Re: [tlug] Computer "fixed" with Linux

[Dave M G <martin@example.com>]

Josh, Curt, Al, Wataru, Guillaume, Scott,

Thanks for responding.

I'm not to sure how to address the specific issues raised about 
streaming video and whatnot. I seem to have no troubles streaming or 
downloading and playing just about any video format.

My approach is to basically download every codec and every player under 
the sun that's available. So I don't try to get, for example, Mplayer to 
handle everything.

This is analagous to my Windows experience (now part of a dark past, 
long ago), where I never expected Windows Media Player or Quicktime to 
handle everything.

So, getting back to the original topic, here's basically what I did to 
ensure that my girlfriend would not have any multimedia deficiencies 
that would send her back to Windows. Note that this all applies to 
Ubuntu, which is more geared toward the kind of Windows-refugee end user 
that I and my girlfriend are.

First, Windows codecs for most video files, especially AVI:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/WindowsCodecs

Then this page has clean up of a lot of other formats one might encounter:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats

Then for playing DVDs:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/PlayingDVDs

It's good to make sure to go into Synaptic and lookup the keywords 
"MP3", "video", and whatnot and download anything that says it's a 
driver or codec for that format. *Especially* make sure to get the 
"LAME" encoder for MP3.

For players I get Mplayer, Xine, XMMS, Amarok, Gxine, and VLC. Mostly I 
use Xine, though now that I'm also using MythTV, I'm using Mplayer 
within that.

For Flash:
http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash

I also make sure to get the JRE from the repositories, so web-applets run.

And I think that's it. I may have missed something. But so far my 
girlfriend, and I, haven't had any troubles playing or seeing anything 
we want to see.

Hope that's helpful.

ï--
Dave M G
Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft
Kernel 2.6.17.7
Pentium D Dual Core Processor
PHP 5, MySQL 5, Apache 2