9 features Ubuntu should implement

[motang]

I ran across this article (http://linuxpoison.blogspot.com/2009/03/9-features-ubuntu-should-implement_07.html) while I was surfing the web today and I agree as these seem to be very interesting ideas, and hopefully in the future we can see these implemented into Ubuntu. What do you guys think?

[FuturePilot]

Some of those sound cool. I'm pretty sure the changing wallpaper one could be implemented fairly easily. Gnome has supported time based wallpaper changes for a couple of releases now but it's not very well known nor is it exactly easy to configure, but the ability to do it is there.

[Skripka]

Man. They totally miss the mark of the MOST basic functionality which should be integrated but is not.

How about:

-Built in support for multi-button mice? Is this so much to ask? Do I really have to go and spend an afternoon mapping out button codes and typing config files for something so basic?

-Color management. It is a PITA now. Non-linux OSes do it quick and easy-why cannot we?

[damis648]

-Built in support for multi-button mice? Is this so much to ask? Do I really have to go and spend an afternoon mapping out button codes and typing config files for something so basic?

Odd... my 5-button works OOTB.

[linux_lover69]

Yes, these are neat things that should be implemented. I would definitely use them.

[Skripka]

Odd... my 5-button works OOTB.

My mouse with 12 button functions only OOTB woked as a 3-button mouse.

[Bart_D]

#s 1 and 3 are good. #5 is laughable. The rest aren't worth it.

[Vince4Amy]

1 - Some people don't want junk like that default on their desktop, I know I don't, it should be an optional feature, oh wait it already is.

2 - Yes, some other distros already have that, but really who keeps the default wallpaper. Waste of time when they could be focusing on other things.

3 - Waste of space for people who do not have a lot of resources, however it's good if you like to have an eye-candy desktop.

4 - I've seen something like that in OpenSuSE with KDE 3.5.x.

5 - You can set up this functionality if you require it already AFAIK.

6 - Yes when there are a few programs running with tray icons it's not as neat as it can be in Gnome, but apart from when things like aMSN are running I don't have any tray icons at all.

7 - There's no point of putting this stuff in by default, if people need it, they will download it. It's just a waste of space.

8 - A welcome screen like in OpenSuSE would be enough.

My Opinion on these anyway.

[thraxy]

#8 Might be a good idea for new users coming over from Windows. I don't know how useful the rest would be (to me), but it's always nice to see new ideas.

Actually #5 was quite funny. I could picture myself attaching small voice clips to certain files and folders.

[bashveank]

Before adding features we should polish the features we have to PERFECTION.

[JackieChan]

You can already do a lot of the things on the list, and the thrash can already builds up trash.

Some features I do think Ubuntu should implement:
- a built in cairo-clock on the desktop
- an orange Ubuntu themed Window navigator
- A Tux as computer assistant (kind of like the Office Assistant Paper Clip in Microsoft Office)
- VLC should be the default video player
- Songbird should be the default music player
- Skype should be included in addition to Pidgin
- Opera should be included with FireFox

I also think they should focus on Ubuntu becoming more eye candy and crisp looking.

[Mr. Picklesworth]

Since the fancy changes to xorg in 8.04 and 8.10, my VX Revolution's buttons have all worked flawlessly out of the box. (In fact, more of the buttons on it get through to other apps as key presses than in Windows without the horrible Logitech SetPoint software. Even with Wine).
For example, the tilt wheel works flawlessly, the same way, in every single GTK app since scroll bars and the like are handled automatically by the UI toolkit. Try scrolling horizontally with the wheel in Ubuntu, then try it (even with official apps) in Windows and you will see what I mean.

It's just that hardly any applications really use the extra buttons. Some GNOME upstream folks have noticed that and are coming to treat mouse shortcuts on the same level as keyboard ones.

[smartboyathome]

Here are the features Ubuntu should impliment before any of yours :P
1. Become Rolling Release
2. Adopt the alternate CD as the default CD
3. Adopt pacman as the package manager
4. Use BSD-style init.

Wait a minute... I'm describing Arch Linux. Silly me. ;)

Anyway, people should try programming the features they want and see how popular they get. Who knows, they might create a gem, or a dud. :)

[davidryder]

IMO we shouldn't be thinking about adding more fluff and bloat when there are more important features to improve upon.

[thraxy]

I vote for more fluff and bloat. I'm not satisfied until Ubuntu needs 2GB RAM to boot up. MORE BLOAT!!:popcorn::popcorn::popcorn:

[Giant Speck]

If users are really fine with Ubuntu adding more fluff and bloat with each release and it indeed continues to happen, then sooner or later, Ubuntu is going to become as bloated as people claim Windows is, and the statement "I switched to Ubuntu to escape the bloat of Windows" will gradually become more and more hypocritical.

I personally don't mind a little fluff and eye candy here and there, but I'd rather add it myself rather than it be a default of the operating system.

[will1911a1]

1. I can already add a weather report to my desktop if I want to, which I don't.

2. Frivolous fluff. It's already possible anyway.

3. Even if I used icons I usually have windows open that would cover them up thereby rendering any visual changes to them pointless. Also conky can be configured to show space left.

4. ???

5. Is the folder hierarchy REALLY that tough to learn? Seriously?

6. Useless.

7. Plenty of nice clean taksbars available already.

8. I'm pretty biased on this one. Being an Arch user I don't want ANYTHING preinstalled except the basics.

9. This is what Live CDs are for.

[Twitch6000]

You can already do a lot of the things on the list, and the thrash can already builds up trash.

Some features I do think Ubuntu should implement:
- a built in cairo-clock on the desktop
- an orange Ubuntu themed Window navigator
- A Tux as computer assistant (kind of like the Office Assistant Paper Clip in Microsoft Office)
- VLC should be the default video player
- Songbird should be the default music player
- Skype should be included in addition to Pidgin
- Opera should be included with FireFox

I also think they should focus on Ubuntu becoming more eye candy and crisp looking.

If we get a tux computer assistant he better not be as annoying... if he is... I am going to hunt you down cause you came up with the idea...

[will1911a1]

If we get a tux computer assistant he better not be as annoying... if he is... I am going to hunt you down cause you came up with the idea...

I honestly can't think of a way that ANY "assistant" wouldn't be annoying as hell.

[Giant Speck]

7. Plenty of nice clean taksbars available already.

Can you name a few? Because I haven't ever heard of any taskbar alternatives that run directly in the gnome-panel.

[will1911a1]

Can you name a few? Because I haven't ever heard of any taskbar alternatives that run directly in the gnome-panel.

Probably none of them would play well with Gnome. :)

[TenPlus1]

Instead of doing all the work for you and incorporating all these eye-candy features, why not simple add a guide showing users how to do it step-by-step and at least giving them a little install knowledge in the process...

[MaxIBoy]

Copied and pasted from the comment I put on the blog posting:

None of this has anything to do with Linux. You might as well go to Chevrolet and give them ideas for songs to put in the car radio "because that's where the music comes out of."

Linux is a kernel, not a full operating system. Distros like Ubuntu and Fedora take the Linux kernel and install a bunch of extra software on it so you can have something to look at. If you want to suggest ideas for GNOME, KDE, Xfce, LXDE, Enlightenment, and so on, you should specify that.

In other words, if you don't like what's playing on the car radio, blame the radio station, not the car. Or even *gasp* change the channel.

For example, the "taskbar" can easily be changed even without switching to a different desktop environment. That screenshot looks like GNOME, and GNOME-panel has built-in capabilities for moving icons and notifications around, removing them, or adding new ones. In fact, every panel program in existence has one, it's a bare minimum feature.

Desktops that change over are already possible. You can get the effect by switching to Enlightenment E17, or by using Xwinwrap to play screensavers on your desktop background.

Notifications on your desktop can be accomplished simply putting a panel on the side of the screen, making it big and transparent, and allowing windows to overlap with it. If you don't like that option, you can do it by using a conky sidebar (http://conky.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html) or screenlets (http://www.screenlets.org/index.php/Screenshots,) or Enlightenment E17's shelf feature (http://wiki.enlightenment.org/index.php/E17_User_Guide/Shelves) or KDE's weird upper-right corner thingy (http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.1/index.php.)

Note that GNOME (with GNOME-panel,) KDE, XFCE, LXDE, Enlightenment, Conky, Screenlets, and Xwinwrap have nothing to do with Linux. Most of them run on other operating systems as well, such as the BSDs, such as FreeBSD, NetBSD, and Mac OS X. Here's a link to KDE running on Leopard:
http://gallery.racoonfink.com/v/misc/screenshots/kde-x11-on-mac-os-x-leopard.png.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=1

[perce]

1) It would a nice APPLICATION, not an OS feature
2) friends of mine had that in the mid nineties on fvwm2; definitely not news stuff
3) fun, but useless
4) where is 4?
5) would be neat
6) I'd change distribution immediately
7) I don't care
8) I don't care
9) I don't care

Things I would like:

1) monitor plug and play
2) easy way to turn off power to wireless and bluetooth to save battery time
3) a lot of bug fixing on Network Manager
4) faster boot time

[Mr. Picklesworth]

Things I would like:

1) monitor plug and play


Monitor plug and play is coming quite smoothly, really. From what I have encountered, major drivers now all seem to support changing displays and enabling multiple displays on the fly, outside of xorg.conf. I was pretty excited to realize that the nvidia driver figures that out on its own. The new Display Preferences (was Screen Resolution) in Jaunty automatically detects if a gfx-card specific display configuration tool is available, making that a bit smoother. We still have to explicitly say "detect display... enable twinview... disable the other monitor..."


What we lack is particularly intelligent, actively helpful monitor plug and play. For example, I noticed that Windows Vista is really clever about it, where if I plug in a big monitor to my laptop then close the lid it will magically start outputting to that external monitor alone, even if I hadn't explicitly reminded it to output there in the first place. (It just knows that it's the logical step to take).
Would be nice if the GNOME panel would reconfigure depending on attached displays and that sort of thing. (For example, how about running Netbook-styled stuff on the go then having Ubuntu swap to regular desktop stuff when docked to a big monitor?)

[Simian Man]

1. The Gnome weather applet suits me great.
2. Fedora already has this.
3. Meh.
4. MIA.
5. 'tree' works fine for me.
6. God no!
7. It looks OK to me.
8. Violates the Unix philosophy. I hate "do-it-all" apps.
9. Meh.

[FuturePilot]

2. Fedora already has this.


Ubuntu does too, along with any recent version of Gnome.

[3rdalbum]

Weather on the desktop is a really good idea. Representative icons (that show the status of a disk, whether a document is already open etc) are also a good idea. The others are a bit... useless.

[MaxIBoy]

Weather on the desktop is a really good idea.
http://elraton.free.fr/divers/misc/buro-conky.png
http://3rabuntu.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/screenlet-shot.jpg


Representative icons (that show the status of a disk, whether a document is already open etc) are also a good idea. The others are a bit... useless. Meh, they'll just take up a bunch of your space with information you won't need 99% of the time. If you really wanted them, I'm sure those features have been implemented somewhere. Any idea that obvious, someone will probably implement it just for the heck of it.

[Johnsie]

What dock is that on the right?

[billgoldberg]

I think this discussion came up a while back when the article first came out.