[TriLUG] Software for Linux newbies

[Robert Floyd]

On Tue, 2002-05-28 at 16:35, Tanner Lovelace wrote:
> On Tue, 2002-05-28 at 16:07, Robert Floyd wrote:
> 
> > More dismaying for me was that, out of the box, there were some critical
> > applications that were NOT there, e.g., a DVD player and MP3 ripper.
> > While I understand the legal issues surrounding those, most newbies will
> > expect those capabilities right away.
> > 
> 
> I think this must be some new meaning of the phrase "critical
> applications" of which I was not previously aware.  I mean,
> please, not even windows includes those programs.  Having
> to get them from a different source isn't that bad a deal.

For a home user with a notebook computer with a DVD drive (which came
with DVD player software preinstalled, as it does on most non-XP
machines) and a penchant for carrying my classical music with me, those
applications were, indeed, critical. While their lack wouldn't render my
computer inoperative, it would render it useless for two of the major
reasons I bought it.

> 
> In Mandrake it's even easier.  Just go to http://plf.zarb.org/
> and follow the instructions there to add their repository into
> the software manager and then you can install what you need at
> your leisure.  Not having those capabilities "right away" isn't
> that big a problem when they can easily be installed.
> 

That is true if (1) the newbie user knows about the PLF (and I suspect
it's not mentioned in the Mandrake guide that comes with the distro) and
(b) the newbie user has the Mandrake distro. In my case, I have SuSe,
which is not nearly an newbie friendly and which I would not recommend
to a newbie.

I think you're hitting on something else that would be exceedingly
useful in a "newbie pack:" a collection of URLs to such things as the
LDP, the PLF and other such sites, in a format that could be merged into
the browser bookmark list easily.

Thanks for the constructive criticism and exchange of ideas,
Robert Floyd
Durham, NC