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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?

#121

Post by sofuture »

jasonkester wrote: post #92
numix wrote: post #77

Earlier 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…

Look into filesystems over SSH. There are things like that for windows and they work okay (though what's wrong with using an FTP/SFTP client?)

I think you're missing the point that admining a Linux server is different. The complete set of tools you need to interact with a remote Linux server is: an SSH client.

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

#122

Post by megamark16 »

rufugee wrote: post #120

Desktop sharing with Compiz enabled. Currently you can share an Ubuntu desktop (System->Preferences->Remote Desktop) easily, but viewing these shared desktops doesn't work with any of the regular VNC clients (vinagre, xtightvncviewer, etc) if Compiz is enabled...which on most Ubuntu desktops is true by default. This leads to a confusing experience for the non-technical user.

I've recently switched over from using the built in VNC server to just exporting the display through ssh (using the -X option), since I'm usually tunneling VNC over ssh anyway. This obviously doesn't help when you actually need to control the desktop, but I found that I usually just wanted to use specific programs remotely, so it works for me.

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

#123

Post by the_imp »

Vertical panels need more design and testing.

I haven't tried 11.04/Unity yet, but my experience with previous releases has not been encouraging w.r.t. setups without any horizontal panels.

For example, with 10.10 I need to set the background to translucent (the default tiling is broken when vertical), edit the Ambiance theme to then have panel applets actually have a translucent background, replace the default window list with DockbarX, and replace the panel menu bar with just a main menu. And the clock applet calendar view is still broken, showing up above the applet.

For comparison, on Windows 7 none of that is necessary -- the panel works just as well vertically as it does horizontally.

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

#124

Post by valcker »

train_robber wrote: post #35

Please show more love to us laptop users. I have had problems due to poor hardware support. I'm not able to use a lot of accessories that come in standard on my laptop like - * 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…

Absolutely agree.

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.

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

#125

Post by rufugee »

middus wrote: post #19
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'm very pleased with the overall looks of Ubuntu :). I guess spacing etc. is actually a very hard problem, because it has to work in so many languages. 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).

Same here. Perhaps I'm not as sensitive to most regarding spacing, etc, or perhaps I'm just not sophisticated enough to recognize the shortcomings, but my Ubuntu desktop experience is just fine, and seems to improve with every release.

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

#126

Post by rufugee »

I truly believe Ubuntu is missing a huge opportunity regarding apt repository statistics. They should be able to track (at least on the mirrors they control) each time a user installs a particular package. Collecting these sorts of statistics and making them public via the Ubuntu website or through Synaptic would add a lot of value to the user community, IMHO. When I'm looking for a particular type of software in the repository, I for one would love to know how many downloads a package has had and how those stats compare to other alternative packages.

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

#127

Post by charlemagne »

scrrr wrote: post #43

ok some quick thoughts, theres probably more but im not currently on ubuntu: Please fix small annoyances in the GUI: - make window movement and (more importantly) _resizing_ easier. - add some sort of window-snapping-feature (like win7 or osx) - fix colors in context menus (if i open the skype context menu in 10.10 i see black font on black bg, or brown whatever) - make widgets generally better looking. they are look…

Upvotes for first 2. The window resizing game is agitating, and window snapping should be a native feature, if there is keyboard shortcut space for it.

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

#129

Post by rufugee »

The biggest annoyance for me has to be the fact that the gnome panel constantly seems to get confused on the order in which icons and gadgets should appear. I'll spend 30 minutes getting the notification area, icons, menus, etc arranged just as I like them, and then notice the next time I login that they're rearranged. And God help you if you ever resize the panel, even temporarily, because they get completely screwed if that happens. It's very frustrating, and is a problem that's existed since the gnome panel was invented (yes, I've been using it that long). Even more frustrating is that once they're screwed up, they seem to tend to lock in place to the extent that fixing them back the way you like becomes a real exercise.

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

#130

Post by rufugee »

scrrr wrote: post #43

ok some quick thoughts, theres probably more but im not currently on ubuntu: Please fix small annoyances in the GUI: - make window movement and (more importantly) _resizing_ easier. - add some sort of window-snapping-feature (like win7 or osx) - fix colors in context menus (if i open the skype context menu in 10.10 i see black font on black bg, or brown whatever) - make widgets generally better looking. they are look…

Regarding a better default terminal app, I use Terminator (http://www.tenshu.net/terminator/). It's by far the best terminal I've found and far superior (imho) to ITerm2 on the mac. apt-get install terminator and spend some time looking at the man page.

Regarding window snapping, if you're talking about win7's ability to drag a window over to one side and have it snap to half the screen, check out the Compiz Grid plugin. It provides similar but far more capable abilities.

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