everyday multimedia not supported in Ubuntu (Re: 3 days from the release, 3 machines, a few issues.

[Kenton Brede]

On Thu, Apr 07, 2005 at 09:14:32AM -0400, Ed Sutherland (digital at twcny.rr.com) wrote:
> My concept of a Linux or Ubuntu wizard would not necessarily concentrate 
> on automating an illegal process or a procedure violating a 
> distribution's rules of practice. Rather, the wizards would automate 
> commonly-asked procedures: setting up multimedia support, having your 
> browser display a certain filetype or adding your Windows partition to 
> the desktop (instead of instructions to apt this file or add that 
> repository or search for this library.) If a process bumped up against a 
> legality or internal ethics question, the user would be notified and she 
> would then make the choice.
> 
> I know this level of automation goes counter the long-standing Linux 
> tradition of seeking, searching and gaining technical expertise, but 
> Linux needs to evolve along with the rest of the computing world. As 
> computers pass the point where they are only operated by the technical 
> elite and 'commoners' are the majority, such flexibility (as is seen 
> with much of Ubuntu) needs to be adopted by every Linux distribution 
> which desires to go beyond the realm of hobbyist niche.

I think there is something to what you are saying here.

Recently there was a story on slashdot about our hacker elite switching
to Macs for the benefits of a unix system and out of the box
productivity.  I think Linux distros should take note of this.

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/29/1818256&tid=156&tid=3&tid=218

Kent

-- 
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
  - Martin Luther King Jr.