Catshanghai

I have been an Ubuntu user since the end of last year. I wanted a low cost and secure operating system that embraced open standards, but it has not been without its problems.

Firstly, it trashed my Ipod’s playlists and made the purchased Itunes tracks (complete with Digital Rights Management) unplayable.

It took ages to tweak the system to support all the plugins and codecs required to play multimedia when this would happen pretty seamlessly in a Windows environment. In doing so, I have broken the golden rule of open standards by installing proprietary codecs to play MP3 and Windows Media files.

Video editing has been very awkward in Ubuntu. Kino took ages to import and transcode video and spitting it out as a DVD is a black art that I have not yet mastered. Sometimes the process works, but for reasons I am not yet familiar.

I have been trying to upgrade to the latest version of Ubuntu from Edgy Eft to Feisty Fawn, but it never worked and other priorities kept me from devoting too many brain cycles to jumping through this hoop until now.

I found out the problem was that I had enabled updates from software repositories that did not work. As soon as I deleted these, then the problem was simply and magically solved. I now have a working version of Ubuntu Feisty.

So what is different?
Not much has changed except the OS feels more robust and integrated than the previous version. Nearly all of my previous tweaks and all of my old data remained intact. I don’t have to spend weeks recustomising my Linux OS.

The webcam drivers worked and the GTKPod update meant that some notes and artwork are being copied into my Ipod for the first time in over six months.

Ipodder(podcatching software) is no longer supported, but I grabbed it and set it up very easily using the Debian installer.

Installing new software was always a pain in the past, because I had to add an enable download repositories preventing me from putting malware on my system inadvertently. Security triumphed over useability. This made it a real challenge to install ‘unlicensed’ codecs and software required to make my computer work properly. For example, I had to input a load of terminal code to download and install codecs giving me access to content such as streamed BBC radio programming. I’m glad that I did it, but it wasn’t easy and Ubuntu stillls needs to travel a long way before it can claim to be Linux for Grannies.

There is a great piece of software I installed that largely fixes this headache called Automatix2. It grabs and installs lots of software, plugins and codecs without any hassle or terminal coding gymnastics. The Opera Flash plugin still doesn’t work, but the Java for Firefox does and I can now use my browser as a media player.

I also used Automatix2 to install Google Earth and Scribus (a DTP application) so it seems Linux is really starting to mature as a great alternative platform to the Win-Mac ecosystem. Video editing is still an issue and there is no decent integrated Itunes like app, but I am sure those needs will be addressed before too long.

In the meantime, I am happy to be all Feisty this Summer. I wonder what they will call the next release. Any takers for Ubuntu Horny?