With a new Fedora-14 release on the web, I thought now would be a good time to watch the Fedora forum a bit closer. Fedora is a Linux distribution that I like, and I find at such times as this one can learn a lot by monitoring the struggles that other’s go through, and typically on the occasion of a new release is when such struggles are in higher abundance.
I noted reference to a Fedora community member’s package called ‘autoten’. Its an interesting concept, where it provides a very limited, and specific but very user friendly way to update/install Codecs (and some specific applications) for Fedora users. I was surprised to see this, as typically this is more of what one would expect in Ubuntu. Still, its an interesting concept as it takes away some of the pain for new users (at the expense that they don’t learn much about installing software).
… which made me wonder, … would such a GUI or even Script Front end be useful to have with openSUSE? Clearly this is NOT a GUI package that Novell / SuSE-GmbH could provide, but a community user possibly could provide such. I suspect with the command line zypper (and also rpm commands) hidden behind a GUI, this could be easily done for openSUSE.
The question that needs to be asked, I suspect, is such a tool worth while to have an openSUSE version ? Would we be ‘pampering’ users too much with such a front end?
Agree with those two points, but also considering this
Still, its an interesting concept as it takes away some of the pain for new users (at the expense that they don’t learn much about installing software).
the cost of “not learning” can be viewed as a big negative, and may drift away from openSUSE’s latest “strategy”. Question is, do those matter here?
Messy ? How so ? (I confess I have not tried it yet).
I also stay clear of the one clicks, and I suspect I would also stay clear of “autoten”. But I think the concept is to put in one place all the most common multimedia installation updates.
It would be like having a separate web page for each openSUSE version, with one-click-install links (all on the same page) to various openSUSE community multimedia:
packman libxine1
packman mplayer
packman vlc
packman k3b
packman w32codec-all
vlc libdvdcss (with a big “Danger Will Robinson - Do not leave videolan repository enabled after installing libdvdcss” )
packman ffmpeg
… etc …
Now that would NOT appeal to me, but I suspect there are users who would really like such a page.
Ubuntu was the distro that came to my mind about pampering, hence seeing autoten for Fedora was a suprise. I have not tried Mint for a long time after the extremely disappointing experience I had last time I looked.
I confess I’m a pretty solid openSUSE user and not likely to move anywhere else (although I do like Fedora).
I think this would be a good thing because most people when they start out with Linux they want to have thier music and movies play. They are thinking that if Linux is an OS then it shold be some what like Windows and play the music and movies out of the box. These people dont think about how much MS is paying Hollywood for the rights to have the codes so they can play the music and movies.
But now on the ohter hand I think that all OS’s should be able to play music and movies. This is how the big companies stick to the little guys by paying to have the codes and making the little guys suffer. The big companies dont want the codes released because they wil not be making the big money for thier OS’s, they pay 10 cents per code and charge $10 to the costomer.
But having one place for a person to be able to install the codecs would be nice and I think it would bring more people to Linux where they could see the light. The Dark side has control of them. Where is Luke Skywalker when you need him?
@oldcpu
Messy: Because in the times I have used it, and that’s more than once. It threw errors back at me. IIRC about repo keys missing.
I confess I’m not a Fedora boffin. But just try it from a default install. I ended up using YUM in the terminal and the package manager that blinks at you about updates, because it kept having a fit about the repo keys.
YUM however seemed to work better and eventually everything fell in to place.
When I do 14 soon - I’ll pay more attention.
But when I did the multi media manually and with autoten, everything worked great.
I installed all the stuff I needed on my Test machine by the seat of my pants in YAST.
I used the one click for 11.3 on this machine. I keep it all updated manually.
I kind of followed the Multimedia howto off the forum on my old 11.1 instal.
I know mileage may very and I generally know what I need to play the media I need access too. I would say access to that media is a good 50% of what I need my computer for. Thank goodness for packman.
I assume that why everyone is saying that fedora is bleeding edge.
Would that not trickle down to other distros too? I like the concept since it makes it somewhat easier to navigate to the codec hell.
It’s in packman now. It was installed as a dependency in one of the last updates I did, can’t remember exactly what. After that I removed the vlc repository from my repo list (it was disabled anyway).
The VLC repo is not needed, but libdvdcss is.
libdvdcss can be acquired from the VLC repo but we no longer recommend that as the source for libdvdcss
see the 11.3 guide Multi-media and Restricted Format Installation Guide
from my fedora days ( fedora 4 to 11) i got so used to doing it manually
while refering to Mjm’s page
– media players – Personal Fedora 13 Installation Guide
that Dangermouses script was never needed and it was “auto-eight” then Auto-nine" and the time
i do steer NEW fedora users to it . it can make life easier for them
that when i installed suse 11.3 i had a very good background in installing them
also i used to build mplayer from source so…
i never liked the suse “one click” install , old habits die hard .
the “one click” dose NOT teach some one on just HOW to install then . It only teaches them to “point and click” - the Microsoft way. .
the “one click” dose NOT teach some one on just HOW to install then . It only teaches them to “point and click” - the Microsoft way.
Agree strongly with that. It also asks the user to make a decision about keeping or deleting repo(s), and again to confirm actions (shifting responsibility). That requires the (new) user to either know something about repo management, or “feel lucky”.
Well that is true to a degree.
Yes, it is good if you know something about the system you operating and learn a finger of how the system works. But ‘the microsoft way’ is not bad per se. In the end you are a user and you want to get things done and not thinking of how the system works. You use a computer not to know the computer, but rather to finish a document or edit a picture or well your choice.
This is especially true for beginners or people that transition to a new system. If you want to know more, you still can learn it but forcing should be not the way.
Well, i know that Linux is not in competetion with any other OS on the market, but still if the focus is on the end user and the ease the use of the OS it will help a lot.
Not dismissing the idea that it is helpful and useful to have knowledge about things you operate, but not everyone know how a car works either.
In that regard, i think this is a great idea and will help to switch everyday people to linux.
I totally agree to this. Beginners are not all coming from windows and as yester64 said, the Microsoft ways are not all that bad. Don’t forget that the point and click way of Microsoft is certainly inspired by the Apple way…
Anyway, I do think that a lot of beginners want a system that works out of the box. So, we can provide them easy tools to install/configure such things as codecs, etc. It doesn’t teach them how to do the installation, but some beginners doesn’t want to learn such things, they want their system working, that’s all. Moereover, the users will always have the choice of doing it manually or could use an easy install/config tool.
Even me, there is some times I would like to have such a tool because I am tired of doing things manually after each upgrade.
wow . My own point of view and preference got things string .
it is not good OR bad !
some like a "point and click"approach some do not .
the VERY NICE thing is ** That there IS A CHOICE**
