mockups;
* http://img158.imageshack.us/img158/8607/inkdq3.png
* http://img158.imageshack.us/img158/553/inkdiagramdk4.png
* http://img158.imageshack.us/img158/3990/inkcartridgenb8.png

We need to change the default screensaver. The problem with the current screensaver is that the first time you meet it is when the screen suddenly turns black during the installation. That is very confusing for most users, as the first thought always is that the installation has crashed.

I suggest a screensaver that helps brand Ubuntu, like for example the "Floating Ubuntu" screensaver. It could also be a textbased screensaver that could run on older machines witch doesn't support 3D.

When using Windows you can rename your pendrive really easy thru My Computer. Ubuntu should allow the user to do the same.

There is an article about this here[1] but the user shouldn't have to open a terminal to accomplish such a basic task.

[1] - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RenameUSBDrive

As HDD sizes and bandwidth increase, it is becomming more and more common for users to keep disk images on their machines/networks for easy access rather than maintaining large inventories of CD/DVD media. Unfortunately, mounting these images is still a commandline function requiring SU rights unless the administrator manually configures Fuse.

I have seen many tools and scripts for mounting disk images from within Gnome, however I feel that my solution is the most transparent to the user. It functions very similar to the way OSX works, and is very intuitive.

A while back, I wrote the instructions at the bottom of the page here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ManageDiscImages

These instructions would be fairly easily incorporated into a package (I can only guess as I'm not a developer) that could be made part of the Ubunutu default install.

This would allow any Ubuntu user, reguardless of skill level, perform what up till now required at least minimal experience with the commandline.

Please vote this up!

The point here is that Drivers manager should not only download restricted drivers, but it should solve all hardware-related issues where possible. I mean, it should recognize your hardware and download all the drivers available in the repos for you - when the drivers needed aren't on the install CD.

Currently update-manager is only able to automatically install security updates, but for most users it may be handy to get everything updated for there stable release without interrupting them. It would save me some calls from people asking me what that icon is doing in there system tray.

After adding new repositories and clicking reload,Synaptic downloads lists from servers.And after that When I search for an application in synaptic it takes to much time to find me the package.Actually its looking into the list that was downloaded.

I think indexing the package name and description after reloading the package list can improve synaptic performance.

When you use quite often USB key, you always have to unmount them correctly to keep your data safe. When you're copying a file on a USB key, you must wait to empty the copy buffer.

I would propose to link the USB key icon to the state of the transfer :
- If there's a transfer, we can see clearly that we can not take the USB key away.
- When transfer is finished and the buffer emptied, the icon can show that the USB key can be safely removed

and thus it's not yet useful to click on "unmount", because the unmount management is totally transparent, and treated by the system. We can simply pick the USB key away because transfer is already finish and correctly closed. This will be a great innovation to simplify unmount such usual disks.

edit : Maybe the icon can stay like the same, but w can add some little sub-icon to inform of the state.

(see also ideas 1373 and 10032)

Hello,

id, best known for DOOM and QUAKE, has supported linux in the past.

Their upcoming new engine idtech5 will be multi-platform, supporting mac, ps3, windows and xbox360. They stated that this engine will make it possible to use the almost same codebase and compile it for each of the mentioned platforms. The ps3 and mac do not support directx, so this new engine must use opengl, like the former id games did.

They have not mentioned linux, so it is not clear if it will be supported.

Dear Ubuntu, Canonical and Mr Shuttleworth,
please appeal to id and ask them to support linux and (K/X)Ubuntu. Support them, if this becomes necessary (i.e. Linux binary through apt/synaptic). Make the ubuntu desktop a richer experience for all kinds of pc users.

Bye, Martin