If you had a Billion dollars...
 

Let's take the Mark Shuttleworth idea to the next level here:

Imagine that you are hired as the lead for a new Linux distribution. Your budget is $1 billion dollars and your goal is to create the most spectacular Operating System ever.

What improvements, features, new programs, etc. would you create?

Billion dollars?!
I don't think I would build yet another distro. Probably focus more on hardware at that point. Integration. EFI. I believe software-wise we're pretty much covered. You can add a few trivial features to software, some eye candy here and there.. buts it new hardware that really excites people. Ofcourse theres a co-relation. Buts its usually

This software is awesome and bleeding edge because it supports X hardware. If you're OS is the first to support an awesome device, its definately a huge advantage.

Beer and pretzels man, beer and pretzels...

I'd spend most of it on fast cars, fast women & booze. And probably squander the rest...

to quote George Best... ;)

how many girlfriends can a billion dollars get you?
cause I will take them all :-)

i donno ... infact i was being asked this kind of question many many times ... but guess that its a difficult question with a difficult answer ... ^_^


.

I agree that hardware could definitely use a boost too. Thanks for your intelligent input, slantoflight. Unfortunately, I think software could use a boost in many areas also. We've seen some pretty lame posts on this thread so far. Perhaps not very many people have a mind as creative as myself. Here are a couple examples:

Automatic install of programs:
Click on an unrecognized file, a popup appears asking root-pass to install it's corresponding program. Enter password, the program is installed, the file opens immediatly. (To select a nondefault program for install, right-click on the file.)

Automatic install for printers:
Plug the printer in and have it immediately recognized. A popup asking for root-pass to install. Eliminate the need for a print wizard 90% of the time.

Also, users should be able to install programs via the packagemanager (without root permission)to /tmp or /home/user. No, I cannot take credit for this one. It belongs to 0install. My idea is that this should be directly integrated into the packagemanager itself.

To be fair, the entire premise of this thread encourages "lame posts", hence my smartass answer. Want a real answer: Don't waste the money on yet another Linux distro. Spend it on feeding the poor and homeless, getting books in classrooms, or curing cancer. You know, something that actually has a tangible benefit to mankind...

What the hell do you need a billion dollars for anyway? You could make "the most spectacular Operating System ever" and it could cost little more than man-hours.

*cough*bulliver*cough*trolling*cough*


Here's another thought.
:)
Automatic repository replacement:
If you are attempting to download a package from a server and the server is down for maintenance (or any reason), the packagemanager automatically finds another suitable repository for download. Also, automatic repository adjustment for Distribution Version upgrades (obviously can be disabled).

Label me as you will. I, in all seriousness, think spending a billion dollars on a Linux distro, even if just a thought experiment, is bloody ridiculous. Again, what does money even have to do with it?

Your assumptions are not realistic so you won't get any comments that assume you want serious discussion. If you had mentioned in the $1000 range (or even $10,000) as a budget or a similar figure that would have been different.

Heh. I guess.

I imagine the wheel was probably the last original idea. Things went downhill from there.

Hopefully that is last lame joke ever told. But atleast it was'nt original. Thank god.(irony x 3)
:)

In all seriousness. Simply throwing money around doesn't solve anything. Not even cancer, or starving children.

Microsoft has billions of dollars. Does it help make their OS better? etc,etc.

This thread would be equally effective as "What would help make linux better?"

Outside some highly specific technical talk about filesystems, schedulers, integration with technology x,y or z, drivers ... blah blah blah this generally leads to generic talk about the way distros decided to package linux. Its been talked to death, as the regulars here would say. Which is just another reason this thread will probably be disregarded.

I'd use a lot of it to encourage developers to once and for all do away with the annoying problems with software sound mixing in linux.
And also, I'd use a lot of it to fund some specialist driver programmers to examine stuff which currently have poor (or none at all) drivers in Linux, and write some so that all linux distributions can benefit.

Ooooh, PatrickMay16, that's really good. I didn't think of something like that. It's true, most distro's have come a long way with setting up sound, but still, many computers struggle with getting it 100% correct. (My own computer included!)