Feature Wishlist/Misc

Default Cursor Theme

Is there any way SuSE could change the default cursor theme, maybe to something like http://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=27913 ? The current one just doesn't look very professional, especially the hand cursor.

[Comment: I agree that the theme should change. I have become used to it, but I know a lot of first-time users hate it. However, I do NOT like the suggested theme. --Kcoombs 15:41, 21 Oct 2005 (MDT)]

Yum support

I used SuSE until Fedora Core 3 came out, and loved its use of yum. However, Fedora Core 4 was a disappointment and I came back to SuSE and love it. My only complaint is that I miss yum and the ability to install packages easily off the net. Does SUSE Linux 10.0 have that capability?

[Comment: There is already a quite good support for yum on the opensuse servers (and its mirrors) for inst-sources and for the inst-sources-java. There is yum support for the GM packages, too, and for example packman provides yum support. But please add yum support for the SUSE LINUX update servers on ftp.suse.com (and its mirrors) and for the supplementary direcotries. And, please, add some mirror lists - this is the greatest advantage of yum compared to other solutions. Btw.: Bug #128607 describes the problem. This blog entry describes how to set up a SUSE LINUX 10.0 with yum] --Liquidat 17:22, 16 Oct 2005 (MDT)

Done and supported in SUSE Linux 10.1. --Msmeissn

Alternative bootstrapping method

It would be nice to be able to easily bootstrap a suse system from within another linux installation. Other distribution that support this are gentoo (manual bootstrapping from one of their stage files is their default installation method) debian and ubuntu (through debootstrap).

In practice there should be a script, or a tarball to uncompress, or some other easy way to create inside a directory a base suse system with everything needed to continue setting it up simply by chroot()ing inside it. This should be doable downloading things from the network only inside the target directory, or in some other way that doesn't clutter the original installation and doesn't require rebooting or setting up network servers, etc.

This is really important for users of virtual machines (xen, uml, linux-vserver) that may want to install and use a virtual suse from their "main" linux and cannot reboot it for the installation, in order not to stop other running hosts.

It's nice that suse supports xen and supports bootstrapping itself in a chroot if you already run suse, but this should be easy to do even if you are using another distro...

PS: if there already is a way, then my wishlist is that it should be documented inside the "advanced" installation methods... --ultrotter 15:31, 11 Sep 2005 (CEST)

[Comment: This looks like an interesting feature. The problem is that it means avoiding use of e.g. YaST. If somebody comes up with some great ideas, I'd like to discuss this further but for now prefer to get the general installation improved. --A jaeger 03:36, 27 Sep 2005 (MDT)]

Package Dependencies and De-installation

It would be good if yast could handle packages in away that when i want to remove a package to show me what other packages are used >ONLY< by this package and select which i want to remove from that list. This is a good thing because when i install a package yast installs other packages as a dependency. But when i remove a package i have to search throught installed packages to remove packages i don't need.

I don't know exactly where is yast in relation with the following note:

When a package is removed, the libs that this package depends on (the "dependencies") are not removed.

I noticed in some old suse installs I had time ago than the lib folder was growing a lot because old libs where still there, mostly after updates. I don't know if this is still the case.

I think we need anyway a lib utility, because libs may come from outside yast (tgz or not suse known package install).

In the same direction, what about a "frequency use" meter like the one in windows XP? It would be interesting to have in yast an option do sort the apps by use frequency, with the possibility of removing the unneeded ones. This principally with first install (default ones) I knox for sure I must have 30% of unusefull apps on may computer.

[Comment: This is indeed a good feature and I've passed it on to our packaging experts. They're looking further into this now. --A jaeger 03:43, 27 Sep 2005 (MDT)]

Gnome and KDE selection

Durring the install, when the prompt to select KDE or Gnome comes up, clicking on the thumbnails should show a full screen picture of each enviroment. Could also be on a button that gives pros and cons of each one such as

compare Gnome and KDE

It would be good to have one as the default for linux newbs (KDE is probably a better pick since it has more apps and is mor like Windows)

[Comment: What's the reason for listing GNOME over KDE in the desktop selection in 10.1 Beta 2? Might seem weird, but in 10.0 the selections was listed as "KDE GNOME", in 10.1 beta 2 it's listed as "GNOME KDE" what's with that?

[Comment: Such a comparision is difficult to do. We added something since the later betas where we do a rough job comparing them and show the logos instead of the tiny thumbnails. The choice of desktop is so subjective and personal that it's difficult to give a neutral comparison. If anybody has one, I'll appreciate it and review it.

Note that we're currently not making a choice for the default desktop, this is a choice that the users have to do. --A jaeger 05:23, 27 Sep 2005 (MDT)]

I didn't necessarily mean a review or opinion. I meant a a table such as;

KDE	Gnome
By default, KDE resembles Microsoft Windows	By default, Gnome has an interface that Gnome claims is better designed, but may be harder to use for people used to Windows's interface. (Maybe say something such as 'an interface that does not resemble Windows's.')'
KDE comes with a very large amount of KDE-integrated programs that include the letter K (e.g. Konqueror, the file manager and, Amarok a music player)	Gnome has many Gnome-integrated programs, some of them G-branded (e.g. gnumeric, a spreadsheet program, and abiword, a word processor)
Note you can use a KDE program on Gnome and vise versa
KDE is based on the Qt toolkit from Trolltech. (Maybe, 'Trolltech Qt is a commercial product that is also open-source when used with open-source products' or something similar)	Gnome is based on the GTK toolkit written for the Gnome desktop.

Also, there should be a button for each desktop that will show screenshots of the deafult interface when clicked. (Just include jpegs for each screen resolution)

Some of the things may be biased e.g the gui toolkit ot interface. It sould be easy to neutralize anything.

Separate partitions for /root and /home directories as installation default

Creating separate partitions for /root and /home directories is common practice for ease of system upgrade and data security. I don't see any reason not to make it a default. As it is now, I cannot recommend to novice users to just let the SuSE installer run without interference.

[Comment: The problem here is that we would need an algorithm that does this in the proper way. Here're some questions:

• How large should / be in comparison to /home?
• Should / have x % of the free space?
• What is the minimal size of / ?
• What is the minimal size of /home ?

If somebody comes up with an algorithm and people agree that it's the right way to go, then I'll talk to our yast folks and try to get it implemented at some time. --A jaeger 05:32, 27 Sep 2005 (MDT)]

Algorithm 1 and example

The reasoning followed is that it is better to have a bit larger /. If needed you can add a directory in / and a symlink in ~/

1. No seperation when the HD is smaller then 30 GB
2. A minimum of 10 GB for /
3. A maximmum of 20 GB for /
4. /home to / should be 2:1

Examples:

Total   /       /home
20GB    20GB    --
25GB    25GB    --
30GB    30GB    --
40GB    13GB    27GB
60GB    20GB    40GB
120GB   20GB    100GB

--Houghi 01:50, 5 Oct 2005 (MDT)

[Comment: That seems very reasonable. --Eet 05:38, 24 Oct 2005 (MDT)]

More comfortable gui for SUSE Firewall

Gui integration with KDE/Gnome i.e system tray icon like in Firestarter which could show connections, alerts about strange network traffic etc. A service running at some port which will display to the user information regarding to packets blocked, connections made, blocked etc - graphs etc. Thus one would enter http://localhost:3002 and you will see everything about your firewall. A easy link on the desktop will also make things allot more simple.

[Comment: This looks to me like a generic project that could be done not only for SUSE but for both desktops together with a defined interface to the firewall. If somebody starts such a project, I'd be very interested to hear about it and integrate it once it's mature enough. --A jaeger 05:36, 27 Sep 2005 (MDT)]

[Comment: I saw something like that in Mandriva 2006, here is the screenshot [1] I believe sources are available for this stuff, maybe someone would dig into them in ;-) --Bugi-san 08:20, 28 Jan 2006 (MST)

[Comment: IMHO for now it would be easier to write a kde front-end for firestarter than creating new firewall front-end deamon from scratch and writing a kde and gnome front-end for that deamon,

in the longterm, iptables/ipchains must have a deamon for providing these services to front-ends,

like pppd and or udevd does, --Raddy 28 Jan 2006

[Comment: I've seen this nice open source [Firewall Builder] which has a look and feel of the commercial Firewall1 product and support for many different firewalls, including hardware ones. Worth looking at. --Umineiro 13:34, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Smaller font in Firefox menus

In my opinion the default font size in Firefox should be about 8pt size. This could be done by an entry in userChrome.css --Rbielefeld 01:13, 22 Sep 2005 (MDT)

[Comment: I agree --Kcoombs 15:44, 21 Oct 2005 (MDT)]

[Comment: Really *BAD* idea. Fonts should be larger by default for usability and accesibility. Why should a partially sighted user have to fumble about looking to increase the font size becuase some users run at low resolution and want smaller font sizes? --Cenuij 15:01, 25 Nov 2005 (GMT)]

[Comment: I agree with Cenuij. Really *BAD* idea. Also, I found that the default font size of Firefox seem to be too little in the default resolution of my LCD (1280x1024) --Umineiro 13:33, 26 July 2006 (UTC)]

Support NILFS {New Implementation of a Log-structured File System} (the new lossless filesystem)

I wish to know if it is possible to include NILFS into SuSE Linux 10.0, it is the new LOSSLESS filesystem using a new logging method so that NO DATA IS LOST. It's created by NTT and is just created for Linux.

NILFS.org - The NILFS Homepage -- xboxrulz 16:13:26 EST Oct 03,2005

Please define lossless. If you want decent performance on affordable hardware, it is impossible to not lose any data on power failure.

If you really want this feature, please tell the NILFS developers to get their code into the official kernels from kernel.org. Once that is done, SUSE will then automatically include this in subsequent releases. --Kernelhacker

PPC bootloader installation

Automatic bootloader installation on PPC computers (avoid having to use lilo or yaboot manually) References: PPC Installation Issues and PPC Partitioning. --Orderud 12:03, 16 Oct 2005 (MDT)

P2P-based software installation

Since the big demand for the 10.0 release we've all been experiencing server problems, and torrents were the best way to get an ISO for some time. Software installation via APT has been similarly slow for weeks, too. I would like to discuss whether it would be a good solution to integrate the bittorrent protocol into a future software installation tool, be it YAST or APT or whatever. SuSE mirrors would be reliefed of some load and could possibly only supply trackers and signatures one day. --Eet 05:30, 24 Oct 2005 (MDT)

From my point of view it would be a nice start if yast would support mirror lists. The idea: the mirror list with a bunch of mirrors is saved on the main server. The standard preconfiguration for every client is that he takes the list form the server and then get's a mirror from this list. If the mirror is broken, he takes the next one. The idea can be localized, too, with localized variables and mirror lists (so mirrors.txt.de for germany, mirrors.txt.fr for france, and so on).

To check how it would look like, check http://fedora.redhat.com/download/mirrors/ . There you see how it is already implemented in yum for Fedora Core. This works very good, and Fedora never had such load problems. Even their main server is quite fast because almost noone uses it do download stuff.

Long story short: if yast supports mirrors, it would be the first large step. The second would be to support bittorrent to get all the stuff so that we hardly need mirrors :-) --Liquidat 19:56, 24 Oct 2005 (MDT)

Improved support for sudo / locked root accounts

Currently, I can see two primary ways SUSE's sudo support could be improved:

First, the default configuration of asking for root's password negates the primary value of sudo (letting ordinary users do rootly things without being root). This could be reconfigured to allow members of a certain group to use their own passwords to do administrative tasks.

Second, programs such as gksu could be replaced with gksudo, thus allowing users to use their own passwords.

SUSE could then support locked root accounts much the same as Ubuntu does. For single user systems, this greatly simplifies things. For very large deployments of SUSE, it would allow enterprises to determine what administrative tasks are "safe" for users to run. (i.e. certain tasks, such as changing wireless networks, changing screen resolutions, or even installing packages from a predetermined package repository could be performed by end users)

Please see this blog entry for more details.

• locked root account sound so so soooo bad ... one of the worst "features" of ubuntu btw.

Kinterent (Ginternet) in Gnome?

How about an equivalent to Kinternet in Gnome desktop? Just like Kinternet in KDE, it should get attached to panel in gnome, which can be (just) clicked to connect to net!! With this, Suse's Gnome will be almost complete.

• Look for NetworkManager in GNOME do most that kinternet can do and more
• Thanks. But is it available with Suse10? Or it is scheduled only for Suse10.1?
• You can also use Kinternet while in GNOME, and it will be in the panel at the top.

X.Org 7.0 Integration

It'll be great if we can also add the support of X.Org X11R7. It would make things better for enthusiast everywhere.

• 10.1 include xorg 6.9 with is the exact same code base as 7.0 just using a different build mechanism
• Same code base, yes... but it seems all CVS updates are done in the "modular" tree, most importantly the driver updates. For example (this is the one I'm waiting for) the i810 driver now provides full xrandr rotation support. On a tablet PC this is VERY NICE to have ;-) Currently with X11R6.9 you can fake it, sort of, with multiple X servers, but you lose a lot of functionality. Rumor has it that 10.2 will make the switch over to X11R7 (X11R7.1 may even be out by that time), so keep you fingers crossed ;-) (loki1984 5.4.06)

X configuration

You used to be able to change the settings and such before going into the desktop after the initial install. That way, you can do a test run to see if it would work. Sometimes the video will not run at certain resolutions, such as with Via's Unichrome pro, leaving you to a monitor that shuts off and a computer that locks up before even getting to the desktop. (sprockkets 1.11.06)

Wpa_supplicant

Would like to add the gui support for this application so as to easily change WPA keys. It also can tell what networks support WEP and WPA, and not just WEP as in Kinternet and the usual tools. (sprockkets 1.11.06)

[Comment: The new Network Manager applet in 10.1 really handles this nicely. Now, if it could only handle adding CA certificates, it would be perfect.]

More boot themes?

Oddly enough, on the subject of boot themes, why does the SuSE install disc for 10.0 sometimes have the startup menu with penguins and such, while the majority of the time it is just the usual blue screen? (sprockkets 1.11.06)

Installation using PPPoE

Installation should be possible using PPPoE, so only a minimal install CD is necessary, and the rest could come from the Internet.

OSS media ISOs

I would prefer the ISOs to be 650MB in size so as to not have to burn 5 cdrs everytime to just install the latest build. Having it at 650MB allows people to reuse cdrws. OR, make one DVD image which is the easiest option. Or, just explain on how to make all five cds work together on one dvd. (sprockkets 1.11.06)

• Have you never seen 700MB cdrws?
  • I've never seen 650MB CDRWs

Change the keyboard map for GRUB

By default grub uses English layout for keyboard that causes inconvenience to users with different keyboard layouts. Yast can append GRUB's /boot/grub/menu.lst file with regional keycodes after one chooses the keyboard layout.

#setkey [to_key from_key] 
#German keyboard as example
setkey y z
setkey z y
setkey Y Z
setkey Z Y

Rearranging items in Window List

In the Window List, there's a bunch of buttons which represent windows. I think it would be great if those buttons could be moved along the Window List left-right (like launchers). For example, I like to have my music player to the left of other buttons in the Window List so I can find it easier. Customised grouping would be great too!

Extra mouse buttons mapping in control panel

I would love it if the mouse interface in the control panel let me map the extra mouse buttons. I currently have a script that maps them but as a linux newbie it took me a while to figure out what I needed to get that done. It would be much nicer for beginner to use the graphical interface to map the extra buttons as back and forward.

Easier desktop icon and font management in Gnome

Currently with the 10.0 and 10.1 builds of SUSE Linux, managing the size of all icons on the desktop is guesswork at best. There isn't an easy way to determine the icon size after it has been stretched. Additionally, the auto arrange feature of the desktop icons isn't very beneficial. It only allows for aligning to the left and top of the screen. It would be nice if there were left/right/top/bottom/horizontal/vertical options available. It would also be nice to be able to assign specific outline/highlight colors to an icon, similar to the way that you can go into the icon's properties and assign an emblem. Last, but not least, being able find a management tool that allows for easy mofication of the font color of the desktop icons would be beneficial as well.

[Comment: I agree with the icon size complaint. It shoud be easier to set a default size for icons. The default ones are just too big --Umineiro 13:52, 26 July 2006 (UTC)]

virtual cd image drive support

It would be very usefull if it was possibley to mount .iso and .mds .mdf image files to a virtual cd rom and if it can be done it should be built into kde for you can just click on an image file to make a virtual drive and mount the file to and be able to unmount with kde.

Package manager

• I can add that including a package manager as apt4rpm or URPMI (but apt is more like a standard) directly in the distro could be nice for geeks users and it is particulary useful in a minimal installation without X11 for a server. Several apt-get and then you are with a full feature server. --Nooky59 05:08, 17 Aug 2005 (MDT)
  • I second Nooky's suggestion. Seeing as how apt4rpm is an incredibly useful tool, I would really like to see it included in the distro. apt-get's dependency management is quite superior to that of RPM and makes installing applications with a lot of requisites much easier. --Azdruid 09:28, 18 Aug 2005 (MDT)
    • Please learn about y2pmsh ... it is as powerful. :) --Marcus Meissner 18.8.2005)
      • No it is not, for instance, when I start it, it tells me "This tool is meant for debugging purpose only.". Can it keep my KDE installation up to date with supplementary without having to go through the 5 step process of selecting all, upgrade if newer, ...? With apt it just boils down to "apt update ; apt upgrade". I personally think apt4rpm is a better choice, even when the only reason would be that everyone uses it, everyone knows it. --bavodr 07.09.2005)
    • I stopped using apt4rpm when I learned to use YaST2
      • Proxy-settings (if any) are added in Network Services, then click the Proxy-server icon (two people holding hands).
      • Additional installation sources is added to Software, then click the Change installation source (SuSE CD-icon). See Additional YaST Package Repositories.
        • I recently learned about Additional YaST Repositories (after using Suse for a couple of years) Perhaps there should be a helper for adding additional repositories with checkboxes to select these other sources fed from this site or one of the suse sites dynamically. This would make it easier for users to choose and add them as well as making it more common knowledge that this can be done.
        • There needs to be some way of accessing a list of repositories. Perhapse yast could have the option of syncing with a server's list of repositories and allowing the user to chose from the list. It would make it much easier. Aaron Defazio
      • To install or remove software, enter Software, then click Install and remove software (SuSE box icon with screen). Similar to apt update, YaST2 will try to download updates from the installation sources. If you have many sources or they are slow to respond, it may take som time before the window is fully opened. Set the filter to Package Groups in the top left corner. Scroll down to zzz - All and select that. Right-click a package in the packages frame, and choose the menu item "All in this list", and it's submenu "Upgrade if newer version is available" if you would like to update the entire system.
      • Yast Online Update (YOU) only handles updates to the packages in a specific distribution, like updates to 9.3. If 9.3 supplied xyz-1.2, don't expect xyz-3.4 from YOU, but expect xyz-1.2.1.
  • I like the suggestion of adding apt to the distro. It seems that one of the first things that I do with an suse install is to search out and install apt. There are always packages that I want that are not in the Yast repositories and apt is a better way to me. The other side of that is perhaps making the Yast additional repositories and how to use them more available knowledge and encouraging more of the folks that provide packages to offer them via a Yast repository. --Al Brown

[Comment: We've added apt4rpm to the distribution as unsupported package and have y2pmsh. I consider this wish list item as done with 10.0 and will remove it later. --A jaeger 05:14, 27 Sep 2005 (MDT)]

[Comment: How about an easy way to upgrade the distro from 10.0 to 10.1 to 10.2 etc. In debian based distros you would change the sources.list and then apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade. AFAIK one has to download all 5 CDs and reinstall just to upgrade. That's a major PIA for the bleeding-edge types.

• • • When we download packages from repositories, where does yast keep the downloaded packages? We can reuse them later (say, in case of reinstallation) if we could make yast to download them to a expectable place like apt/yum ie. /var/cache/~ This would avoid duplication and saving bandwidth/cost! [User: G Rajesh]

• There are a few options that would make YaST nicer to use by simply parallelizing some of the downloads. For instance, when refreshing package source information, instead of doing them one at a time and only showing that they are being updated, why not use a download manager style approach. List all of the sites to be refreshed, show how much must be downloaded, percentage completed from each and in total, and an average speed of each download. This way, slow sites can be noted and removed, disabled or simply not refreshed next time you would like to update the package lists. One of the more annoying bits of information displayed is the site name flashing up and then disappearing while the near useless note, "Reading Package Information" is displayed while you wait for that site to send its package update. Another feature could do the same thing for the packages themselves. If updates are going to be downloaded from several sites and one is very slow, why wait? The packages from other sites could be downloaded while the slow site is dribbling their package out. --jcmeller

Various without description

• Support for reiser4
• Support for multiple concurrent graphical user sessions
  • I assume you already know this is possible (and quite easy) but want some graphical and more obvious way to start multiple X session.
• Support for java out-of-the-box
  • Done in 10.1
• Improvements to the startup boot time
• Improvements to the applications startup time
• Easy configuration of PPTP VPN connection (should be in YaST2 Control Center). IPSEC and PPTP should be an additional module in yast, thus making ip-tunnels a breeze. This feature should also be implemented in KDE soon (have been in gnome now for a while)
• Eclipse could be natively compiled with GCJ, as Fedora do, if there is really a benefit to do this and if there is no issues introduced with such a native build
  • GCJ intruduce all kind of new bug and isnt what one could call stable. What is the problem with using sun java anyway?
• Optional openMosix patched kernel
• PIKT for SUSE
• An "Easy To Use"-Videorecorder with implemented Plugins or Plugin-manager.

Playstation 3 support

Okay with the coming of the next generation video game consoles (XBOX 360 and Playsation 3) a lot of noise has been made about interactivity between the desktop and the console.

Case in point, Windows Vista will work with XBOX 360 by allowing streaming of video and audio from a pc to your xbox 360. So lets say you download that latest anime from japan and you want to watch it on that nice 42 in Sony Wega you bought last month? Well with Windows Vista you will be able to do that.

Next lets look at messeging, you will be able to messege people on your friends list in Xbox live via your cell phone or via your MSN messenger. You will also be able to send cars that you have in say Forza motorsports and send it to your pc, in your pc you will be able to use photoshop to make nice designs on your car and you will also be able to make maps in games and such and send it back to your xbox 360. You will also be able to play against friends in the same game regardless of platform. So lets say your playing half life 3 on the xbox 360 and your friend has it on the PC you two will be able to play against each other.

So what does all this have to do with Linux? Well in comes Sony PS3 which will be using Linux as its core Operating System, I should also mention that Sony will be using OpenGL for the PS3.

So now if a distro were to partner with Sony or ask them for info on how to design the same cross compatibility that windows vista will have with xbox 360 and do the same for Linux distros. I would also say this is a GREAT chance to bring gaming full scale to Linux. Reason being developers now will be developing some of the best games using OpenGL for Sonys PS3, so converting to Linux will be far easier than it has in the past. With gaming being a multi billion dollar business and the PS2 alone selling millions of units, those are millions of potential and probably Linux converts.

It could be worked out where Sony has in each PS3 box a free SuSE Live CD to try out on the desktop which will allow for all the above mentioned features on the Live CD. Sony has become a huge conributor to the linux cause and this would really help to push Linux specifically SuSE.

I go to the official playstation forums and there are already 25 to 50 posts of people asking what is linux, how does it work and which distro should they try out. The disc should allow for a live CD situation where you can run SuSE without having to install but could run the OS from the CD, it should also allow for a insalltion should someone choose that route, that way consumers dont have to fully commit to installing the OS on the HDD and can try out linux via running it from the CD until they are 100% comforatable

If taken advantage of this could really put SuSE in a leadership position on the desktop front.

You can read about the Microsoft plans http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2006/05/09/financial/f144546D12.DTL&type=business

You can also read more indepth about the streaming multi media ie movies and such http://www.joystiq.com/2005/07/28/hands-on-with-xbox-360-at-windows-vista-event/

Updates for Applications

It is quite frustrating if newer versions of applications are published by a project (e.g. Inkscape 0.44 which was released recently) and you hope for some needed fixes of known problems (e.g. properly working printing or compatibility of the SVG file format with Karbon14), but there is no package update available for your version of SUSE (e.g. 10.0).

Creating RPMs clearly is not a task for everyone. It would be a great help if packages with updates would be made available over YaST for a selection of commonly used applications, so that everyone can install them easily. These packages should be flagged as a distinct category (something like "Functional Upgrade") as they are not security related.

Performing the classic config, make, make install is definitely a bad idea (especially for a user) because this corrupts the consitency of your system as the RPM database does not reflect these updates.

OK, there are already some additional repositories with a few updates (e.g. for KDE or some special packages from Packman), but the process of updating is not yet fully integrated into YaST and the selection is still small.

I do understand that update packages cannot be made available for all applications. But please consider this for applications that are typically used by users. Linux is just on the way to conquer the Desktop, application updates would help much to get higher acceptance. Awinterer 14:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Standard Package Format

There are a lot of different package formats used in the open source world (RPM, DEB, Autopackage, Klik...). But as if this is not enough, even packages of the same type are most often not compatible (Red Hat RPM with SUSE, Mandriva RPM with SUSE?).

Please get into contact with other main stream Linux distributors and work out a package format that works on all major distributions! All we need are packages like

• Source packages
  Something like SRPMs.
• Architecture based binary packages
  32-bit and 64-bit x86 packages, PPC packages etc.

But if open source based on Linux wants to attract a large amount of users we need to unify the package format if we want to avoid to frustrate the new users really badly. Awinterer 14:35, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Reiser FS 4 support

Reiser FS 4 has been around for more than a year. SuSE was part of it's development. Yet it hasn't been included in the latest distributions. Even SuSE 10.1 formats by default a Reiser FS 3.6. Reiser FS 4 is one of the fastest file systems in the world. Shouldn't it be used by default in every new installation? Also wouldn't be great to upgrade existing (if that is possible) Reiser FS 3.6 partitions to Reiser FS 4? Manoloudis 1:24, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Enhancements to the new GNOME main menu (SLAB)

The new gnome main menu in SLED 10 makes typical computer usage much easier; I hope to see it in SUSE 10.2 and I'd like to suggest two enhancements for improving task-oriented usage.

1) Once a user has started a non-favorite application from the application browser it appears in the list of 'recently used applications'. But it disappears from that list again rather quickly in the course normal use. Now, if the 'favorite applications' would be ignored when listing 'recently used applications' the 'recently used applications' would become much more useful.

2) Task-centred, user-definable list-views. I suggest to add user-definable lists of applications and folders in addition to the 'favorite' and 'recently' used list-views. A user could create task- or project-oriented lists here - like for example 'website creation workflow' or 'the Michigan building site project' (including all apps used for that project and folders where the relevant data is stored, perhaps even contacts). Users could effectively tailor much more efficient workspaces for themselves. The option to delete these workspaces via right-mouse-button-click would have to be added as well as perhaps a reminder to delete unused list-views.

Suggestion 2) is somewhat reminiscent of the 'desktop tabs/workspaces' idea for KDE 4. eet

Fix mounting/unmounting of removable media

In spite of big improvements, mounting and unmounting of removable media under GNOME still is one of the biggest annoyances that I have to warn people about who use Linux for the first time:

Mounting: Very often empty CD drives won't eject the tray after pressing the eject button. The drive appears to be busy. Trying 6 times before the drive is ejected occurs regularly.

Unmounting: 50% of all attempts to unmount a CD by pressing the eject button on the drive fail, so that the user has to turn to the desktop and select 'eject' from the context menu that pops up after right-clicking on the symbol of the mounted CD. And sometimes even that fails. One gets used to it after some time but for new users this is quite a major annoyance. eet

N-Up printing configuration for everything

Having just upgraded to OpenSuse 10.1 (from FC2 after evaluating FC5) my major major annoyance is the default use of CUPS on the interfaces for firefox/thunderbird - which has no easy way to add N-Up printing. The fix is relatively simple but took me several hours to track down. N-Up printing is a "die in a ditch issue" for me and, I suspect, most enterprise users. In my view, all printing interfaces for all applications should be configured to support N-Up printing out of the box (or should transparently redirect to kprinter which has an N-Up filter (and/or CUPS Should be configured with N-up support. I understand this can be done). Bernardsets

Other thoughts while I'm Here: DVD from CDs, Thunderbird fonts too small, viki, retry on CD install, explanatory stuff on first boot, reinitialise

Just some other thoughts - I'd like to be able to create a DVD from the 5x CDs I downloaded and use the DVD in the future. The thunderbird fonts on installation for folder and message list were too small (eg bold was not showing as bold b/c of resolution - 1280x1024). I'd also like viki in the default install. CD install should have the option to eject and restart if packages can't be read (had to abort an install because of something wrong with disk insertion - all packages were errors but media was fine - worked next install), the initial boot should have more explanatory text about what will happen next - should the cd be left in the drive? if so, should the user choose boot from hard drive? Should also have a reinitialise command, since the rebooting for me ended up failing so my install is officially dodgy (eg had to cp /etc/shadow from another system to start). This would effectively go through the install procedure from set root password and reinitialise everything. Bernardsets