Revisiting Linux Part 1: A Look at Ubuntu 8.04
by Ryan Smith on August 26, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Linux
Applications: Video Playback
Windows Default: Windows Media Player
What I use: Media Player Classic – Home Cinema
Ubuntu Default: Totem (Used: VLC)
Moving on to video, we have Totem, Ubuntu’s other media player. As we previously mentioned it’s already the default for audio files opened via the file browser, and along with that it’s also Ubuntu’s only video player. In concept it’s close to VLC or Media Player Classic, as it’s a solitary program that has a single window to play whatever the currently opened file is.
The single biggest strength of Totem is that once the restricted codec pack is installed, it can play anything and everything under the sun. MP3, AAC, MKV, H.264, MPEG-4 ASP, FLAC, and more are all available. This makes both Mac OS X and Windows Vista pale in comparison – the former can play about half of that, the latter even less. Codec hell has always been a nuisance under Windows and Mac OS X, but Ubuntu gets things right and avoids it altogether. I really can’t overstate this; from a fresh install it’s much, much easier to play media out of the box with Totem on Ubuntu than it is any other OS. This is the experience everyone else should be shooting for.
The key to Totem’s ease of use stems from the fact that the restricted codec pack includes the FFmpeg project’s libavcodec library of audio/video codecs. As the project seeks to offer playback support for every significant codec in existence, this gives Totem a clear advantage over Windows and Mac OS X, neither of which use libavcodec. This does mean, however, that Totem is not unique. Its playback abilities can be found in any other application that implements libavcodec, such as Media Player Classic, MPlayer, VLC, and others. As such the real magic is that Totem is the only default media player to include these abilities, rather than that it’s a completely superior media player.
As it stands there are two big kinks in Totem. The first of which is that it’s an extremely simple media player that lacks any kind of advanced features. It offers a single deinterlacing mode, no control over post-processing, and no audio/video filters. As such advanced users are going to find it unsatisfactory, and accordingly it’s one of the only default Ubuntu programs I specifically replaced when using Ubuntu. Instead I ended up using VLC, which has the advanced features I was looking for and I was already familiar with it since it’s a cross-platform media player.
The other kink in Totem is that it’s only as good as libavcodec, which in turn is only as good as the version of libavcodec that came with Hardy due to Ubuntu’s software update policy. As it stands the version of libavcodec that comes with Hardy has issues playing back a small number of Windows Media Video files, something which newer versions correct.
Furthermore it suffers from libavcodec’s continuing weakness: H.264 playback. Only the single-threaded H.264 decoder is considered stable, as such all libavcodec players using it will run in to problems when decoding high bitrate material. Our 30Mbps test clip won’t play back correctly under Totem or VLC 1.01, for example. There is a multithreaded H.264 decoder available in libavcodec, but as it’s not stable (on players that I have that include it, it crashes from time to time) it’s not suitable for general distribution. All of this is compounded by the fact that there’s no other H.264 decoder that can be installed on Ubuntu (e.g. CoreAVC) which means Ubuntu is limited to the best that libavcodec can do. For this reason none of the regular Ubuntu media players are well suited for material such as full quality BluRay rips.
Now we have yet to touch on hardware accelerated playback, which is something we’re going to hold off on until we take a look at Ubuntu 9.04. Linux does not have a common media framework like Windows and Mac OS X have DirectShow/DXVA and QuickTime respectively. Rather the desktop environment that Ubuntu is based off of (GNOME) includes a lesser framework called GStreamer, which is closer to a basic collection of codecs and an interface to them. As such hardware accelerated playback is not as easy to do under Ubuntu as it is under Windows and Mac OS X. We’ll take look at the APIs and the software for this in our look at Ubuntu 9.04.
But so long as you don’t need hardware accelerated playback, then Totem or another libavcodec based player will do the job nicely. Compared to the other applications in Ubuntu, I would put Totem/VLC up there with Firefox in terms of being a jewel of the OS. Like Firefox they may not be OS-exclusive applications that can be used to drive users towards Ubuntu, but they help solidify Ubuntu by giving it the ability to do a common task just as well as (or better than) any other operating system. At least until Windows 7 hits the shelves, no one has a better default media player.
Final Verdict: Meets My Needs
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Kakao - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
Ryan, nowadays you don't need to dual boot. You can just set up a virtual machine. If you are a gamer use Windows as host and setup a Linux distro as guest. If you have enough memory, 4GB is very good, you can have both perfectly usable at the same time. I'm using Virtual Box and it works great.VaultDweller - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
"Manufacturer: Canon"I think you mean Canonical.
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
It wasn't in our DB when I wrote the article, it was supposed to be added before it went live. Whoops.Thanks you.
Proteusza - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
I havent been able to read the whole cos I'm currently at work, but so far it seems good. Some people have been saying you should be testing 9.04, and I can see their point, but on the other hand, I agree that since 8.04 is the latest LTS release, it should be pretty stable still.Nonetheless, perhaps you could compare a later non LTS release to a service pack for Windows? I mean, there is some new functionality and some fixes. Granted, new versions of Ubuntu contain a lot more few features than Windows service packs.
I agree that the 6 month release cycle is too fast. I dont develop for Ubuntu myself, but I imagine a lot of time will be wasted on preparing for release twice a year. I mean, theres a lot of testing, bugfixing and documentation to be done, and I would think if you would only did that once a year, you would have more time for development. Although, I guess the more changes you do in a release the more you should test, so maybe thats invalid.
I've also never really liked the Linux filesystem and package manager idea. Granted, package managers especially have improved a lot lately, and personally I think we have Ubuntu to thank for that, with its huge focus on usability, which historically Linux hasnt cared at all about.
I also dont like over reliance on the terminal/CLI. I dont like that there are certain things that can only be done with it. Its easier and faster for me to do things with a GUI, because we are visual creatures and a GUI is a much better way of displaying information than just plain text. I think until a lot of the Linux developers get over the idea that the CLI is "the only way to go", the GUI will be underdeveloped. As I said, its only recently that some Linux developers have actually bothered to try to get the various desktop managers up to scratch.
The other thing I find interesting about Ubuntu, is the nerd rage that some Debian developers exhibit towards Ubuntu.
Anyway... when 9.10 comes out, I would love to see your impressions of the difference.
R3MF - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
i thoroughly approve of AT running linux articles..........however i didn't bother to read this one as anything from Q2 2008 is of zero interest to me now.
may i suggest a group-test to be published around Xmas of the following Q4 2009 distro releases:
Ubuntu 9.04
opensuse 11.2
fedora 12 (?)
Mandiva 2010
that would be awesome AND relevant to your readers.
CityZen - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
I was one of those waiting for this article. I do remember getting excited when it was promised back in ... (can't recall the year, sorry, it's been too long :) ). Anyway, the wait seems to have been worth it. Excellent article.A suggestion for part 2: install LinuxMint 7 (apart from Ubuntu 9.04) and see which of the problems you found in part 1 with Ubuntu 8.04 are solved in LinuxMint "out of the box"
captainentropy - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - link
I totally agree! To hell with Ubuntu, Mint7 is the best linux distro by far. Before I settled on Mint I tried Ubuntu, Kubuntu, PCLinuxOS (my previous fave), Mepis, Scientific, openSUSE, Fedora, Slackware, CentOS, Mandriva, and RedHat. None could come close to the complete awesomeness, beauty, out-of-the-box completeness, and ease of use as Mint7.I'm a scientist and I'm using it for sequence and image analysis, so far.
haplo602 - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
so I got to page before installation and I have so many comments I cannot read further :-)I am using linux on and off as my main desktop system since redhat 6.0 (that's kernel 2.2 iirc) so some 10 years. my job is a unix admin. so I am obviously biased :-)
1. virtual desktops - while this heavily depends on your workflow, it helps organise non-conflicting windows to not occupy the same space. I used to have one for IM/email, one with just web browser, one with my IDE and work stuff and one for GIMP and Blender. while this is my preference, it helps to kill the notification hell that is Windows. I hate how Windows steals focus from whatever I am working on just because some unimportant IM event just occured.
2. package manager and filesystem. given my background, the linux FHS is my 2nd nature. however you failed to grasp the importance of the package manager here. it effectively hides the FHS from you so you do not need to clean up manualy after uninstall. all directories you should ever go into manualy are /etc, your home dir, the system mount directory and whatever the log directory is. If you need to acccess other directories manualy, then you are either a system developer, a programmer or too curious :-)
also you can usualy one-click install .deb packages and they appear in the package manager as usual. just you have to manage dependencies manualy in that case. repositories are nice as you need to set them up ONCE and then all your updates/future versions are taken care of.
3. missing executable icons - this has a lot more background to it but it is a mistake to use nautilus in the default icon mode. you basicaly cannot live withour ownership/permissions displayed on a unix system. trying to hide this in any way in a GUI is a capital mistake. that's why a windows explorer like file manager is not usable under linux. good old MC :-) anyway an executable file can be anything from a shell script to a binary file. you just have to have the correct launcher registered in the system and you can open anything. basicaly same as windows just not that much gui friendly.
4. NVIDIA/ATI drivers - this is a story in itself. use NVIDIA if you want easy of use. use ATI if you want to learn about kernel and X :-) dig through phoronix.com for more info.
ok I will post more comments as I read further :-)
haplo602 - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
so I read the whole article. I would have some more comments :-)1. installation - for me this was never a problem on any linux distro I was using. my partition scheme does not change much and it is usualy the trickiest part of the whole installation process. try out the full gentoo 3 stage installation if you want some fun (ok it is not avaiable via normal means anymore).
2. fonts - as you mentioned with codecs, there are software restrictions and licensing policies governing linux distributions. ms fonts are licensed under different terms than GPL software. yes even FOTNS have licenses. so they are generaly not included in linux distributions by default.
What I missed from the article is the amount of customisation you can do with a typical linux distro. just ubuntu has 3 main variants and you can mix and match them at will. you can even have all 3 installed and switch between the window managers by user preference.
Since you did not like the package manager anyway, you missed on the main Linux strength - application variability.
From a common user perspective however, the article is quite correct. I would expect more from a seasoned windows user and AT editor.
n0nsense - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
Ubuntu 8.04 is 14 months old creature.2 versions released after it and the third one should arrive in October.
In terms of Windows it's short time, but for Linux it's a lot of time.
I suggest your next review should be done on Ubuntu 9.10 instead of 9.04 (which IMHO is better than 8.04 but still lacks some polish).
As mentioned before, the advantage of CLI instructions is that it will work on any Desktop Environment (Gnome, KDE, XFCE etc.) if it's not related to the DE itself. Moreover it will work on different versions (older/newer).
For example in Vista/7 i couldn't find Network Connections in GUI.
But who can stop me to type "Network Connections" in Explorer's address bar ? Sometimes GUI changed and even if only a little, most people will fail to follow screen shots. not to mention that most desktops are so customized (on real geek's computers) that it looks too different. I'm not talking about icons or desktop background. I'm talking about panels (if any at all), docks, menus, context menus etc. in Linux almost everything can be changed. And old-school geeks that had their Linux installations for years do this things so each DE is probably unique. (I have Gnome and apps settings/tweaks for over 7 years. Some of them probably never changed). The trick is that even when you reinstall the system, your personal setting may stay with you. (I jumped form Debian to Ubuntu to Gentto back to Ubuntu to Ubuntu x86_64 and finally to Gentoo x86_64). After all this, i have not lost any user customization/setting. On the system level it's harder since Debian and Gentoo are very different. All this gives you motivation to change and to tweak to make it better. Windows users are not really can customize and when they do, it's only valid until they have to reinstall/upgrade their OS. Since most of the Windows users I know reinstall at least once a year, after few cycles they will stay with defaults for both OS and applications.
Switch to Linux is not the easiest thing. It's usually not "love from first sight" story. But if somehow you stayed around and get to know it, you can't be separated after :)
Even on Windows 7 i feel handicapped in terms of usability and effectiveness/productivity. (I spend more time in front of Windows then Linux computers)