Ask HN: What do you want to see in Ubuntu 17.10? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to see in Ubuntu 17.10?

#651

Post by funkyy » Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 7:06 PM UTC

egnehots wrote: post #584

skamoen wrote: post #14

- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop: 1. HEADLINE: A way to have different scaling for external monitors hooked up to my HiDPI laptop. Currently I need can only set a single scaling factor, so I need to ajust my laptop screen resolution to match scaling of the external monitor. If that's not possible, a way to automatically set resolution and scale for both screens once you hook one up would already save me a lot of manual switc…

User: I want hi-res apps! Dev: Sure, here you go. User: But why is it so small on my new shiny tablet high density screen? Dev: (SHit it worked okay for me) Okay now it detects the density and scale.. User: But when I move the window to my old good lcd screen it becomes way too big! Dev: Okay let's see if I can dynamically adapt to a new monitor density, it's just one scale factor. User: But when I put it on my big t…

Simply introduce zoom in/zoom out for the whole desktop separated to each screen like in browser (you can zoom certain tabs/sites and have that memorised). Problem solved.

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to see in Ubuntu 17.10?

#652

Post by cookiecaper » Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 7:07 PM UTC

spamizbad wrote: post #379

OK here goes.. - FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop - HEADLINE: Drop Mir & collaborate with Wayland - DESCRIPTION: I know this is a touchy subject and I'm not looking to self-righteously re-re-re-ligitage everything but... between Intel walking away, licensing concerns, Ubuntu varients not jumping onboard, and various community concerns, would you re-consider abandoning mir and joining forces with Wayland? I understand you felt…

There's no technical justification. Mir is a purely political decision. Canonical wants to exert more control over the platform. It's a totally rational position, but as you note, it seems to be failing.

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to see in Ubuntu 17.10?

#653

Post by sixbrx » Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 7:08 PM UTC

- FLAVOR: Desktop

- HEADLINE: Easy Dock/Launcher Customization

- DESCRIPTION: The user should be able to 1) drag any executable to the dock to make a new launcher 2) Right click any launcher to be able to choose a dialog to customize command line arguments, initial working directory, and icon. The user should not have to edit a desktop item file or install or know about Alacarte. Windows got this one right.

- ROLE/AFFILIATION: Software developer for chemists and biologists.

[This comment disappeared somehow so this is a reposting]

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to see in Ubuntu 17.10?

#654

Post by StavrosK » Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 7:08 PM UTC

Zarel wrote: post #557

- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Server - HEADLINE: Built-in support for installing up-to-date packages - DESCRIPTION: Currently, `apt install [package]` on LTS Ubuntu will install a package that is up to 24 months out of date (or more if you're not on the latest LTS). Literally one month ago, using the latest version of Windows 10, I installed Ubuntu for Windows (which installed Ubuntu 14.04 LTS), and `apt-get install nodejs` insta…

> (which installed Ubuntu 14.04 LTS), and `apt-get install nodejs` installed Node 0.10 (from 2013! in 2017!).

Not in 2017. In 2014. You're using Ubuntu 14, which means you get 2014 versions.

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to see in Ubuntu 17.10?

#655

Post by jwr » Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 7:08 PM UTC

FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop

HEADLINE: Multi-Monitor Support with HiDPI

DESCRIPTION: I would like to be able to use multiple monitors with various DPI in Linux without pain and suffering. Please see Mac OS X for how to get this right — they did. I would like to stop worrying about which of my monitors are plugged in at boot, I'd like to be able to plug them in whenever I need to. I'd like to be able to smoothly move a window from one screen to another without the window becoming impossibly small or overly large.

ROLE/AFFILIATION: Software and Electronics Engineer trying to do his job(s) using Ubuntu.

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to see in Ubuntu 17.10?

#656

Post by tajen » Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 7:08 PM UTC

- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Desktop

- HEADLINE: Make Ubuntu the OS of choice for graphic designers.

- DESCRIPTION: Yes, they set the trends. It's annoying to be limited to Inkscape/Gimp, even for basic image editing. Make a first-class graphics/movies/3d toolsuite, even at an expensive price (but always open-source) and web startups would start switching. Of course that means you'd spend enough on UX to make it desirable (asking HN is a good first step, but please hire dozens of UX designers).

- ROLE / AFFILIATION: Java dev and founder of a web product with 2 employees.

----

- HEADLINE: Bump up the security bounty. $10.000?

- DESCRIPTION: It's good for commercials and PR – You can then claim to be the most secure OS. After implementing the first reports, of course. Please don't forget to send fixes upstream, and don't limit the bounty to Canonical software: A bug in OpenSSL is your problem too.

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to see in Ubuntu 17.10?

#657

Post by JdeBP » Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 7:09 PM UTC

dman wrote: post #522

FLAVOR: Ubuntu Server HEADLINE: Simple support for modifying installed packages from source DESCRIPTION: For instance if user wants to modify system installed Python to either submit a bugfix/ implement an improvement/ add instrumentation. User should be able to easily do something like a. apt fork python forkname (checks out python source code) b. apt build-fork forkname c. apt install-fork forkname d. apt revert-fo…

APT already has the ability to fetch source packages, build new binary packages them from (modified) source, and install them. It's not as seamless as, say, the integration between the FreeBSD packages and ports systems, but it is there.

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to see in Ubuntu 17.10?

#658

Post by cookiecaper » Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 7:11 PM UTC

danudey wrote: post #583

Zarel wrote: post #557

- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Server - HEADLINE: Built-in support for installing up-to-date packages - DESCRIPTION: Currently, `apt install [package]` on LTS Ubuntu will install a package that is up to 24 months out of date (or more if you're not on the latest LTS). Literally one month ago, using the latest version of Windows 10, I installed Ubuntu for Windows (which installed Ubuntu 14.04 LTS), and `apt-get install nodejs` insta…

The entire point of LTS is that things don't change. Security features are back ported, but you're on Node 0.10 because when 14.04 was released it included Node 0.10. You have an old version of youtube-dl because that's what was available at the time. You use an LTS release when you want to do 'apt-get upgrade' and not change anything. No new features, no deprecated features, no changes other than back ported bug and…

While you're correct, it should be noted that "security backports" are much less complete than they'd have you think.

Do NOT take the promises of enterprise distributors for granted, both because there are a lot of security problems that never get fixed, and because the expertise to sufficiently backport is often lacking (cf. the Debian SSL entropy crisis of some years back).

You are usually better off using a newer upstream with the security fix integrated than relying on a distro-pushed backport. For a demonstration, try installing redis from the official Ubuntu repos.

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to see in Ubuntu 17.10?

#659

Post by peq » Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 7:12 PM UTC

FLAVOR: Ubuntu desktop

HEADLINE: fix smart autohide of unity launcher

DESCRIPTION: it is really annoying that the launcher does not appear sometimes, when moving the cursor to the edge of the screen. There are several bug reports for this issue, which are open for a long time.

In general I would love to have a way to pay an Ubuntu dev to fix a specific bug.

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to see in Ubuntu 17.10?

#660

Post by cookiecaper » Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 7:17 PM UTC

coleifer wrote: post #603

Zarel wrote: post #557

- FLAVOR: Ubuntu Server - HEADLINE: Built-in support for installing up-to-date packages - DESCRIPTION: Currently, `apt install [package]` on LTS Ubuntu will install a package that is up to 24 months out of date (or more if you're not on the latest LTS). Literally one month ago, using the latest version of Windows 10, I installed Ubuntu for Windows (which installed Ubuntu 14.04 LTS), and `apt-get install nodejs` insta…

Things are supposed to be stable if you're running an LTS, you savage! If you want everything bleeding edge, then use Arch Linux, not an Ubuntu LTS. Good god man. Also I love the incredible specificity of your "ROLE/AFFILIATION". Top 2000, eh? Heh.

There needs to be a rational middle ground.

Arch is bleeding edge and has no qualms pushing updates that break things and telling you to fix it. That's fine for workstations (and I've used Arch as my workstation OS for over 10 years), but it doesn't work well for servers.

IMO, LTS should be transformed to a yearly release cycle with 2 years of support, not bi-annual with 5 years. This would fix a lot of problems, especially considering that distros can get frozen with versions of packages that are already pretty old when they go gold. Keeping support around for 5 years (which is basically a myth anyway) is just a big waste for everyone.