I thought I might make a list of ways to contribute to Ubuntu (or Linux in general), and provide my thoughts on them. I’ve tried to list them in rough order of “difficulty”, from easy to hard, where difficulty means how much effort it takes.

gNewSense 2.3 is derived from Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04) and has a comprehensive list of software pre-installed for your enjoyment. I chose GnewSense as it proudly contains 100% free software.

The Distribution List is a list of users that you can use to send mail to at one time. Instead of having to use CC: or BC: you can have a permanent list to send to. This is a great way to send company mail to one user and it is distributed to the entire staff.

"...I have been unwilling to get involved with this debate [which is currently in progress on Manchester Free Software Group's mailing list] from an argumentative perspective, because it seems to me that the whole debate revolves around a perception of gNewSense and in general, not experience.

[...]

"The 'current and future' thread on this list has got me thinking. [...] I think it would be better to channel the energy from Gobuntu into gNewSense. [...] If Gobuntu is not the best way to achieve that, then I think we should stop working on it and encourage folks who want that to focus their efforts on gNewSense..."

Ah, the humble task list. For such a simple concept, Google has made it surprisingly difficult to use their task list service. You can pull it up in Gmail, and add it as a widget in iGoogle, but there doesn't seem to be a standard way to use the task list on it's own. Even Android users have been left out in the cold with no kind of official task list widget or app.

In an effort to increase the level of Firefox’s visual and interactive polish, I’ll be posting a list of around 7 bugs every monday from now until we finish up Firefox 3.1. These bugs will involve fixing some rough areas of Firefox 3’s UI, landing icons that we meant to land before shipping, and trying to make sure every last pixel is perfect.

Ok, you are a switcher. You used to be a Windows user, but you've seen the light and moved to Linux or Mac OS X or BSD or.. well, whatever it is, you are in *x land, baby and we're glad you are here. But just like moving into a new town, you need to learn your way around, find out where things are and how they work.. you need to get yourself oriented, right?

The object of this post is to make you think about ways we could improve each one. I’ll try to link to bugs where there are bugs, but a lot of these are quite new design decisions only present in 10.04 and hence don’t have bugs filed.