Well, Windows is back on the disk.

I've given it an honest try being pure-Ubuntu, but the fact is Ubuntu is nowhere near ready for that.  Mysterious hardware and software failures (half-)solved by Mystic Incantations so typical of UNIX-derived systems are emphatically not what a modern desktop should be based upon.

The big killer, in the end, was multimedia.  Ubuntu's handling of sound and video is flatly unacceptable.  The whole point of me wanting to watch a movie is my enjoyment, not to further increase the frustration of a day.  Under Windows I double-click on a file and it plays.  The sound goes to where I want it.  The video goes to where I want it.  Everything just works.  On very rare situations -- usually when some new fad hits the scene -- I have to download a codec to make things work.  In such cases, however, it's similarly trivial.  I Google on the codec.  I download and run it.  And then everything works.

The Ubuntu experience -- and keep in mind that I think Ubuntu is the best Linux distro I've come across! -- is almost diametrically opposed.  Using the same hardware I get mysterious, random switching between sound cards -- when I get sound at all.  I get AC3-encoded files not working at all.  I get some files (or programs, for that matter) that will only work on one sound card and if that sound card (ironically the one with less capability!) is disabled not working at all.  All of this behaviour is "documented" solely by lore through a thinly-attached web of gurus who have the information in their heads but seem completely unwilling to spend the time to put it down in a coherent format once, favouring instead answering the same questions repeatedly and at length.

Ubuntu still has a prominent place in my computer.  It is not ready for a mass audience yet, but I still hold out some hope for it.  Just not a lot.

Michael T. Richter
Email: ttmrichter@xxxxxxxxx, mtr1966@xxxxxxxxxx
MSN: ttmrichter@xxxxxxxxxxx, mtr1966@xxxxxxxxxxx; YIM: michael_richter_1966; AIM: YanJiahua1966; ICQ: 241960658; Jabber: mtr1966@xxxxxxxxx

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