Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?
I am the Ubuntu desktop manager at Canonical. The Ubuntu community is getting ready to start planning for the next UDS in May.
I know there are quite a few Ubuntu users here and I wanted to reach out and see what people would like to have fixed, changed, improved, removed, added or anything else in the upcoming release. I'm also quite interested in those who DON'T use Ubuntu and what their thoughts are on why they don't use it (might be related).
Things to consider:
* Applications and default app selection
* Configuration & Settings
* Usability and ease of use
* Accessibility
It would be helpful for me if you could give a brief rundown of what you use Ubuntu for as well.
Cheers,
-Jason
PS. If you have used Unity in the 11.04 beta, now would be a good time to give feedback on that as it could shape the 11.10 release as well.
172 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 453 ms ] threadInstaller options for remapping caps lock, like Google did with its ChromeOS laptops. I use it as an easy-to-reach control key; other people I know turn it into another super for easy window management or an escape key for vim. Useful functions for the average grandma might include "search the web", "open gnome do", or "open Unity's 'everything on the computer' page".
Include KeePassX in Ubuntu, provide solid integration for it (possibly even with Ubuntu One), and present it to the user on installation. Encourage users to use it to create strong passwords and to maintain separate passwords for every service and website.
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I use Ubuntu 10.10 for most of my real work. I'm a computer science student, so I do a lot of programming, answer some email, surf the web, and spend a ton of time reading and writing papers.
It's really important to have short installation times - if you want people to convert to your operating system, make it easy for them.
There is one thing I wish you would work in and it's speed: Waking from sleep and turning on the wifi takes ages in Ubuntu. If there is something you can do here, that would make me happy!
EDIT: One more thing: I know installation with USB on a Mac is difficult to impossible, but if there is any way to make it easier on the Airs, I think it's a good thing. It's a very nice machine for Ubuntu, but it's really hard to install.
Here here!
As was mentioned over at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2321584 power management needs a lot of work.
Nevertheless, I'm eternally grateful for the excellent work you guys are doing over there. Please keep it up!
It would also be great to see Systemd used. Rather than Upstart.
A global menu and a launcher (like Gnome Do) are some of the first things I install after upgrading. Along with Docky.
I realise some of these are fundamental changes to the Ubuntu way, but it's what is drawing towards alternatives, and further from Ubuntu (which I've used since Warty).
The inclusion of unity is not disabling the usage of Gnome 3, although I agree that Gnome-do should be integrated as default, it is so useful.
- Every time there's a new release, and I update, it leaves me with a crashed unusable system. Its happened so much that I've scripted out my entire install and configuration process
- I have to kill Firefox in order to make sound work in VLC... wtf?
- My bluetooth mouse works 50% of the time
- Wifi doesn't usually work with the built in managers.. I often have to install wicd
That's the gripe side.. will report back later for more UI related improvement ideas
It seems to me that there's some problem with your HW configuration (WiFi etc. - never had problems). Did you consider staying on some LTS. I've found 10.04 to be extremely smooth. If you don't want to have the trouble, just stay on LTS :).
On OS X, the biggest annoyance for me, coming from Linux, is the lack of a consistent packaging system.
I don't like the MacPorts style of compiling everything on my own system, but being a Ruby programmer, I'm kind of stuck with it as well due to that being the way any Gem native extensions like to work too.
But really, that's about it.
It's a UNIX. It works. I never have to muck around with my config files, and pray that the next drop of the OS doesn't break my wireless / sleep / wake / sound card.
Sadly, that's not a Ubuntu-specific problem. Recently, I had to borrow an openSuSE box for a few days and this was basically the first time I used client-side Linux in ten years and I was appalled. One of the many many annoyances was that only one program could use audio at a time. Like you described, I had to close Firefox after playing a Youtube vid, just to open VLC in a functional state (and this was on KDE I believe).
After all these years of not looking at the state of GUI on Linux I was extremely surprised by how little advancement happened in this time. I don't say this to flame, but I'd be really interested how things ended up in this sad state. The overall "experience" is just a nightmare.
10.04 by the time I installed it was rock-solid. On the other hand 10.10 is not working properly - web camera is displaying up-side-down and my laptop many times freezes on shutdown. And it's like a cycle, one in every 3-4 releases doesn't cause issues for me.
Unfortunately I don't have the time to deal with these problems, find the cause, give feedback on mailing lists, etc...
If you could invest in a more stable / well-tested Ubuntu release (although I do know the next one is not a LTS) that would be great.
You guys also did a good job regarding usability lately, thumbs up.
The other problem I've had is Compiz (ATI mobility radeon HD 4250). When I enabled the proprietary drivers either it worked nice with No visual effect, or if I chose Some visual effects then chrome of the windows didn't show up until I disabled the effects. I have then installed 10.04a3 just to try if things were better but now there was nothing visual at all. No bar, no unity, basically all what required Compiz didn't work. When I boot I see only the background and the cursor. If I knew some shortcuts I guess i could still open the windows (but chromeless), but its very annoying.
What I wish for Ubuntu 11 is to polish things up with the hardware. Try to increase hardware support as much as you can, so that users don't have to deal with it.
I may be an isolated case with little luck, but its just frustrating. I think increasing hardware compatibility should be a higher priority than UI polish.
http://openindiana.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/oi-b148-gu...
One thing that's struck me as odd is that though the boot up to login screen has improved drastically over the past few releases, login to desktop takes a really long time. I am talking about stock installs (nothing extra in startup applications). (There are some forum posts that indicate that compiz might be the root cause for this and I still havent' had enough time to track these down)
I haven't had too much trouble with drivers and configuration (Lenovo T61p..) but the lack of current versions of packages that I rely on for daily work (e.g. eclipse, etc) in the repositories or the ppa drive me to switch to archlinux temporarily.
If I look at the screenshots for 10.10 (let's take a tiny example, I could pick on many - http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sshot23....), the general quality of finish on UI chrome and layout is shocking. The inconsistencies, poor spacing, bad grid, etc. make this jarring and painful. I'm sure people will say this is irrelevant. It isn't. If you're staring at something for many hours a day, this stuff is your subconscious indicator as to quality. It doesn't feel "right". Most Linux user interfaces (and this isn't Ubuntu specific, but you guys are probably most likely to have a go at fixing it) feel "uncanny". They're just a bit wrong. Things don't line up, they're odd sizes, they draw the eye in the wrong way.
In short, they're inelegant and clunky. They feel like non-native Java app interfaces (used) to do (and still do, to greater or lesser degrees). This isn't about visual style or theme, it's a quality case not a taste one.
If I had a little more time (or if anyone thinks this is unfair and actually wants it) I could annotate a screenshot and point these things out directly.
(Please note - if you feel that this is all fixed in 11.x then I apologise, but I will be very surprised)
// Edit: If anyone from Ubuntu would like to chat ever, I'd be more than happy. Contact info is in my profile.
Moreover, most of the software is not developed by Canonical. It's just packaged by them. I doubt they can influence the looks of individual programs that much (there are just so many and everyone uses different ones).
Hence, my use of Ubuntu is pretty much limited to Vim and a terminal window. And I love Ubuntu for that. But I would use it for more than that if it wasn't for its ugliness.
How about reading the UI guidelines of Windows and OSX and coming up with one of your own? I know this exists for Gnome somewhere, but I can't see many developers adhering to them…
There are also other tiny bugs that annoy me everyday. Things like giving decent video output through the VGA port on a supported Acer netbook just don't work. For example, I was giving a presentation and ubuntu would randomly decide between slides to switch over displays, blank it, show output errors etc.
I think that these problems aren't allocated resources, because they appear to be just trivial, but as a user this is what I'm going to notice after a month or a year of usage. These are the tiny things that drive people up the wall. For example, the infamous windows file copying dialogue. Not a biggie, but it evokes a collective sigh no matter where you mention it.
At the same time this release is much, much better than the 8.04 and it just shows how much effort canonical puts into iterative improvement. If the same attention is thrown to these strawmen. Then ubuntu might become a force to reckon with.
Maybe I am too used to the other OSes but font rendering always seem weird. Eg. See the screenshot here http://lh5.ggpht.com/mihaiolimpiu/SQh2WqXOQaI/AAAAAAAAASQ/mH...
The fonts seem stretched horizontally. I always get the feeling, even in the new versions. Maybe it's just me. As a sidenote see how the column headings are cut off in the Deluge windows.
I was told a few years ago that this was because of patents on TrueType fonts etc and copyrighted fonts. Is this still the case?
"What on earth are you talking about? That looks fine" is a valid reply to my finickiness, and I'm a bit jealous of that, because being like this pretty much limits me to OS X and Apple's whims.
In order to get it to install, I had to quit the installer, resize the windows partition using gparted and then select 'Install next to other OS' (I can't remember the exact wording).
It was a bit frustrating to see the really helpful option 'Install into free space' get removed.
Otherwise, a brilliant OS. I use it on the desktop at home and on my work laptop.
So far I have not found a nice replacement for Grip. At the moment I'm using XCFA, but I'm not very happy, because I have to do a lot of things manually, like replacing _ with spaces in directory names (in filenames there are spaces, very strange). What tool do you use for cd ripping (mp3)?
Examples: Samba is in Administration, but Network Connections is in Preferences.
Login screen is under Administration, and Startup Applications are under Preferences.
The split between Administration and Preferences is really artificial, and not helpful for dividing settings.
At least that's my experience.
For the most part, "preferences" describes stuff that is specific to my user (i.e. my personal preferences), whereas "administration" encompasses system-wide administrative tasks.
Obviously the split isn't perfect, as there are some things that fall into both categories, but in general I find that I look in the right place the first time, most of the time.
See this link from the OMG!Ubuntu! folks (who are generally very good at covering latest and greatest features of Ubuntu...even during the devel period).
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/03/ubuntu-natty-adds-control...
Disk Drive UUID=blablablablablablablabla-blabl-blabla-bla could not be found.
Wait for mounting, or continue?
This message is scary and gives me no actionable information (what's the uuid of my cards? I don't know!)
But, I wish some improvement is done on improving hibernate. It takes ages to hibernate and system sometimes freezes. Moreover, my experience with battery life on Ubuntu vs Windows suggests Ubuntu manages power poorly.
I haven't used Unity yet but look forward to trying soon.
I've read that Ubuntu 11.04 uses an updated version of the Linux kernel that solves this issues, I'll try it out when it's released.
Regarding battery life, I get three hours out of mine which is similar to what I got with Windows 7. (However, Ubuntu's power options are nowhere near as fine-grained as Windows 7, at least in GUI form.)
It's possible it's already been fixed (I use Lucid), in which case disregard. But I would upgrade for that alone.
But I agree with everyone else in that it shouldn't be necessary to go through this just to resize windows, but I've always blamed myself for not learning awesome.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2324771
Here's your indicator:
OS X is beautiful, (I heard it is used internally in the heavens and rumors say God built a hackintosh for himself)
The more OS X switchers to Ubuntu you get, the more you can be sure you are in the right path. The less you get, the farthest from beauty you are.
Now you can argue with that, as you were expecting a more generic indicator, but sorry, this is one of nature's mysteries
* Bluetooth support - It sometimes works, sometimes won't. * Soundcards - A pain to make it work properly * WebCam - Again, works on and off * Graphics Card - Works perfect on my present laptop, but had to go through a lot of trouble setting one up for my friend.
Though I love the O/S and would continue to use it despite these issues, I think this is one major drawback that prevents a lot of people from switching to Ubuntu. It should work, out of the box with little twitching of buttons.
I love Linux, I'm using it for 10 years and tried many distributions and the only real problem I've experienced was a problem of drivers for my graphic card. Yes, there are some issues with usability, somebody says that UI of Ubuntu is not very clean and easy to understand... Don't get me wrong but I just can't be scared with this after compiling ALSA drivers in Mandrake 6.01 (don't remember the exact version) to get a working audio output, or compiling kernel to get a working audio input, or rebooting to windows to download drivers for my Intel dial-up modem, booting back to Linux and then understanding that I'm missing a dependency, then booting back to windows and so on...
However, there are few issues that prevent me installing Ubuntu (or any other linux as problem with drivers exists in all distributions) on the home PC of my parents like upgrading from 10.04 to 10.10 my GPU gets hot as hell; when my colleague maximizes flash video to full-screen his X-server freezes; when my friend plugs his second screen both his external and laptop screens turn black and etc, etc. I understand that these problems occur because of proprietary drivers but I really hope that there will be some day when everything will just work.
Really gets aggravating when my dad or someone borrows my computer and I have to su -l into my user, go through the whole process above and logout (from shell) all over again. Seems like a ridiculous process just to connect to my wifi.
A related issue to this is saner default key management. I've been using Ubuntu since Intrepid, and I've never figured out how to get the default key management to stop bothering me when unnecessary. It's sort of alright that it asks me for the default key on bootup since I change my password around regularly and it's different from the first one I set, yet it for some reason is unable to remember any wifi profiles at all after the first password change.
Default apps like Gwibber and Evolution have never worked for me on multiple computers (am using 10.04+ 32 and 64 builds), while their alternatives like Pidgin and Thunderbird or Claws Mail work great and consistently. On the branding side of things, LibreOffice rolls off the tongue better than OpenOffice.org, but still has the pesky, stereotypical problem of open source projects with tacky and alienating names.
Applaud you all on your choice with Banshee, better player than Rhythmbox for sure. As long as libmobiledevice is rolled in, I'm happy.
Unity is a bold move that you all have already invested quite a bit of development time and energy into, but I unfortunately will not upgrade from 10.04 because of it. It's really alien to me and others whom I introduce Ubuntu to, and I don't really see what problem it aims to fix other than maybe trying to shake up the old UI/UX scene on the desktop from the WIMP to something less...WIMP.
Really, the only things I miss the most from Windows and Mac is iTunes Store, which I can view from my iPhone anyways (although it'd be nice on the desktop, but I understand that this completely not your fault but Apple's decision) and high-quality FPS games like Halo that aren't all just a rehashing of the Doom engine.
Great work and keep on building a great operating system. Ubuntu's visionary development and support ecosystem is really a marvel that I've enjoyed using and supporting over the years. I really appreciate what you all do at Canonical.
Good Luck.
EDIT: Also see[1] my comment on the large default icons, fonts, and spacing for everything in Ubuntu. It's been getting worse since 9.04 and all the many thick panels, icons and such really add up to a bad experience and amateurish feel. If you all could explain the need for such large solid-colored bars on both the bottom and top of the page as well as the the thick, solid-colored toolbars in every application (Firefox is a big transgressor here), that'd be great to hear.
[1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2317321
Generally I think Ubuntu has been a great distro that has made a ton of progress.
2. IMPROVE the search functionality and make it as effective and useful as provided by MAC OS.
On Mac, Cmd-C always means Copy (even in Google Docs), and Ctrl-C does what it should in Terminal. Compare that to Gnome's use of Ctrl-C in all apps except for terminal, where you have to press 3 keys (Ctrl-Shift-C) at once.
Go to line is Ctrl-G, Ctrl-L, and Ctrl-I in different editors.