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

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21–30 of 173 posts

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

#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 used Unity yet but look forward to trying soon.

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

#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.

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

#24
post #19

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).

That's a fair point, I will concede that it's difficult. But a lot of the core things like the file manager (and certainly Unity) is within their control, and could be a lot better. I think that much more could also be done from a technical and cultural leadership perspective in this area. I would dearly love to chat with anyone from Ubuntu about this if they wanted to listen. I'm not a designer (not anymore) I'm a software developer (generally), but I still think that there's an opportunity for huge improvement even with the challenges you (correctly) point out.

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

#25
post #21

As a dev, it'd be great if vim, git, and ruby were included with an install, like how OS X does.

I really appreciate keeping the default install limited to the essentials. Some might want git, others mercurial. Some prefer vim, others emacs. If you want to cater for all of these people, you end up with bloatware. Installing vim, git and ruby is a matter of a few seconds, isn't it?

    sudo apt-get install vim git ruby

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

#26
post #6

Not sure if this is appropriate for your question.. but I've been using Ubuntu for 5 years now as my sole OS, as a programmer. I'm thinking of switching to Mac OS soon because I'm sick of hacking my computer to have it "just work": - 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 h…

I used Linux for six years as my primary OS, on OS X for a while now.

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.

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

#27
post #2

Win7-style window management shortcuts would be cool. The grid plugin for compiz is close, but Win7 has a few details that make it a bit better (for example, wrapping a window around to the right when you hit win-left on a window that's already left-snapped). Installer 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…

I disagree about installer options for caps lock. It's very simple to find the option once you've installed it, and there's no need to slow down all the other people during the installation stage who will never remap anything.

It's really important to have short installation times - if you want people to convert to your operating system, make it easy for them.

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

#28
post #18

Fix the 'Preferences'/'Administration' split in the gnome menu options. Most of the apps I find in there could be described as "Administrative Preferences", so I have no idea where to look for anything. 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 i…

Yeah, that would be a really nice improvement. I never know where to look first to find what I want to do. I'm glad that I'm not the only person that is too stupid to understand the difference.

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

#29
Drop the ugly GTK, build a beautiful UI toolkit. Pwn the OS X UI.

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

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