On 02/23/2005 12:52:35 PM, Leszek Matok wrote:
Dnia 23-02-2005, Åro o godzinie 21:16 +0100, Michael Schwendt napisaÅ
(a):
> Then do a better job at educating that person about extra packages
and
> how to get them easily. His choice of words ("stupid") is
inappropriate
> already. More friendlier of him would be to ask about how to add mp3
> support, in case you had not warned him earlier.
In fact I warn and give instruction how to install xmms-mp3, disable
librh_mp3.so, install mplayer etc., but only to few of my friends who
want to try out Linux and can count on my support. I don't sell
copies,
but I can imagine the hell any Fedora CD/DVD seller has to go through
:)
I have gone through absolutely no hell.
When a customer asks how to play mp3's - I simply tell them how to import gpg keys to Fedora Extras and rpm.livna.org - and how to add them to yum.
Then - getting mp3 support is as easy as
yum install xmms-mp3 gstreamer-plugins-mp3
That then pulls in everything they need.
If they need it in sox - I provide a replacement rpm for them, if I ever get a "cease and stop" for that, I'll just provide the simple instructions (yum install mad-devel lame-devel; rpmbuild --rebuild sox- ***)
The typical user who wants to try out Fedora is disappointed when they
install for the first time. I for one don't want Linux to be 31337, I
want it to be seen as an alternative to Windows or MacOS even by
Windows/MacOS users, and that can happen only if such user doesn't get
disgusted after even test installation. I don't care if the users go
back to their systems if only they get the impression that Linux
works.
It does work.
MS for eons did not ship an mp3 encoder, they still don't ship a DVD decoder. It's not hard to add the support, and certainly easier than Fedora going to a non free distribution method in order to pay for the patents.
The bad thing is only if they go back and say "I had Linux on my box
once, but it doesn't do this, this and this, and I had to find some
third-party packages which I didn't know how to install, so it sucks".
They have to get third party software, often $$$, to do stuff in Windows or OS X as well. Stuff that Fedora provides functionallity for OOB.
-- Michael A. Peters http://mpeters.us/
