Hey folks, I thought I would share my experience installing Ubuntu. As background, I am the guy friends, family and neighbours call when they have trouble with their Windows PC and am pretty good at it. I can also find my way around a Linux terminal OK.
Having read about how good desktop Linux is nowadays I thought it was time to give it a go. The install of 9.10 was easy as you could want. The whole thing works well and boots and shuts down quick smart. I should add that the computer I was experimenting on is in my shed (don't ask!) so not much at stake. All i do is listen to music, Skype sometimes and look up something about my latest tinker project. Well, the first problem was listening to music. MP3s were associated with the movie player. I managed to sort that out easy enough but even when I pointed MP3s at Rhythmbox, no go...it can't play layer1 MP3s or something. Not a good start. OK, let's get Skype going. I downloaded the proper version only to have the install fail with the friendly message about a dependency needing dbus >= 4.3 I think it was. At this point I can imagine the average mug giving up and I wouldn't blame them, but I was determined. It took me a while to find dbus to download but I did it. Oh shucks, it depended on something or another XML. I grabbed that and guess what...on and on it went. It was just too hard. The long and short of it is that I never did get skype or music working and can only assume that the idea that Linux is ready as a windows replacement for the average punter is someone's fantasy. It is a shame really because there needs to be an alternative (apart from a Mac) but right now, this isn't it. This is not meant as a troll, I am genuinely disappointed and look forward to hearing from people about what you think...maybe even some solutions, but I fear it is going to be ongoing dramas every time I try to install something. Which reminds me, a couple of games I from the built in installer? Guess what.... Over to you, penguins. -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
