I was test driving the latest version of Ubuntu Linux when I came to a conclusion: This operating system is no where near as user friendly as Linux enthusiasts say it is. For those that don’t know, Ubuntu is the most popular distribution of Linux, an open source operating system.
Because Ubuntu is a free operating system, it can’t offer DVD playback or MP3 playback without downloading the additional software packages that enable them. This cannot be helped because the ability to play DVDs and MP3s uses proprietary codecs which require fees to license them to include in Ubuntu.
Installing programs is an entirely different ball game from Windows or the Mac. In Linux, there is a software management system that allows you to install/remove programs with the click of a button. Sounds great, right? Wrong. Linux software has many dependencies on other software libraries. So if I want to remove say, an e-mail client. This is not possible without it tearing out other system components and probably hosing my system. If I had to say which operating system handles program installations best, it would probably be Mac OS X. Just drag and drop the application in the Applications folder.
Because I have movie files that have external subtitle files, I needed to get VLC in order to play anything. However, I noticed I could not play movie files over the network through VLC. I did a bit more research and found out that I probably need to manually mount a network drive in Ubuntu to get it working right. I’ll give Ubuntu Linux another go once the new version is released in October.
