Discussion on:

Multimedia: A Linux Achilles' heel

It is amazing to me how "diverse" the experience of the user is, depending on a distro. I'm using Arch, and I have none of the problems you had. Right now, without any effort, banshee and flash coexist and can play together, not that I get why you would listen to two audio sources at once without a very special "need". I tried it, just to see if I had a similar problem after reading your post. Things run good, period.

I you ask me, that is where Linux has a problem. Try one distro, get one set of problems, and your choice is either to blame "Linux" entirely, or understand that it's the distros specific quirks. Change distro, and you get something else to fiddle with. (I don't fiddle much with Arch. Set it up a year ago, never fooled with anything since then.)

For someone just trying Linux (any distro), without much knowledge, that person will be wondering why one bug is here, but another bug is there... assuming they'll try another distro at all.

That's where Windows is "better". If something sucks, it sucks everywhere and users will just "accept" the problem as "the way it is". The uniform experience makes users feel less confused, and like they're not getting screwed, even when it's a negetive experience. Also, what is good on Windows is good all around. Never neglect the effect of uniformity on user perception.

But then, if distros all offered a unified experience, there wouldn't be so many distros (maybe just one), so I might be wrong here. But then, look at BSDs, there aren't that many between them, and they resemble each other more than linux distros do. Maybe there's something to be said about that.

I'll just end this by saying I really appreciate Arch for it's simplicity and elegance (understood as the Arch Way. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way ).

Get rid of peoples stupid assumption that every distro is the same.

It reminds me of all those support calls I get that say something like "Microsoft isn't working".

Would you change the name to a symbol (like, maybe - ^ - or ~ [1]) and call it "The Kernel Formerly Known As Linux?"

Seriously, going from a bazillion flavours of Linux to a bazillion strangely named "Operating Systems" I don't really think would change the perspective all that much. This is, of course, IMHO, and I could be "full of condensed milk" as my father-in-law used to say.

Laterz!

[1] Update: It seems unicode characters copied from Linux pastes OK into a Win7 Virtual Machine but won't display in the post - must be filtered. Let's try "normal" ones...Drat! Even the 8th bit is filtered! So much for {Alt}+{NumPad}, altho it still works in Win7!

Have you tried that new Kernel32 system? Its up to version 6.1.

"Linux" is a kernel. There is no "Linux" operating system, period. There's a Debian, an Ubuntu, a Fedora, a Gentoo, an Arch, a Bodhi, a Mint, a PCLinuxOS, a MEPIS, a SUSE (I think that's how they're capitalizing it these days), a CentOS, a Slackware, an Android . . . a FreeBSD, a Plan9, a Haiku, an OpenBSD, an MS Windows 7, an MS Windows XP, an Apple MacOS X, a Solaris, an HP-UX, and a metric crapton of other OSes. Those before the ellipsis points happen to use variations on a Linux kernel, but they are absolutely not "the Linux OS". Calling them all "the Linux OS", collectively, is like calling all the languages of India "the Indian language". It's absurd. Grab two speakers of randomly selected languages of India and put them in a room together, and they very well might be mutually unintelligible.

The answer to the question "But what would you call it then?" is "Nothing. There is no 'it'."

There is no spoon. It's a trick your mind and the propagandists are playing on you. Stop lying to yourself.

Now . . . there is a Linux community, on the other hand. It's really that community that is creating the problems Jack observes with "Linux". For instance, PulseAudio didn't need to be invented, and it sure as heck didn't need to be something that fits into the existing sound "architecture" of many Linux-based systems ("architecture" having scare quotes because the sound "architecture" is kinda like the "architecture" of a bunch of barnacles growing several layers deep on a ship that hasn't moved in eight years -- including the fact that this "architecture" isn't the same on any two boats, or on any two operating systems that happen to use a Linux kernel). There is a deep sickness in the Linux community that leads to desperately awful inconsistencies even within a single distribution's configuration, rapid and wholly unnecessary turnover in system components, contradictory paths forward in UI design, tremendous unnecessary complexity, and so on. The results are not just problems with multimedia support, as Jack would have it.

(One of the first three things the Linux community should do if it wants to solve this problem is stop taking whatever misguided loons like Lennart Poettering and the GNU community say about software development as if advice from God's lips. One of the top ten is to stop thinking of Linux as an OS.)

"The average user doesn't want to have to spend time figuring out why their mic or audio player doesn't work - they just want it to work out of the box. And those are the users the Linux community MUST be targeting. It's time to stop preaching to the choir and to the masses. But there's no way the masses will hear the sermon if their audio players aren't working."

It just brings a tear to my eye, Jack... It is like my words, coming out of your fingers. I'm sure you're going to take a beating for this post, but I've never agreed more with you. These are the little deal-breakers that send *average* people running to OS X and Windows.

QUOTE: It is like my words, coming out of your fingers.

. . . except that Jack is criticizing an objective, measurable problem, rather than just waving his hands.

I'm ALMOST suspicious someone is putting you up to following me from thread to thread to troll me, because I'm the paranoid sort.

does that mean you are still paranoid?
But yes, I've detected a bit of anger in Apotheon's posts today.
Tis ok, we all have bad days. However, I do agree with him on
the idea to stop calling "it" Linux!

What -- are you a psychologist now?

I'm not angry. I just dislike fatuous nonsense.

just a lowly pharmacist. Although I have had some training
in human behavior, I'm not licensed to administer pyschiatric
counseling.

Psychiatric help - 5c

The doctor is in!

Someone thinks I'm angry. How many times do I need to do a Hail Mary for that?

(Am I doing it wrong?)

but I'm switching your prescription to Bloody Marys, those Hail Marys aren't going to cut it

We could all learn to just get along...

My favorite in-flight beverage.

I've never actually had a Bloody Mary.

I much prefer Caesers myself, and I've been told by more than a few that my recipe is "gosh darned delish..." I'd be happy to have y'all over for a few, but I'll warn ya - I live on the far, far side of BFE... but if you fly, I'll buy!

I don't think I'm going to be downing any cocktails that contain clam broth.

made with habanero juice?
Maybe Bloody Mary of the Flaming Heart

I'd call that "a lot tastier than a Bloody Mary made with Tobasco or horseradish", considering habanero actually has a decent flavor.

I might also call it something like "Burning Mary", or "Mary on the Stake", or maybe a "Burning Mary Magdalene" just for fun.

edit: . . . or maybe Martyr Mary.

I get these newsletter things. I follow some of the interesting-looking headlines to find things like Jack Wallen articles. I check out the comments, and you're there, trying to pretend that the world is going to end if people keep using Linux. I guess the editors at TR must be manipulating me into "following" you.

But hey, that's just Linux distros being more like Windows, just to make crossover users comfortable.

Recently I have decided to make the change to linux. The recent Intellectual Property Rights (IPR going further) has pissed me off, to put it bluntly and simply. Soon Apple will be able to sue us for the process in which we use our bathrooms. While I know that statement is ridiculous, I believe Apple vs. Everyone to be just as ridiculous.

I have been sticking with MS for three reasons, Office (Now it's in the cloud so it's out of the equation), Gaming (I am almost done with gaming, the industry has just lost it's innovation. Everyone copies everyone else, but at least they aren't suing for IPR) and lastly Multimedia (Silverlight and Bluray access specifically, though now Flash is added to the mix.)

Up until yesterday, Flash wasn't a problem for me. I was able to watch the movies and shows I subscribed to on Amazon without issue. Now, through Chrome and Firefox both the last two episodes of Fringe aren't viewable. Yes I can use a VM with windows and to be sure, I have one set up, but is that really moving on from MS? Sadly, No.

One thing of which I'd like to make note, the very thing that weakens Linux distros in the home, strengthens it for corporate desktop use.

I cancelled all my Amazon subscriptions last night, and I'll cancel anything else that stops supporting linux abruptly as well. Not because I am worried about a place for Linux in my life, but because I am cutting the fat and cancer our of my economic life. I cut cable/satellite from my life, I can cut in other areas too.

There are three audio standards in Linux. These are OSS, Alsa and Pulse audio. different applications use the different standards. None of the standards supports the other two very well. Then there are issues of attaching bluetooth audio devices.

Linux is making gains in leaps and bounds in the embedded world. If the Linux community every wants to make Linux a credible desktop alternative, simple things like standardization of the application audio interface need to be handled.

Ian

Actually, PulseAudio is a sound server while ALSA and OSS are sound API frameworks. PulseAudio will not work without ALSA or OSS (one or the other). An alternative to PulseAudio would be something like ESD (Enlightened Sound Daemon), though technically it is possible to run two sound servers at the same time.

Pulse audio is a layer that sits on top of ALSA. as does jack (for pro-audio uses)
so there are the lowest layer (i.e. drivers)
OSS Free (deprecated and not well supported anymore)
OSS commercial - honestly I don't know how that's going anymore
ALSA (advanced linux sound architecture) .. fairly mature and works well
FFADO (Firewire) - limited to a certain number of devices.. but works well for those claimed as supported

There are multiple potential layers on top of these 3
PulseAudio - it's crap get rid of it for normal use plain old ALSA works fine these days
JACK Audio Connection Kit - low latency audio server, awesome interface for routing audio from one software to the other similar to ASIO and rewire combined on Windows - for pro-audio linux has a lot going for it these days (see ardour.org)
GStreamer - I don't know much about it .. but I believe it's like Pulse- avoid where possible.

For general purpose these days apps ALSA is fine (without Pulse audio)..

Whereas PulseAudio is a sound server, GStreamer is a multimedia framework.

PulseAudio runs all the time if it is set up to be used in your preferred environment. It intercepts all requests to output to the audio framework (usually ALSA) and decides what to do with them. In theory a sound server allows greater flexibility for mixing multiple audio streams (the old OSS framework would not mix multiple sources at all without a sound server). (I figure you know this, but the explanation may help someone else who's reading.)

Gstreamer, on the other hand, doesn't run at all unless you use a program that depends on it, or is set to output to it. Gstreamer basically can function as the engine for any number of multimedia programs. That is, it is software that converts files or data streams to sound and/or video. Competition for Gstreamer would be programs like Xine, MPlayer, and VLC. For instance, Totem can be run using either the Xine engine or the GStreamer engine. The difference between GStreamer and other multimedia engines is that, while competing engines generally have an associated piece of user interface software (like Xine-ui, GMPlayer, or the regular VLC program; mplayer has a built in command line interface as well), GStreamer only provides the engine.

It's funny . . . as I understand things, FreeBSD just enhanced its OSS so that you can get multiple channel sound management. It seems like nobody in Linux-land is willing to read enough source code to learn how to contribute to existing software, so the usual practice is to invent something from scratch that has a couple extra features, more bugs (because they haven't been squashed over time), unproven architectures, and some big holes in the feature set provided by the more established option. Then, of course, because people complain about features lacking in the new toy, the developers might make some changes so it can work (in a rickety, soldered-on way) in concert with the old system rather than as a replacement, increasing the complexity of the whole system.

Thus, we now have a Linux sound architecture that, to handle all popular applications, needs ALSA, OSS (or an OSS compatibility layer, which introduces some of the same problems), PulseAudio, ESD, and half a dozen other things tied together in a rat's nest of redundancy, overlap, and kludgey glue code.

Well, it's arguable that ALSA was unnecessary. There are still some people who argue that the latest OSS would only need a little work plus a lot of open drivers added to be a better choice than ALSA. I don't know that I'd call ALSA's OSS compatibility exactly a 'layer,' and it doesn't seem to cause too many extra problems above and beyond the issues ALSA itself has.

However, a sound server is not really competition for ALSA or OSS. Windows has a sound server (and not a terribly good one) along with its sound driver API framework. ESD and PulseAudio are generally not used together (though it is possible to do so). It's basically like any other thing in the open source world. At most levels there are competing projects available to perform the same function. That doesn't mean that there are generally more layers of software running at the same time on a Linux system than on a closed system.

Generally, on a Linux system that is used in a similar fashion to a Windows system you will find equivalent layers of functionality. Windows has a sound driver API framework, and Linux has ALSA or OSS, not both at the same time (though ALSA offers an OSS compatibility module that you can load to catch OSS calls, mostly for legacy software). Then Windows has the Windows Sound Server, and on Linux you have the option of running PulseAudio (common these days) or ESD (usually called EsounD now) or another sound server. So we really have two basic layers to the sound system on either operating system.

Of course it's possible with either Linux or Windows to dispense with the sound server. It's also possible to add a low latency sound server like JACK with or without the basic sound server on either system. Most people will only do things like these if they have a particular need though.

Edit: I'd like to add that ALSA was invented because of some basic missing functionality in OSS, which was very much controlled by 4Front Technologies. Since that time 4Front has adjusted the license to OSS to make it easier to develop for, though they still offer quite a number of extra drivers in the closed source version of the software.

QUOTE: a sound server is not really competition for ALSA or OSS

I'm not sure whether you think I said it was, but just in case: I didn't. It's competition for other sound servers, though, which is why I mentioned ESD (and I would have mentioned Jack, too, but it slipped my mind).

Ultimately, the way the Linux developer community has in effect chosen to pursue continuing development has come to resemble a game of darts more than a thoughtful pursuit of solid development goals. In many cases, some choices were made that were very smart in isolation, but embedded within the culture of Linux development at large they ended up getting incorporated into what looks like a plate of spaghetti rather than a software architecture:

http://blogs.adobe.com/penguinswf/files/penguinswf/linuxaudio.png

The fact that some hotheaded self-important so-and-so decided to go off on a wild-hair expedition to produce exactly the *wrong* thing for improving the overall Linux sound architecture -- yet another component bolted into the middle of the already growing tangle of backed up plumbing rather than doing some thoughtful work on how to better tie together what is already there and organize things so needed functionality can be included in some kind of plan -- is bad enough. What's worse is that even when he (Lennart Poettering) was telling people what he had written was not production-ready, the whole community was scurrying around racing to be among the first distributions to incorporate PulseAudio into their systems. It's really just endemic to the culture now, from what I've seen. I suspect the seeds of this started with the way the BSD Unix and Linux paths began, relative to each other, where the people working on what would ultimately lead to current BSD Unix systems were trying to ensure they had a good architecture in place before throwing it to the wolves, while Linus Torvalds basically just tossed code into the wind to see what would happen. The people tired of waiting for BSD Unix on x86 jumped onto the Linux kernel and started bolting together Frankenlinux creatures, while the people who really wanted more stability and actual design either stuck with the wait for BSD Unix or eventually moved back toward it, at least in some cases.

As a result, after a couple decades of gestation, we are where we are now: Linux-based systems tend to look more "advanced", but be a lot more slapdash and disorganized in practice. That's not to say there isn't good work being done in the Linux world, of course. There are a lot of smart people doing some interesting things there. The user-facing culture (and a lot of the forefront of the developer culture as well), though, is getting to the point where compatibility with things that are already known to work well, portability of design, user-controlled system behavior, well-tested principles of architecture, and transparent organization of system operation are being explicitly and publicly denounced by the up-and-coming generation of the Linux community.

Compared to countless hours wasted debugging configuration oddities of Linux sound subsystems over the last decade, it took me about ten minutes to get sound doing everything I needed the first time I encountered it not doing what I wanted immediately after install on FreeBSD -- a fifteen second operation -- back in 2005, and since then that has only changed because of the fact that the configuration changes I made back then started being a part of the default setup.

It helps that DragonFly BSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and smaller BSD Unix projects actually share code back and forth much more freely, productively, and regularly than any two Linux distributions I've ever seen, despite the fact that these BSD Unix projects recognize each other as separate OS projects while the Linux community seems to regard "Linux" with its hundreds of different OSes as a single operating system just because they all base things off the work of the Linux kernel project.

On the plus side, I'd still much rather use a Linux distribution (as long as I get to pick it, at least) over MS Windows or MacOS X.

That chart is rather misleading. OpenAL, Allegro, GStreamer, libao, SDL, PortAudio, and ClanLib are not part of the Linux sound stack. GStreamer is a program that produces sound (like any other) and the rest of those programs are various efforts to create a cross-platform standard sound library or something like it (GStreamer can be used as something like this too, if you want).

We're left with JACK, PulseAudio, aRTs, NAS, ESD, FFADO, ALSA, and OSS. JACK, PulseAudio, aRTs, NAS, and ESD are all sound servers of a sort. However, aRTs is considered defunct (it's no longer in development). JACK is a special purpose sound server available for several systems. Even PulseAudio, NAS, and ESD (now usually called EsounD) are all cross-platform. They can just as easily be used in BSD as in Linux.

The only things really Linux specific are FFADO and ALSA. If OSS were where it is today when ALSA was made, it might never have gotten made at all. FFADO is very specifically a driver API for Firewire sound cards and is again a special purpose software.

Do I think PulseAudio is a great project? Let's just say I have reservations. Why have so many distributions (including BSD systems) adopted it as a sound server? It probably has something to do with it trying to be the end-all and be-all of sound servers. It certainly has a lot of features. One thing I can say for it is that it sounds better than Windows Sound Server. I'm certainly not going to take the issues with PulseAudio and try to call out all Linux software development because of them.

Most of the reason that you see a lot more software starting out development on Linux rather than BSD is because Linux is incredibly more successful on the desktop than BSD. It's nothing to do with Linux vs. BSD. It's just the nature of open source software that a lot of people are free to develop anything they want. That means that you'll get a lot of "duplication of effort" and a lot of different projects. Once you get above the sound server level, most of this software is not operating system specific at all. It exists for Windows, Linux, OS X, and BSD systems. Even at the sound server level, this software is cross platform among different Unix or Unix-like operating systems, and PulseAudio and Jack are available for Windows.

They already have windows to play with.

Linux is fun because its never quite ready. You muck around with it, fix it, get bored and install a new distro. Its never going to be for the masses and its all the better for it.

If everyone used linux it would be full of DRM like any other OS.

One of the problems with the linux community is that they are not willing to address real issues. I build and or refurbish computers for people who cannot afford to buy one. I would love to be able to give them a OS that is free and they can use easiliy (as most are not very computer literate and do not have internet as they cannot afford even modem access let alone broadband) These people use their computers for writing, printing and multimedia (music and movies, as I try to provide them with a DVD player and there are plenty of DVD's available from public libraries). Maybe this isn't imporant to you but it certainly is to me and my friends.

Does Linux still have these issues? STILL? It's 2012 for god's sake. The web IS multimedia.

And Jack, you seem to have a new favourite distro every month. Therein lies the problem -- if you have to swap to a new OS every time you have an issue you'll spend your life simply installing and reinstalling. The investment in time simply isn't worth it.

nt

My friends bother me a lot less with windows than they do Linux OS distros and yes I do use both.

With Linux the questions I get are things like, 'What application do I need to do this or that?' With Windows, I get things like, 'My computer won't boot/log in,' 'My computer's running really slow,' or 'My sound quit working.'

Of course, to be fair, most of my relatives manage to keep Windows clean of malware and get along reasonably well with it. Also, more of them are using Windows than are using Linux.

The 'My sound quit working' issue is one of my favorites with Windows. Sometimes a sound card/chipset quits working for no apparent reason and just when you're sure it must be a hardware failure, you find out that if you re-install Windows it works fine again (or it works under a live Linux CD). I don't see this all the time, but I've seen it enough times to think it's one of those odd quirks in Windows. When it happens it seems like re-installation of the operating system is the only fix. Reinstalling the sound card doesn't help, although switching sound cards can. Of course, why should you have to replace a sound card that works fine?

Some of my relatives are more technically apt, so another issue I sometimes help them with is things that don't work after they re-install Windows. Usually, this issue is not being able to identify what driver to use for sound (or possibly something else) because they are unable to identify the sound chipset their computer is using. When that happens the easiest solution is often to boot into a Linux live CD and identify the sound card with lspci.

Windows never mucks up, slow down, to a point where only a reinstall will do.

A complete Windows system, with updates and usefull apps takes at least a few hours. I just did an install on a friends computer, and it took 1 hour 30, just for windows, drivers and updates, nevermind for the rest.

A complete distro install, with all apps and updates (if not a web install), is about 45 min at most. 35 mins is more common for me, and that is with Arch and its installer isn't fire and forget.

So I can install 2-3 Linux distros, complete with any apps I use, in the time it takes to do one naked Windows install.

So I don't know about you, but Windows is a bigger time investment for installation than Linux in general.

Of course, if you've ghosted your drive, it can be quicker to put Windows again. But, you still don't have updates, and if latent bugs where there in your image, you still got them. Where with Linux, a fresh install is a fresh install. And compared to a average distro install time, where does ghosting come in with updates?

On the other hand, audio in Linux can still be better than audio in Windows ever is.

The Windows Sound Server is not high fidelity, so music doesn't sound as good on a Windows machine unless you work around the issue by bypassing the sound server. Of course bypassing the sound server with your Windows setup adds similar complications to it that you sometimes face in Linux.

Another issue with Windows is that you can't set it up to prioritize sound events to prevent drops in playback or recording. There is no workaround for this other than having very powerful hardware so that it will rarely matter.

As quirky as sound setups in Linux can sometimes be, it offers options that make audio production on it more palatable than when using Windows.

Unfortunately, Linux users have to use hardware that has been created specifically to work under Windows. As a result, you end up with 14 people coming up with 14 different ways to get the hardware to work, and none of those ways is compatible with the other. Gain some ground over on the left, give up some ground over on the right. It's a constant tug of war, especially when it comes to getting hardware created specifically for one OS to work under a different one. It really SHOULDN'T be that difficult.

The whole process is made even more difficult by manufacturers of this hardware ONLY supporting (or creating) hardware drivers for Windows, leaving Linux users to "roll their own" drivers. As unfortunate as it is, Linux users may never fully unleash the true potential of their hardware components, thanks to the hardware manufacturers not releasing full specs on the hardware, nor revealing the "backdoor" tricks they've embedded into the hardware components to improve performance under Windows.

As a Linux user for the past 5+ years, I now carefully read reviews of hardware components before purchasing my hardware items. If there are good reviews showing that a piece of hardware works well under Linux, that item goes onto my list of hardware components I will consider buying in the future. Otherwise, that item -- and frequently that manufacturer -- go onto my "do not buy" list. When I purchase a hardware component that works well under Linux, I am also vigilant about posting a review of its performance with Linux. Most hardware reviews, unfortunately, are full of the "works well under Win7" or "works well under WinXP" drivel. Really? NSS! The vast majority of hardware IS created to work under Windows. Thanks, Mr. Reviewer Guy, for shedding some light on the fact that a piece of hardware that was DESIGNED TO WORK WITH WINDOWS actually works under Windows! The real feat is getting a piece of hardware designed specifically to work with one OS, working under a different one. More often than not, that endeavor ends up delivering the user down a dead end path.

Which brings us full circle to PulseAudio. While I'm aware of why it exists (trying to take a heap of Windows sound cards and make those interfaces easier to use under Linux), it fails miserably. IMHO, it unnecessarily complicates the whole process and hides the real control of the hardware from the end users. It almost makes you think that PulseAudio was thought up by the Gnome developers, who think that they need to insulate and "protect" the end user from actually being able to control the many aspects of their computer. Personally, I've not had one lick of problems from ALSA. It gives me direct access and control of the individual sound channels and functions of my sound card. I like it like that. Whenever possible, I try to eliminate the use of PulseAudio. I've yet to find it useful, and I wish the developers of it would redirect their energies somewhere else -- anywhere else but my sound or video card.

My problem with Linux and all other operating systems is the demand for passwords either bios or normal boot up. Frankly I am a person who does not use a password to boot up. But Microsoft altered my XP operating system from Home to Professional and now insists on a password. because of this I want to change to Linux but I cannot find a Lunyx form that does not require a password. I am fed up with some program writer telling me that I need a password when I boot up. I do not need a password either at home when I am the only user of my computer and at the shop where I volunteer to repair computers. I am experimenting with Linux (Fedora) and write the opening password on the machine so anyone can experiment with the machine. Does this give you any idea why I do not want or need a boot up password either in the bios or the opening operating system. Enough it enough, I know passwords are needed but not in booting up.

There are many ways to have auto-logins, no password needed. Most depend on which login manager and desktop you have (Say, GDM and gnome, or maybe Slim)

Many distros actually have graphical tools to allow you such a choice. Ubuntu even gives it as an option during the initial stages of the installation procedure.

But I found this article with google, since on my lunch time. I hope it applies to Fedora 16.

http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2010/11/12/how-to-enable-auto-login-and-create-a-guest-user-account-on-fedora-14/

Is a login dialog really your biggest problem with any OS? Holy crap. I don't even know what to say to that.

So he has no computing knowledge apparently.

-Edit
Never mind, he changes his profile, the legal/medical types are safe.

Some of us do know how to perform difficult tasks with a computer!
Besides, I've known several "System Administrators" that I wouldn't
have trusted with my old Amstrad PC10! What a waste of 512KB ram!
Hehe!

Well now I have to apologize to the legal medical people out there.

Hmmm..."non tech related" now...Should we explain WHY we use
passwords on such things as the BIOS (especially!), users, and
desktop settings?

I think, at this point, we can just point at the comment in question as proof that people who have no clue about anything computer related (with this person as a prime example) don't have any real problems with non-Microsoft OSes. Their only problem is a non-problem.

Try puppy linux

even though it is a bit old (from 2009) it still works well for me, from a
USB thumbdrive. However, you could always change the password if
you wanted to!

This will help you....
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Remove+User+password+XP

and you will be able to destroy much more simpler your installation

for example : http://www.andrehonsberg.com/article/linux-sudo-without-a-password-using-the-sudoers-file

Join Sudoers or Administrators TODAY, make your computer a RUIN by TOMORROW!

not enough info available to the developers. Hardware is the foundation of it all. Look at the (slow but sure) progress of nouveau with the cooperation of nvidia. But you may have a motherboard with nvidia and then broadcom wireless, and have a heck of a time getting the latter to work.

There's just too many possible combinations among manufacturers of various components that it's a near impossible task for the GNU/Linux system to be universally compatible, let alone keep up with changes to the technology.

It's a miracle GNU/Linux works as well as it does, actually. BTW here's a hint: for the most likelihood of full hardware compatibility an all-intel chip set is the way to go. (including video and wifi) You won't get the best, most gee-whiz performance but everything will Just Plain Work (tm) with most major distributions. (it'll work with the greatest variety of distros in fact)

In my experience, these sorts of problems tend to follow a specific kernel across the distributions that use it. Some distros might patch the problem, but usually the problem doesn't go away until a newer kernel is released, (with new modules, too, of course).

I'm using Fedora, and I have none of the problems you had.
For me one the most problematic question is video edition: there is no alternative in Linux for programs like Vegas or Premiere. Sure, there is plenty video editors for Linux but none of them comparable with Vegas or Premiere: very basic. Please don't misunderstanding my words: is not a critic for the people who develop video editors for Linux (it's a gigantic task!!). But why not work together to develop a better product?
Please forgive me my poor english.

Thanks Jack, well put.

Let's just change the conclusion slightly. It's not just average users who want things to work seamlessly out of the box. I have 25 years experience - am considered an expert - and am TIRED OF WASTING VALUABLE TIME.

Let's face it - if people can't design and code stuff that works - they should get out of the business. I want to go ballistic when I think of the millions of hours that are wasted (collectively) by people having to tinker with their systems to get them to work.

We the users, whether newbies or pros, need to make our point loud and clear - TIME IS PRECIOUS. After all, you can always make more money, but you can't buy time.

My years of desktop linux usage (Fedora, Gentoo, Ubuntu) showed that:

1) Sound support, especially PulseAudio (insert many many curses here) is flawed in linux. Sound is not something complicated nowadays - unlike some 15 years ago when one had to mess with IRQ's, midi settings, and using obscure helper applications provided by the manufacturer, today sound is pretty much a given. In linux it was always either it works from the start, or it takes days of screwing around to get it going. Fortunately, I found a wonderful replacement to PulseAudio, which actually just works, and I recommend it to anyone using sound in linux - it's OSS (Open Sound System). I am not sure what OSS was in the past, but the modern project (developer.opensound.com) although still in its "unstable" version for the past several years, worked marvelously for me all these years. There's almost no configuration. Pretty much install, and start using (oh, and remove PulseAudio before!!!!). When kernel changes on Gentoo, it automatically recompiles and relaunches the modules at startup. Multiple sound sources work great in unison, which is something that PulseAudio failed miserably with.
Other than that, there's a problem of different applications supporting different sound daemons, but hopefully there'd be a winning standard in the future, which most applications will support.

2) Webcam support is annoying, just like sound above. Many webcams have kernel support, but then you have to look for it and re-compile a custom kernel, which most users will not do.
Why not have a GUI wrapper which would attempt to find your webcam in the kernel modules support, and if available, compile the relevant module to get it going without user intervention.

3) Video card support is beyond annoying. We can often blame video card manufacturers for that, and support did improve with GUI's that generate xorg files over the years, but it's still a long way to go. Every time my kernel changes, I have to re-install ATI's modules. Multi monitor support with acceleration and all the good stuff is in its infancy.

4) I had great experiences with various multimedia players, and file support. I never tried to do anything crazy, but 99% of my DivX's, xvid's, dvd's, and other play just fine in VLC.

5) The flash plugin is the one thing that I have to kill every few days, or it hogs all of my memory.
It's not linux's fault though, but Adobe's. The one thing everybody shouldn't do is create flash websites, and the one thing everybody should do is to yell at developers for creating flash websites. Go HTML5!

Ubuntu Studio distro is specifically designed for multi-media. For somebody doing a lot of audio/video and design work it is the preferred distro to use.

From a usability standpoint I couldn't agree more. It's kind of a pain getting "that mix" of functionality, performance, and preference isolated to a working system.

However, given the history of Linux, it's purpose has really been to support the day to day shenanigans of sys-admins that support networks and to support developers that design the under-pinnings of the systems themselves. We few MM (multi-media) people who are attempting to use it for artistic purposes are really using a hammer to screw a cucumber into a light switch; eg: we are using Linux outside of it's historic purpose.

That said, there are projects that have focused some time to the MM experience:
Celtix (pre-production screen play aid) https://www.celtx.com
LightWorks: (post-production competitor to Final Cut) http://www.lightworksbeta.com/
Red (HD video cameras; arguably because they will output any file format and thus, beholden to no post-software or platform) http://www.red.com
Linux MultiMedia Studio: http://lmms.sourceforge.net/screenshots.php
Ardour: http://ardour.org/
And, Audacity, as you've mentioned: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about/screenshots
But, this is only the highlight reel, there are so many more...

Anyway, Linux MM isn't here yet but it's in the works; developers are aware of it and creating for it. But, as per usual, nobody on the platform side will really care until there is a grass-roots movement to push these changes forward - that's us.

Thanks for kicking this off, Jack. Push with the full power of your voice knowing there are many of us behind you.

As some have noted, there are some distros that are designed for multimedia. I think most of these are for production, rather than (end user) use.

One not mentioned is AVLinux, which is a customized Debian running LXDE.

I'm on Debian, supposed to be one of the more difficult distributions to get things right on, and have no problems. Follow these instructions and you will have most of what you need: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=61221

Mepis comes with all the bells and whistles.

Pulse Audio has some problems. Once I dumped it and went back to ALSA. For now Pulse Audio works fine on my machine.

The biggest obstacle to making a breakthrough on the desktop is that Linux has absolutely no marketing or advertising. Of course, there's really no "Linux" desktop as such. It's the various distributions.

The 'average' users mentioned in the article aren't using Bodhi; they're using Mint or Ubuntu. As you mentioned, fixing the issue in Mint was very easy and just indicates a problem with a specific extension, not an overall multimedia issue.

Personally, I have worked with Fedora and Ubuntu and haven't had media problems on either. On the contrary, I've had an easy streamlined experience with Linux when it comes to playing a variety of media. On Windows and Mac OS I've had to either use a variety of programs or add-ons or stick exclusively with VLC or a port of MPlayer.

The only times I run into media problems with Linux is in regards to content with DRM. For example, recently, in order to play video on Amazon I had to install HAL even though the package is no longer used in Fedora, due to Amazon's recent DRM on their content.

Multimedia on most platforms is a sticky wicket because there are so many formats and "standards" Windows 7 is much better at it than Windows has ever been. OS X is fine as long as you stick with Apple approved formats. But Linux still lags in this are.

As many has pointed out there are a lot of causes: lack of manufacturer support, competing Linux packages, little profit to be made from the platform... And there is good information in the posts to guide through the problems and shortcomings.

I know you despise the Unity GUI, but honestly Ubuntu has done more to produce a consumer OS based on Linux than any other. Ubuntu TV I think will help them deliver a robust multimedia experience. In fact, I think Ubuntu is the one OS to rule them all as far as Linus distro's go. I recommend you give unity another chance. Its undergone some good changes and 12.4 is bringing even more simplicity and power to the interface.

To add my two cents to the possible solution category, distro's need to standardize on how to handle audio and video (they are the new "fonts" of communication, after all), and then differentiate for use. Some for consumer, some for business, some for pads and some for server roles. Differentiation is the key to success.

QUOTE: I recommend you give unity another chance. Its undergone some good changes and 12.4 is bringing even more simplicity and power to the interface.

Define "simplicity" and "power" in this context for me, please.

The new Dash simplifies the UI dramatically and allows users to locate programs, documents -- files of any type really -- with filters if preferred. It's like the Finder on OS X, only on steroids. That's just one example of empowering the user through a simplified interface.

Pulse audio is the source of many of these problems.. It's not linux multimedia in general ..
I've been using linux for semi-pro audio production for years and it is fantastic.. I also have 2 Mythtv Frontends and a general purpose laptop - all are gentoo and I have no issues whatsoever with audio formats. My DAW system uses JACK over ffado for audio and alsa for MIDI (to communicate with my external synths etc)..

My general purpose laptop and mythtv frontends have ALSA only.. Everything works fine... Funnily everyone I speak to using Arch also has no problems..

It's up to the distro builders to work out Pulse is no longer needed just install the ALSA plugins and stuff seems to just work... there used to be a time when you needed to configure asound.conf to get stuff to work nicely .. or you needed to install pulse and talk via that.. those days are gone

Linux never has been for the 'average user' - and probably never will. I think I've tried all of the major flavours (Mandriva/PCLinuxOS/SUSE/Fedora/GenToo/Puppy/Slackware to name just a few) and not one has done all of the things that Windows can do without resorting to Google and the Terminal.

On my laptop I have, over the years, evolved from Mint 4 to Mint 12 - that last I'm still ambivalent about - but I could not get a backup program to work properly without resorting to my friend 'sudo ...'. Similarly on my dual boot, which I only fire up to W7 when I need to do something complicated, which has Ubuntu (and yes I do like Unity), there are what should be basic things - install programs; backup; set up a screen saver - which require the little black box.

And things will remain this way while Linux is free and does not have to respond to complaints from paying customers.

So why do I persevere - philosophy really - and the knowledge that many new things which appear in Windows were trialled and proven first in Linux

QUOTE: And things will remain this way while Linux is free and does not have to respond to complaints from paying customers.

Poppycock. Overweening arrogance is a much bigger problem for such things than "free" software. There is no specific reason for it being free to create such a mess, and bigger messes exist amongst closed source software offerings. In fact, some of the most expensive software in the world -- "enterprise" packages like ERM software, for instance -- are also among the most problematic, useless, stupidified things ever invented. They rank right up there with lead balloons, propeller beanies, and the Hindenburg.

Paying customers are *not* the salvation of software installation, backup systems, and screen savers on any Linux distribution or any other open source operating system.

I just wrote a lengthy discussion of some of the actual reasons for this stuff, in this very discussion thread:

http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-388834-3646233

Once again I have to agree with your analysis. I personally have given up on engaging any paid = responsive arguments.

Anecdotally, every time I have sought official answers from Microsoft I've gotten none. I posed some very serious, well documented difficulties to support and never even got acknowledgment the questions were received.

At minimum, 100% of my filings on various GNU/Linux bugzilla lists have been read and acknowledged. Some things actually got fixed, making the free software infinitely more responsive than Microsoft. (considering you're dividing by zero)

Lead balloons make occasionally musing paperweights. Propeller beanies serve similar purposes. I suppose the Hindenburg could have been considered useful by the news publication industry, too. In fact, in each of those cases, I'd say the fact it was an awful idea is what gave each of these ideas what value it now has.

Okay, so I'm dissin' your propeller beanie.

By the way, a "divide by zero" error seems like a fitting analogy for the meaningful value of the "paid support" argument against open source software.

Reminds me of a "historic" front page of The Onion with the infamous broadside view of the Titanic under the headline "world's largest metaphor hits ice-berg"

http://store.theonion.com/product/worlds-largest-metaphorhits-iceberg-1912,157/

I guess we could use it to roast marshmallows. Hydrogen burns clean, y'know; no bad smells on the marshmallows when you're done.

you may not be old enough to remember seeing Led Zep hit the shelves. Records came on 5/14" floppies back then.

Multi-media may drive everyone nuts, which is understandable because that's where all the money (or at least, a lot of it) is to be made, and Linux plus multi-media applications does not equal more money in someone's pockets. That discussion's old hat, at least for me. Now, if you want to drive yourself to absolute distraction, try finding Tablet-PC applications for Linux. Even something like Gnome 3, which on the surface looks like a perfect desktop for a Tablet-PC, like a Toshiba M200, doesn't have anything designed for the purpose. I can only guess that no such applications are around because people are too concerned with the look of the wallpaper on Fedora XX or whatever the "go to" distro is this month may be.

So, maybe Linux should stop wasting time and effort at trying to become the end all to beat all for desktops and do what it really does best: making the Internet go.

So is consistency and interconnectivity. The differences between distributions in the same family (say, Fedora or Linux Mint) are too great, and which secondary drives get mounted and how, and how SAMBA is set up (if at all) should be much better controlled by the head of each family project.

but every upgrade killed something. I never got it all working on Fedora. It worked great on my initial Ubuntu install. I re-installed once and several packages I used to use no longer work or are no longer available. I refuse to move to the later offerings which include unity because I hate it. Sites are moving beyond what my version of Firefox can handle and forcing plugins to stop working on older versions. Its so annoying I'm considering buying Windows 7 for my house.

Recently I built myself an HTPC system to stream videos/music/picures and such across the network from my NAS. I'm honestly not sure what all distributions XBMC "will" work on but the most recommended by the community was Ubuntu so that's what I went with (10.4). Getting videos to display through HDMI insdead of the default VGA port was a little challenge but not all that bad, however, getting audio to play through the HDMI required editing the pearl code in the audio drivers. Even then it worked at random and sometimes another audio device would pop up and kick the HDMI audio drivers out of the system. Eventually I gave up and went to windows not just because of this difficulty but because Linux is unable to play Netflix videos due to the DRM requirements. I very much agree, Linux is a great OS and is superior to Windows in many ways, but, there are severe multimedia requirements not being met. The bad part is; many of the reasons they are not being met has nothing to do with Linux it's self.

In my experience Linux (Ubuntu) works fine for multimedia playback but is essentially useless for off the air video recording, video editing, and video recoding. Unless I've missed something, there are no video capture cards for Japanese digital television that work with Linux. Even analog capture that was simple plug and play with Windows was horrendously complex to get sort of working with Linux. And, as far as I know, professional editing and recoding kit (hard and soft) such as produced by Grass Valley is Windows only. I work around some of the limitations by running Windows in a Linux hosted virtual machine, but when I do this I'm always thinking "why not just run Windows without the Linux host."

Does Hauppauge offer a card that'll work? I seem to recall Hauppauge being the brand of choice for TV tuner cards on open source OSes.

No.

I have found that Kubuntu 11.10 has everything I'm looking for in Linux running on my HP Pavillion, as well as my Dell Inspiron. I do slide presentations, Impress, for my church with the Pavillion. The audio, I record on the Inspiron with Audacity.

I had tried Linux from more then 2 Years ago and i giveup after two months ..
My experience that time was fill with suffering and angry ..
Because of low quality work of distribution creators I tried Ubento 8.10 and Mandriva ...
And face up same problem to make my DVB card to work after long search in the web and trying every possible solution including kernel rebuilding and nothing work
So I back to Windows fro two years and never try Linux Again
You know whats the problem in Linux .. it's in Distribute creator and Lack of hardware maker support and software vendors ..
And the import thing are System and Devices Tools .. and make GUI programs 100% compatible with Linux and have ability to communicate with system recurses
Linux are great OS and going ahead MS Windows in years
but no one until today have make a real distribute that's benefit from it
............
By the now I'm trying to get back to Linux ... recently I test Many Distributes
Like Bodhi - Puppy Linux - ubuntu-11.10 -Mint LXDE and notice a big improvement comparing
to my previous experience .
I'm still in test period and I'll choice the better distribute to install on my system
.........

There are more issues that plague Linux than just media related.
For example, I had to re-install Nvidia drivers every time a kernel updated. I know, it's Nvidia's fault but, who cares who's fault it is. Just fix the freakin thing so you won't have to do this every time.
Also, there's incompatibility with with laptops that I run into quite often. If you get a new laptop you may have major problems getting Linux to install.
And, what about having to compile certain apps and the fact that when you do you have to relink every time a kernel update occurs. What average user will want to deal with that!
If they could at least get to the point of where the Android OS is with a reasonable interface that requires no technical skills to use it but can be tweaked if you want then it would be moving closer to the desktop.
From my perspective they are moving in that direction but still have a long way to go.

What the heck are you doing???
There is an updates icon, you dbl click it, type in your password and click install. Minimize and ignore it. I have updates 100's of times and never had it go wrong.

Anyhow - I've done 100s of updates (probably 1000s) and had it go wrong as frequently as a significant update has gone wrong on any other OS platform (OS X, various Windows). In fact, I'd say that I've had things go wrong after updates more frequently on Linux than on any other platform. The kind of things rpollard is talking about - little fix/breaks like a graphic driver or Samba quits working to major snafus like X absolutely refusing to restart after an update that eventually ended up making it easier to clean re-install than spend days tracking down the problem on the forums. I always wonder how guys with a single machine and no Linux guru friend get onto the Internet to research issues like that last one on the Linux forums. I guess at that point you bust out your bus pass and head down to the local public library. I've had trouble with kernel updates fixing scalable fonts, Flash, WiFi, media codecs, utility programs like SAMBA network browsers, graphics drivers, and numerous other issues. An update is an inherent risk on any platform, especially one built on X86 DIY hardware where there are any number of potential combinations of hardware, apps, and installed components that could misbehave.

I'm always dubious of anyone who claims their particular OS choice, "always works". Even in the world of Macintosh, where there is a single vendor, a single OS, and a single known set of hardware specs across their line of merchandise, updates still end up introducing unwanted and unforeseen behavior post-update. You apply a patch or update and things that worked before just start acting flaky.

Mobile OS platforms are not immune to this behavior, either. The code that underlies all of these systems is written by *people* and prone to human error - and that manifests itself in the kind of symptoms rpollard is describing. With Linux, you've got people reverse engineering features that are not open to support things like graphic cards, and there has been a somewhat adversarial relationship between those vendors and the Linux developer community (as opposed to one of cooperation that exists on the platforms that have a majority market presence).

Linux has significant challenges and even the most user and noob friendly Linux distros still require a more technical understanding in order to keep them running smoothly over the long-haul. It is one of the major limitations that sends adopters *back* to Windows or *moving on* to OS X. To ignore that just isn't realistic.

Now - *most* times, *most* updates on *most* Linux distros go without a hitch, and things have improved remarkably across the major Linux distros over the last 5 years or so. The dark ages of needing to compile my own kernel to enable wireless support or PCMCIA or sound on almost ANY laptop when installing Debian are far behind us on most modern Linux distros - and this is welcome progress. But that is the case with all the major OS platforms available at the current time - and arguably, it was NEVER a big problem for the other two major OS platforms. So Linux has caught up to Windows 95 derided "Plug N Pray" technology. Advanced Linux users who become *nix advocates are disconnected from the frustrations for the novice or moderately experienced Linux adopter. I'm an honest Linux user with moderately *advanced* experience with the platform (and the same holds true for the other platforms too).

What the heck is rpollard doing? He is experimenting with Linux and finding the same frustrations, challenges and obstacles that confront almost every other new user of any particular Linux distribution.

The majority of typical users who've experimented with Linux surely agree with me. But of the 2% that makes up the rabid Linux fanbase, those are the most vocal in disputing me when I make claims like this. They're vocal, but they're not fooling anyone at this point. Linux is no inherently better than any other OS at this point in a general sense, and never has been. There are certain *strengths* for Linux and it is very popular among those niches - and here is to diversity of choice where that is the case. But the goal of becoming a stable, reliable, easy to maintain and operate desktop OS for the average PC user is still an elusive goal for the Linux community. It can be done, OS X proves that - but there hasn't been a Linux distribution that has been able to achieve that goal yet. Jack's article only touches on the TIP of the iceberg about why that is the case.

(Edit - I'd argue that in fact, I understand the technical aspects of Linux *better* than Windows or OS X, by necessity. Using Debian as described above, I had to learn a LOT about the inner-workings of Linux, including compiling custom kernels, modifying xfree86 configuration files and init.d startup daemons. It has been awhile, but at one point you simply HAD to know these things to get everything working like it *should have worked* by default with Linux. It got to the point where I was very comfortable getting into the /etc directory and going nuts on .conf files with vi or compiling my own kernels. By contrast, I'm still nervous when adding, removing or editing registry keys because despite over 10 years in the industry working on NT technologies since NT4 - I've so rarely had to drill down to that level to make something work or fix a problem).

And though I have had Mint kill itself (It really hates my desktops HDD's for some reason) it has never just stopped working after doings its automatic updates.

And FYI, I wouldn't expect Windows to continue to work if I took out an XP kernel and swapped in a Windows 7 kernel, so why would I expect Linux to be able to do that?

It seems more of a "its fine, stop messing with it" issue you guys are having.

I think that there are a number of issues that could be taking place here.

Maybe you're just not tinkering with a system that is stable for you. That can certainly affect this.This is a catch-22 when it comes to applying critical security updates, though.

Maybe you're more tolerant of problems. I've watched more than one Mac person who claimed their Mac was far more stable and reliable than Windows do something in an unusual or round-about way. When I've asked about it, they go, "Oh, that never works, so I just don't do this that way". Wait! Isn't that exactly what you HATE about Windows?!?

The same goes for Linux. I loved the old "You have to reboot for everything" argument from Linux. As the GUI got more advanced and modules became auto-loading, PnP deals - suddenly after updates Linux was alerting (and OS X too), "You have to reboot your machine in order for the changes you've made to be applied". Aha! This is "buy-in blindness", and I suffer it as much as anyone else. I'm bought into Android, and there are countless trivial little hiccups that I've learned to live with and work around and it has become so automatic I don't think about it as being a manifestation of the OS "misbehaving". Everyone does this with the OS they decide to live with.

Or maybe you're just lucky. Maybe you've got a system built on ideal hardware and you're running an ideal set of apps that maximize the stability of your distribution of Linux for you. These issues can come down to something as simple as two otherwise *identical* systems except that one has a different on-board NIC revision than the other. I've seen things like that *all the time* in my career. Why is "Brand N OS" stable on this IBM Netfinity but crashing on this one when they're the same model and processor and motherboard and even the same PO#?

That is my point. It is absolutely *insane* to claim that the OS platform itself has any consistently and inherent superiority over another in terms of stability and reliability in this regard. There are countless outside variables that mean your results will vary greatly from one individual case to another. The fact that OS wars have waged on since... well, the dawn of the 8 bit PC revolution and opinions have always been widely divergent that entire time illustrates this. If it works for you, great - but if someone else claims it hasn't worked well for them, they're probably not just "Microsoft Shills" trying to spread "FUD" because they want to see your platform fail because it threatens them. They're probably not lying, either.

I've seen Jack Wallen come a long way toward the center in this regard over the last 4 years - in admitting that Linux has challenges. I've seen the whole Linux community make this shift - and it is a shift that was long overdue. Start admitting the liabilities and limitations, and try to address and improve them. That has ALWAYS been my position on this topic.