I <3 Ubuntu (server and desktop)
Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?
141–150 of 173 posts
Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?
#142How about increasing the width at the edge of a window where it allows you to resize it to something other than a single pixel? That's one of my biggest usability gripes, at least for something that seems so obvious and easy to fix. It's possible it's already been fixed (I use Lucid), in which case disregard. But I would upgrade for that alone.
I feel your pain. While they fix it I found that doing 'ALT+SPACE' and then pressing 'R' helped me a bit. But yeah, three keys for something that should be intuitive..
If you have a middle button, holding down alt while middle dragging gives a nice and easy resize that only requires you be within what seems to be 1/3 of the window's dimensions away from the border you want to resize.
Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?
#143Hi Jason -
I've been using Ubuntu for about 1 year as my main development machine at work. Here are a few quick suggestions:
* use Clementine as default audio player (rythmbox rescanning each time was killing me, plus some other annoyances that I can't remember). I tried all of the other players and found Clementine to be just perfect.
* use pidgin as default IM client. I must have SIPE to integrate with Office Communicator and at the time of install this was not working in Empathy.
* Look at what Linux Mint is doing with UI. As soon as I can, I'm switching.
Big pros for mint:
* nice color scheme
* single taskbar (at bottom) = more screen real estate and single point of action for my mouse.
* ability to search programs and anything else that lives under the Mint Menu (this is huge).
* conservative and transparent (with regards to risk) update system. I've had some ups and downs with updating packages and I wonder if the mint ranking system would have prevented that...
Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?
#144VPN support must be drastically updated. I have to have my machine dual boot windows so I can log into my company's VPN using Cisco AnyConnect. I would love for Ubuntu to solve this so I no longer need Windows. Ever.
Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't very helpful in your specific problem, but typically servers don't have graphical capabilities. So much so, that I was a little baffled when I read that you VNC'ed into one. Instead your local toolchain interacts with the remote. If I wanted to paste something in a file remotely, I'd open it in my local editor (which can ssh into remote machines). If I needed to transfer files back and forth, I'd use an FT…
Are you saying you've found a way to remotely browse the filesystem of your Ubuntu box from within windows (without resorting to FTP?). As in, something that ties into windows explorer and lets you deal with remote files as though they were local? If so, please point me to it. But that's sort of the point I'm trying to make. If the Ubuntu team wants to get Windows devs to try out their thing, they need to make stuff…
I've used ubuntu on servers before and it is quite painless. You've inflicted a fair ammount of pain on yourself by running a graphical interface on a server.
As others have stated, spending 15 minutes learning about the linux commandline will save you a ton of time, effort, and pain.
Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?
#146Take what I say with a large grain of salt as it's just been my experience but... I've tried Ubuntu off an on for several years but never really been satisfied.
Mostly the problems I've had have been summed up by the only partly tongue-in-cheek tag line "Ubuntu: It's like Debian Sid but without the bug fixes" When it works, it works great. When it doesn't, it's hell to try to fix.
Stability is the number one issue. Stability of the apps (due to, I think, overzealous adoption of software that just isn't ready yet) and drivers (which of course you have little control over, but maybe try recommending an older, more tested, less featurful version of the driver as an alternative for when the new hotness dies a horrible death?). The kernel has generally been fine. I fully understand the desire for the latest and greatest software, but I'd rather run a version or two behind the bleeding edge in exchange for my apps not crashing all the time.
I also don't use GNOME or KDE or XFCE so I'm not really the target of any Ubuntu releases. So I basically would just chuck away most of the UI stuff that differentiates Ubuntu from say, Debian, and run StumpWM.
I did install Ubuntu on my dad's netbook and it seems to be working great though so... Maybe I just get the bad draw of hardware?
Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?
#147I also use Ubuntu almost exclusively. My biggest complaint is with the panel. It doesn't make sense to me to have both the 'notification area' and 'indicator applet.' Why is my wifi status indicator in a separate grouping from the battery and sound indicators? I prefer to have any sort of important indicators grouped together. When I place the groups side by side, there's a visible divider between them. I feel this is a waste of space and is detrimental to the overall look and feel. Another issue with this is that when I switch screen resolution or use an external monitor, the positions of the groups shift. I'd prefer if they were always just docked against the edge of my screen.
Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you saying you've found a way to remotely browse the filesystem of your Ubuntu box from within windows (without resorting to FTP?). As in, something that ties into windows explorer and lets you deal with remote files as though they were local? If so, please point me to it. But that's sort of the point I'm trying to make. If the Ubuntu team wants to get Windows devs to try out their thing, they need to make stuff…
I've used ubuntu on servers before and it is quite painless. You've inflicted a fair ammount of pain on yourself by running a graphical interface on a server. As others have stated, spending 15 minutes learning about the linux commandline will save you a ton of time, effort, and pain.
The GUI was an attempt to alleviate the pain caused by years of having to poke at Linux boxes through a terminal. As far as I'm concerned, it's still orders of magnitude better than having to type out keyboard commands to navigate around the filesystem.
It's just a shame that the tools to do it remotely aren't up to scratch.
Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?
#1491. Mouse button configuration GUI. This is a huge ease of use issue for people who dont know how to edit config files.
2. Fix the sound issues.
Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?
#150Even though it's easy to fix, moving the min/max/close buttons to the left is a major annoyance.
Having the buttons on the left also screws up my favourite window border theme (Crux) because the window title gets shifted right to make room for the buttons, with the result that the end of the title does not line up with the colour transition in the title bar.