[geeks] And The Linux Weenies Wonder Why They Aren't Mainstream...

[Frank Van Damme]

On 2/28/06, Geoffrey S. Mendelson <gsm at mendelson.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 28, 2006 at 01:16:09AM -0600, Bill Bradford wrote:
> > Ubuntu, with the EasyUbuntu add-on for the multimedia codecs, etc?
>
> I though of that, but I wanted the eye candy of KDE. I also wanted an
> RPM based distribution as I am used to it. Ubuntu is based on Debian and
> Gnome.

You are aware of the existence of kubuntu, the ubuntu version which
uses kde as its desktop? (It would also be possible to install
packages from one on the other).

> The other problem with Ubuntu is "critical mass". From my hasty exploration,
> I found that Fedora has the most varied support from other people.

I think hasty is the most important keyword here. Ubuntus user base is
skyrocketing and since it's very familiar to Debian, most Debian users
can help you out with problems as well. There is a large community
around it allready.

> I do like Ubuntu and have recommended it to people with no linux
> experience. It's a well thought out package, it just has different aims
> than I do.
>
> So far, I've been very happy with Fedora. The biggest problem was there
> is no package available for FireFox 1.5. There are several RPMs but one
> required a library I could not locate and the other was incomplete, it
> installed half way and left me with an unusable FireFox.

If you're in desperate need of some package that isn't available for
your distribution, there's always klik (http://klik.atekon.de/).
Roughly, it's a more or less distro-independent repository of packages
that does not neet to be installed (handy for live distros) and is -
to a certain extent - free from dependency-hunting. Far from perfect,
but for some people it works. And it ships firefox 1.5 :)

> In the end it turned out that Xine did all that I wanted for media files
> except play TV. I think it does that, but I never set it up. Xine even
> plays multi sound channel DVDs correctly. I had a lot of fun with a
> THX demo DVD and Pink Floyd's DSOTM.
>
> Red Hat included a program called TVTime which works fine for now.
>
> Eventualy I will put a larger hard disk on the computer and connect it
> for real to a (TV) program source instead of a coax on the floor across
> my living room to my kitchen table. Then I might want to run MythTV or
> some other mpeg recorder.

Mythtv is not an mpeg encoder. MythTV is an all-in-one package whose
purpose is to turn a computer into a "media center".

> If I were going to do it from scratch, I would have bought a DVD video
> recorder so that my wife could operate it. However the computer (P4
> 1.7gHz) was free, I had to add the hard disk and replace the sound card
> because Linux did not support the original card well. I had a ten gig
> hard drive and a good four channel card already as "spare parts".
>
> The person who gave me the computer was moving back to the U.S. and was
> going to take her TV card with her. When I took it out, I noticed it had
> a PAL B/G tuner on it and offered her $45 for it. I figured I could not
> get one that cheap new here and she could get a correct one in the U.S.
> for that.
>
> It also has a nice video card with an Nvidia chipset and an S-Video out.
> There is too little VRAM on the card to play my son's games, but there is
> more than enough for watching TV.



--
Frank Van Damme