[Tfug] Audio/Video woes

[Stephen Hooper]

You are refudiating a point I was not trying to make, and in fact was
offering as an example of the absurd.

Nevertheless, like I said before, Ubuntu may be great, and video may
just work.  Fact of the matter is, you are now arguing about what
"just works" means, and I would posit that my way is just as much
"just works", as your way.  The steps to accomplish the fact are
different it is true, but the end result is the same:  I too can
"click on a  video link in firefox, and see the video pop up and start
playing with working audio."  I swear I only use this awesome power
for nefarious purposes.

I do agree that the original poster is probably in the same situation
as you seemed to find yourself.  I am glad that you like Ubuntu.

I still maintain that in the terms of answering the posters original
post: implying that the best way to fix problems is to move to a
different distribution.  Seen from the eyes of a newcomer, I can't
help but wonder what it means, and the confusion you can cause by
advocating such a "killer" cure.

I still maintain that if the original author had googled, found the
link, then at least he would have fixed a problem instead of following
the Windows mentality:  if its broke, slow, or blue... reinstall!

If the author does not want to follow those instructions, he could
then write something like "Hey.  I just checked out Fedora, and hate
the amount of crap I have to work for to get it to play movie/mp3
files.  Can someone suggest a better alternate distribution."  Then
maybe it would all seem less silly to me.

Finally, I would think your experiences with Fedora, and with Ubuntu
would be valuable, but  I would suggest a different thread.  A subject
 like "Why I love Ubuntu, and  the problems I experienced  with
Fedora" may be suitable.

I am not trying to argue anything you claim below the second paragrah,
and one like to point out that this email is not meant to be an attack
on Ubuntu, but a defense of my thought process relating to the
questioning of what I had said in my first email, and your response to
it.

On 9/23/06, Chad Woolley <thewoolleyman at gmail.com> wrote:
> I swear this is not trolling, just My Humble Opinion :)
>
> On 9/22/06, Stephen Hooper <stephen.hooper at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Upgrading your distribution to fix a video problem?  Try Gentoo: video
> > just worked for me on this beastie as well.  Of course, I had it
> > compile everything, but what the hey!
>
> Sorry, I disagree.  "Having to compile everything" doesn't fall under
> the "just works" category in my book, even if it does compile and work
> flawlessly.  "Just works" to me means I install the distro, click on a
> video link in firefox, and see the video pop up and start playing with
> working audio.
>
> I started using Linux as my main box (I'm a software developer, so
> this is not just hobby use) about a year and a half ago. My primary
> reason was not because I was a linux zealot, but because I wanted a
> real operating system that I could rely on and didn't have to
> reinstall every year.  I wasn't a linux guru, but had used it for
> close to a decade, including installing and using it for a few
> production servers.
>
> I started with FC4, and had several various troubles.  I found RPM to
> be flaky and annoying to use.  I also had persistent heat-related
> crashes which FC + ext3 didn't deal with well at all, and the worst
> final one took much of my /etc with it, prompting me to go ahead and
> switch to Ubuntu (about the time I re-joined this group).  So, FC
> failed my "real operating system" criteria because I had to reinstall
> it within a year.  Maybe it was my lack of skill, but whateva...
>
> I then switched to Ubuntu, and have been much happier. Multimedia was
> the only thing that didn't work, and like I said they seem to have
> fixed that (at least for me) in Ubuntu 6.06.
>
> As for the distro switch, it was pretty painless for me, and I'd
> recommend it for anyone who is at least comfortable installing extra
> drives and installing the new distro on them without blowing away
> their old data.  I bought new drives, and installed Ubuntu on Software
> Raid with XFS (which eliminated filesystem corruption during power
> outages/hardware crashes).  I left my old filesystem mounted under
> /media (Ubuntu did this automatically).  I just copied over what I
> needed as I needed it.  I had all my data well organized, and most
> well behaved apps are a painless migrate just by reinstalling and
> copying the settings dir over (like ~/.mozilla).
>
> Just my experience, and I wanted to relate it since it seems like the
> Original Poster's situation is similar to mine.
>
> -- Chad
>
> _________________