[CS-FSLUG] Blog: Forgot Linux?

[Nathan T.]

This is something from my blog, I think its important but it won't
reach my intended audience there. I was hoping if I made enough noise
maybe someone who has the ability to make a difference in the present
would read it; however, if I were simply to e-mail it to Micheal
Robertson, Guael Duval, or Joseph Cheek I probably wouldn't get far.
I'm hoping that its good enough to get mention on other sites as well
in order to let the people in charge of decision making behind all the
desktop distributions know what I think has become a very important
and neglected issue with modern distributions.

--

Today I decided I was tired of running an only half functional release
of Ark Linux, so I tried to repartition my hard drive to fit a second
distribution in there along side Ark and Windows. Although the Windows
partition was untouched, I did have to remove the Grub boot loader
which would no longer work with the former Ark Linux partition gone.
After failing clear the master boot record with the Windows XP CD, I
decided to find an old Windows 98 boot disk instead to do the job.

After cleaning the master boot record, I managed to get Windows XP to
boot up by default without any problems; however, when it happened I
found out that the Windows XP CD I had used to attempt to restore the
MBR had also restored Windows XP to a factory installed state. I did
not know it at the time but the rescue option on the CD apprently
re-installed most of the system files, I was left for over an hour
updating Windows again and reinstalling the USB drivers which I needed
for my mouse to work.

With that problem resolved, I was faced with the decision of which
distribution to use, and that is when I was struck with a major
realization: I wanted to have good multimedia support as well as good
encrypted DVD playback support installed straight out of the box, but
no distribution that I know of offers that.

I have not yet re-installed any Linux distribution at all, I am faced
with a very undesirable task of installing a distribution and then
spending half a day seeking out the necesary software to get the
multimedia and hardware support I want. When I think about it, many
expensive distributions don't include good multimedia support at all,
why pay for a distribution that won't play movie DVDs as well as many
common video formats used on the Internet?

I can only hope that soon some distributors will catch on, and figure
out that they need to make some serious changes to the software they
bundle. Its obvious that most of them still only care about making a
workstation operating system since some of the most polished software
is the office suite and development tools and the least polished
software is the multimedia software and games. I don't think anyone is
going to break that cycle any time soon unfortunately.

I hate to make Windows sound better, but as far as getting multimedia
support goes all you have to do is download one of the many popular
media players such as Quicktime or RealOne Player and then all thats
left is encrypted DVD playback support which is handled by the
software that comes bundled with your DVD drive. In Linux I have to
hunt around for an hour or more to get this, and then 6 months down
the road when a new release comes out it all starts over again because
I want to, or sometimes need to keep my software up to date.

I don't know why I should have to go to the trouble of looking around
the Internet for an hour or more every 6 months just to get sub-par
multimedia support compared to what Windows has, commercial Linux
distribution certainly cost enough that multimedia support should be
much better. One of the biggest factors that is preventing widescale
adoption of Linux in the desktop market in my opinion is this poor
multimedia support since currently most home users have a computer for
just that: multimedia and games. Work and Internet are important too,
but they are already well taken care of on Linux.

Some distributions like Linspire and Lycoris do make a point of
targeting the desktop market and that's commendable, but their
distributions are missing some important software which workstation
ones have, software which is still essential to a large number of home
users, myself included.

I do not like some of the business models for home desktop
distributions, such as having an online software gallery which one has
to pay for. I do not always have Internet access and there is no
guarantee that I will in the future, I also do not want to have to
send a check in the mail every month or every few months since that
inconveniences me more than just walking to a store and picking up the
software I want. I don't mind paying for the distribution itself, I
also don't mind paying for the software if I get it in a tangible form
that I can either burn to CD or get on CD; however, when it comes to
the current subscription services I've seen, I am far out of the
comfort zone I developed with the traditional method of purchasing a
boxed product at a store and having it work with several future
versions of the operating system its for.

I don't know if this is the end of Linux for me, the Free philosophy
has helped me by putting some quality software within my grasp as I've
needed it; however I don't have the energy or the time to spend hours
of work on my own home computer trying to get some very basic
essentials installed and working. That doesn't mean I won't get into a
tech job, if I were payed and had some better training that would be
an entirely different story but sometimes it seems like I'm a slave to
my computer rather than the other way around and Windows works well
enough that I've not been tempted to reinstall Linux for a while. Free
software has made Windows more usable for me, I have MinGW and Dev-C++
for programming, I have OpenOffice.org for homework and I have The
Gimp along with many more open source and freeware programs so I am
failing to see why I should go out of my way to continue using Linux
right now.

I hope that within the next three years there will be many improvement
in "desktop Linux" as some people call the mass of distribution
targeted at home users. Currently it is complete enough to satisfy
many people with enough time on their hands to install all the extras
they need; however, I am no longer one of those people.

Some distributions have been comming closer to becomming a good
desktop system, Lycoris comes to mind. While many people critisize
Lycoris for being a lot like Windows; one really needs to take the
time to look past the visual theme and realize how simple the
distribution really is to use. There is a centralized control panel,
software installation is a simple as finding what you want in the iris
software gallery, and I've never had to do any manual configuration
with that distribution. Lycoris is still far from perfect in my
opinion though, as far as I can tell its multimedia support is no
better than its competitors, one of the first and most necessary steps
for Lycoris and Lindows to take would be adding in support for playing
back encrypted DVD; however since I've only used their evaluation
versions so far I do not know how much is different in an actual
purchased copy.

http://celerate.blogspot.com/2005/03/forgot-linux.html