a linux ready for simple users ? (Re: issues with warty final

[Ben Roe]

>>and it would requires hours of troubleshooting
>>to make these movies work on their computer.
>>    
>>
>The restricted formats link shows how to add the respository
>containing w32codecs which removes most/all video/audio playback
>issues, use totem-xine over totem-gstreamer too:)
>totem should be setup to play the video files on double-click.
>Can't take that long to install or just get the w32codecs package then
>dplg -i <packagename> on the computers you're setting up.
>
><snip>
>
>  
>
Yes, but actually getting those packages to reliably work is hard. On my 
system using totem-xine I had to start every movie twice: the first 
time, all I would get is a blue video screen and the audio; the second 
time I ran the file I would get the movie output too. In the end I gave 
up and installed Mplayer from source, which works fine. Not something a 
newbie would want to have to do, though.

Another multimedia problem I'm having is that Rhythmbox locks up on me 
constantly (about every ten songs or so). I've been using ALSA output 
with hardware mixing of sound streams (I think) and it just doesn't seem 
to work right. It would be fantastic if Hoary came fully ALSA/dmix 
configured so that the user doesn't have to worry about /dev/dsp being 
locked or whether esd is working.

Ben