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Ubuntu Brainstorm Launched 242

Posted by kdawson from the good-ideas-are-where-you-find-them dept.
thorwil writes "Brainstorm is a new site where everyone can submit and vote on ideas for Ubuntu. It's inspired by Dell's Ideastorm. By default, you see the ideas submitted by the community sorted by popularity. Each idea is accompanied by arrows so you can vote it up or down (you have to log in first). You can only click once per idea. So this is an easy way to submit ideas and see what people are really wanting."
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Ubuntu Brainstorm Launched More

Ubuntu Brainstorm Launched

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  • Slashdotted (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Aethereal ( 1160051 ) on Thursday February 28, 2008 @04:44PM (#22593348)
    I vote for a better web server.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Thelasko ( 1196535 )
      Slashdotted before it made the main page! I don't know if that's impressive or pathetic.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by The_Hun ( 693418 )
      Brain storm... gone with the wind.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by d3ac0n ( 715594 )
      Argh! Damn you Slashdot! You Keeeeeled it!

    • Re:Slashdotted (Score:5, Informative)

      by stgraber ( 1247908 ) on Thursday February 28, 2008 @05:06PM (#22593646)
      Well, we reached slashdot, digg and wired frontpages almost at the same time so indeed the web server is having a bad time :)
      The sysadmins are working on it and we hope to have something faster (we don't say fast) soon.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by jd ( 1658 )
        Well, since it's Slashdotted, here's a few ideas to keep you going until tea time. ogo, or one of the other Exchange-lookalikes would make Ubuntu much more corporate-friendly. Just watch for license issues.

        ATLAS (the maths package) is in need of an update, as is HDF5. OPeNDAP seems to be very popular in the scientific world and would likely be big in the corporate world if they knew it existed. OpenIMPACT could reasonably be taken as important to software developers. VSIPL++ maybe less so, but I'd bet it

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by stgraber ( 1247908 )
        The website has been moved to faster servers.
        If you created an account before the move or during, please use the "Request new feature" of the login page as the mail queue has been lost.
        The website seems dreaming fast now, try not to break it again guys :)

    • Re:Slashdotted (Score:5, Funny)

      by stefanlasiewski ( 63134 ) <slashdot AT stefanco DOT com> on Thursday February 28, 2008 @05:06PM (#22593652) Homepage Journal
      A cookie! I got a cookie everyone! ...

      Oooo, and now I have the webpage !

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jez9999 ( 618189 )
      I vote for switching Ubuntu to an NT kernel. :-)

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by hdparm ( 575302 )
      That site is redundant in many ways - all Ubuntu users need to do is check the Fedora features list for upcoming releases. Good stuff is developed there and Ubuntu later takes credit for including it, once Fedora developers iron out most of the bugs.

      Granted, blame for undue credit is for a large part on Fedora community itself. We are yet to find a better way to announce/market ourselves. Some progress has recently been made but I'm not holding my breath. Not just yet.

  • I was going to say Great Idea .... (Score:4, Funny)

    by garett_spencley ( 193892 ) on Thursday February 28, 2008 @04:45PM (#22593358) Journal
    and go test it out and offer my, informed, $0.02.

    But you bastards slashdotted it. Now I'm mad. But I don't really have a reason to because if it weren't for slashdot I wouldn't even know it exists. Yet since I think it's an awesome but can't access it to check it out I hate you all.

    So yeah ... my head hurts.

    First post ?

  • HomerCar Linux (Score:5, Funny)

    by inflamed ( 1156277 ) on Thursday February 28, 2008 @04:53PM (#22593490) Homepage
    This is superficially a good idea, until you realize that it's the slashdot crowd that will come out and vote on features. Soon enough, Ubuntu will release its latest version and we will reap the harvest we have sown. Ubuntu 8: HomerCar

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hardaker ( 32597 )
      No, what'll really happen is we'll have Ubuntu8: CowboyNealCar
    • The HomerCar was one man's vision. This is supposed to "harness the wisdom of crowds" or something similarly buzzwordy.

      This of course assumes several things:
      1) A representative cross section of the user community responds
      2) the developers can implement the suggests in a meaningful timeframe.

      Some of them just ain't gonna happen (ATI drivers that Just Work) while others will be conflicting (make Thunderbird default email vs make Balsa default email), and some won't wash with the establishment (drop the Server

  • My first submission (Score:4, Funny)

    by TitusC3v5 ( 608284 ) on Thursday February 28, 2008 @04:54PM (#22593514) Homepage
    1.) Upgrade servers.

  • While servers are meltin... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Pecisk ( 688001 ) on Thursday February 28, 2008 @04:57PM (#22593548)
    All those ideas are fine, but requires huge work from developers/testers/doc writers/etc. In fact, infrastructure, framework (a la NetworkManager and GST) are all there, just integrate it in sensible way!

    Also, I am kinda worried that this web site will atract just geeks, and geeks have very very different values and thoughts about program choice as common users. Also requests to replace sensible defaults or default beahivour should be taken with grant of salt.

    Anyway, nothing new, but it is nice to have it. Let's hope some features requested there will be rolled out in Ubuntu/Kubuntu 8.10.

    • Re:While servers are meltin... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by div_2n ( 525075 ) on Thursday February 28, 2008 @05:19PM (#22593840)
      Ubuntu is fine for me. I'm happy with the improvements, but it's already a viable work and home platform for me now. But I've introduced it to a LOT of people with some successes and some failures.

      The burden is on us geeks to see where it fails and try to determine the why so we can feed back to developers what isn't working for more average users. I suspect this will be the true power of brainstorm.
      • 1. ATI Support.

        AND

        2. Don't blame ATI. Yeah, yeah, "they're unprofessional and their drivers suck".

        AND

        3. Don't say, "you should buy a new video card lol" when someone asks for help. I will never buy another video card again. The End.

        I wiped Ubuntu and went back to Win2k so I could use a 1280 resolution at 75Hz. Apparently 1024 at 60 was considered "good enough" by the forum folks.

        Apart from the "eyestrain-o-vision", it was decent enough to work with. I use it at work all the time for running the CNC machine

        • Re:While servers are meltin... (Score:5, Informative)

          by ianare ( 1132971 ) on Thursday February 28, 2008 @07:22PM (#22595220)

          2. Don't blame ATI.
          You should blame to ATI, not the hardworking linux driver writers. With all the vista driver problems, people (that had a clue) were blaming ATI/nvidia for the bad support, not MS. Why should Linux be any different? And the Linux people would happily write drivers themselves if they had they specs and not being worried about getting sued by ATI.
          As a matter of fact, now that AMD bought ATI and released the specs, there has been a very rough open source driver [livejournal.com] released. But guess what - this had everything to do with AMD/ATI. It's completely and utterly their fault that support has sucked so hard so far.

          I will never buy another video card again.
          I find that very hard to believe.

          In any case, if AMD is true to their promises [news.com], I will only buy ATI cards that are supported by the OSS driver.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by MrHanky ( 141717 )
            Just to add to this comment, I ditched ATI's proprietary fglrx driver as soon as I could get the free driver to work at all with my x1900 Pro. Not because I am a free software zealot, but (mainly) because of stability problems. Fglrx would also give me a nasty pixelated video if used with Xv, and tearing with OpenGL output. This is for a relatively old graphics card (two generations have come since then), and ATI still haven't released a fully functional driver. An "alpha quality" driver, taken from Debian'

    • Re:While servers are meltin... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Blakey Rat ( 99501 ) on Thursday February 28, 2008 @06:00PM (#22594358)
      My idea is pretty simple.

      Don't tell people that something is supported if it's not 100% supported. For example, if Ubuntu doesn't support the wireless card in some model of laptop (like my 14" iBook), remove that model from your supported list. Or if Ubuntu doesn't support sleep mode (like my 14" iBook), remove that from the list.

      All of my bad Linux experiences have been from Linux/open source projects that claimed to support X, but didn't actually support X.
  • This is more of a way to see what people who will register yet another account on some website are really wanting, not people in general.
    • you're assuming that people who are registering at ubuntu brainstorm are in a vaccuum. even if the casual user doesn't register themselves, they are almost assured to have a nerdy friend who did. you can bet that a lot of nerds like us are going to be posting suggestions as to how to help grandma make the switch from windows to linux a little more comfortably.

  • How about real disk management tools (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Gothmolly ( 148874 ) on Thursday February 28, 2008 @05:09PM (#22593706)
    Sometimes its so simple, that you can't do anything. Why doesnt the disk util applet show LVM drives mounted? Why is there no GUI LVM interface?
  • The problem is, while a person can be smart, the masses are stupid. I am willing to bet if you were to follow the most popular ideas on this project, you'll end up with something that feels an awful lot like Windows.

    • you'll end up with something that feels an awful lot like Windows.
      It'd be the most unpopular OS ever!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      I am willing to bet if you were to follow the most popular ideas on this project, you'll end up with something that feels an awful lot like Windows.

      You see the problem with windows is that people are stuck on it, they don't like it but are afraid of the consequences if they stop using and in so doing create all kinds of excuses on why not to change. Windows is very much like a drug, lets use heroin as an example. In many way's it's traded like a drug, the "first one" is sold cheaply to uni students, they

  • The point being.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by m94mni ( 541438 ) on Thursday February 28, 2008 @05:23PM (#22593886)
    Are everyone on Slashdot failing to see what's new here?

    Ubuntu has reached a kind of critical mass never before seen for any distro - they have far more non-technical users, far wider participation in the Forums and a great attitude towards newcomers.

    The problem is - so far there has been no place except the forums for non-techies to participate and make their voices heard. I see four main categories of users:

    1. Developers. If they see a problem, they can code a patch if necessary.
    2. Technical users - these can test alpha and beta releases, and help locate bugs etc.
    3. Non-technical but internet-savvy users - if they report an issue, it's often a big, missing feature (like, "I want my webcam to work")
    4. Users that won't comment online in any case.

    There is currently no place for the third category. Dell realized that, and it's really a shame that the FOSS community took this long to realize that there is a need for structured feedback from category three.

    Kudos to Ubuntu, I wish them all luck with this initiative. Dell's ideastorm has been a success because Dell has actually listened to the community there. Let's hope Canonical etc. has the resources to fulfill some of the wishes of the community.

    • Re:The point being.... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jez9999 ( 618189 ) on Thursday February 28, 2008 @06:01PM (#22594370) Homepage Journal
      The problem is - so far there has been no place except the forums for non-techies to participate and make their voices heard.

      Not true actually. I investigated Linux distros a while back and was quite amazed at how hard it was to get your ideas for nerw features heard; Ubuntu was actually one of the only ones that did anything to listen. They've had the Idea Pool [ubuntu.com] for a while now.

      Only slight problem is, no one reads it. My idea has been on there for about a year now.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by AaronLawrence ( 600990 ) *
        This would be my problem with the new Brainstorm site. It's easy to make these sites and collect information from users, but actually taking action on the requests - which might mean allocating huge resources to them - possibly in ways that all the developers think are unimportant or dumb, is a whole other thing.

        Bugzilla for Mozilla apps has voting, and lots of bugs have votes. But the developers openly admit they mostly ignore votes and just work on what interests them or their company. Votes are "an input

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by adona1 ( 1078711 )
      I agree. I'm new to Ubuntu, after more years than I care to remember on Windows and DOS before that, and one thing I'm finding is whenever I have a problem, I google it and find that it's usually been answered in clear, concise and friendly ways on forums. Not something I've found when I've needed help with other software!

      Asking users what they think the OS needs is a great idea - and amply demonstrates the difference between OSS and, well, MS.

    • Ubuntu has reached a kind of critical mass never before seen for any distro - they have far more non-technical users, far wider participation in the Forums and a great attitude towards newcomers.

      Thanks for your insightful post. When I first looked at I said 50% of this is necessary and good the way it is! WTF am I missing? So why are people crying? But when I read your post it made sense. Well deserved +5.

      It is interesting that so many non-technical types are in fact categorizing and prioritizing th

  • I'm glad I found out about this site from reading /. I have some free time for the next couple of months and have recently started looking for interesting projects I can contribute to. Hopefully once the article falls off /.'s front page, I may even be able to browse the site and see what people are most interested in!

    I've always been a big Debian fan but lately have been installing Ubuntu/Kubuntu on everything. Friends, family, and anyone coming to me for help because they are frustrated with their current

  • Usefulness (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blueg3 ( 192743 ) on Thursday February 28, 2008 @06:07PM (#22594448)
    Granted, I don't know to what extent they're using this to drive their development, but...

    Most people seem to be commenting that if just suggestions drive their development, the end result will be terrible. That's probably true. But often as a developer you just have no real idea if implementing X, which is on your to-do list, is a feature people even care about, wheras people may really care about implementing Y, another item you know you can take care of but just haven't gotten around to.

  • Damn Misleading Titles (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Dretep ( 903366 )
    I thought it had something to do with Ubuntu supporting that Lego Brainstorm stuff. Or is that product not even around anymore? Still, turned what could've been an interesting article to the crapper - that and the site already being unavailable.

  • Allow upgrades from one LTS version to the next (Score:5, Insightful)

    by schwaang ( 667808 ) on Thursday February 28, 2008 @06:24PM (#22594676)
    I love Ubuntu's long-term support (LTS) versions for grandma and "aunt tillie" because they don't need/want to upgrade the whole OS every 6 months. (Myself, I like the bleeding edge.)

    But I'd like to be able to upgrade one LTS version to the next without having to do either the intermediate upgrades or a wipe-install. I know that would require a lot of testing, but for a lot of users who rely on the LTS release it would be a godsend.

    [I don't have my finger on the pulse of Ubuntu, so if they've added this already don't flame me TOO much.]
  • This system will turn into yet another straightforward application of CowboyNeal's Law of Karma Systems:

    All popularity systems on the Internet eventually increase or decrease in complexity until they can be mapped one-to-one onto the Slashdot system.

  • Vote for AutoFsck (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Directrix1 ( 157787 ) on Friday February 29, 2008 @11:22AM (#22600910)
    I'm tired of waiting for fsck to force run every 30 boots or having to disable it otherwise. Autofsck needs to be at a minimum included in the repositories and at best be mandatory on a desktop install.

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