Linux Annoyances Rant - Solutions for Rough UX Sought

This post covers 3 main annoyances I'm currently working on solving across various Linux machines I have to use. I'm mainly only talking about the issues that I haven't got solved on other machines I used...

 

1) Taskbars - Fully un-grouped windows, absolutely not ordered or grouped by window, and able to be freely reordered.

NOTE: I have long had this problem solved on Windows (i.e. using 7+ Taskbar Tweaker), and also on KDE (yay!  Those guys rock!), but on the RH 9 type Gnome-based Linux we're in the process of migrating to?  That's the one I'm currently seeking solutions!  Of course though, all of these could've been solved if everyone didn't do the stupid thing that they learned from Windows 7, OR perhaps they learned that from Apple first?!  Whatever...

2) Gnome Button Ordering

3) Kubuntu (Auto) Update Checks on Resume from Sleep

  

1) Gnome Taskbar Problems - Dash to Panel feature request
Gah! This afternoon, I just submitted the following feature request to Dash to Panel's issue tracker. Getting a solution here is high on my priority list, as it will become a major pain point for our team when we do finally do our OS migration for our dev boxes and end up stuck on Gnome environments on those:

https://github.com/home-sweet-gnome/dash-to-panel/issues/2514

To quote what I wrote:

What: 
The "Ungroup Applications" option goes a long way towards restoring the expected behaviour of a proper taskbar from Gnome 2 / Windows Vista type environments. However, annoyingly it still forces all the ungrouped windows to stay clustered together in per-application groups/clusters (e.g. degenerate "Windows 7+" behaviour).

What would be nice is if this behaved more like: 

• "Don't Group" - from 7+ Taskbar Tweaker's
• "Do not group" + "Manually sort" - from KDE's "Icons-and-Text" Task Manager

That is: 

1. Windows should each get their own button on the taskbar
2. Each window should appear in this list in the order they were opened
3. You can then drag each window on the taskbar to change its order relative to the others

Why:
The current "group by application" behaviour is annoying for the way I work, as I often have a lot of windows of each application type open (i.e. multiple Terminal + multiple file browser) windows open, along with some tools having a mix of multiple instances vs primary + secondary windows opened (e.g. Git GUI clients), etc.

In this context, the relative order of the windows (i.e. which ones they were opened relative to, and in what order) matters A LOT - i.e. I typically have sets of "folder + terminal + text editor + git client" groupings, for denoting the various tasks I'm working on. Therefore, dumping everything into crude "All from Application Type " clusters removes all the context, and makes it hard to remember which window is which.

(Now, even better would be the ability to do this for all windows by default, but to specify certain window types that I don't mind collapsing into groups, as there is one particular application that I use that spawns lots of windows, that I currently have to confine to its own workspace to keep it under control)

Notes:
* I wish we could switch the dev machines to KDE (as I use on all my personal non-Windows boxes), but that is currently unlikely due to that maybe causing us other grief with the environment setup

* In fact, these problems I'm describing are more of a general rant against the direction that OS task managers went in

* I considered just forking this thing and doing it myself a while ago, but taking a look under the hood, it's all some very confusing Gnome-Javascript API stuff.... It wasn't too obvious where to start hacking that to make it work...

 

2) Properly fixing the "Gnome Button Order" crap across all "modern Linux" devices I have to deal with.

I don't care if the Gnome folk read too much into Fitts Law and Apple's HIG, and decided to "stick the primary action in the corner"... At this point decades of muscle memory dictates that I don't care if that other way is theoretically superior for noobs, as it doesn't work for me, and never will.

 

3) Turning off Kubuntu's desire to search for updates as soon as I power up the device for the first time each day.

Again, this is one of the annoyances from Window's updates regime that I'm not gonna tolerate anymore: When I fire up my laptop for the first time in a day (or after a while), it's usually to check on or do something really quickly. On battery. On my lap or on some other unstable surface.

I do NOT want it burning through its limited battery, becoming a mini furnace, checking for updates under such circumstances! (That sort of carry-on belongs in the Windows days).

Instead, what I will tolerate is it showing me a notification like 30-60 minutes later (if it's still powered up), asking me to run a check for if there's new updates, and it's been somewhere between 1-day to 1-month since I last checked.