JWZ Reviews Video on Linux

An anonymous reader writes "The inimitable JWZ goes once again forth and reviews the state of video on Linux. Expect no mercy."

Comments

This guy is way off base

[bailout911]

So if I write a huge flame about the state of something in Linux, can I get it posted to Slashdot too? So let's see, he tried mplayer, hates the skinnable interface, tries gstreamer (under heavy development) and is pissed because it requires gnome2? Then he goes off on a rant about apt for RPM which he thinks will install 2 different packaging systems on his machine?

Give me a break, I've seen better "articles" posted in most message boards. Video playback works just fine on most new distributions (read NOT Red Hat 7.2). This has to be one of the worst articles ever posted to slashdot. We'll probably see it again next week.

Re:This guy is way off base

[Anonymous Coward]

Firstly I don't believe that he wrote this intending for it to be posted to Slashdot: It'd likely be much more politically correct if it were. Having said that, you are not JWZ (nor am I)--The guy was one of the primary developers at Netscape, was a major impetus in getting Mozilla up and going, and then flamed out of Netscape when the suits/AOL took over. You don't have to respect his opinion, but realize that a lot of people do give it credence because he has proven himself in the industry.

The primary point that he seems to be making is what a lot of people feel about Linux/open source: This isn't a hobby for me, so what's the point? For someone for whom it's a hobby, using a command line with reams of intricate command line options is a very reasonable option, but for someone who it isn't they want a clean and clear interface that affords usage in obvious ways (for a media player that of course is for VCR like functionality).

Re:This guy is way off base

[Rayban]

Short answer: No, you don't matter. You're a politician, not a coder.

Long answer: If you wrote the original version of XEmacs and a little program called "Netscape", then people might listen to your opinions.

Just because he was involved in the creation of a number of old applications doesn't give him the right to trash developers of applications that aren't quite as old yet.

I'm sure he loved hearing about the quality of his apps while they were in development by guys who had written CLI editors ten years back. It's really productive isn't it?

Re:This guy is way off base

[Anonvmous Coward]

"The primary point that he seems to be making is what a lot of people feel about Linux/open source: This isn't a hobby for me, so what's the point? For someone for whom it's a hobby, using a command line with reams of intricate command line options is a very reasonable option, but for someone who it isn't they want a clean and clear interface that affords usage in obvious ways (for a media player that of course is for VCR like functionality)."

Now you all understand where Windows users come from. A little bit of instability is a small price to pay for an interface that does what you expect.

Re:This guy is way off base

[arose]

So when he bloody flames it's still good. But when RMS (GNU Emacs, GCC and the whole GNU thing, if I have to remind you) writes a good article half of /. flames him...

Re:This guy is way off base

[On Lawn]

I agree. The importance of "JWZ" is lost withough knowing a few of his choice quotes...

"Unix sucks. I use it becuase it sucks less then everything else."

and

"Linux is free only if you do not value your time".

He's an edgy glass-half-empty sort. I like his reading and commentary personally, and think its dead on. But I have never let it deture me from anything, he's just wired to compain about things.

Re:This guy is way off base

[Trepalium]

Except he's right. Video players on Linux do suck. The only real problem is, the brain damage isn't limited to Linux. Virtually every operating system is overrun by these monstrosities of application skinning. The blame probably should lay squarely on WinAMP, which pretty much pioneered the idea of skinning media applications. Everyone's doing it. Everyone from Apple and their Quicktime software, to Microsoft and their Media Player software are doing it. Is it any wonder that Linux developers are doing it, too?

Apple, above all else, should know better, but instead cave into customer demand, and produced Quicktime Player, with an interface that is neither uniform or intuitive. Older versions of Quicktime were not pleasant to use on Windows, but at least they didn't have these disgusting custom widgets.

Then there's Microsoft Media Player. The last useful version was 6.4, which still had a sane, native interface. 7, 8 and 9 all share the 'skinned html' interface, which is difficult to use and slow. Microsoft's only solution to this was to provide a skin that provides poor emulation of the old 6.4 features with non-functional menus and permanently stuck in the extended mode instead of compact.

Real has never been immune to the influence, with even early versions of RealPlayer using custom widgets. Things only got worse with the release of RealOne. Need I say more?

Now, there are applications for Linux, Windows, etc, that do have a decent interface. I'm sure old versions of Quicktime were great to use on MacOS, although they have always been a little cumbersome on Windows because of the menu issue. Windows Media Player 6.4 has served me well for some time when I'm using Microsoft Windows. I liked using XMPS (gnome user interface) on Linux until it stopped being developed. VLC doesn't have a terrible UI, but it doesn't have a great one either.

Perhaps it's just easier to make a pretty bitmap with clickable portions that developing a real usable UI for media applications? Perhaps there's something special about media players that make them immune to normal UI development research? Or have we just become so accustomed to the status quo, that we don't expect any different?

Ok, youre right...

[japhar81]

RANT The current state of video on Linux sucks ass. Especially on RH7.2. You dont want to have to patch your kernel or change distros? Ok, I can see that. Don't want to install Gnome2? Hey, it's your decision.

All that said, if you dont like it the way it is, break out your EMacs, and Write something better, otherwise, quit bitching!

Enough of these stupid reviews, you have all the code of these shitty projects. Rewrite the GUI for one. What? You dont feel like it? Then stop bitching.

Developers code this stuff to work how they want, they're sharing it out of the goodness of their hearts (politics and BS aside, they really dont have to, and no one can make them). Be grateful its out there at all, and quit bitching.

/RANT

Re:Ok, youre right...

[j_kenpo]

"All that said, if you dont like it the way it is, break out your EMacs, and Write something better, otherwise, quit bitching!

Enough of these stupid reviews, you have all the code of these shitty projects. Rewrite the GUI for one. What? You dont feel like it? Then stop bitching"

And this, right here, is why its going to be a hard, uphill battle for Linux on the desktop...

Re:Ok, youre right...

[overbored]

No, no, NO.

Let's put on our thinking caps for a moment. What do you think would happen to your project if you ignored your user base and responded to their complaints with "If you don't like it, write something better. Otherwise, go fuck yourself?" Of the (generously estimated) 20% of your users who have the know-how to hack the code, how many do you think will have the time to even bother?

And don't give me any of that "it's free so quality doesn't matter" crap. If you want your project to enjoy widespread use, you listen to what your users have to say.

Re:Ok, youre right...

[binaryDigit]

All that said, if you dont like it the way it is, break out your EMacs, and Write something better, otherwise, quit bitching!

I think you're missing the point of HIS rant. In the end, computers (and the apps that run on them) should be tools that allow users to get what they want done done, with as minimal amount of effort required. He is approaching this as a USER of the software. As an OS, Linux suffers when things like this happen to a category of app that is very "common". And the generic "well write it yourself" response is amusing, but in the end, not very productive.

Now his style certainly leaves a lot to be desired, and he does attack the apps (and via association, it's writers) and that is VERY counterproductive, but one can't let his style get in the way of his general message, the state of Linux applications is not where it should be. Yes, it's getting there, but it's NOT there.

Being "greatful its out there at all" is fine for a "tinkerers" OS, not one that is vying to become a "real" OS for the masses (and yes, there are those whose opinion about this differ as well).

Re:Ok, youre right...

[Aix]

The problem with this attitude is that you can't have it all. If Open Source developers always respond with "Don't like it? Fuck off, write something better!" it will never be anything more than a cult phenonmenon. Here's a little secret: most people aren't software developers. Telling them to "write something better" means nothing. If you really want Open Source and Linux to take off, it is necessary to embrace the wants and needs of users who don't know anything about coding. As something of a side note, too, there is a compromise for Linux: commercial closed-source software that companies actually sell for profit. Then users can make demands and developers actually have an interest in meeting them. Oops, there goes my Slashdot Karma for mentioning commercial software development on Linux ...

How about what's wrong with JWZ?

[ejaytee]

I used to think JWZ was cool. Lucid EMACS, the whole RMS techno-tension thing, his general sense of mightiness.

Now I think he mostly likes to complain about stuff and run his nightclub.

It's probably fun to make lists of things that suck all day long, but why not use some of that talent and nervous energy to join in and help?

Re:How about what's wrong with JWZ?

[Raul Acevedo]

It's probably fun to make lists of things that suck all day long, but why not use some of that talent and nervous energy to join in and help?

Because part of his point is that at this point in the history of the computer, being able to use a simple app to view video under Linux should not require one to have to do it oneself from scratch to do it right.

This gets mentioned a lot on slashdot; "if you don't like it, stop complaining and YOU do it right!" While there's a lot of validity to that, there are many times when the issue is that by now, certain basic things of using a computer have been solved 10000 times over.

I mean come on, "://", or the "MRL browser", to open a file dialog? WTF? I went through the same frustration with Xine, it took forever to figure how to do something as simple as open friggin' files.

Innovation is one thing. But coming up with a hard to use interface, ignoring some really, really basic UI guidelines that have been around for what 30 years is another. At that point, "if you don't like it, do it yourself" becomes an excuse, not a valid response.

JWZ should STFU

[Enahs]

Really. We know he's got the know-how to change the situation, and instead he just sits around bitching and calls other developers "fucktards."

Dammit, when you worked at Netscape, JWZ, Navigator sucked ass. Sorry, dude, but Communicator has improved since you had a hissy fit and left.

What, I'm not allowed to criticize the great JWZ?

So do it, JWZ; either put together something that works the way you think it should work, or give up and buy a fucking Mac already.

Huzzah!

[wowbagger]

Finally, somebody who else who is unafraid to point out the stupidity of the interfaces being foisted upon us!

Look, folks - your program is NOT a physical device I can stack in my equipment rack - DON'T MAKE IT LOOK LIKE ONE! It is a PROGRAM! Make it look like a program! I want a simple menu bar across the top of the window. I want that menu bar to follow accepted standard practice - File, Options, Help. I want a minimum of BS - just play the DAMN FILE!

Re:Huzzah!

[athakur999]

Amen! The number of software DVD players that try to look my hardware DVD players is amazing. I mean, who actually uses the front panel of their hardware DVD player, other than the "eject" button?

At the very least, if you feel the need to make your software look like hardware, make it look like a hardware DVD player remote control, which people actually use...

You get what you pay for.

[dannycim]

Instead of bitching about OpenSource and free (as in beer) products which have not even reached 1.0 stable release, be nice to the project developpers and make constructive suggestions.

Man! People are such a***oles nowadays. They expect everything for free and delivered on a gold plate. Pffft!

This review sucks..

[Maeryk]

Mainly because he limited himself to RPM's and didnt specify what WM he was using.

I use both mplayer and gmplayer on Mandrake just fine. It doesnt have resize problems, has resize ability, etc. That _may_ be because Im using windowmaker and/or blackbox, but it seems to work fine in KDE as well. Course, I installed the source for them, and compiled from scratch, after doing all the enable/disable flags the right way for my system.

The only issue Im having with Mplayer right now is it has a tendency to put some .viv files upside down when it plays them.. not sure, and not really bothered by it, but it was something i noticed.

Xine hasnt worked for me since day one.. but i have never tweaked it.. I just think it doesnt like my DVD drive.. as soon as it comes up and tries to hit the drive it locks the system hard.

I dont know what the problem is for this guy, other than the fact that he seems to be RPM happy and he uses RedHat. (which is certainly his prerogative)

Maeryk

Re:This review sucks..

[Tackhead]

> Mainly because he limited himself to RPM's and didnt specify what WM he was using.
>
> I use both mplayer and gmplayer on Mandrake just fine. It doesnt have resize problems, has resize ability, etc. That _may_ be because Im using windowmaker and/or blackbox, but it seems to work fine in KDE as well. Course, I installed the source for them, and compiled from scratch, after doing all the enable/disable flags the right way for my system.

Congratulations.

So write up an FAQ. Tell us:

1) What WMs work with what video programs.
2) What libraries are required.
3) What version of gcc you used *G*
4) What flags are set, where to set them, and what's "right" for a wide range of systems, say, a few nVIDIA and ATI systems on AMD and Intel chips, and/or any specific motherboard-related issues.
5) All the other variables I've overlooked, but that you didn't, that make the difference between "It Works" and "It Doesn't".

The problem JWZ is ranting about is usability, not functionality. You don't have a usability problem, because you already have a large base of knowledge, because you've made a large investment in time and energy to figure out how to make it work.

I made a similar comment the other day - and I've seen the same flames today, which pretty muchn boil down to "Hey, asshole, we code for the fun of it, not because we want to save the world from Microsoft! We code because we like to, and couldn't care less if anyone other than us ever uses our code!"

(The rest of this comment isn't addressed at you per se, it's addressed to the readership who've flamed JWZ for being a clueless and ungrateful twit - you've seen 'em - "hey, asshole, what have you coded for us lately", and "hey, be thankful you have any code at all, just 'cuz you're not 31337 enough to run it!")

Well, that's fine. Good to have you guys out of the closet. Billgatus will take over the world - and hey, that's fine, since it won't stop you from coding.

But if your code compiles in a forest where there are only 100 systems that can execute it (because those 100 systems all belong to the developers working on the project, as opposed to those of us who develop other things don't have time to keep up with the developments in every open source/free software video project), can you really be said to have created something useful in the first place? If code compiles on no machines, can it really be said to be code? And if you don't give a shit about your code running on a wide variety of platforms ("What, our code only runs on Distro X! You wanna run his app that needs Distro Y, and my app, you gotta dual-boot, or choose between his app and my app! Choose my app, 'cuz I'm cooler!") why should I give a shit about your code in the first place?

If that's how you want it, hey, it's your code, but under that scenario, what value does open source/free software offer me?

"Well", you say, "if you haven't coded anything for us, why should we give a fuck what you? It's open source, take it or fuckin' leave it."

Fair enough - but then why should any of us give a rat's fried patoot about freeing that DeCSS guy, or that Ogg Theora stuff, when it's plain as day that I'll never view a video with code based on it anyways?

The difference between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs offering me closed-source binaries on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, and you offering me code that I can't necessarily compile or use on a take-it-or-leave-it basis -- is that at least the frickin' movie plays on Windows and OS X.

Shouldn't rant about things you don't understand

[Rayban]

First of all, installing apt on RedHat doesn't compete to install packages - it uses apt to install RPMs, rather than debs. This means that it will automatically locate RPM dependencies and install them, exactly as a Debian system would. It just adds missing functionality to the RPM system.

It all comes down to people complaining and complaining that they can't do something right away. Why not build a package for mplayer that installs it the way you want? These people are writing software in their free time. You don't have to use it.

"Uh, no. I've seen the horror of Red Hat 8.0, and there's no fucking way I'm putting Gnome2 on any more of my machines for at least another six months, maybe a year."

I can't understand why you would complain about installing dependencies for a product that is still in development. How is software supposed to advance if we're always using v1 of libraries instead of v2?

"What are these fucktards thinking???"

Why do people get off on putting other people's work down? Just because you made a quick buck in an IPO doesn't give you the right to rant about whatever you want and expect people to bow down. Why not write up a bug report or a quick suggestion? Isn't that what we do if something bugs us? That's the beauty of having each access to the application developers! Your riches don't elevate you above the rest of us, my friend.

Don't whine that something doesn't work unless you are willing to fix it or willing switch to an environment that satisfies your needs. I should know better than to read JWZ's blog.

I fully concur

[GMFTatsujin]

With his gripe about custome interfaces. Xine is a desktop nightmare. Ditto with most of the other multimedia players I've encountered. They sacrifice high-tech intuitive controls for some made-up high-tech LOOK.

I'd rather just be able to find the play button and get the damn thing out of the way.

When I set up a theme on my desktop, I expect it to be constant, even if it's just the default. I understand this means making an app work with KDE or Gnome or whatever, but it seems to me that that's less work that scraping a graphic interface together from scratch. Skins are for the desktop manager, not the apps themselves, IMHO.

Then there's the issue of the half-completed custom interface that jars from one look to another. For instance - why does the XMMS "browse/open" window look so awful? The rest of the app looks very nice, or is at least non-intrusive to my eyeballs. It's small, it's tight, and it looks like other players I'm familiar with. But when I try to open an MP3, I get this horrific, generic, huge freaking window to browse around in. Yuck. XMMS is the #1 recommended playing app, too, but it doesn't seem to fit in with any window manager beyond generic X.

If someone can recommend an MP3 player that just fits my desktop, I'd be ever so grateful.
GMFTatsujin

Re:I fully concur

[Qzukk]

When I set up a theme on my desktop, I expect it to be constant, even if it's just the default.

Hm, I'm having a hard time figuring out if you're talking about window decorations or something else. I agree, *every* program should have a way to force it to use the wm's current window decorations.

If you're talking about something else, like some kind of widget theme, its just not going to happen. Basically you would be asking for someone to write their program in everything at once, lest they slight a GTK+ theme user, a KDE theme user, a Gnome theme user, and so on. Heck, KDE/Qt is (primarialy) C++, GTK+ is (primarialy) C. I think I've seen it done before... figure out what environment you're in, then start using the proper widget set. But that has to be *evil* to code.

Hurts when he's right, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how much effort was wasted on themes
that only make video players terribly hard to
use. I'v got good eyesight, and I can't even
make out what is what with those damn crapplets.

Re:I like this guy, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

command-line ... works perfectly for me

Everytime that phrase comes to your mind I want you to take a deep breath and think whether you would say that to your non-technical mother/father/granny/whatever. This is a great review in that it takes it from a true end user perspective. This is the experience that a regular joe would have. This is the battle that we must fight and the answer is not "command-line ... works perfectly for me."

Wow

[jandrese]

Is he using the same mplayer I use? Lemme see. It does change aspect ratio when you resize, which is strange at best, so I'll give him that, however it does not change the aspect ratio when you go fullscreen. Most of my videos have little black bars at the top and bottom because my screen (1280x1024) isn't 4:3. No titlebars on windows? The main video window has a titlebar, the control panel doesn't. Because I use Windowmaker, I move windows around with an alt-click, but I can't give mplayer credit for that. Lousy skinned interface: yeah, but I hope he wasn't planning on using any media player for Windows, or Mac. Everybody does these stupid skins (if they havn't then it's because the product isn't finished yet it seems). The default skin is not too bad, my only major complaint being lack of DVD controls when in DVD mode. The mouse zoom thing doesn't happen for me, and mplayer rarely complains anyway.

As for complaining about the console, these program are still under development. A lot of that is debugging information. The 1.0 version will hopefully have no output unless you specify a command line switch.

Re:Wow

[swordgeek]

these program are still under development...

Therein lies a major problem with Linux as a whole. It is always and continually under development. The kernel and most distros have official production-ready milestones, but most (almost all, in fact) of the apps out there are in a continual beta release cycle. Nothing ever gets finished. Nothing ever gets documented. Nothing turns into a 'final' release, with development moved onto the next version.

Nothing? OK, not quite nothing, but even Mozilla (one of the finest examples of recently complete software) is still being released 'for testing purposes only.'

why does he bother..

[devious]

indeed, he shouldn't. He should just get rid of his computer and go wacht tv ( or get a Mac, if he believes that will take him to utopia ).
That brainless ranting just shows his frustration.. of being a completely incapable to deal with computers.
I've had my share of problems with playing video on my linux box.. but nowadays mplayer does a better job than M$ mediaplayer here.

"mplayer -fs movie.mpg" my secret magical keystroke..

Tell me about it

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought JWZ knew what he was doing.

Resizing the window changes the aspect ratio of the video!

You should have made sure to use the XVideo extension!

An obvious troll, but hey its by someone famous so it must be worth the read. I could have done without reading that crap.

NR

Re:What's the point?

[swordgeek]

"Maybe he could try developping sommething, since the source code is there."

I just have two things to say to this comment.

1) Shut.
2) Up.

I am so SICK and TIRED of people mistaking the point of open source in this way! I am not a developer. I am not a programmer. I do not have the time, skills, or inclination to write a media player from scratch, or even fix one of the many broken ones. The fact that I (theoretically) CAN get and modify the source doesn't automatically mean that I MUST do so, if I don't like what's out there. It also does not affect the degree to which the existing players suck!

Once again:

1) The openness of the source code doesn't make the current software suck any less.
2) The OSS-given ability to (re)write software is not a de facto requirement to (re)write said software. It does not absolve the original programmers of their responsibilty to write non-crap.

Honestly, I like this review

[Meowfaceman]

I honestly think this is a good review.

Let me start by saying that I use Windows. I've tried Linux several times in the past. I have several thousand reasons why I think Linux is a decade or two from becoming a desktop OS. This review more or less demonstrates that.

There are seldom times when I feel like trying to get a program working for more than 10 or 20 minutes. Linux, while powerful, does not help much in this department. When I'm in a bad mood (much like JWZ is) there's no way I want to fuck around with Linux. Period.

My main problem with Linux, however, is the UIs of both the programs and the desktops. I will refuse to use a program because of the UI. Mplayer may be powerful, but as far as I'm concerned, if it doesn't have a UI, I won't use it. I don't care if there is a command line option, I didn't install KDE or Gnome to make the console look pretty.

I know a lot of you have said, "He can develop his own UI for it." Well, that's not why he installed Linux, and it's not why I did, either. I didn't try it expecting to have to write my own code to get things to run acceptably, I did it because it's an alternative to windows. One of the things that will keep (and has kept) Linux from being a desktop OS are things like this.

This is probably going to be an unpopular post, but oh well.

Redhat is a server distro

[Anonymous Coward]

One should not have high usability expectations for a distribution that doesn't emphesize the desktop. I would expect video playback to work out of the box on a Mandrake or SuSE system.

He's right about xine having an ugly UI, but I don't find it difficult to use relative to any other video player on any other platform.

As for apt, it just finds and downloads dependencies. Apt for RPM will use RPM to install them, just as the original apt uses dpkg. Mandrake's urpmi does a nice job of this too, but seems a bit less sophisticated than apt.

Welcome to the Real World

[RatBastard]

It's a mindless rant written by someone that does not want to compile anything or upgrade.

And guess what? Most people who try Linux don't want to compile or upgrade. They want it to work! This group is growing in size and will soon account for most of the Linux population (if it has not already happened). Most Linux users will be just that, "users" and developers need to start thinking in those terms if they want people to use thier programs and Linux in general.

Re:Shouldn't rant about things you don't understan

[siphoncolder]

Why do people get off on putting other people's work down? Just because you made a quick buck in an IPO doesn't give you the right to rant about whatever you want and expect people to bow down.

1) People don't get off doing that. They're actually saying something about what they don't like. Progress, as you should remember, is not about sitting silently and taking whatever is handed to you. Progress is made by telling someone what's wrong with what they've done. So what if his tone is nasty? His words are what's important, and his words equate to: "Why is this so hard. Make it consistant, make it easy."

2) He has the right to say whatever he wants. Just like you. Besides, attacking his position or money doesn't invalidate or make less important anything he says unless he can be proven to be wrong. Opinions can be tough to validate or invalidate, but in this case, he makes some very specific points about what he thinks is good and what's not. At no point does he say "I have a lot of money, which makes my point more imporant." He has a WEBSITE which makes his voice simply HEARD.

Um

[glwtta]

Who is this person? All I see is a page and a half of semi-coherent rambling by someone I've never heard of. Who apparently doesn't like mplayer and Xine - just a fascinating read.

Google claims to have 3,083,324,652 pages indexed - surely there's something better in there than this?

that poor bastard...

[pb]

Yeah, I'd be similarly distraught if I were installing RPM's on RedHat 7.2; therefore, I'm pretty happy that I made the switch to Gentoo.

mplayer is all I use for video playback, and this is all almost anyone needs to know... type mplayer followed by a space and the filename, and hit Enter.

What happens on my system? Glorious full-screen video with sound. Sure, there are other keys and options and GUIs and crap, but I don't want or need 99% of it... mostly I just want something that'll play video, and mplayer does a great job of that. (And mencoder looks pretty sweet too...)

As for video editing, I haven't done it, but if I wanted to, I'd probably start here -- ignore the gimpy-looking page, I've used some of this software in the past, and it struck me as being very usable and well-written; maybe not enough to please jwz, but what is? He bitches about Unix too. In fact, I propose that jwz bitching is just a fact of life. If he ever stops bitching, worry.

Re:that poor bastard...

[dnaumov]

Gentoo is not for everyone.
Debian is not for everyone.

This goes on to prove that the Linux folk have to do lot of work in the standartisation department. "Hard to install apps ? Install Gentoo/Debian !" Riiight...nevermind the fact that a newbie will be scared shitless the moment he realises there is no hardware autoconfiguration whatsoever, he has to create his own XF86Config and compile stuff from source.

what he wrote wasn't a review, it was a rant!

[puck01]

I think slashdot did a good job of misleading readers. If you go to the page that lists this 'rant', it clearly states it is a rant. He never claims its an objective review. He posted it on his personal webpage. He likely did not submit this to slashdot to read. Michael accepted it. It was never meant to get posted on slashdot, and problable doesn't warrent being here.

That being said, I think JWZ is more realistic about the usability of Linux than most slashdot readers.

puck

Are you kidding?

[Anonymous Coward]

You just validated everything he said.

He is trying to use it from a user perspective, not the "I have locked myself in the basement and never touched a girl" perspective that you seem all to familiar with.

If Linux is ever going to be accepted, you should not have to tweak it, and it should not matter what WM you are running, unless you are a skinning loser, which I think you might be.

Cruft

[Animats]

What Jamie is really complaining about is cruft. Playing a video isn't a big deal, yet all the apps for doing it carry with them excess baggage. This seems to be a generic problem with entertainment applications, regardless of platform. It's not enough just to open a window and do the job. The application has to look like a tacky consumer electronics product.

And no, you shouldn't have to rebuild from source just to run something. The Linux world needs to get that straight.

Re:It's a mindset. (Stating the obvious).

[PetiePooo]

Ok, here's some constructive criticism:

From his article (and FWIW, I am in total agreement):
... it's a total pain in the ass to use due to rampant "themeing." Why do people do this? They map this stupid shaped window with no titlebar (oh, sorry, your choice of a dozen stupidly-shaped windows without titlebars) all of which use fonts that are way too small to read.

One of the reasons M$ Windows has done so well is that it looks the same from one machine to another and from one program to another. If I have Windows on my computer, I know how to use your Windows computer. If you know how to use Word, you know how to use Excel. The menus are in the same order and have largely the same items. The active titlebar is a different color from the inactive ones, and clicking on it raises that window to the top. Standard, default appearances and actions! How WinXP is turning it into a Fischer-Price toy is a rant for a different day..

One of the most well liked "themed" programs for Windows is WinAMP. I submit to you that one of the reasons it was so well accepted is that the default skin looked like a normal window! Only the color and size were different. That meant that my mom (BTW, she still can't spell WWW..) knew how to resize it, move it and close it.. Instead of having a round volume control, like a home audio componenet, it had a slider bar, like a *gasp* PROGRAM! (Clue for those that need one: WinAMP is a program.)

Developers, if you want to give your interface themes and skins and other "fluff", by all means, knock yourself out. However, the default skin should be one that implements the interface as it would appear without a skin. Please! For everyone out there how likes to make their computer look like Fantasia, there are probably more of us who like it to look like a computer.

</rant> Call me old fashioned...

Re:What's the point?

[xyzzy]

Amen, brother.

The attitude of people who say this is stupid blame-the-victim krapola. Furthermore, it denigrates the whole of the open source movement to something analagous to a hobby shop. "Oh, you don't like how this soapbox derby car runs? Well why don't you go whittle your own!?!?!"

99 and 44 100ths% of people don't really want to crucify themselves just to get something done. Hey, if video for Linux isn't there, no biggie. Rome wasn't built overnight, and maybe JWZ should lighten up. But he calls them as he sees them. The *current* state of the world is crap, and fscking around with skins doesn't amount to a hill of beans if you really want to just solve a simple problem.

Re:What's the point?

[tewfik]

what the hell! I seldom had to say that but .... this is basic stupid idiocy.
A minimum of respect for the guys out there who spend sleepless nights just for the four of you to get high on a good porn movie. Respect the ones who the job man. There are better ways to give advice and make comments.
try google a brain for a start.

You have to admit...

[bigdisk]

You have to admin Linux is in a pretty sorry ass state for end users. I spent the better part of a week trying to get a wireless card running. You have to scour the net for HOWTOs and beg and grovel more experienced people for help.

And who was the brain surgeon that architected the kernel? Who decided you should have to recompile the goddamn thing every time you add a card or device to the goddamn computer?

Learn to Use Criticism

[Anonymous Coward]

What's with all the hostility? Okay, the guy has some pretty frank things to say, and the way he says them is none too polite, either.

But here's something to chew on... what he's saying is what a lot of Linux newcomers will be thinking. What's you're answer for them? "It's free, be glad you're getting any software at all." Or maybe: "The source code's available, fix it yourself." Or, perhaps, as mentioned towards the end of the article: "Try a different Linux distribution."

These kinds of attitudes, far more than any technical barriers, harm the mainstream adoption Linux (or GNU/Linux for the whiny among you). Okay, so the criticism of your favorite OS was harsh or rude. What about taking up the gauntlet and actually fixing this stuff for those folks who don't have the skills required to do it themselves? Why not take up the challenge and make Linux more usable?

Companies who ignore customers do so at their own peril; the open source community is no different. You want Linux to steal share from Microsoft? Listen to criticism, then fix what's wrong.

Criticism is your friend; learn to use it.

(Let's see now whether this message gets ignored, labeled as flamebait, or insightful. The result should say a lot.)

Re:Total disagreement

[Enahs]

Don't ever disregard valuable feedback from an end-user perspective.

I agree, but there's no value to his criticism. No criticism that contains language like "fucktard" is valuable.

And JWZ, the Emacs nut, has the gall to criticize MPlayer for requiring users to remember a few keystrokes. I mean, c'mon, how many Emacs users chuckled when they read that? :-D

And really, how is criticising Ogle because it only plays physical DVDs, when it's stated purpose is simply to play physical DVDs, valuable feedback?

Honestly, I fail to see it. Being told to switch distributions as inevitable as Hitler? I mean, the list of complaints about Red Hat is long. Long, long, long.

And I read through his list of "problems" and didn't find anything that couldn't have been solved by simply asking someone, or reading the documentation.

Honestly, I don't think anyone who used to work at Netscape or had anything to do with XEmacs should have an opinion on usability. Honestly. :-D

Newsflash: /. readers completely miss point!!!

[swordgeek]

OK, is this a wild, psychotic, venomous, incoherent, and possible drug-induced rant? Well of course it is!

But the problem he brings up is still a real one, and most of the invective directed at him competely misses it.

Video on Linux (and many MANY other aspects of Linux in general) sucks from the end user point of view. If I have to compile it to make it work properly, then Linux is nothing more than a hobbyist OS. If I have to write my own bloody software, then it's nothing better than a hardcore geek toy OS.

Why isn't Linux taking over the desktop market? It's not MS bullshit (of which there's certainly a lot), it's Linux bullshit. The fundamental problem is that it is not a useful generic-end-user capable OS, and telling people to go write their own software if they don't like it...DOESN'T HELP!!!

JWZ doesn't have to use Linux. I don't have to use Linux. Countering with confrontation (i.e. JWZ) with abuse isn't going to win any converts.

Jamie's writing larger reflect my Linux experience

[tungwaiyip]

That Linux is flooded with low quality apps.

1. Many apps can't get basic thing done easily (or at all). E.g. Nautilus (a file manager) could crash when copying files.

2. Many GUI are badly designed. They have complex interaction and fail to guide new users to do basic things. Think how many steps are needed to use xcdroast to duplicate a CD. How intimidating it would be to a new user. And how many opportunities for user to do wrong things.

3. Many GUI apps look amateurish. And when some window doesn't fit in a 1024x768 screen this just drive you mad.

4. When an app exhaust my patience I go for a different app. Only to find it have its own set of problem or sucks even more. And then I still can't even get my basic work done.

The enthusiastic crowd of Linux would insist the app works would great if only you do this configure and/or use a different version and/or recompile from source code. We need to get real and have a objective evaluation on the state of art. If we oversold on Linux and it doesn't meet the quality standard for average user it would only damage Linux's image.

Note that after 2 months of frustrating experience and I still in a quixotic attempt to get Linux to work for me. It is only because I'm serious in finding an alternative to MS. If any windoze app give me this kind of crap it will be uninstalled and will never be seen again. (But I think my next machine is going to be a Mac).

Wai Yip Tung

Re:Expect No Mercy

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF is Slashdot thinking? This isn't a 'Review' nor was it ever intended to be. It is some guy's personal ranting on his personal website. This isn't news and I am sure JWZ didn't intend for it to be either.

And before I have to read another comment like "This guy should learn to program and write his own", why don't you people actually figure out who this guy is, because posts like that just make you sound like the idiot.

Linux users must hate themselves

[Space Coyote]

If I brought home a hardware DV DVD player, set it up on top of my TV, plugged it in and turned it on to find a command prompt and no way to play movies without me going out on the Internet, finding the proper program, in the proper packaging format, compiled for the proper architecture, installing it, then realizing my video hardware isn't configured properly. Having to upgrade my X-windows, and subsequently patch my 'kernel' with some kind of library.. and so on and so on. Well, the girl I brought home to watch a movie with me will have gone off to find something more interesting to do long ago. And said video player would have been thrown out the window.

When I can buy a computer with linux on it and have stuff just work, I'll say it has a chance of being useful for someone rather than a giant time-sucking virus.

Until then, I'll use a Mac.

Perhaps you should read...

[Pii]

This.

I must admit, I'm a bit of a jwz fanboy. I enjoy a good rant, and he's got a certain gift for it.

Getting back on-topic, I don't know why everybody is so pissed about what he's written. As others have pointed out, it's not like he set out to write "A Comprehensive Review of Video on Linux." The linked "article" was written for his own amusement. Somebody else thought it would be a good idea to submit it to Slashdot. He's merely pointing out that the current state of affairs is pertty sad, and for those of you in the audience with the integrity to state the plain truth, he's correct.

There's not a single Linux video viewer (DVD/or otherwise) that approaches what you'd expect to find in so-called "Commercial software." (That's not to say that all commercial software is good either, but non-intuitive interfaces aside, they generally all work better than most of what's out there for Linux today.)

Other have also ridiculed the tendancy of the developers to make the applications look and feel like A/V equipment. Hard to argue with that. There's no reason a video player needs to look like a physical DVD player. A real DVD player looks the way it does because we operate it here, in the meatspace. It's design is simplistic and somewhat elegant because of the way we interact with it, in 3 dimensions. When this functionality sits on a 2 dimensional screen, it should look and feel like all of the other programs that we're used to using. That's a legitimate gripe.

Re:What a grumpy asshole

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are so many people taking his comments personally? Did you write the video players he critisized? No, so WTF? If you replaced all the names of the Linux media players with Windows Media Player, this forum would be full of "Hurrah!" and "I totally agree!". His points are all valid and are HIS OPINION. Most of them I personally agree with as well. But just because he says some negative things about a Linux app *gasp*, you people are reacting like he killed you mother or something. I really don't get it, but it really strengthens my position that Slashdot has really gone downhill the last couple of years.

Re:I like this guy, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, but somebody has brainwashed you into believing that a GUI is easier to use than the command-line. There is a serious "command-line" phobia that the Microsoft droids have been fostering that really needs to stop. If you look at the current state of TERRIBLE GUIs for these players, and compare it to the simplicity of mplayer's command-line, you'll see what I'm talking about. And if you complain about how hard it is to remember the keystrokes, how hard is it to remember to type mplayer --help if you forget? It's not like --help is intuitive or anything, seeing as EVERY UNIX COMMAND (save a few braindead ones) uses --help to show you the basics. Oh, I forgot, you can't read. You need little icons to show you how to wipe your ass.

Die RPM Die

[Screaming Lunatic]

I don't know why people still put up with RPM.

# emerge -p mplayer

These are the packages that I would merge, in order:

Calculating dependencies ...done!
[ebuild N ] media-libs/libdv-0.98
[ebuild N ] media-libs/win32codecs-0.90.1-r1
[ebuild N ] media-libs/divx4linux-20020418-r2
[ebuild N ] media-video/mplayer-0.90_rc3

# emerge -p gstreamer

These are the packages that I would merge, in order:

Calculating dependencies ...done!
[ebuild N ] media-libs/gstreamer-0.4.2-r1

How difficult is that? Debian and Gentoo have installers that are more difficult than Redhat and Mandrake. But the reason Linux is not ready for the desktop is because of RPM.

DIE RPM DIE

Re:I like this guy, but...

[LMCBoy]

This is the experience that a regular joe would have. This is the battle that we must fight

Why must we fight this "battle"? Who cares if Grandma can use Linux or not? As long as enough geeks are using Linux to keep the platform viable, this geek will be happy, and perfectly content.

The Penguin cares not for market share.

Re:What's the point?

[FreeUser]

I am so SICK and TIRED of people mistaking the point of open source in this way!

You are the only one "mistaking" anything here. Free software is about freedom, freedom of choice, freedom to use (and reuse, modify, etc.) the software that runs and orders much of our lives.

If someone gives you a gift you have four choices, three of which are acceptable and one of which is completely contemptable.

1) accept the gift (graciously or with constructive criticism)
2) return the gift (with or without constructive criticism)
3) accept the gift and modify it to better suit your needs.
4) bitterly lambast the gift giver for their presumption in offering Your Holiness such a shoddy and unworthy gift, do so publicly, loudly, and with few criticisms even remotely applicable to the gift you've received.

JWZ did the latter (4), and deserves the contempt he has so richly earned, both for his lack of insight and comprehension of the very technology he is lambasting, and his lack of manners in doing so.

I am not a developer. I am not a programmer. I do not have the time, skills, or inclination to write a media player from scratch, or even fix one of the many broken ones.

You may not be, but JWZ is (or at least is leveraging his reputation of having once been a competent programmer), and instead of doing something he is perfectly capable of (or at least represents himself of being capable of), and for which free software and open source are specifically designed and intended, he has chosen instead to publicly vilify those who have given him a gift.

He is not only incompetent (staying married to an outdated distro and complaining he can't get current software to run seemlessly with it with no effort, something akin to complaining about the lack of support for MS Office 2000 on his old Windows 3.11 machine), he is rude, obnoxious, and above all wrong in almost all of his assertions, and if he had any honor he would, quite frankly, be very ashamed at having ever put up such a diatribe in a public place (which, in case you missed it, is exactly what a web page, even a personal one, is).

He's got good points....

[otis wildflower]

... I tend to think the Helix client, alone or incorporated into a WM player, is the right way to go.. Or at least pick _ONE_ good framework and avoid massive effort duplication ... (and that was only up to the G's!)

It seems there's an awful lot of video players that come from a number of "itches" or "brushing up on linux multimedia programming" urges, with little attention paid to usability, and that really doesn't serve the USERS as well as a more focused app.

Uselessness.

[Lemmy Caution]

I can figure out a command line. I can type "man foo" or "foo -h" and get a general sense of what I'm supposed to do, and if it's only a matter of a couple flags and args, it may only be twice as long as it would take for me to look at a page of prefs and checked settings.

JWZ is, I believe, somewhat smarter than I am, and far more technically sophisticated, and he's sick of having to do that. He *can*, of course, and if you knew jack shit, you'd know that he probably is much better at programming, unix, and the like than you are, but the point is that like everyone with better things to learn than command line switches if we have to do this with every command in a series of commands that are being piped into each other, we're going to get sick of it - especially with plenty of alternatives (MS, Apple, etc.) available.

A well-designed GUI will present far more information far more quickly than a CLI. Processing visual information is a parallel process - scanning text is a serial one. Looking at a single window, being able to check 6 or 7 checkboxes and hit the "enter" button is more efficient than trying to figure out which of 6 or 7 flags to use, their arguments if necessary, and then enter a string on a command line.

When the software at hand is a media playback software, where you may have to go back and rescan the text and edit the command string if things aren't right, the inefficiences of a CLI are even more striking.

Sheesh

[Obiwan Kenobi]

Will you listen to yourself?

All you need to do is go here [zarb.org] to configure and add a urpmi source from one of the plf mirror sites, and it is literally as easy as "urpmi.update -a && urpmi mplayer".

How does a newbie or god forbid a grandmother who wants to watch the DVD of Steel Magnolia's on her computer just like her grandson does accomplish this?

UI is important. That's what JWZ rants about time and time again. UI is what the user interacts with. Only geeks care about what goes on under the hood. Everyone else in the world just wants it to work.

Every time I try to show the greatness of Linux, I usually end up apologizing for the archaic methods of installation, compiling programs, finding libraries, etc etc. The first thing 9/10 users I've tried to convert to Linux want to know is if their current programs they use in Windows can run in Linux. More apologies.

I love Linux, and I love the idea of it, but I don't use it on the desktop because most of the UI is crap, X Windows is a sad, lumbering giant of missed opportunity, and dependencies drive me up the wall. Why is apt always a command line utility? And why don't any apt interfaces not automatically update w/ package information? Or put that package information into an easily readable/understandable UI?

I don't want to mess with odd skins and strange UI problems with mplayer. What is so hard in making the thing work like its supposed to? Mozilla is the most friendly open source project every created to fruition (instead of dying a slow death in beta development) because users recognize the interface and, despite a few differences, can catch on pretty quickly and be adding their bookmarks and their AIM buddies in no time. Unfortunately little else can be said for myplayer, or any other open source video player.

But unfortunately, again, it all comes down to standards, compliance, and ego. Everyone wants their work to be their own, they don't need no steekin standards, and compliance within two seperate apps is still a myth at best. We still haven't gotten copy and paste (using ctrl + C & V, respectively) working correctly 100% of the time.

I'll run Linux servers all day, but I wouldn't trade my Windows XP desktop just yet. Linux still has miles to go.

Re:The point of GUI

[TeknoHog]

GUIs may be convenient for some tasks, but certainly not all. When it comes to movies, I want them full-screen, and any GUI would only be in the way. Imagine going to a movie theatre and seeing flashy frames around the screen along with a huge "play" button!

The same goes for DVD players. They have control keys distinct from the screen, whether on the remote or on the front panel. Computers also have keys, so that you don't have to do everything by clicking around menus which also waste the precious screen space.

I sometimes have the feeling that once people got used to Mac and Windows GUIs, they forgot about the keyboard entirely. It's better when you know the strengths and weaknesses of different input devices, and use the one that's appropriate.

Re:I like this guy, but...

[iebgener]

So here ya go. Mplayer is just a media player. It opens every media you can think of - mplayer [file] and it just works. Period. Set it up to be the default media player in your pretty GUI file manager and you'll never think about it again.

amen !

I have configured mplayer as the default player on nautilus and everything is F A S T ! and it reads about everything. Nautilus will always be a better file browser than any open dialog of any program since everything is dynamic. mplayer reads avi while they are downloading... not the microsoft one.

As the key mapping, well, the scroll button on the mouse will sroll the movie; ESC and close button will close the movie; space bar start/stop the movie. It's complicated ? 'The movie steches when you resize the windows' : then why did you resize the window anyway ????

and kudo to the mplayer team, to my opinion, they have done a great job!

JWZ quotes:

[SimHacker]

"Using these toolkits is like trying to make a bookshelf out of mashed potatoes."

"Consider whether chewing on glass might have more of a payoff than what you're about to go through."

- Jamie Zawinski, quoted in The X-Windows Disaster

Re:I like this guy, but...

[njdj]

Different != bad.

I disagree. When it comes to user interface conventions, Different=Bad.

Just imagine walking into a car showroom to buy a car, and the sales guy shows you this neat-looking model. It has 2 pedals, one of them turns on the windshield wipers, the other turns on the heated rear window. The brake is operated by a stalk on the left of the steering column ... need I continue?

A lot of user-interface conventions are pretty arbitrary. If we were starting from nothing, maybe something else would have been better. But we're not starting from nothing. We've all gotten used to a bunch of conventions. Products which conform to the conventions we know are easier to use than products which do not.

Re:Pain in the ass?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been a while, but I recall running three commands:
rpm -U http://ftp.freshrpms.net/pub/freshrpms/psyche/apt/ apt-0.5.4cnc9-fr1.i386.rpm apt-get update apt-get install mplayer

Christ, and this doesn't look like a pain in the ass to you? How disconnected from reality are you?

Re:I like this guy, but...

[seanellis]

Sorry to disagree, but the original author is right, and you even point it out yourself:

Interaction is a bit different than usual, i'll admit, but it's intuitive and easy once you get used to it.

There's the problem right there, staring you in the face.

Why should I have to "get used to it"? I have already spent time and effort gaining knowledge about how to deal with scroll bars, file selectors, bringing windows to the top, minimizing windows, etc. If I can't apply that to this app, and have to learn all those things all over again just for this app then I lose.

I haven't got the time to "get used to" every app's idea of a pretty UI. I want something that works the way everything else works, thanks.

For some reason, it's media stuff that tends to sport these kinds of interfaces. Non-standard windows. Controls I can't see, or that don't work the way I expect, or that don't do anything because they are cruft that just looks like a control. More pixels dedicated to the skin than to the movie. Favorites bars. Channel bars. Media bars. Quicklaunch bars. For all I know or care, topless bars.

WHO ON EARTH THOUGHT I WANTED ANY OF THIS CRAP?

What I want from a media player is simple: a rectangular window with a standard title and menu bar. Controls: play, stop, and a horizontal scroll bar for fast forward/rewind - and it had better be a proper UI standard scrollbar too. Maximise widget for full screen video. Standard menus for everything else.

Of course, Linux isn't the only OS that has this problem. Windows Media Player is another execrable pile of "cool" skins and stuff. I selected the "classic" skin as soon as the thing installed, and turned every UI option off. And Quicktime player's UI rightly has its own page in the UI hall of shame. You don't even get a choice with this one.

No wonder users these days get confused. And when users get confused, they leave.

Re:What a grumpy asshole

[mixmasta]

Just because he is a grumpy asshole, doesn't mean he's not right.

Review (& i suspect the writer) is Fing WORTHL

[Anonymous Coward]

This article is a piece of shit. Obvious from the first sentence that the author has a bone to pick. Now that is really not a problem, people put up rants all the time on the net. BUT IT's listed on slashdot, seeming to be a comprehensive review of video programs on linux. HOW BULLSHIT IS THAT? (to use the kind of language present in the article). While the writer is inane,

SLASHDOT IS POSTING BULLSHIT (which i guess is better than redundant bullshit)

Re:What a grumpy asshole

[Malcontent]

Because it's much easier to whine then to help, it's much easier to point and laugh rather then engage in a constructive dialog.

JWZ is perfectly happy to pull a nelson by simply standing in the sidelines and yelling "HA HA". I don't mean to critizise him exclusively he is not alone in that regard.

He left the mozilla project and yet mozilla turned out to be an awsome browser (the best in the market IMHO) maybe he is a bit upset about that who knows.

Re:What a grumpy asshole

[jackbox]

"This is shit and too big of a pain in the ass to screw with" isn't a particularly exacting or insightful analysis.

True. But it's exactly the same analysis that every "normal" (non-techno geek) user will give. And that makes it extremely valuable.

You're missing the point.

[edunbar93]

mplayer -- doesn't like the UI

No, he says the UI is completely inconsistent with, well, everything else. This goes against everything he knows about creating user interfaces. And he knows a couple things about that.

gstreamer -- doesn't want to install the required libs

You know what? *I* don't want to install the required libs. For anything. Usually because there's a litany of them for a fairly large number of programs. "Oh, there. I've got dependency A fulfilled. Now it should compile. Oops. No, it needs dependency B too. Oh damn. Dependency B also requires packages X, Y, and Z. And then there's dependency C, which wasn't actually mentioned in any documentation." For this reason I use FreeBSD, which at the very least, will automatically install any depenency needed. And if it starts installing X windows or some other huge bit of stupidity, I can cancel the install.

Apparently, I'm not alone in not wanting to bother with this because that's why the ports collection was created oh, 10 years ago.

xine -- doesn't know how to use a file browser (or pass args on the CL)

Correction: "doesn't know how to use a completely brain damaged, non-intuitive file browser for which there aren't any docs, and gave up in frustration."

Note: JWZ knows how to make a user interface, which might explain why he's so frustrated by people who can't.

ogle -- doesn't do what he wants, even though it makes no claims that it does

Well, you're right. But perhaps he's desperate.