gnome-system-monitor has a panel applet that displays graphs of things like CPU usage, network usage system load, RAM usage, and more.
However, to see exact measurements (instead of just graphs) you must wave your wand over a graph to display a tooltip (which is not real-time, forcing you to repeatedly move your cursor on and off of the graph) or open gnome-system-monitor (which covers your desktop).
I think there should be a way to see precise numerical stats without losing use of your mouse or opening a window.

Every time a user moves to another computer, after the typical installation, there is the problem to fill in personal files, applications, preferences, etc.

There are two main issues in migrating the system environment: the personal environment (personal files, but also personal preferences and configuration of several apps, keyring, etc), and the system environment (apps installed, global preferences).

Transfering the home directory and several configuration files does not solve the problem as some configuration files do not work well in the new machine. There is no reliable way (as far as I know) to automate the installation of the same applications on the new computer.

It would be great to have a migration tool, and even a sync tool if the user wants to have the same environment on multiple computers.

While the automatic update of Ubuntu is great, it seems to be confusing to some users.

The problem is, that often there is a list of packages which are totally unknown to the user (like openssl, libwebkit or HAL).

A user that just don't know, what these packages mean, could be confused by the large set of information (esp. after a fresh install of Ubuntu). At least it will be useless for the user and if something went wrong, the user could not really tell what kind of update happened before the system failed, because the list was too long.

Whenever opening .txt files on OpenOffice.org, Writer shows a simple window [1], where the user has access to many different options for converting the file the best way possible. One problem with this is that it is not possible to tell if the selected options are going to give the desired result.

[1] http://i43.tinypic.com/2rrxwcx.jpg

P.S.: Sorry the screenshot is in Portuguese and was taken on Windows. I'm at work right now.

Take a look at:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopTeam/Meeting/2009-06-09#The%20GIMP

It is not the first time that a completely ridiculous, non-sense, anti-usability and "coincidentally" pro-Mono proposal (also coincidentally this time, from a former Microsoft employee) is pushed under the excuse of live cd size.

Apparently live CD size has become such an end instead of a means that ubuntu even considered removing the whole image editing thing to replace it with a sub-par photo management thingy. (No, apparently creation of images is too complicated for ubuntu users, they only want to edit a couple of pictures, let creativity be part of the windows or mac OS/X experience). This time, we dashed the bullet, but the conclussion is way too weak:
"If we still need the room, kick it out altogether"

This is not the first time, before we had another sign, canonical seriously considering replacing Rhythmbox (second most popular Linux music player, correctly working, good features, good amount of ubuntu users that like it) with Banshee (a feature lacking, mono-driven, unstable app only liked by Mono zealots) again under the extremely lame excuse of live CD size.

This situation is getting ridiculous.

Some points:

* The current default app distribution just works. Jaunty had tons of good reviews. In no place were there complains about X esoteric program missing.

* The current default app distribution already fits a CD. In other words, CD size is a problem only if you want to add new packages. What new packages? Is it really wise to replace raw functionality with some incredibly unknown package named "couchdb" that, I as an ubuntu user have never needed ?

[....]

Imagine you'd switch on your computer and the first thing you see is your wallpaper with a progress bar on it, the upsplash. Then followed by the GDM, using your wallpaper as a background as well and finally your desktop.
That would provide a nice and consistent boot experience, and also be quite impressing when someone boots a live CD for the first time, wouldn't it?

Sure this whole idea falls apart, when there are multiple users on one machine using different wallpapers, but I still think it would be a nice option.

During my day, I play Banshee audio of my local music collection. When a friend sends me a funny YouTube video to watch, I usually do the following:

1. Click the link (most of the time I don't realize it's a YouTube video, but even if I did I would probably click the link first before remembering my audio problem)
2. The video starts and I realize that playing two audio sources makes both of them kind of useless
3. Pause Banshee (usually with a Do shortcut, but occasionally by going back to the app and pushing the space bar)
4. Go back to Firefox, skip to the beginning of the clip and hit play
5. When the clip is done, I usually forget for a while to turn Banshee back on, but when the silence is noticeable, I go back to Banshee and turn it back on.

This whole thing is really frustrating, and it's the same with just about any "I'm playing some audio, but now I want this to play" thing.

(Note: satisfaction / efficiency tags added according to mpt's "What do you mean by "usability" found here: http://mpt.net.nz/archive/2008/08/11/usability )

Sometimes, you may have a folder where you save screen dumps, short documents as quick notes and such... Either you do manually have to clean up there, or many files will be piled up there.

The marketing on Ubuntu.com goes on and on about Free / Open-Source Software. For example, the Ubuntu Story page ( http://www.ubuntu.com/community/ubuntustory ) talks about a "strong commitment to freedom," while Ubuntu.com's philosophy page ( http://www.ubuntu.com/community/ubuntustory/philosophy ) says "Every computer user should have the freedom to download, run, copy, distribute, study, share, change and improve their software for any purpose, without paying licensing fees."

The problem is, not only are these pages kind of dry, they also miss vital marketing opportunities. Ubuntu may be a free operating system, with optional nonfree components that we warn people about up-front and keep separate in the repositories, but it's developed using nonfree software -- the "special sauce" Canonical keeps to itself, and isn't going to make Open-Source even as it opens up the rest of Launchpad (see http://blog.launchpad.net/podcast/launchpod-15-launchpads-going-open-source#com ment-26049 for Mark Shuttleworth's thoughts on this). And when Ubuntu One comes out later this year, we're going to have an incredibly slick, proprietary / closed-source online backup feature that only works with Ubuntu.

Why aren't we spreading the word? Apple's gone all kinds of places emphasizing the things you can only get from Apple. Canonical shouldn't be hiding its "special sauce," or downplaying the fact that its online services offerings are proprietary. It should be flaunting it!

Instead of talking about "Free Software" and "Pass it on," like on the ShipIt CDs, we should be talking about the things you can only get from Canonical. The things that no one can duplicate for their own Linux-based operating system, whether they're backed by big corporations or made up of third-world volunteers. (Actually, we should probably downplay the whole "disadvantaged third-world people" angle altogether ... they're going to be locked in to Canonical as a vendor by using Ubuntu One and our other online services, even more than they already are. And it never looks good to be seen as exploiting people.)

[....]

Ubuntu Linux means that Ubuntu is some variant of the kernel Linux. The name Ubuntu Linux portrays some bad ideas. It removes the original meaning of the GNU project (software that provides freedoms to it's users) and makes people think that Linus Torvalds wrote the entire OS.