multimedia software

Matthew East wrote:
> On Sun, 2005-11-20 at 17:20 +0800, John wrote:
> 
>>Marius Bock wrote:
>>
>>>Ubuntu and for that mattwe any other Linux distribution are not allowed to
>>>redistribute Sun Java so what you asking is not an option.
>>
>>I've not checked the licence recently, so I don't know what the specific 
>>objections you have. Sun has always agreed to folk distributing jre with 
>>their Java apps.
>>
>>SuSE does have jre included (but called java).
>>
>>Even if Ubuntu can't see its way clear to include Java, then how about a 
>>package to download it and set it up?
> 
> 
> I am a bit of a multimedia noob, but it seems to me that this is what
> the java-package[1] program does. I believe you have to download the
> tarball yourself.
> 
> Is this a big issue? I am pretty sure installing java is relatively easy
> for anyone able to follow instructions
> (http://help.ubuntu.com/starterguide/C/faqguide-all.html#sect-java )


It's a huge issue. Start with the perfectly-reasonable assumption that 
your user doesn't know about gnome-terminal, konsole or bash prompts.

Most computer users I know are like this. OTOH they could probably find 
"install java" on a menu and click it. Yhey might be able to choose 
correctly between "install just for me" and "install for everyone."

OTOH, the installer _could_ go to 
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/cgi/whereisjava to discover the latest, 
whereisjava could check that one could be found at java.sun.com and 
alert Ununtu if it's not (and apologise to the user), redirect the 
installer to the correct location if it's found.