non-free should just work

[Ross D]

I see the thing limiting Ubuntu the most is the difficulty with
getting non-free things working (java, flash, nvidida drivers, codecs
for realplayer, etc.)  I've been a newbie using Ubuntu for a month
now, constantly fighting with this and still only about 1/2
successful.  Distrowatch.com illustrated exactly what I was feeling
with their descriptionof MEPIS:

"What made MEPIS Linux successful? Unlike most of the major Linux
distributions, MEPIS comes with many non-free, but highly useful
applications, all pre-configured and ready to use, out of the box.
These include the NVIDIA accelerated driver, Macromedia Flash plugin,
Java, various multimedia codecs for playing popular audio and video
files and other applications. With MEPIS Linux, there is no need to
hunt for Java Runtime Environment, then search for the documentation
to find out how to enable Java support in your browsers - it is all
available right after installation. This simple idea proved
tremendously popular, not only with users new to Linux, but also with
the more experienced ones who found it convenient not having to spend
hours of post-install configuration and tweaking just to set up a
complete working desktop."

As a former mandrake user, the "just worked" concept applied for
non-free software there as well.  I think it's crucial for Ubuntu's
survival to deal with this in some fashion, these are some of the main
reasons more people don't switch over to linux.  It can be too
frustrating to get all of these little things working right.