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Elonex ONE Subnotebook Shows Right Path For Linux
davidmwilliams writes "Whether it was to your taste or not, there's no denying the ASUS Eee Linux subnotebook was a massive sales success. Demand far exceeded initial production so it's not surprising competitor models are on their way. Just like the Eee, the Elonex achieves cost savings by bundling freely redistributable open source software including, of course, the Linux operating system (specifically, Linos 2.6.21). Those who use the Elonex ONE may well understand it uses something called Linux under the hood, but they don't really have to grasp what this means. They don't have to care that the WiFi hardware was carefully chosen to be one of the exclusive few which has supported Linux drivers. They don't need to tamper with the way their family computer is already set up."
"And hence, shall usher in the Year of the Linux Desktop..."
At least, thats what reading between the lines gave me. Your milage may differ.
Its a nice idea, but how many of things have said they've managed to bridge the gap?
I'm not holding my breath.
I'd like to know what the '300MHz LNX Code 8 Mobile Processor' is. My guess would be a Cortex A8 derivative, but it doesn't specify. I'd be interested to know if the machine can run other operating systems (e.g. OpenBSD). At under £100, it's very tempting to pick one up to play with. 1GB of flash is not very much though, and the only expandability is via USB (no flash cards, unfortunately).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the years. It used to be that people who didn't like computers, but had to use them for a few things, avoided Linux like the plague. It may be that these very people are about to embrace it, if it gives them all they want.
Just what exactly is Linos? I tried Google, and it gave me nothing useful. (Photphonics, and Industrial software)
They might get even more publicity and help if they said "It uses Linos, which is based on [insert major distribution]"
Unless its not based on anything, which would be "cool" but not very well thought through, unless they have a huge Help & Support staff/department.
If only I could get half the smile David has in TFA, I guess it's time to try Linux.
Unfortunately: this hasn't happened yet (in a big way) in the corporate desktop market. That will happen next year -- as I have been predicting for the last 8 years.
Apparently the Elonex ONE is just a rebranded version of this system, i.e. a digital photoframe with a keyboard/mouse and wifi grafted on (which is how they manage to keep the cost down).
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
For business and school use, Google Docs, etc are betting o be so good, that the only thing that really matters is having Firefox, and a good WiFi link to the internet.
Expand on that, get your own domain, and Google Apps let you expand on that and manage quite complex projects.
You may still need a Windows machine to use some application specific software, but carrying one of thesse or the Eee really can solve so many of your mibile needs, that like I said, the OS just doesnt matter.
Cheers
* Carthago Delenda Est *
Catastrophe theory etc.
Deleted
Two caveats: one, I have an Eee so I'm biased that way, and two, I have only looked at the Elonex site for about thirty seconds. But that thing is ugly! It looks like it would flop over on its top-heavy back all the time. Why is everything in the screen instead of under the keyboard? Is it to keep the heat off of little boys and girls baby producing parts?
That thing just looks weird.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
Until they start shipping at least 1024x768 10" screens, this will not truly take off. Wait till next year.
If you feel this way, why bother using FOSS?
I thought Elonex (i.e. the north London PC makers we once bought from) went bust and were then bought from administration by someone else. Nothing wrong with that, except that New Elonex was reported in the press to be refusing to honour Old Elonex's warranties on the grounds that they were a different legal entity. Nothing illegal in that, but New Elonex's web site gives the impression of business continuity.
Could we perhaps ask New Elonex to clarify this point? Are they as honourable a business as we would all like to believe? The world is a bit too full of dodgy phoenix companies for my liking.
Linux is just the kernel, GNU is the operating system.
From TFA: "Unlike the Eee, however, the native resolution is a more regular (though narrower) 640x480 instead of the bizarre 640x400 ASUS offer."
This is false. I own the Asus Eee PC 701. It has a resolution of 800x480, not "640x400".
From TFA: "Now, returning to hardware, although I commented on how much the ONE seems reminiscent of the Eee there are some differences. I already mentioned the resolution which while taller is narrower."
Again, this is false.
However, it won't be Elonex. Asus is my personal bet for the one company to take Linux to the true desktop. They have the advantage of being both hardware mfr. and Linux developers, they have great stuff from Apple using them as their vendor.
Linux has needed a single, unified, vision from the beginning to get past all o fthe choice/freedom crap and get on to a unified UI, a solid look and feel, and most importantly ONE of everything that is best in class and 100% working by default. Since the OSS community will never agree to do this, a company is my only hope (as sad as that is). I'm wishing ASUS nothing but luck.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
As Joel wrote, a good business strategy is to drive the price of the complements of your product down to commodity levels. Decreasing the cost of operating systems will make laptops more profitable, so a lot of the companies entering the subnotebook field will be stimulating linux (and other open source) development. We've already seen this from VIA; I can't wait to see if some big US brands start openly supporting linux development.
Re: the CPU question.... I agree, I was going to say the same thing, but my connection is playing up.
I first heard of the Elonex ONE via Slashdot on a roundup of the Eee PC's rivals. It looked interesting, and I might have considered pre-ordering one, but there was bugger all concrete detail about the CPU.
Looking at the website now, it doesn't seem to give much (if any) more information than what was available back then. It states that they're using an "LNX [Elonex, geddit?!] Code 8 300MHz Mobile Processor", but that's meaningless because it's almost certainly someone else's rebadged CPU (*) So why all the secrecy when it's near launch?
I've heard rumours and suchlike, but nothing concrete, and nothing from the horse's mouth. They won't even state if it's an x86-compatible, or what that 300MHz speed is comparable to in practice. What have they got to hide?
(*) There's *no* way that a company the size of Elonex could- or would- create their own chip to rival those available from the major companies. Even if it was possible, it wouldn't be remotely cost-effective. In fact, IIRC the Elonex ONE is itself essentially a rebadged machine.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
The Eee wins.
I considered the Elonex One for all of 5 minutes before rejecting it. Ok, I paid twice as much for my Eee, but it doesn't look like an ugly botched abortion with an even more obscure "version" of Linux than Xandros. And the overall spec of the Eee is light years above the One.
I've installed Xampp on the Eee with no problems and it makes a curiously engaging development and demonstration platform. I'd hate to try THAT with the One!
What's up with all of these little-known distros taking up the space? Why don't the put something like Ubuntu/OpenSUSE/Fedora on the thing?
not quite sure why it was referred to as Linos, but I think that was an error.
It is worth noting that an instruction set itself can not be copywriten, but some companies have sued small startups (MIPS technologies and Lexra) to bankruptcy on this issue. I personally think it is a chinese MIPS compatible processor in there, and they don't want to use the trademarked? MIPS title and don't know what else to call it. It would be nice if it was a Cortex A8, which could be overclocked quite well :)
Linux has needed a single, unified, vision from the beginning to get past all o fthe choice/freedom crap and get on to a unified UI, a solid look and feel, and most importantly ONE of everything that is best in class and 100% working by default. Since the OSS community will never agree to do this, a company is my only hope (as sad as that is). I'm wishing ASUS nothing but luck.
Fair enough, in a way I sort of agree, in the sense that Linux might be seen as a competitor to Windows as a marketable item. However, a strength of Linux (OK, and the BSDs too) is the customisability of the interface(s), since neither Microsoft nor Apple seem to care much about this. By now, the bigger players in the UI scene (i.e Gnome and KDE) have pretty much got their act together, and their products work at least as well as their proprietary counterparts.
The last thing Linux users need is to be squeezed into a proprietary box. We've seen enough of that already.
both the eeePC and Elonex One have 800x480 and you are right about the operating system, I think the Linos thing was an early missprint and it has been repeated and repeated. It is a kernel version number (which means very little to the target audience of the marketing material) the operating system is a custom Xandros, just like the eeePC (although Xandros on eeePC was customised for Asus and Xandros on One was customised for Elonex so don't expect them to be identical).
Elonex has a removable keyboard, even though the lack of touch screen makes it less usefull. I really want to have one of these with out keyboard, because of the small form factor the keyboard becomes alot more conspicuous.
I've been using small Laptops since 2000 and the keyboard has always been an issue. Sure 90% of the time it doesn't matter, but sometimes it really is helpful to remove the keyboard.
But at some point customization and freedom have to take a back seat to "good enough." It's fine to then take that solid foundation and open it up for people to tweak, change, build upon, streamline, extend, etc... but let's have that one solid base.
I used to have all the time in the world to tinker and tweak, and then the realization that I end up spending most of my time computing tweaking and tuning and NOT actually doing anything. I've been with Linux for over 12 years now, I wish it success but I think the community is misguided.
Why Linus and others constantly state that chaos is good, yet the kernel is presided over and shaped and guided with one vision and goal... and everything else is supposed to magically align for greatness is beyond me. It needs to be treated as a complete package not just a kernel any more.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Linux is not for everyone. If you want EXACTLY one of everything and a lack of choices because you don't want to be confused, perhaps you should stay with windows. There is a market for a fisherprice OS, and it is you. The strength of Linux is Freedom and Choice. Stick with windows, you'll be happier, you want mind the lack of Freedom, or being force fed some corporations idea of what you need on your computer.
Though we haven't seen an updated to Elonex shopping page since march...
removable keyboard
As opposed to the wide variety of wireless drivers that Windows supports out-of-the-box without manufacturer software?
Hint: MS doesn't write wireless drivers, the manufacturers do. The fact that Linux has native, non-manufacturer drivers at all speaks well for it.
Linux is different for the sake of being better.
I love the smell of troll food in the morning.
Andy
well, nothing that couldn't have been written on March 1st at any rate. In fact I did write an article about the Elonex One, and the OLPC XO and the EeePC on March 1st, I don't know if it is a better article, I am of course not a professional journalist, but I did at least make an effort to check the facts and actually did have a unit to look at. The ITWire article is just poorly regurgitating some publicly available specifications.
Wrong, GNU is not the operating system here. Linux is the operating system, with a set of programs and utilities running on it. Some of these auxiliary programs and utilities do belong to the GNU software collection, it's true, but they are not enough to OPERATE the SYSTEM with, get it?
However, if you want a *true* "GNU operating system" you'll have to use the Hurd. Good luck...
Dear AC,
/.. An example might be one entitled GNAA Announces Website Partnership with Barak Hosni Mubarak Saddam Hussein Obama Campaign and purporting to bear news of an agreement to allow the Obama campaign to use GNAA's botnet (triggered by Last Measure, which is to replace the current Obama Campaign home page) to inject Hillary "God, I wish I'd married a real man like Anal Cox" Clitdong and John MacOSXPain (and all their heterosexually brainwashed followers) with Holy Gay Nigger Seed via the intarwebs, etc., etc.
You're just a wannabe who couldn't post a real GNAA troll is his life depended on it.
1. A real GNAA post takes the form of a press release, which is used to parody a recent issue in the news - it works best if it's recently been the subject of a story on
2. A successful GNAA post is a first post that's posted non-anonymously.
All you've done is post (most of) the standard GNAA coda as an AC, which is pathetic. It's not like there aren't heaps of examples at gnaa.us to get you started.
Have you even watched the movie? Geez.
Wisdom
Right display and memory
Right system and applications
Ethical conduct
Right patching
Right networking
Right configuration
Concentration
Right keys and touchpad
Right backups
Right clamshell hibernate
Wow, how terribly insightful. YOU are exactly what is wrong with Linux. *I* don't need a fancy OS. I live and work daily in some of the most cryptic operating systems made. I work in low level, I have contributed more to open source than you could hope to. It is people like you and your mentality that deserve to fail and to flounder on another 12 years treading water rather than pushing ahead.
*I* don't need one of everything, Linux does... and even then just out of the box. No one said there can't be choice and 40 half-assed versions of the same app available... but straight away there should be a decided upon set default system which includes one of each. Why exactly do I need 12 text editors on a default install? Imagine for a minute if Windows shipped with 12 text editors and 6 video players, and on and on as Linux does... it would be ridiculous and a waste of space and resources.
But it's Linux so I should give it a pass lest I be labeled a simpleton. Wake the fuck up.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
both hardware mfr. and Linux developers
:)
.deb and .rpm.
Yes, but their hardware quality, especially in comparaison to Gigabyte (by itself it's fine), has been in a rather harsh decline since the launch of S775/AM2.
Oh, they don't develop anything Linux/GPL IIRC. The linux distro on the eeePC is outsourced to Xandros, a shoddy company that puts my city's already crappy tech sector to shame. They were also one of the companies that signed a deal with MS, another reason to avoid them (Novell's turned out to be not too bad, the ones following it however were a lot worse).
Still, I love the eeePC, because it was the first and the only subnotebook to be under 400$ and released to the "general market", something MSI, Dell, and HP have missed.
Apple using them as their vendor
Apple uses Foxconn parts.
Linux has needed a single, unified, vision from the beginning
I would like to direct you to kernel.org
That said, really, there is no need for a unified Linux distro. Almost everything is "unified". The only thing that really differs amongst distro packagers are slight kernel modifications, small lib changes (basically things that would make an Ubuntu binary not run on Debian), and choice of package managers; even then, only two are relevant;
get past all o fthe choice/freedom crap
Why are you using Linux again? Might as well go back to MS/Apple if you have an attitude like that. That's not to say we're all elitists, I even less, but if you don't like the "choice/freedom crap" then you're free to leave you know.
and get on to a unified UI,
Why? I freaking hate EDE. I hate gnustep. I hate FLTK. I love GTK. Why should we have a unified UI? All of the major desktops (Xfce, Gnome, KDE) have unified on a set of desktop standards, namely Tango, so there's nothing really non-"unified". Sure, there's different toolkits, but hey buddy:
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/microsoft-learn-from-apple-II.media/vista.png (and they've left out non-MS toolkits too!)
http://bla.st/static/blog/macos_interfaces.gif
Yeah, good job Apple and MS! We should really be "unified" too! That's what people want! As opposed to two major ones, GTK, QT, and one minor one, FLTK!
"Linux" looks rather unified to me. Look at how well GTK and QT can play together.
a solid look and feel,
Feels solid to me. If you have complaints make 'em verbose & direct so we can fix it.
and most importantly ONE of everything that is best in class and 100% working by default.
Yeah, like things on the OSX and Windows side work 100% amirite or amirite? You don't have to install every effing program you know. You're free to use the apps you like, and I'm sure it's in your distro provider's best intentions to give you the nicest experience they can. Otherwise you've got a bad maintainer and should leave.
Since the OSS community will never agree to do this, a company is my only hope (as sad as that is). I'm wishing ASUS nothing but luck.
Yeah, like Asus does such a good job; have you ever looked at their xandros desktop? Not exactly farts and sunshine there. I especially like that they mixed IceWM and KDE. That's two toolkits that need to be loaded. Good game, guys.
If you've really been a Linux user (assuming it has been your main OS) for 12 years, why have you felt the need to spend so much time tinkering and tweaking? Are you constantly switching to the latest and greatest distribution/desktop environment when it's released? I've used Slackware (Blackbox/Fluxbox WM) for the last 10 years and my major tinkering/tweaking days ended before the turn of the century.
When I get a new PC it takes at most a 2-3 hours (including copying all my personal/configuration data from backup) to install and configure. One of the main reasons I continue to use Linux is because I don't want to spend time tinkering/tweaking the system.
Wow. Set down the flame thrower and step away buddy. Linux doesn't "need" wide adoption. It doesn't "need" a lack of choice. It doesn't need the easily confused. And a "decided" upon default system ? There is no central authority to "decide" this for Linux. That is it's strength. Even Linus guides the kernel development simply because people who use Linux trust him. You are welcome to fork everything about Linux, and develop your own "decided" upon version, even get people to use their time to code for you. This isn't a weakness of Linux, it is exactly it's strength.
How is this insightful? The guy is basically belittling people for making the choice to stick with Windows. He uses diction which is carefully designed to belittle, like "Fischer Price OS." Not only that, he's basically espousing the antithesis of freedom of choice. Someone who truly believed in freedom and choice would say "that's cool, whatever works for you," and not what essentially amounts to "have fun with your child's toy OS, you neolithic sack baby."
This is the attitude that was turning people off to Linux in the early '00s.
SRSLY.
And users care about that distinction because...?
Unfortunately, I think there's a big uphill climb in getting people to accept a desktop.
OS X has gained a respectable amount of traction but there's something that linux evangelists forget:
In order to grab a mostly disinterested audience, you need to have the desktop stay 90% the same year after year after year.
It's not the 80s. Folks aren't used to learning a new using environment every time they buy a computer.
I'm the same, more or less. By doing just about everything I can, except web browsing, on bash, I ensure that when the big leap in whatever interface happens, I can just keep doing things exactly like I have.
The world was really excited to try out new desktop configurations around 1989. It's old news now and we really just want ot get back to work.
The linux for the clueless distributions need to settle on a much more consistant presentation.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
does it run Linux?
Netcraft had warned you, BSD is dying. You did not even have enough time to complete your sentence.
Good idea! When will you have it ready for us? :-)
I'm joking. Linux has developed into an ecosystem, not just a single product, so why reduce it to that?
The people using Linux on their mobile phones, and those using it on their research supercomputers might disagree with your idea of optimizing it for the desktop only.
There's room for everyone.
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
The poster's use of "Fisher Price OS" may be over the top, but much of the post makes sense. One of everything? So we have to choose between emacs and vi, KDE and GNOME, bash and csh, perl and python, and many others. What may be best for one user might not be best for another. Also, having "redundant" apps may help security/efficiency.
Sure there is room, I never threatened that... what I am saying is to get a solid foundation from which to build instead of the nebulous base that currently exists.
For the life of me I will never understand the complete knee-jerk reaction against this. Build a house sometime on a moving, fluid foundation of concrete... I'll build mine on a nice solid one.
This isn't a threat to any one distro or platform. All it is is a base choice of WM, text editor, look/feel, UI, libraries, etc. all picked to be the most robust and stable as well as usable right out of the gate. Hell, within each distro there could be two install choices "the standard" or "expert" which allows the current type of install for those who want it.
This isn't something one person or distro can do, it needs to be universally agreed upon (well, universally enough). I honestly think that once the foundation is laid there will be MORE growth and innovation.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Yes, lets hide all those 'nasty details', like GNU and Linux being Free Software.
You wouldn't want users knowing they are actually allowed to modify or copy all of the software with no cost or legal problems. Lets hide all those details for those silly overweight four-eye geek types to worry about.
Absolutely disgraceful.
_
\\/ are accustomed' - First Lensman
"There is a market for a fisherprice OS, and it is you."
Perhaps there a market for a "fisherprice OS", since that is an excellent description of what you get pre-installed on the EEE. Do note that:
A) In that context, it's great.
B) It is Linux based.
On bigger hardware, where I don't need something as stripped down and simplified as possible, I use Windows. I in fact don't mind the lack of freedom, because hacking OS's isn't my thing. Being force fed some corporations of what I need isn't so bad either since that idea appears to be "everything available for Linux, plus games".
In order to grab a mostly disinterested audience, you need to have the desktop stay 90% the same year after year after year.
GNOME is already there. KDE is probably already there, but I'm not sure.
Of the two, IMHO GNOME is the one to use for attracting a mostly disinterested audience; the "it just works" design philosophy is a win for users who just want it to work.
You can tweak a KDE desktop and turn it into whatever you want, and some people are really into that. Despite my own opinion that GNOME would be a better choice, products like the Eee seem to be defaulting to a customized KDE. But that means that the Eee is a bit different from the Elonex and so on. I'd prefer to see them all ship with a completely standard GNOME desktop, with a panel customized with just the most popular app launchers. But all the vendors seem to view it as a plus to make their product different from everyone else's.
First we captured their server market.
Then we captured their subnotebook market.
Now we have got their desktop and laptop market surrounded!
Bwahahahaha!
I am anarch of all I survey.
WYSIWIG, but what you see might not be what you need
Wasn't there a greenlit article on LMOS? IIRC they used slashdot friendly buzzwords like "open source" and "linux boot sector" and relied on the fact that the editors were too lazy to look up what "Last Measure" means.
... good times ...
The other thing they did I thought was funny was getting CNN to run shocked exposé on their jewsdidwtc site which is a blatant paraody of Time Cube and other babbling mad conspiracy sites. Some of the web pages that CNN showed on TV was very obviously a joke, even though they only showed them for a few seconds. You can find it on youtube.
Good times
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I'm registered for one of these, because the idea seems quite handy ; I'm a little more concerned that last week the person managing the pre-registration list accidentally sent out one of those "sdfsdffds" test emails to (it would seem) a large proportion of the people who've registered. Very embarrassing, and at least the guy put his name to the "Sorry" email a few hours later. But it's worrying none-the-less. /. )
(He put his hands up to it, which is why I'm not naming the account it came from. If the person in the cubical next to you at Elonex is turning red about the ears, tell him to stop reading
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
We really need mod points for stupidness. Or perhaps obtuseness, although obtuseness, especially obviously deliberate obtuseness, is really hard to differentiate from trolling.
I take it you really are one of those that simply can't believe there are people for whom popularity contests are irrelevant?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
"Imagine for a minute if Windows shipped with 12 text editors and 6 video players, and on and on as Linux does."
Okay I will bite.
Windows ships with at least three editors. You have notepad which is really kind of useless, edit which is the old DOS 5 editor, and Wordpad.
Many technical Windows users will then add on notepad++ and maybe Html-toolkit or some other good editor.
It doesn't take too long for most Windows users to install iTunes, which then installs Quicktime, then some will end up with Real Player, and then VLC...
So you then have a few video players. And editor. That really isn't a problem with Linux.
Now could the default install just install say Gedit for Gnome or Kate for KDE? Sure. But for KDE I would want Kate and Kedit. Kedit is lighter and faster and Kate is more powerful. Kind of like NotePad and WordPad.
The Simple truth is that having extra editors and video players just isn't a big deal and for most people it really isn't a problem.
The problem is when things need fiddling to work. Ubuntu has come a long way with codecs and flash but wireless is still less than stellar. I had wireless working on my notebook before I upgraded to the latest Ubuntu and now it doesn't want to connect to my wap.
That is a problem.
But if you really think that 12 editors and six video players is a problem then just fork ubuntu or fedora and make a simple default distro. If enough people agree with you they will beat a path to your door.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Again there is nothing to "bite" onto here, nor is it a desire of mine to create yet another distro. It is truth. Windows ships with 3 editors. Linux installs a ton more than that by default... actually look. Now imagine the extraneous libraries and junk installed. Now think about how hard it is to standardize help and support due to that, imagine how confusing it is for the newbie. "OK so open that file to edit it" "OH sorry I don't know the key commands for VI use EMACS instead" "Oh, well Pico will work too, or jed or joe, etc." or a graphical one "GTKedit, Kate, Kedit, etc." "OK so which one is it opened in?" and on and on.
Or how about telling someone how to open a video file? None are associated properly during install because there are a half dozen, some have some codecs some don't, some need configuration, etc. OK so are you in Totem, Xine, XMMS, VLC, and on and on.
It is just about restricting it for the initial install, so everyone starts on an even footing. One (hell even two) text editors. One video player with an easy in-built way to add codecs not an external package manager. One (maybe two with a light solution) music player. streamline the kernel for modern hardware instead of still including options for obscure ISA controller cards in a desktop distro. Streamline the UI and look/feel. Streamline the libraries installed by default to those that are required and no more.
Simple things are missed time and time again because of this. Like walpapers. The list shown as available by default is anemic, yet there are tons of folders of high-res desktops all over the place on the system. Organize, streamline, and actually FIX the problems that the other guys fail on.
I don't care if vi, emacs, picco or my favorite joe are installed.
Those are in the command line and you never know that they are there most of the time. First thing I do on a new Linux system is install joe just because I don't want to take the time to learn vi and or emacs. In the case of emacs it is a case of learning it again.
Extra libraries? Support for old hardware? Those are total non issues for most end users. If everything works they will not care.
As to codecs and Linux. I run into issues with Windows and codecs as well. Ubuntu as far as I can tell does a better job then Windows with codecs.
And when you install Ubuntu and click on a video file a player DOES start right out of the box.
Again I use both Windows and Linux. They are differn't but except for games I tend to use Linux because it works better.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Agreed that more organization/streamlining is needed, but it is something that has been happening, and it should be very much encouraged to happen so that Linux won't fall behind in any way, and the ways in which it has do need to be addressed, fully agreed, and I think most developers would agree with that. Who doesn't want to see Linux become a better contender? Not unless you work for MS or Apple I guess...even though Apple "uses it" to a degree so it helps with their success too (yeah yeah it's BSD, but the OS part of the system shares a lot with Linux systems). Some old rusty parts of Linux/Gnu have been cut out and replaced with newer, more functional, more adaptive and intelligent systems. It'll only continue to happen. Like the previous poster noted, if you make it and everyone likes it, it'll become popular. As for choosing something that's one of the best and making it the installed default which is fine, Ubuntu has a "Movie Player", and that's it. Totem. It's a great movie player, and leaves me with no additional needs really so I use it and only it unless I have the very rare codec problem for which I install and use VLC for. If you don't like the default selection of apps, use a different distro or one that has everything on 50 DVDs, and lets you choose exactly what you want to install. It's up to you. Users have the freedom to choose, that is key. They are, and it has been making things simpler, you're right. If you have program X and program Y, and Y has a huge user base and X does not, you'll install Y by default in your distro, and that's what is being done. Selection via popularity and user demand.
I'm not going to claim that standardization will be a *totally* natural process of users selecting the app that matters most to them though. I think a more important evolution lies deeper down. Standardizing ways of installing and running any program on any Linux install. Standardizing a program's interface so that it mimics the current GUI's user's configuration options and breaking free from the desktop environment specific restraints. Those are the things that doing them in the right way will ultimately give users more flexability and more choice, and will allow more competition between software by helping to level the playing field.
Avoid proprietization, battle for interoperability and freedom.
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.