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Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?

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Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?

#51

Post by hussong »

Thanks for reaching out! I've been using Ubuntu (currently 10.10 64-bit) as the sole OS on my laptops for the past four years, mostly for email, web, office, and a little front-end coding.

I wish it was easier to replace Evolution. It always felt way too sluggish for me, so I'm using Thunderbird and would love to get the same desktop integration that Evolution has (never bothered to set it up manually).

Empathy seems like a decent IM client, yet I'm still using Pidgin to connect to Skype via dbus (Skype for Linux is not very pretty). Apparently the plugin would work on Empathy as well now, but I was too lazy to set it up.

I'm generally too lazy to switch applications after a dist upgrade. When I don't immediately see a clear migration path for my profile data, I just stick to the old app. I guess that's why I never used F-Spot or Shotwell.

Rhythmbox doesn't minimize to tray anymore. Closing the window leaves it running in the background, but there's no icon in the tray. Not sure if this is intended or just a glitch on my install after two auto-upgrades.

Better support for Tablet PCs would be awesome. I eventually got everything set up on a X200 Tablet, but it's not much fun going through dozens of mostly outdated forum posts to make screen rotation and pen input work.

With all the back-and-forth regarding GNOME/Unity and app selection, I'm debating going for Xfce on the next install. That being said, the Ubuntu desktop is awesome! Mac makes me feel stupid and I never ever want to go back to Windows...

Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?

#53

Post by bootload »

"... I'm also quite interested in those who DON'T use Ubuntu and what their thoughts are on why they don't use it ..."

Using Ubuntu 8.04 64AMD desktop, downgraded from 10.x. User since Ubuntu 4.x.

I use the 8.04 install because a) got breach using default apache (maybe my fault/maybe not) b) because the changes in the sound system to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PulseAudio means audio trouble big time. As the distro has progressed I now get c) dependencies. Why do I need to install whole slabs of applications I don't want need, then get updates for apps I never use or want?

    "... When first adopted by the distributions, 
    PulseAudio developer Lennart Poettering described 
    it as "the software that currently breaks your  
    audio".[6] Poettering later claimed that "Ubuntu 
    didn't exactly do a stellar job. They didn't do their 
    homework" in adopting PulseAudio[7] for Ubuntu "Hardy 
    Heron" (8.04), a problem which was then improved with  
    subsequent Ubuntu releases.[8] However, on October 
    2009, Poettering reported that he was still not happy  
    with Ubuntu's integration of PulseAudio.[9] ..."
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PulseAudio#Adoption
I shouldn't have these problems (sans maybe (a)). Have used linux since '96 I'd say I've got less stability in the late 9/10 releases at sub-system level. Especially sound. When I get worse results than when I configured Ubuntu 4 or Slackware or RedHat or OpenSuse or Mandriva I ask why am I using this distro? (yes I've used/installed them all and some)

Moving to obsd. The 6m dev cycle is a pain but it's got gnome, is safe, secure & free of cruft of useless apps. I'll miss apt-get :(

Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?

#54

Post by jasonkester »

Coming from the Windows world, I've had nothing but frustration trying to manage the one Ubuntu box that I have running on EC2. The OS and desktop seems workable, but the tools available to interact with it are simply not there.

An example: I VNC into the box, pull up a file in the editor, head back to my Windows machine, copy some text, head back to the Ubuntu box, hit "paste". Nothing happens. [skip forward past 4 hours of frustration, trying to get copy/paste working]. Still no luck. All I can find is random posts on the internet saying essentially either "you can't do that". Or, "that's easy, just..." followed by 24 steps of command line interaction to get it working on one specific configuration (that I don't have).

Another example: Trying to transfer files back & forth between my windows machine and a remote box running Ubuntu. Same 4 hours of frustration. Same complete lack of progress.

I realize that you guys probably don't consider this to be a Ubuntu problem. That it's just an issue with 3rd party tools. And that it's simply a case of one of your users who doesn't know what he's doing. Those last two things are undoubtedly true, but the first one definitely is not.

This is your problem. If you want people like me using your OS for their servers, you need to give us tools to do it. Connecting to a remote Windows server lets me step seamlessly into it via Remote Desktop. Copy/Paste works correctly without me ever having to think about it. I can even see my local file system on the remote box and vice versa. That's the standard we're accustomed to in the Windows world, so that's what you're going to need to match if you want us using your OS.

If you can get that working, I'm there. I realize it will probably involve you guys releasing your own VNC client and your own SSH Tunneling thing, and otherwise reinventing the wheel half a dozen times. But it will reduce friction for people who want to use your stuff. And as far as I can tell, that's what you want.

Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?

#56

Post by beaumartinez »

jitendra_ wrote: post #22

I have been using Ubuntu for 3-4 years now and have been using it for everything from day-to-day stuffs to development. I am quite happy to see how Ubuntu has matured during this time frame. 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…

I hear you on hibernation issues. Windows 7 boots in no time from hibernation, but Ubuntu (10.10) takes ages. I don't hibernate at all (preferring to switch my box off) because of this.

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.)

Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?

#57

Post by Joeboy »

For my job I use Ubuntu for Python and web development, and I have no serious complaints. For the rest of the time, I would like nice integration between jackd and pulseaudio, and a good realtime kernel for audio recording etc.

In general I don't understand why people want to put so much energy into arguing about what it looks like, how the menus are arranged etc. I've seem a number of people try, and subsequently abandon, Ubuntu. Each time it's been because of things being missing or broken, not the superficial bikesheddy colourscheme stuff people like to argue about.

On the subject of Accessibility, my ex had carpal tunnel syndrome and went back to Windows (largely) because there was no usable speech recognition software available. As I understand it the main barrier is a lack of sufficient corpus data, which seems like the sort of thing Ubuntu might be in a position to push for. http://www.voxforge.org/

Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?

#58

Post by todayiamme »

kolektiv wrote: post #15

At the risk of being horribly down-voted, I'm going to say that I'd like it to "not look like crap". Unfair with no information, so here's some (of opinion form). 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…

I run Ubuntu 10.10 and I think that this isn't just an issue with the UI, but tiny little things are just... wrong. For example, shuffle in Rhythmbox ends up playing 2 or 3 music files again and again and things like changing the song's metadata keeps on cropping up weird issues (names get truncated; changes get rolled back after I quit rhythmbox)

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.

Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?

#59

Post by portmanteaufu »

bluedanieru wrote: post #23

How 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 frequently have the single-pixel resize handle problem. What's even more frustrating is that there seem to be at least two pixels that cause the cursor to change, so more often than not my first click doesn't actually start the resize. Sometimes I get to three or four unsuccessful attempts to resize my window and can't help but feel like I'm on Candid Camera.

Re: Ask HN: What would you like to see in Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot?

#60

Post by kleiba »

Overall I think you guys have been doing a great job. I'm a happy Ubuntu user.

As for your question: I would be happy if you guys just took the "most popular ever" ideas from brainstorm.ubuntu.com seriously and just worked yourselves through the list. It's good to reach out to us users from time to time like you're doing here, but lots of users have already put in their votes on your own platform.

Other than that I can't wait for the 11.10 release!

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