Jamie Zawinski wrote an editorial regarding the status of video playback under Linux (note: strong language is used). My take: The guy is my hero (he could use better language though). This is exactly the status of usability on Linux, and not just with video players…
Linux Usability …or, Why Do I Bother
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I cannot beleive the readers of this site actually think this is a good, valid review. The guy is obviously having a tempor tantrum because he forgot RTFM. I use mplayer. Its great. Its free. It plays everything. It wasn’t that hard to install it either. Is linux as easy as windows? Define easy.
One…
Jamie Zawinski is my absolute hero. He’s NAILED the current sorry state of Linux as absolutely, though more profanely, as Herr Martin Luther did at the doors of Wurttemburg cathedral. His editorial (yes, it’s an OPINION, but that’s what editorials are. Reviews they are not.) should be posted on every penguinista website in existance. This is the voice of the everyday user, not some computer theory wonk.
Two…
Mr. Zawinski seems much in need of a flame-retardent suit to judge from quite a few of the posts here. I’ve seen everything from which company has the most stock in existance (Sun v. Red Hat) – as if THAT’S any indicator of distro useability – and calls questioning the man’s IQ (moron v. provocative jerk), and finishing up with what seems to be the now-standard knee-jerk reaction of many Linux zealots: “He’s a WITCH! Burn him, burn him!” (Ooops, my fault, I was reading the ‘Medieval Peasent’s Handbook’by mistake.)
Easy is different for many people…
But I think the best way to put is as…
Getting what you want done, with the least amount of hassle, and the best results. (Least amounts of tinkering)
This would mean everything from viewing videos, creating spreadsheets, installation of programs, networking, and so forth.
“The guy is obviously having a tempor tantrum because he forgot RTFM.”
Yeah.. While he was at it he should have checked the “man” pages. Uh.. If he could find where that was stored. Whatever.
Linux needs to get on with the future. From everything I’ve seen from the success of Mac OSX and Windows that’s providing ease of use to the user. Hell, even Office 10 won’t be coming with a manual anymore.
“Are you from Europe? All this confrontation avoidance is utter nonsense. It creates more problems than it solves everytime – from programming open source to Iraq.”
Are you from the US ?
I have been a Linux user (strictly) for several years. I think Linux is great. But I also realize that Linux, as far as the desktop goes, is still not as strong as it WILL be in the “ease of use” department. Notice I didn’t say “Usability” since I find Linux to be more usable than any MS OS.
I think articles like this are important and should not be jumped on as trashing Linux. This is a real person expressing real expereriences with Linux. Let him speak. I think we as a community need to listen. Linux is improving it’s performance on the desktop usability front but there is a ways to go. As Linux use spreads, and becomes easier to use then quality apps will be drawn to the light.
I think the appropriate response to the article would be to acknowledge his experience and offer constructive help either to him or feedback to the developers to help them improve the application.
Jumping down somebody’s throat for diss’n Linux wins no converts. It just drives people away in droves, and makes an ass out of the commentor.
When I first started playing with Linux, I ran into difficult problems that could have been a headache to sort out. But when I asked for help from the community I got terrific, fast and FRIENDLY help. That is why I stuck with Linux. I could see the potential. If I recieved the kind of comments posted here I would have run as fast as I could from Linux.
The full potential of Linux has yet to be realized. In the end I think it will be a far superior desktop OS to anything ele on there. Let’s not drive folks away before we get there.
Are you from the US ?
Gee, how could you tell?
On my corporate PC, I can’t install any apps. All I’m allowed to do (more or less) is use office and ie. No VIDEO app. NONE. This is where desktop linux will roll out.
And a lot of the config problems will be handled by the same IT caretakes that handle the config problems with windows.
Corporate Desktop… Yes… For sure…
But I think we were focusing more on Linux uses as a home pc.
Earlier today I was reading the thread on how linux is going to dominate the whole unix market, now we are talking about the failure of the OS to play a few video files. I think that the biggest hinderance to the wide spread acceptance of any open source software is the shear amount of choices available as in the example listed in the above referenced editorial. Rather then have one or two programs doing the job well, we have many programs that might work. I happen to like FreeBSD as my OS for any server related tasks however, if I wanted to set up linux, I would prefer crux or gentoo due to the familier features of FreeBSD. Unfortunately, my G85 officejet, HP photosmart, etc. does not work under the obscure linux distros without jumping through hoops to set these devices up manually.
I will say one thing in defense of Sun, even the popular open source packages are a breese to install under Solaris. I had KDE, ncurses, ee and bash up in running in under an hour on solaris, an operating system I know nothing about.
Why can’t I install a program for linux without being concerned about what distro or library is installed?
Here we are going merrily round and round with another episode of finger-pointing. ‘You’re a dork!”No, you are!”You’re a dork INFINITY!”Am not!’
Let’s all take a giant step into the future and – just for ONE second – consider switching your loyalties to the young turks of Linux, the up-and-comers.
Xandros, Yoper, Libranet, yes, even (gasp!) YellowTAB. While we all have had our fun with RH, Mandrake, SuSE, etc. NOT ONE OF THEM has gotten it all together and said ‘Here. Take this OS from my hand. It will work. Behold, its two different versions! One is KDE, one is Gnome! From many browsers, one. Look! No recompiling kernals! No conflicts! Like Mac OS X, it will just work.’
I started with RH 6, and have installed every distro but Mandrake and have kept faith with the major releases probably far too long. They’ve had their chance and had their chance and had their chance. From the looks of Yoper in particular, and Zeta, too, the new kids have the beat. Let’s dance to it. We have nothing to lose.
Anybody complaining about the language in the article have obviously not had much to do with Linux, else they would have heard much worse coming from their own mouths. I’ve just been trying to install an Nvidia ti4200 card to try to cure the DVD stutter (on a 1.5 GHz machine with a GF2), and I tell ya, the language I heard around here would’ve frightened marines.
Linux GUI clearly has A LOT of problems now.
The thing is that it’s hard to create software. Yes, believe it or not, creating software is very difficult and takes a lot of time. When I see mplayer (or xine), I don’t see a crappy GUI and windows which don’t resize correctly, I see a piece of software created mainly by amateur people, in a short time and that can play almost every video format (even very un-documented ones). Isn’t that a little miracle already ? Now, a GUI isn’t something so hard to build, that’s just not what really counts for now. OK, if Linux was a commercial OS, you couldn’t sell it with an unusable mplayer, that would be commercial suicide. So you would build a great GUI for your crappy video player (because you wouldn’t have time to create codecs for it). On linux, developers focus on basics first. Then, come some developers who decide that the video player is mature enough to use it in a daily way and, so, they build a good GUI on top of it. That’s the next step. Look at Totem, Lumiere etc…
Also, I think GNOME project is building a great mutlimedia framework (gstreamer). That’s not ready today but, maybe, in a few months, it will be a perfect solution (an integrated GUI based on a great multimedia framework). It will happen because everybody already knows that mutlimedia sucks in Linux and everybody would like Linux to win (don’t we ?).
If Linux is not ready for you in 2003, it might be ready in 2010 or in 2050. After all, Linux will NEVER die but where will Microsoft and Apple be in 2050 ?
So, just wait and see…
>Let’s dance to it. We have nothing to lose.
Just time and a few hair.
Like I spent last night trying to install Straw (the news fetcher) for Gnome. It took me 1 hour to gather all the needed libraries and at the end, it didn’t even work, because the stupid pyGTK needed stuff in /usr/local/lib/ while Red Hat 8 prefers it in /usr/lib/. After I fixed that (there was no way a granny would be able to alter the $PATH from the command line among the fact that I needed to edit the pkgconfig conf file of pyGTK) then, the Berkeley DB just DIDN’T COMPILE with GCC 3.2.x.
I spent a whole freaking hour to try to install a SIMPLE APP, and it didn’t work at the end. It was fault segmenting because probably the Berkeley DB was not installed (it wouldn’t compile as I said).
So, don’t give me that crap about “what we have to lose”.
We have to lose A LOT OF TIME with Linux, until someone gets it straight and create a Linux (even by breaking compatibility at all levels) that resembles something usable by Joe User. This goes beyond “RTFM”, this is simple FRUSTRATING. No matter if you are a power user or not. The fact that a user knows how to go around problems DOES NOT make the problem look better. The problem still exists.
That frustration thing only happens with UNIX. Doesn’t happen with Windows, BeOS or MacOSX. THESE OSes JUST WORK. Linux just DOESN’T. It is just not intuitive, it is not ready. It is good for servers, and that’s about it.
Well, maybe it’s just me, but I don’t care about adoption of “Linux on the Desktop” – Linux can’t go bankrupt, it’s here to stay, so what the point???
To point that out, I use Linux exclusively for some months now, and have had no real problem yet. I’ve compiled MPlayer form source, Xine too, no difficulty.
I installed the codec packs from the MPlayer website, now MPlayer plays more codecs than any Winblows player I know off.
If you’re a frustrated Winblows user, and can’t afford or don’t like a Mac, switch to Linux.
If you run into problems, RTFM, or ask a LUG or on the web, and be nice, and you’ll get help for sure.
If you are a frustrated AND degenerated Winblows user, well, stick with it, or even better, thrash your computer, go out, and buy a pocket – calculator, but don’t troll around – otherwise some people with knowledge may realize you’re just plain stupid.
Because it is a mess out there – too much freedom 😎
there are lots of happy Windows users out there – that is what you missed
When Windows works, nobody complain 😎
The problem is not that on Linux you have too much choices. The problem is that in some software categories, you have no obvious choice.
An example: if you want to install a web server, you’ll choose Apache. There are a lot of choices, but you’ll probably use Apache because it works and is widely used. But if you want to watch a video, you’ll try Xine, then Mplayer, then Lumiere, then Aviplay etc… All will fail for a reason. You’ll ultimaltely find one that sucks less than others for you but that won’t be obvious for other people. That’s the same problem between KDE and GNOME, between SUSE, RH, Mdk and Debian etc…
If, tomorrow, gstreamer just works for everybody, nobody will ever talk again about mplayer, xine or wnything else because gstreamer will be the obvious choice.
If, tomorrow, autopackage (www.autopackage.org) manages your packages in an efficient way, you won’t talk about RPM, DPKG or whatever anymore.
If, tomorrow, OpenOffice can start in less than 5 seconds on a 300 Mhz/128 MB Ram computer and get a nice GUI, you won’t talk about koffice or abiword/gnumeric again.
Etc, etc…
Incredible, isn’t it? Yes, this is a very good, very valid review because it dared to say that the king’s new clothe’s dont’ exist. In fact, hes bare-butt naked! I installed Slackware back in 1994, and I found it easy, because I had a solid networking and NetWare foundation. Very easy, and I thought Linux was very promising: it had a lot of apps, supported some nice graphical environments (for an OS in it’s infancy, as I thought). So I continued using Linux, always had a Linux server in my home network, always tinkered with different distro’s, always hated RedHat.. (oops). And I use Linux today more than ever: 5 days a week, 5 hours a day, it’s my lab workstation’s OS. I don’t even think about it as Linux. It’s just an OS that can have multiple virtual desktops, on each it can have multiple Konsoles, and it has a few good-enuff browsers if I need one. And what do I do with this computer? I work. If I need to find out how does dd take input from stdin, I check the man page. If I need to see how does Veritas VM allocate hot spares, I read some other man page (on a Solaris server). That’s my world, cold and grey disk management and scripting.
Once I get home, I have fun. I don’t want to read TFM if I just want to watch a DVD. I don’t want to search the interent for a patch, which for my version of the kernel may not exist anymore (I have 2.2.x kernels), don’t want to have to install apt-get just to install a package on a system that uses tgz or RPM. I absolutely refure so find/grep through some obscure config files in order to set up audio output directly through the soundcard (instead of the CDROM)… I should be able to do all that crap, but I don’t want to. I have windows and BeOS. Windows helps me because it can do things that I like, BeOS helps me because it shows that there is no excuse for Linux not to Just Work.
You see, this guy’s rant is something that I ´wanted to do so many times, when this or that, really basic thing, wouldn’t work on Linux, the OS that is so praised and untouchable. I am glad he said what he had on his heart, and I may add more, someday.
Not that I agree with the author’s comments but damn that was one funny editorial. I especially love the bit at the end:
“By the way, the suggestion to switch Linux distrubutions in order to get a single app to work might sound absurd at first. And that’s because it is. But I’ve been saturated with Unix-peanut-gallery effluvia for so long that it no longer even surprises me when every question — no matter how simple — results in someone suggesting that you either A) patch your kernel or B) change distros. It’s inevitable and inescapable, like Hitler.”
So true and so freaking funny!
On a more serious note I have zero problems with RH 8.0 or Xine and apt for RPM solved most of my RPM headaches.
Though I still only use Linux to “play”.
Why even post this “editorial”? This was just a rant, and by a moron at that. Anyone that knows anything about mplayer knows it’s not your mother’s media player. I believe at one time somewhere on the site or in the documentation they actually referred to mplayer as “the RTFM maker”. Mplayer is what I use to play all my media and it’s great from the command line, but the gui is just a half assed toy. There’s no reason why one of the big name distrubutions couldn’t create a much better GUI and bundle it with the distribution, and that’s what does need to happen. On the other hand:
“The guy is my hero (he could use better language though). This is exactly the status of usability on Linux, and not just with video players…”
That won’t get anybody anywhere. Linux is very usable for most tasks, but there is a few areas where many new users have problems and those are video, cd burning(mainly audio cds), and file sharing programs. Good job on your take, Your hero is a complete idiot with bad language that has managed to find one of the real problems facing linux for retards, and rather than giving some insight on what to do about it, he’s just bitched up a storm and proved his idiocity to everyone; Maybe someday you can be like him.
Oh a conversation about JWZ. I recall that I wanted to help him with xscreensaver some months ago because it installed some stuff into the root directory regardless what you entered as –prefix. That was also my last time (.. for the rest of my life) that I considering talking with that guy. He didn’t knew me. I didn’t knew him. But the 5 mins conversations we had on IRC was enough. The last sentence he said to me was: ‘F**k off I don’t care’ … and all I wanted was simply helping him to fix the configure script without any bad intentions, badmouthing etc.
I have been a Linux (and more generally Open Source) enthusiast and advocate for years. My latest experience that was similar to the author’s was of getting USB printing working using Gimp-print/UPS.
It took a lot of investigation, editing gimp-print-cups.spec and building from source RPM. I eventually got it working and the print quality with my Epson Stylus C80 was fantastic. Could my parents get it to work? Of course not.
But I learned a lot along the way… I learned about CUPS, which rocks! And I got to recompile the kernel (again), which always gives me pleasure.
I printed one page on my Linux box and then hooked the printer up to my (wife/kids) Windows box.
Epson has an OS X driver for the C80 which I’m sure installs in about 2 minutes… but I wouldn’t have learned as much.
Having said that though… sometimes I just want the damn thing to work without all the exercise! 😉
Cheers
Linux free? Cost of download ($/hr or % of monthly rate) + Time (Your time is money) + Your support (when you download your number is taken and the overall statistic is given to other companies to sell their services/products).
People who want a click’n’drool interface that makes basic things work, but doesn’t allow any advanced customizations like scripting etc. should be running Windows.
Windows is good for the average non computer-savvy user.
On the other hand, there are the more technical users, who like being in control. Being in control means that the computer makes as little decisions by itself (windows decides pretty much everything for you). This results in a less userfriendly environment, which I really like.
So people should stop complaining, and just use the OS that best suits their needs.
That frustration thing only happens with UNIX. Doesn’t happen with Windows, BeOS or MacOSX. THESE OSes JUST WORK. Linux just DOESN’T
Hold on a fucking minute!
apt-get install straw
That does work! In your case “Redhat Linux” just doesn’t work. But “Linux” does work! Stop trolling Eugenia!
-fooks
I think this JWZ guy deserved what he got. Want quality? Pay for it. SGI costs, as does Win2K, and they both do everything Linux can do but with a tiny fraction of the hassle.
I’ve seen one post whose author believes he is “basking in Gentoo’s emerge” or some other ridiculous delusion.. Yeah, I really want to spend all day compiling KDE or GNOME or hell – even a kernel! OK, retard. Debian’s APT is fairly advanced for a free project, but the problem is all those ridiculous dependencies. There might be four or four hundred versions of any particular library on your system. Why? Legacy cruft should be tossed, not polished and put back on the front of the shelf. Xfree is a prime example of cruft as well.. what idiot in his right mind thinks he’ll get decent video playback under Linux when he’s running lazy old Xfree?!? Of course it’s possible, but not on the low spec machines that Windows will play those very same videos on.
JWZ complains about usability, but he persists in using Emacs??? Then there’s the fucktard comment. Who’s the fucktard, the programmer who poops it out or the user who picks it up and tastes it? Give me a break. This guy should know better.
I realize that in ten or twenty years people will have ditched Xfree and bloated desktop environments. I suspect that there will be a GUI that’s better than the Win95 GUI. Hell, even plug ‘n play support will improve past the current Win95 benchmark, and USB will support hotplug, and maybe just maybe WINE will finally have a purpose – but when that time comes, nobody will care. Staying five years behind isn’t any way to win users, and the Linux geeks know that.. they’re hostile and silly, but the zealot’s defense is impervious to reason. Forget about Linux, man. Move along to Mac OSX or Windows.
“Well, why don’t you show us all how it should be done? Where’s SimbaOS or SimbaOffice with its master interface? Have you ever looked through the source code for any OSS application?”
The applications I write are for internal use. That’s why you don’t see the UIs.
And yes, I have looked through the source code for OSS applications, and there is a lot of horribly shitty code in many open source projects. Even the Linux kernel itself has some horribly shitty code in it.
Even the author of the C programming language looked at the Linux source code and said that it sucked and was horribly programmed.
“If you don’t like Linux, but want it to adhere to your high standard of UI excellence, then why not pull up a chair and get to work? The code is right there for you.”
Another reason Linux isn’t ready for the average desktop. The attitude of “If you don’t like it, open your editor, fix it, and recompile it.” Like the average end user has the time or knowledge to do this.
” Sorry to be rude, but I don’t think much of people that harshly criticize work that others have done for free and donated to the world for free.”
Like I said… Welcome to to the real world. Products get reviewed. Products get harshly critisized.
Waa! This rocks. Thanks a lot for the URL!
Every Linux distro should include all this stuff by default, including the MS codecs. I don’t think you need a Windows or a MSOffice license to use those.
> That does work! In your case “Redhat Linux” just doesn’t work. But “Linux” does work! Stop trolling Eugenia!
Excuse me, but Debian has other shortcomings (terrible installer, old software, no refinement on the desktop as RH has, no autoconfigs etc etc), that Red Hat doesn’t. Red Hat is the Linux market leader today, so I am using it primarily WHEN I boot to Linux. And under Synaptic, there is no Straw. So, while your “apt-get” might work well, Debian in general has other shortcomings already.
Linux is not for the common user. If you really want a Unix-like operating system: GET A MAC!!!
Ok, I have to say the author is partly right. I use mplayer with succes, but I’m not afraid of using the CLI and compiling my own programs.
But, instead of calling people all kinds of names, he should appreciate what people are doing already in their spare time and he should switch to Mac or Win or whatever until mplayer reaches 1.0.0
“what idiot in his right mind thinks he’ll get decent video playback under Linux when he’s running lazy old Xfree?!?”
Uhh I hate to burst your bubble, but video plays better using mplayer and X with Xv than it does on this computer with Win2K and ANY video player.
i tried to do some audio works with linux and it really sucks. installation and configuration for a professional 8 channel card: totally user unfriendly. i had to change coax to optical input with a command line tool.
my system crashes sometimes when running audio applications (freeze, reboot).
low-latency audio is not possible without patching and compiling a custom kernel.
i don’t want to talk about GUI issues…
all in all, linux is total crap for desktop and multimedia.
This is the kind of rant I always really want to post every time I try to use Linux. Yes he used bad language that doesn’t make him look very mature, but personally I too feel like swearing after struggling with Linux problems. Linux is so powerful and fun in some ways, but it can also be SO BLOODY FRUSTRATING, I always feel a sense of relief when I go back to Windows.
The attitude of Linux advocates really bugs me too. Why take part in a discussion on ease of use problems, just to insult people for not being “37173” enough to put up with all the bullshit that Linux inficts on the user? If you don’t care about Linux on the desktop or ease of use, then why respond to that kind of review?
I have a lot of respect for the Linux fans who actually offer suggestions for fixing the problems and are making Linux better. But none for the idiots who use other people’s computer problems as an excuse to act smug and superior.
I use Linux as my main desktop OS and find it quite usable. Am I a genius now ?
Seriously, MPlayer is not Linux, it’s not because some app installs difficultly that you need to bring down the whole OS.
While I agree that there’s still work to do, I think Linux becomes a great desktop OS and I believe Linux will succeed as a desktop OS.
And for the whiners, you can either help improve Linux or stick to Windows or whatever other OS, nobody asks you to use Linux… Of course you can criticize things but sayings like “Linux will NEVER succeed as a desktop OS” aren’t very useful or convincing.
“This guy shouldn’t be using Linux”
I thought wider Linux adoption was what the Linux community wants.
“Windows is good for the average non computer-savvy user.”
What is up with this? Just because someone is using Windows does not mean they aren’t “computer-savvy”. Because someone doesn’t want to spend time editing config files doesn’t mean they don’t know how to work a computer, and work it well. There’s plenty of very good programmers, developers, hardware guys out there that use Windows, and OSX for that matter.
“apt-get install straw”
Yes, but how will you get to that point? After spending several hours on how to install Debian?
Yoper can do it though
… It just works to that point, but that’s just one aspect 
.
Mind you, I appreciate the work all the hackers and programmers put into OSS projects, and yes, most of them are open to new ideas. But there’s the few who don’t really care. I guess what they want is for Linux to stay small, something in the realm of the BSD community.
As for
“And yes, I have looked through the source code for OSS applications, and there is a lot of horribly shitty code in many open source projects. Even the Linux kernel itself has some horribly shitty code in it.
Even the author of the C programming language looked at the Linux source code and said that it sucked and was horribly programmed.”
And if we could look @ the source code of Windows?
I could write a similar review on windows. I went to a website to download videos. I clicked on the video and it brought up the wrong media player. All of these media players have skins without proper menu bars and little buttons that are impossible to click. No consistency with user interfaces etc. Anyway it loaded up winamp instead of media player. So I had to search through a few dialog boxes. I got media player to work but then I closed it after watching a video and clicked on the next one and nothing happened. Nothing I could do would bring media player back.
The difference with my review is that
1. I aint famous or anybodys hero (so my problems are unheard of)
2. I can tolerate a faulty computer without using profanity.
3. People will tell me to use a different version of windows. They will obviously be right unlike the people who shout use a different linux distro
4. It doesn’t happen to other windows users so my problem doesn’t exist
It amazes me that you are allowed to swear at Linux but not at any other OS.
“And if we could look @ the source code of Windows?”
There would probably be shitty code in it.
But my original comment was regarding shitty programming of the UI. Perhaps I shoulld have said that the UI was badly designed. That might have avoided the confusion. Although some of it is shitty (or lazy) programming, such as the fact that the mouse pointer automatically moves to the top left corner of the new window when it is opened. I don’t think someone intentionally made it do that, so it is probably just shitty programming of the mouse even handler.
This article itself would not be allowed as a comment because it breaks several OS NEWS terms.
——————————————————-
Excuse me, but Debian has other shortcomings (terrible installer, old software, no refinement on the desktop as RH has, no autoconfigs etc etc), that Red Hat doesn’t. Red Hat is the Linux market leader today, so I am using it primarily WHEN I boot to Linux. And under Synaptic, there is no Straw. So, while your “apt-get” might work well, Debian in general has other shortcomings already.
——————————————————-
Try Conectiva Linux ! It is very similar to Red Hat and it has apt-get by default 🙂
This was a great read. Mainly cuz most people like to find like minded people. Another reason is it adds more punch to the BeOS cause… Linux with zillions of developers cant get their ca ca together enough to play a movie. (Minus those working on VLC as the Be crew has made VLC wicked for Be) For all the times I groaned about Video in Be it looks like our day has come cuz despite a few formats not being supported Vlc under Be does Dixv better then windows on my machines & Thanks to a few nutz (Shatty – MMu) Be’s video is seemingly surpassed all but Windows & Mac OS. In the end I just cant figure out why people like or see merit in linux. There are so many better OS’s being born ATM. After a while you’d think the “I’m so 1337” mentality of hard core linux users would fade after a lock up borks their system totaly & they are left to use a Mandrake type install or re-compile thier kernel for 6 days to then compile thier window manager for another day… then hmmm maybe… in few weeks… they will have a working system again.. man linux Rul3Z
Is that why controversial “editorials” like this is posted, or is it (which I sincerely hope) to provide us news post hungry beasts with something on a slow news day?
Would it be possible to implement a “Rate this article/editorial” function so one could sort out the gold nuggests from the nuts and spare oneself the aggrevation of reading rants like that.
All it does is end up in a pointless pissing contest, the more comments the further away from the goal everyone gets and it always ends up in everyone peeing on eachother instead.
Okay, in today’s world people expect multimedia right out of the box.
Are no decently designed easy to use DVD and media players included IN THE BOX with a distro? And if somebody is using an older distro, why can’t they just go to the website of the company they bought it from and download the players (tweaked to play nice with that company’s flavor of Linux?)
I think part of the problem with the fecal state of Linux as something that joe user wants to/can use is that the companies are giving it away free. And for every person like myself who believes in buying a distro (for a fair price) there are probably 4 others who will just go and download.
How the hell do these companies make money to pay coders for improvements? Oh, wait, they don’t.
I think a pricing scheme like what Opera uses is in order. You pay for and register your version and get all the updates for that version you need, from 1.0 to 1.9 but when a full on 2.0 release comes out, if you want to upgrade, you put your $40 into the pot.
Right now, what’s the incentive for Red Hat, SuSE, YDL, etc to produce an arse kicking distro?
If there is to be a version of Linux that really competes with OS X, it will take some serious money to do it.
To hell with the OSNews terms! Nobody seem to follow them except me, anyway, not even some editors. At least this article is informative (as it informs clearly and frankly about media player shortcomings on Linux) and is basically courageous and original.
If you want to see posts that utterly infringe on OSNews’ or any other decent discussion board’s norms’, I can copy/paste you some – but I warn you, they are from Linux worshippers!
Synaptic works just peachy with redhat 8.0 for me, up to a point.
But wouldn’t it be nice, now, if all these other appications/programs not included in the standard repository, would add their own URL to add to the repository in synaptic, for the purpose of easy installation? Perhaps this is too complicated.
…is how get fullscreen video on linux:
0: Create 2 new partitions on your hd, one for the fs another (smaller one) for the swap
1: Install linux, by using a bootable cd from any distro
2: wait a while
3: reboot
4: rant a while
5: Delete the linux partition(s)
6: write “My Linux” on your pirated windows xp cdr
7: install it
8: put some sort of penguin on your desktop, the uglier the better, alternatively a photo of richard stallman doing yoga will do.
8: download bsplayer ( http://www.bsplay.com ) and a skin you like
9: download ffdshow codec ( http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=53761 ) which faster than anything on linux
10: Open your (recentely downloaded from kazaa) movie with bsplayer
What on earth has this article to do on this site?
I used to consider this site serious but this “article” was more low-quality than most slashdot discussions.
[What on earth has this article to do on this site? ]
it has few to do with Linux the kernel, but most users get their desktop experience through apps offered on top of the OS/kernel.
Some of you people, i swear. Don’t get me wrong, i use linux on all of the servers at work and its a great server platform. I love open source spirit. But linux as a desktop isn’t going to happen for a long time for the main reason that its developed by god knows how many different people and they all have different views of what linux on the desktop should be like.
i really think all linux projects should follow the guidlines at http://www.freedesktop.org/ – the very thought of having an app made in GTK or QT but no matter what desktop environment you use, you can still minimize to a systray is amazing to me.
And to all of you asses that say “He should go RTFM!” you dont get it do you???? you shoulden’t HAVE to “RTFM” i use osx and windows xp at work, and xp at home, in both i can go to a site and download a video and double click on it and it ‘just works’
Common, what newbie desktop user is able to go download the source code for mplayer and compile it? are you guys smoking crack?
“download ffdshow codec which faster than anything on linux”
Hehe, ffdshow is a DirectShow filter that uses a windows port of libavcodec, which is the codec developed for MPlayer
MPlayer may be hard to install, use, whatever, but it’s filtering system (the way you can build “pipelines” of them”) and it’s advanced options are nothing short of phenomenal. Trust me, I watch an insane amount of Divx’s and Xvid’s, you name it, and MPlayer is _the_ player for the hardcore user. It’s the only player that does deringin (mosquito artifact removal) filtering with any sort of acceptable speed.
The ass who claimed that movies on Xfree on Linux play better than anything on Win32 has obviously not used Win2K in far too long. Open Sores is great for producing SERVER operating systems. That’s the long and the short of it.
Open Sores coders are a loose coalition of hobbyists, consisting primarily of children and the unemployed, working from their parents’ basements. The Linux developers cannot possibly attempt to faithfully reproduce (never mind improve upon) Windows or Mac OSX or anything more advanced than Win95 because they aren’t a team. There is no cooperation between groups to save effort. There is little evidence of proper planning and research aside from the bare minimum necessary, and it’s obvious that these people will never get it.
Here are some tips to the Open Sores crowd; please take careful note here guys:
Learn how to use a flowchart.
Learn about pseudocode and commercial development practices.
Force yourselves to practice clean coding practices and efficient GUI interface design.
Stay the fuck out of my yard.
[Learn how to use a flowchart…
Learn about pseudocode and commercial development practices]
hehe, IBM should donate some Rational Rose, Purify licenses to the OSS community.
mplayer is truly a *great* player. It’s not because some guy had some difficulties intalling it that it’s bad.
emerge mplayer mplayer-skin
Should be the same with debian or good apt-rpm sources with quality rpm.
Associate video files with gmplayer in you favorite filemanager and poof it works.
Really dependency hell is thing of the past for me since I switched (It was the main reason of the switch) 2 years ago from Mandrake to Debian then Gentoo. So when I read about dependency hell on other distros it makes me laugh (sorry).
If you use RedHat8 you *SHOULD* install apt-rpm.
MPlayer plays everything I throw at it, even those damn QT MOV sorenson or WMV. The performance is great too: I did a test with 5 DivX, each mplayer was taking 10% CPU and every video was smooth as silk, even full screen as other video played in the background. Ok it was on a beeffy machine.
I’d quote a line from “Road to Perdition” but that would just add to the profanity.
Linux wars are so tasty to Slubgob.
Gosh, I had zero problem using MPlayer, Xine, and Ogle in Xandros. I understand the author is a programmer. If he doesn’t like I believe the software he was whining about is GPL stuff, shutup and fix it.
1. For the author his rants sounds like a whole lot of hard hearted whining. He hates Gnome 2.0.x so use KDE for god’s sakes I think there are some KDE front-ends for multimedia stuff. However, the man is using a pretty ancient version of RH too. Whining about the lack of good looking multimedia tools available for RH 7.2 is just as pathetic as people who whine about Windows crashes like the world is stuck in the Win98 days.
2. Some people call it just a harsh review but I think some of the comments basically calling developers retards is rude and really crappy. Most of the people on these projects do donate their time. It is a really normal thing to review them like anyone else as harshly as needed. It is a nasty screwed up things to use vicious profanity to describe they are doing for free.
2. How do you get a decent multimedia player in RH8?
a) Get apt rpm. Doubleclick on it. Give root password. It installs.
b) Go to the command line as root. Type in apt-get update and apt-get -f install synaptic. No more command line you have a nice gui Install tool.
c) Click Totem in Synaptic and Press Install and then press proceed.
The thing uses xine libs. It looks very nice and clean.
Yes, apt or synaptic or some other tool like this should come with RH. It is annoying. But I have heard Eugenia talk about how hard it is to install Gstreamer.
Well, Eugenia I clicked and installed it through apt.
Things could get better. One of the three programs I have ever compiled for installation on my RH8 box was mplayer for the Quicktime support.
Still the attitude of the writer was horrid and insulting. I usually consider Eugenia a farily even-minded person until this post. It smacks of anti-linux trolling unlike anything else I have seen from Eugenia.
Someone said that if a developer puts out code they should be ready for that code or program to be reviewed and judged by the public. Instead what the developer gets is a child spewing insulting bile instead of actually putting some of his valid points in a format worth bothering with.
What do other developers get? They get drummed basically off their own devel lists by people barely contributing any code who want control of the project. Why do they bother?
I am beginning to wonder. People act like all the volunteers and their l33t egos are the problem. They are not. Redhat, IBM, Ximian, SuSE and other companie contribute to linux. However, if the folks volunteering their time go away, the companies could not even come close to pulling the slack on the other end.
The real sad thing is considering all the nasty flames thrown at most developers on free projects, ones they go beyond their code and straight at insulting them personally (by inferring they are retards no less) I can’t imagine why they ever bother posting their code.
the best thing about linux? free. is it ready for MY desktop?? no. its not easy enough. the rpm type system has GOT to go.. and needs to be replaced with some sort of binary installer program, or by a compressed folder with the program inside which is ready to run.
dropping a driver in a folder.. that can’t be simpler. windows drivers can be installed using the wizard, sometimes by a last click on the driver preference file and click install.. or by a setup file. then the rest is handled automatically. linux drivers are very hard to install, they aren’t self explanitory. You know why linux comes with most every program you can think of? because for the most part, people can’t figure out how to install them.
> Still the attitude of the writer was horrid and insulting. I usually consider Eugenia a farily even-minded person until this post. It smacks of anti-linux trolling unlike anything else I have seen from Eugenia.
Why? What did I say? I meant everything I said. Why do I need to install another app (synaptic) in order to install another app (gstreamer)? And overall, trying to install gstreamer by hand is a _terrible_ procedure.
Eugenia you either did not read or care that I already said in the same post that RH should come with apt and synaptic.
That is true you should not need to install apt and RH’s own package management system should use apt for dependency resolution (I have said that part in the past but not here).
Why would anyone want to install gstreamer or any other package like this by hand is beyond me? Choose it off a list and click install.
Actually, the very idea that you should grab some version .50 software (as in very frickin’ beta) off the web available from some random guy and have things be easy to install and use is kind of nuts in and of itself.
BTW, I do realize gnome-media is now dependant on this package but that does not mean that it is anything but very beta.
Still, on top of all that, you may complain about the wrong things when it comes to linux (IMO) but you usually have decent comments especially in terms UI and usage and you are usually fair. Saying this guy was your hero and then reading that insulting bit of personal bashing tripe the guy was pushing threw me for a loop. That is what you said. That is why it almost smacks of troll-baiting as opposed to a usually even-handed approach.
Gee, my 10 chanel cad was fairly easy to get running on Linux compared to Windows 2k/XP. I had to wait over a year after purchasing my hardware to get decent driver support under Windows so I could use it.
Thing lacking with Linux is more the Software packages like CubaseSX but it is a hell of a lot more easy to set up for hard disk recording and the likes than Windows will ever be.
I persoanally am holding out for a BeOS ressurection cause nothing has given me more joy in user space than BeOS5 but then again, playing DVD under BeOS, well that was a right p.i.t.a. Linux and Windows are much better and easier.
This is the kind of problems faced by newbies.
http://www.linuxnewbie.org/forum/showthread.php?threadid=86099
read it and you gain insight into the problem the author was talking about.
//We have to lose A LOT OF TIME with Linux, until someone gets it straight and create a Linux (even by breaking compatibility at all levels) that resembles something usable by Joe User. This goes beyond “RTFM”, this is simple FRUSTRATING. No matter if you are a power user or not. The fact that a user knows how to go around problems DOES NOT make the problem look better. The problem still exists.//
I .. TOTALLY .. AGREE!!
I’ve been there, done that, for about a half-dozen apps in Linux. Took hours ‘n hours.
Windows XP? Hmm.. download msi .. double click on it .. click three/four more times. App is installed! Huh.
Mac OS, it’s even easier.
Please, Linux … STAY on the server, where you belong.
Notice none of these guys mention RTFM once. What is the problem with this thread GetOutofHere?
Install Glibc by hand? That is nuts.
Man, I swear this sounds like the same old-timers who tell the newbie to install a RealPlayer rpm on a RH8 system by going to the command line as root and typing rpm -Uvh etc…etc.. Instead of doubleclicking on it.
Once again someone on the list should have gotten the clue and asked the guy to install apt4rpm. The freshrpms.net site has listed xmame basically the same version this guy was trying for RH7.3 and apt would have done the dependencies for you.
That whole thread sounds like a comedy of errors. The guy wants to install xmame and installs a new version of glibc and runs into all kinds of trouble and somebody says re-compile glibc and then that does not work so they start troubleshooting the compile etc…etc…etc..
My answer:
1. Install back the glibc that came with the OS.
2. Get apt and synaptic (Yes, I know RH should come with this by default.)
3. Use synaptic (gui front-end for apt) and highlight xmame and press install.
All right. It is a pain to have to install two programs that takes care of these dependency issues. However, you do it once and then use to install the programs you want.
Find app in list. Highlight app click install.
You are a…
Well, I won’t quite say it, because I don’t believe in spreading profanity, but your post revealed you to be the most pathetic piece of excrement imaginable. If you don’t want to use software that is freely created and donated, fine, pay MS, whatever, but don’t waste our time ranting about what you percieve to be deficiencies of programs that you don’t even use.
You are a rude and spiteful person. You heap scorn upon those who are donating their efforts for everyone to use. Crawl back under your rock, you (insert expletive of your choice).
what if a user did a customer install without apt, synaptic
dependency hell will haunt linux for quite a while and it apears to be worse than windows DLL hell which has finally been solved in XP
Red Hat, Suse, Mandrake, and any other linux distributions not only package the kernel but package third party software. Microsoft does not package third party software. Microsoft is not responsible for bad thrid party software. But Microsoft is responsible for its own bundled software like Internet Explorer and Media Player. Should Microsoft Windows be critized for not being desktop worthy because Norton Anti-virus crashes Windows? What about bad GUI designs of third party software? Do they make Windows unworthy of the desktop?
Red Hat, Suse, Mandrake, and any other linux distributions have the problem that most of what they sell/distribute is third party software. These companies gather all the software they think fits with their business philosophy then put it in one big package. The problem is that the third party software developer may not be programming for Red Hat’s or Suse’s philosophy. How can these linux companies change the GUI or stability of every third party software they bundle in their package? Red Hat changed KDE’s GUI and got bashed. What if Mandrake took the mplayer software and chnaged it so it was more stable and had a better GUI? Mplayer is probably under the GPL so Red Hat and Suse could probably put the new mplayer in their package. Yes, the whole linux community benefits. You do not see Microsoft taking Norton’s software code and making changes for the better.
Not all linux distributions need to be desktop worthy. Holding the companies responsible for third party software is wrong too. Linus is responsible for the kernel not KDE. Some day there will be a desktop worthy linux distribution. It may not be Red Hat or Suse.
At least, Linux gives user a chance to improve the software. You can either write your own version of the software, email suggestions to the authors of the software, or do not use the software. Can you say the same about some commercial software? Linux is not perfect but neither is Windows or MAC OSX. Whining about Linux not being a desktop OS is like shopping at KMart while yelling WalMart is cheaper. So why aren’t you shopping at WalMart?
What’s funny is that VLC -does- have a decent interface on BeOS, at least. But it’s Gnome interface takes up far too much screen real estate and is overly compicated. It’s QT interface doesn’t work at all. For some reason VLC looks and works better on BeOS .. at least for me.
click windows update
select WMP9
click install
when the download/install finished, WMP9 opened my last MP3 played by WMP8 and was ready to play – no reboot required
This comment will probably be lost in the noise. However, every comment I’ve read here misses an important piece of history — Unix Hating. JWZ was one of the people who hated Unix, which he considered inferior to the Lisp Machines. In this worldview, C is a disgusting language, Unix is woefully incomplete hackery, but at least it’s easy to implement with any performance.
In this view, Unix is just another operating system to deride, the Windows of its day.
Look up “worse-is-better” for a background.
Oddly enough, every time I want to watch a movie, I have to boot into Linux. Yes, none of the media players on Windows work for me (no, I do not hate Windows, I use it from time to time) and those that work, are simply too slow.
I am not aware how hard mplayer is to install. I simply installed it using the Mandrake urpmi tool which I had pointed to some Mandrake repositories (and these guys are dying? geez, their management must have really screwed things up). And no, I didn’t wait 4 days for my distro to compile. Mplayer was very cryptic at first, but gmplayer is very powerful and easy to use. Simply pop in disk, open gmplayer and select movie. It hasn’t failed on any file that I have thrown at it, even Quicktime movies. Best of all is the mozilla-mplayer plug-in.
Just my $0.02 CDN (which is about $1.33333… USD)
Developers and Linux enthusiast stop blaming users for usability problems.
” click windows update
select WMP9
click install
when the download/install finished, WMP9 opened my last MP3 played by WMP8 and was ready to play – no reboot required ”
Never did crap get so easy and quick to install – I’m real impressed (not). But.. Did you then try to play a DiVX movie? Also, how long are you willing to wait for a player to come up? I have a relatively quick machine (7200 RPM HD, 2200+ Processor), and just playing an MP3 takes a while to load. WinAMP does it in less than a second.
All that crap they add doesn’t help for things like DiVX. You still have to get the codec. Needless to say, I’m less than impressed by WM9. Though, at least, they don’t make you use that stupid “anchor window” by default.
“I am not aware how hard mplayer is to install”
Just because you can install it, doesn’t mean someone else can too.
And it goes for pretty much everything for Linux, or any computer items in general. Just because your SBLive! doesn’t make crackling noises, doesn’t mean your pals won’t either. etc. etc.
As for –> “Developers and Linux enthusiast stop blaming users for usability problems.”
They don’t have to switch, but heck, the Linux community wants them too (or so I’m guessing), so you’re pretty much bang on.
[Never did crap get so easy and quick to install – I’m real impressed (not). But.. Did you then try to play a DiVX movie? Also, how long are you willing to wait for a player to come up? I have a relatively quick machine (7200 RPM HD, 2200+ Processor), and just playing an MP3 takes a while to load. WinAMP does it in less than a second.]
my WMP9 setup did that in less than a second on celeron 800 with a 5400 RPM HD too 😎
the trick is don’t let WMP search internet for MP3/CD info,
and don’t let it start in media guide.
DivX ? M$ doesn’t like DivX, but once DivX codec is installed, WMP has no trouble with DivX moive.
I prefer WMP9 over WinAMP because WMP8/9 is Unicode based, and works well with non western language MP3 tags, file names ( along with FAT32/NTFS/SAMBA 3.0)
http://tty.netfirms.com/samba3.htm
your requirement may be different.
[At least, Linux gives user a chance to improve the software. You can either write your own version of the software, email suggestions to the authors of the software, or do not use the software. Can you say the same about some commercial software? ]
Same thing could be said for Windows, when I began to use win3.1, I couldn’t find a decent telnet program with good enough vt100 emulation and an affordable price, so I wrote one for myself- http://tty.netfirms.com/cjk.htm ; when I felt IE couldn’t switch flash on and off easily, I wrote a small utility to do that – http://tty.netfirms.com/ietoy.htm – luckily I don’t need to write my own browser
Omg, I CAN NOT BELEIVE THIS MORON.
People like this should just go ahead and use windows. I think its highly unfair of him to blame the software, while the only problem is shoddy rpms, and the infamous EEOC. (Equipment Exceeds Operator Capability).
Honestly, if you can’t compile >>Open Source<< Software, then whats the point of using it?
Have fun using windows and all sorts of spyware loaded video players.
“Stop quoting something he never said, ok?”
Why not? As long as it’s clear that it’s a parody of what the guy said (and it should be clear to all except for the humour impaired).
“Have the decency to reply in a manner that doesn’t defame the author or anyone else.”
Ah, so it is almost OK (“he could use better language though” ELQ) to defame and insult the authors of the programs reviewed, using 16 year boy profanities (“What are these fucktards thinking???” JZ), BUT it is not ok to insult with milder words the “reviewer”: oh no, you’d better “have decency” in that case, you Linux zealot! How fair of you… NOT!
But you’re missing the point, i.e. that the guy doesn’t look so smart because of what he writes:
1. he just jumps in installing video players without noting (and telling the reader) that THERE ISN’T YET A SINGLE LINUX VIDEO PLAYER WHICH IS NOT IN BETA STATE;
2. he seems to ignore, perhaps because he chose to ignore point n. 1, that it is NORMAL for beta versions of programs to print debug information on the screen; perhaps he doesn’t know what “debug information” means;
3. perhaps with a little more brains he could have reached the conclusion that it is actually POSSIBLE to switch those messages off, but I do realize I’m asking too much from this guy;
4. he mixes installation problems with usage problems, without realizing that installing apt for rpm doesn’t mean that he was forced to USE DEBIAN PACKAGES;
5. he also mixes UI issues, namely the use of skins, which aren’t really Linux related as anyone who’s used Winamp or similar programs under Windows can surely tell;
6. he also ignores that future versions of GNOME will benefit from HIG-compliant video players that will be based on current players libraries, like totem; again, asking to be informed from this “reviewer” seems a bit too much.
So, what have we got here, a well-informed article on the present state of Linux video players? It looks more like a misinformed rant by an incompetent “reviewer”, who’s even got the guts to insult the authors of the programs he “reviewed”.
Now that I think of it, Eugenia, I can clearly see why you appreciate so much your “hero”, your styles are frighteningly similar (perhaps James Zawinski is just a nom de plume for Eugenia Loli-Queru?).
I still hope to see you grow up some day.
there is no *really* free software (yet).
Either you pay for it with your money or you pay for it with your time.
the biggest troll i have read on osnews…
…this forum threat is a good example for the sorry state of cooperation among (below?) average users who just don’t care about asking and helping out instead bashing everything just for the sake of bashing. Open source lives through participation, you can change anything by contributing yourself, its a true meritocracy at that. Neither the “review” nor any post here contributed anything further.
…and the Eugenia wonders why other projects like FreeBSD are utterly ignored.
Ok, I have mplayer installed, amoungst a few other Video players, I have no problem with it (although it couuld use some kind of “loop playback” feature. It plays movies very nicely IMO. I don’t understand the striff. I have used many video players, including those for Windows and Mac, and mplayer looks and feels better then most. It isn’t as resource intensive as WMP, Quicktime, or Real Player. It just does what I want it to do. People say things for Linux are hard, but in the almost 1 year I have used Linux, I have not had any problems. Linux is very easy to use, and mplayer is one of the easiest movie players I have ever seen. WMP doesn’t even play most AVI files, let alone anything else correctly, mplayer just works when I ask it to. People need to stop putting down Linux software, either way you didn’t pay for it… don’t like it? Write one for yourself, or pay Hundreds of dollars for a half assed application.
I guess we have to accept that anything we do in the public arena is going to be met with criticism. Any Actor, Singer, Writer, Athlete, or Programmer is going to fail at one time or the other and we have to accept it.
If I have a bad wrestling match, then of course I’m going to have fans post mean messages about me on the internet. If I write a program, somebody will not like it and flame me. It’s a fact of life.
We can only ask that when you have problems, to post them in a rational manner, with some form of politeness. Freedom of speech is highly valued in the United States, so we have to understand there’s going to be people who say things and we can’t do anything to stop them. Everybody says something stupid or mean at some point in there life. We have to let this slide. Remember the old saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, and now I’m gonna sue you.” Wait, that’s not it, but you get my point. Let’s not let mean people take use down to their level. Nobody is going to die from what he said. There are worse atrocities in the world. Let’s move on. Maybe he got it working later on today, and he was just frustrated. Brush it off, we’re bigger than that.
Also, let’s remember ROME wasn’t built in a day. It took the internet like 30 years before “newbies” used it. I’m sure linux will be get there quicker, but it’s gonna take time. Just be patient. It’s gone pretty far. Heck, 5 years ago could you watch DVD’s on linux? Seriously, I’m asking, I don’t know. Were DVD’s out then? Okay, well, I guess they were, what about 10 year’s ago? See progress!!!!
Anyways, I got mplayer to work on redhat 7.2 and I had to compile without gui. Boo hoo. And the lip synching was off, but I dont’ have the correct NVIDIA drivers installed, but there are other clues in the “DEBUG” xterm window that helped me lessen this. <Cartman voice>Hmmm.. that’s strange what was somebody saying about why there would be debug output in xterm…hmmm I don’t know</Cartman voice>. Mplayer has caused a lot of controversy from when it first was being popular because it would not compile on redhat 7.1 because it used gcc 2.96 instead of 2.95 or whatever. The problem was first blamed on RedHat, but then redhat posted that the code mplayer used was non-standard and 2.96 did not support non-standard code. Now this is fixed, and instead of everybody being happy, people are even madder. Can’t we all just get along? Well, at least nobody is threatening anybody else with physical violence. Let’s look at that in a positive light. At least whateverhisname is just wrote a childish rant instead of going to mplayer hq and trashing servers or opening a can of whoopass on the programmers. There is still hope.
>> the biggest troll i have read on osnews…
I have to agree *he says whilst similtaneously feeding the troll*
This JWZ’s ‘review’ is taken way out of context (by putting it on a news site), anyone who has visited http://www.jwz.org would realize that jwz does care about usability in the slightest.
Just do the gentoo thing. emerge mplayer.
Done.
Just to the RedHat thing.
rpm -ivh apt*rpm
apt-get update
apt-get install mplayer
done, and no waiting an hour to compile anything! LOL
Whoever recommended NIMO codec pack deserves to be hit with a huge hammer! Seriously! You shouldn’t go around giving such bad advise. Nimo has a history of destroying countless installations of Windows Media Player leaving users with exactly ONE option: Windows Reinstall, The Windows Way Of Doing Things (TM). If DirectShow – for whatever reason – gets messed up, there is NOTHING you can do about it. That install of Windows won’t ever play video again, and guess what: NIMO has a nasty tendency to mess things up. There are a lot of people who have posted about this on http://forum.doom9.org/ and I really have a hard time feeling sorry for them.
There is a very quick answer to the issue though: FFDShow. http://sf.net/projects/ffdshow/. Download the latest alpha version (which is far too stable to be called alpha) and watch it play any MPEG-4 video under the sun. Divx3, Divx4, Divx5, XviD, MSMPEG4v1, 2 and 3 – it plays them all. All you need apart from this is an audio codec for WMA in AVIs (relatively easily found on http://www.divx-digest.com) and the Ogg directshow implementation (www.everwicked.com and http://www.doom9.org have it). That’s ALL I have installed on this machine of Video codecs, and Media Player Classic (http://vobsub.edensrising.com/ – think WMP 6.4 on crack) plays pretty much anything I can throw at it apart from QuickTime (and it can hardly be blamed for its inability to do so).
And BTW, last time i tried MPlayer (that was a long time ago) it *just worked*. Played ANYTHING I threw at it. No media player for Windows comes anywhere near that.
Every one has opinions, my dog has opinions, doesn’t mean that if I post them on the internet they are relevant.
What has Jaime ever added to the linux community that he can bitch so badly because he’s running into issues. Oh gee he maintains some screen savers… wow.
I have zero issues with running multimedia on linux, zero, zilch, not a problem… I have no problems with people theming.. I find one I like and Oh gee I don’t change it.
I really can’t believe that some netscape has been can cause so much furor.
I’m going to be very boring here.
It is the fault of the distribution. I have Xandros installed and it is designed for desktop use. My multimedia players were configured out of the box. You can also use windows media player if you want to via codeweavers. There is very little that joe average has to do.
I won’t even consider a distro these days, unless all these every day tasks are configured out of the box. Redhat 7.2 is old, and is designed for server use not for the desktop. Redhat doesn’t score well on multimedia configuration.
As for the GUI of the media players: I have to agree with the author.
I really can’t believe that some netscape has been can cause so much furor. ”
Lets remind him of the interfaces HE was responsible for creating. The little brat needs a new hobby. LOL
Hi,
J.Z.’s article is the kind of article that’s written by people who think
that linux is kind of windows desktop, no, imho, linux is about self-teaching. you have to read and understand things and this article is only about hate and not understanding. I will only respond to rants on mplayer as I use it.
1) He writes about that’s hard to find rpms that would install on rh7.2
well, I use debian and even I do know where to find rpms -> rpmfind.net
(or simple google query like “rpm mplayer” will spit a lot of links)
2) “rampant themeing” – hmm, i guess the guy never saw windows media player, _that’s_ what i call rampant themeing, useless bloat of stuff. oh, the theme doesn’t suit him, hmm what about getting some other skin? ah, from where? read the fine manual, from mplayerhq.hu.
3) the aspect thing, IIRC(!) when you resize windows m.p. it also doesn’t hold the aspect, or does it?
4) i’ve never had his 5_error_windows_per_sec_popping_problem_with cursor_positioned_on_left
5) ah, yeah the last think “fucking morons”, hmm, i guess he must have been thinking for a long time before writing it. now this gets me to a thought is he any better? 😉
However you may like it Eugenia, you should not be putting articles containing this level of profanity on this site. It reduces the professionality of news reported here. The articles should have been properly filtered, to say the least.
This is not /., you know.
…I have to agree with Eugenia, the man’s got a point or twelve.
J.Z.’s article is the kind of article that’s written by people who think that linux is kind of windows desktop
That is exactly the point. Now, how come so much people think that Linux is some kind of Windows desktop? Because they have heard from a lot of people that Linux was ready for the desktop (that means good for the home user), that if they switched to Linux it would be the end of their problems. Some may have told them that they would have to learn, but nobody explained what exactly they would have to learn.
Now, these are the typical responses when Joe User complains and says no, it isn’t what I imagined, no it isn’t ready at all for the desktop, dammit, this is a pile of shit (remember he is frustrated):
1) Shut up Joe User you moron. It is free.
2) If you don’t like it like this, it is free, you have the source, code.
3) Stick to Windows, that’s the best for you, moron.
4) Get a Mac (at best, a unix for dummies, at worst, an expensive pile of shit with a joke of an operating system).
It doesn’t matter if Mr. Zawinul was correct or not. He hit the nail: Linux may well be ready for my desktop, it is not yet ready for the desktop.
I usually don’t like to read profane, bashing articles. But, in the larger scheme of things, I do think this one made people sit up and take notice. Just look at the response. I also thought the article was very funny too, something that has not been mentioned much, if at all. It is a rant, but one that was capable of starting an electrical storm. In all these posts, even with the name calling, bashing and flaming, I have a better understanding of some of the difficulties of gnu/linux. I wouldn’t want to see shocker type articles like this all the time on OS News but, the fact is, you don’t often see ones like this. So, I think it’s good to have something like this once in a while that causes a flashpoint, assuming it does deal with real issues, which this one did.
To be honest, I’m running Mandrake 9… I snagged the DivX RPM for Xine from the PLF (Google for it, folks!).
Xine now plays everything I want it to
It has to be said, though, that aside from Apple’s included Quicktime player, Linux is the most well-covered out of the box for codecs.
I also did snag the openquicktime and windows media codec RPMs as well… It’s all done through Mandrake’s control center, and I’m quite happy.
Realistically, though, I would like to see all OS’s ship with all codecs to begin with. At least with Real releasing Helix, we should see that added into a standard Linux distro.
Mandrake are adding MPlayer by default in 9.1, btw.
I do appreciate the entire mrl:// thing for file opening in Xine, but once that is worked out, the thing just works, so I haven’t got too many problems.
Please, show me a Windows media player able to play Mpeg1/2/4/DivX/XviD/all Quicktime=<6/RealAudio=<9/RealVideo=<9/ViVo/Indeo etc., using a DVB/ PES card for TV-out, with IR remote…
You name it, MPlayer delivers… 😉
Even better, show me an encoder (for Windows), that converts for example ViVo to DivX/ RealVideo to Mpeg2/ ASF to Indeo.
MEnvoder does, I’d like to see a good GUI, though…
The mplayer engine is so powerfull, that power user can do everything they want with it.
But who the hell said that mplayer is ready for the desktop ?
So stop complaining about app X or app Y is “crap”.
I remember when window user reviewed some distro a few years ago.
They complained about the difficulty of the install process. Linux programmers heard them and make it better.
A few months later.
They complained about the poor office suite.
Linux programmers heard them and make it better.
Ans so on, for the browser (and mozilla comes), the desktop in general (and KDE3.1 is arriving), the font handling (and Xft2 is improving every day), etc etc.
Finally, no big surprises. A man who speak english as I speak turkish reviewed beta software (gstreamer will be officially integrated in Gnome 2.2 which is not released for the moment), multimedia engine (this is the way I describe the mplayer project), etc etc.
As a mid class debian user (I can tell the same for gentoo or mandrake user), I just type
apt-get install mplayer (replace with emerge mplayer or urpmi mplayer)
So, who cannot do that ?
Did anyone but me even bother to check out the rest of the guy’s site?
Here’s what the link to that text reads as:
“Linux Video – Another rant about the pathetic state of Linux usability, 2002.”
Now from looking around the site I think it’s very obvious that the guy uses writing as some form of catharsis, or relaxation, or simply to get his thoughts out of his head and onto the screen where he can see them.
He specifically states it to be a rant, so in my book he can use whatever level of profanity, or accuracy he sees fit to use. Why? Because it’s a rant, that’s why. The problem here is:
a) The article was put on OSNews out of context. If it was put up as a rant and not an editorial then I’m sure it would have garnered less posts because we’ve all seen rants before and most of us have learned to ignore large parts of what they say.
b) Certain members of the Linux community are so thin skinned that they can’t bear to see any criticism of their OS, no matter how slight, to exist without flaming it (That isn’t getting at those that actually offered constructive means of solving the problem). Criticism is a GOOD thing if it’s constructive (Admittedly you have to look through this “rant” kinda hard to find the constructive criticism, but it’s there). Constructive criticism HELPS developer’s identify problems and weaknesses within their software. 10 happy penguins refusing to criticise are not worth the 1 miserable penguin to the developer when fixing problems. If the OSS community insists on treating its users as beta testers then criticism is not only justified, it is in fact a requirement for the software to become better for the users.