Ubuntu 10.10
Ubuntu Natty daily 20110404
Ubuntu Ocelot alpha 2
After installing Ubuntu and running it for the first time, a notification bubble appears: "Restricted drivers available - In order to use your hardware more efficiently, you can enable drivers which are not free software." Unhelpfully, it gives no hint of how to do this.
If you're lucky, you may notice a menu appearing in the panel, containing a single item: "Install Drivers". But if you're not an Ubuntu expert, and weren't looking at the screen for the ten seconds that the notification bubble was visible, this menu isn't understandable.
This is an inappropriate use of notification bubbles and status menus. This situation is non-urgent but requires input response, so the appropriate presentation is a normal window or alert box. <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NotificationDesignGuidelines>
I can think of three ways this bug could be fixed (maybe there are more):
* Use an alert box instead, with "Cancel" and "Install…" buttons.
* Open the Hardware Drivers window directly, improving the intro text to explain why it is open.
* Offer the hardware drivers, off by default, in their own section in Update Manager.
* Maybe integrating in software center in a drivers tab (only visible if there are drivers available) as suggested in http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/28205/ would also be an option
Fixing this bug would invalidate bug 542556.
What is currently being used to notify users that binary drivers works? Jockey needs to be installed manually but no longer seems to work. In the latest release I had to go to Software Sources (not intuitively) to have access to restricted drivers.
By reading the following, I see we intend to have a window pop up when hardware requiring a restricted driver is detected.
https:/
Any chance this will be available in 13.04?