Re: Ranter or evangelist?

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Antonio wrote:

> Rythmbox, Totem, Audio CD Extractor are just a few apps in Gnome that can
> play cd's.  Do you have any of those installed?

> There is also amarok, kscd, Kaffeine

kscd is what I was using on my previous small system. It didn't look very
resource hungry: very basic but easy to use, but, once again, it's a "K".

"Amarok 2 does not currently support audiocd playback."
http://amarok.kde.org/wiki/FAQ#How_do_I_play_audio-CDs
And again, it's a K.

Rhythmbox does pretty much the same as Amarok, it plays CDs and it uses
GTK. At first sight, it looks to me like a good candidate. If its size is
larger than XMMS, it should be downloaded after installation. Since most
people only have one CD/DVD, it doesn't seem very necessary in include a
CD player.

> ..., others on KDE desktop. You
> mentioned xmms, it should also play cd's.

Yup, it should but, you know, contrary to SMPlayer, I found it was playing
hard too hard to get. Of course, SMPlayer plays CDs too: you just select
"Open, Audio CD" and the CD plays. That's it, that's all.

I tried XMMS because the default sound settings I had for playing movie
DVDs caused distortion. (This might have something to do with the fact
that I only use the preamp.) Instead of searching for a fix to this
problem, I decided to explore the default application provided by Fedora.

I didn't change XMMS' basic set-up. I finally got it to work with fairly
elaborate instructions on the net. (See my answer to Tim... which I'll
hopefully write tonight: I now understand why I had to go through this
pain.)

But suggesting to friends that they use XMMS and type meaningless
scribbles to make a CD play would make one look like a loonie and
suggesting to install something else will rightfully bring the following
question: "Why is it not the default?"

The default interface size is way too small for most modern screen
definition. Double size really looks like it's been blown out. XMMS spatly
refuses to play the first track of the 2 CDs I tried (Rhythmbox plays
them, so it's not the CDs.) If I insist on clicking the 1st track on the
file list, the whole system freezes. I have to reboot!!!

With Rhythmbox, when you insert the CD, under Devices, you see the title
of the CD: "Nothing like the Sun". You select a track and it plays, and
all those after it. If the computer boots with the CD installed, there's
an option "Open with Rhythmbox music player" for the CD icon. The software
looks like attention has been given to detail. It just works! Though a
better name than "Device" could be used, it's what people expect from a
music player.

Of course, XMMS has a lot of history behind it and nobody feels easy with
the idea of not making it the default. But, let's face it: for all the
protest, not a single person in this thread said that he uses XMMS,
bpretending that, despite all the pains it puts you through, it is so
irreplaceable.

I'm getting old, you know, and I sometimes feel applications are like
women: the ones that are playing hard to get might not be the ones that
are best suited for you :)

If Steve Jobs, whom we love so much, was facing this situation, what would
he say? Answer: "Out!" That's why everybody at Apple says he's a jerk.
Apparently, if he doesn't like something, he goes into fits of rage and
it's you change it or you lose your job, dear programmer. Somehow, it
seems this non-programmer jerk gets results, i.e. market share. Linux
doesn't get any market share the way things work now. All Linux users know
is ranting against Microsoft, they never rant against themselves...

Well, Microsoft is shit heads at the top of the world, no doubt, but maybe
Linux could do better. And at Fedora/Red Hat, this would mean having
somebody <B>responsible</B> to see that every single application works as
expected -- Brasero certainly didn't work for me either! -- and that no
nonsense such as File managers without a URL bar is introduced.

I've already said that, in many, many ways, Fedora is great but if no
attention is given to those "details", it will go nowhere. Saying: "Hey,
you don't like XMMS? Just go to Google and find a CD reader that suits
you" makes people feel they lose their time and be very angry at Linux.

Hey, after 18 years of development, with 1% market share on the desktop,
it's about time that we stop pretending everything will happen tomorrow.
We've been in tomorrow era for years now and Linux, especially Fedora,
works mighty well. Why don't we consider making people feel at home with
Linux and stop telling them to try this and that and RTFM?

Of course, those are just my 2 cents, not Jobs billions, but if Linux to
survive, the geek well-why-don't-you-fix-it-yourself mentality has to
disappear and some sound administrative principles be introduced in the
community. It doesn't mean everything must be under the control of the
marketing department, but it does mean you have to gain market share.

Don't forget the Google era is coming, too. Now, with the clout they have,
they might not be very intrested by GPL3.

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