Ubuntu Reaching Out To 16,000 Anime Lovers

shadowmage13 writes "After months of planning, I am happy to announce finally that the Ubuntu Massachusetts Local Community Team will be preparing a booth at the upcoming 2010 Anime Boston convention. We need support from the community to secure a booth and print materials, including copies of the Ubunchu! manga. I really believe the Anime fandom is a perfect match for Ubuntu, as they are by nature very much in line with open source and remix culture."

Comments

There is one problem, though

[Enleth]

Neither Tux, nor any Ubuntu release mascott I know of has tentacles.

OTOH, one of the protagonists in NGE was a penguin, so there's still hope for acceptance...

Re:There is one problem, though

[tonycheese]

Well, let me just say that I'm glad the first reaction by the linux side is to boil down the immensely diverse and interesting anime culture here to equal hentai tentacle porn. Yup, great start.

Re:There is one problem, though

[Anonymous Coward]

she might be batteling Squid...
http://www.squid-cache.org
only 8 tentacles though.

Re:There is one problem, though

[wisty]

OTOH, one of the protagonists in NGE was a penguin, so there's still hope for acceptance...

I thought the penguin was the protagonist. Wasn't everyone else a bad guy?

Re:There is one problem, though

[wisty]

I mulling over the wisdom of marketing Ubuntu, a distro which defaults a maniacally-happy sewage-brown theme, to a bunch of "art lovers".

I think you may have headed off my question.

Re:There is one problem, though

[Enleth]

Oh, well, I'm glad that most of the anime culture has one thing in common, despite the (impressive, indeed) diversity - a sense of humor. Humor, which is present in all but the most serious and gloomy works, and often expressed in making fun of the work itself

Besides, if you bothered to read the second sentence of my post, you could've even realized that it doesn't belong strictly on the "linux side".

Re:There is one problem, though

[L4t3r4lu5]

Ubuntu has dropped the GIMP to bring the distro into mainstream eyes, and you want to associate it with anime?

The fact that the first comment was about hentai and tentacles just shows you how daft of an idea that is. I'm all for exposing Ubuntu to a wider audience, but association with non-mainstream media is what they're trying to avoid.

Re:There is one problem, though

[tonycheese]

I'm not really much of an anime fan (as evidenced by my ignorance that NGE stands for Evangelion), although I do watch some, but I guess I was just expecting to see a lot of snotty comments come out of this article (see the "clueless, facebooking, twittering and oh-so-creative metrosexuals" post below).

Re:There is one problem, though

[suisui]

GIMP was dropped so they could make room for Comix and the non-free video codecs. Lucid Lynx will be shipped with the first 20 volumes of One Piece, and a torrent for the Love Hina DVD-rip.

Re:There is one problem, though

[SQL Error]

The penguin was also a bad guy. This was only revealed in End of the End of the End of Evangelion, so maybe I should have put a spoiler warn... What am I saying?

Re:There is one problem, though

[Anonymous Coward]

"immensely diverse and interesting anime culture"
Oh man, my sides...

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: "kawaii" means "cute".

Re:There is one problem, though

[Hurricane78]

Don’t tempt the Internet! Or someone will release Ubuntu “Tentacle Tux”!

Re:There is one problem, though

[Talderas]

Neon Genesis Evangelion.....

Re:There is one problem, though

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Better secure your ports...

Re:There is one problem, though

[vadim_t]

The fact that the first comment was about hentai and tentacles just shows you how daft of an idea that is.

I think that's probably just the typical stupid joke.

I mean, these days, who hasn't heard of Naruto, One Piece, DBZ or Pokemon? That makes for most of the anime people see. It's not particularly deep, but that's the mainstream kind of it. There are much more interesting things to watch, but they're very niche in comparison to what I listed.

Re:There is one problem, though

[charlieman]

rule 34 anyone?

Ubuntu's next version: Sexy Schoolgirl

Tentacles will come by their own...

Re:There is one problem, though

[PopeRatzo]

Anyway, there are no Linux drivers for those proprietary hentai tentacles, so not to worry,.

Re:There is one problem, though

[Anonymous Coward]

What?! You don't know about Cthubuntu??

Re:There is one problem, though

[sorak]

But we do have daemons!

Re:There is one problem, though

[polle404]

introducing Ubuntu 11.10, Orgasmic Octopus...

there, problem solved.

Re:There is one problem, though

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

The only one I've heard of is Pokemon. That is mainstream anime. I've seen bits of others on adult swim, but none that I've liked. I agree, the one way to get people to avoid Linux like the plague is to associate it with weird Japanese adult cartoons.

Re:There is one problem, though

[azmodean 1]

The fact that the first comment was about hentai and tentacles just shows you that you're reading slashdot.

Fixed that for ya.

Re:There is one problem, though

[Draek]

Yeah, Ubuntu should associate themselves with sports teams and cheerleaders instead. C'mon, didn't we learn anything in high school?

Re:There is one problem, though

[vadim_t]

The only one I've heard of is Pokemon. That is mainstream anime. I've seen bits of others on adult swim, but none that I've liked.

Whether you like it or not doesn't have to do with whether it's mainstream.

I agree, the one way to get people to avoid Linux like the plague is to associate it with weird Japanese adult cartoons.

If you think Pokemon is adult, you sure have low standards for what adult is.

Really, this obsession with adult anime people have is odd. It's like trying to reject the entire cinema medium based on the existence of porn movies. I've got friends that have bookcases full with hundreds of anime DVDs, and there's no porn in there.

Re:There is one problem, though

[ThatGuyJon]

Linux in Manga? It's more likely than you think...
http://www.onemanga.com/Mahou_Sensei_Negima!/154/17/

Re:There is one problem, though

[Knitebane]

INSTALL UBUNTU. GET NAKED CHEERLEADER PICS!

I think that maybe that would work. In fact, considering that porn is something like a $14b USD industry, I'm almost positive it would work.

Hmmmm, Pornbuntu.

Excuse me, I have a patent application to fill out.

Re:There is one problem, though

[The Archon V2.0]

I agree, the one way to get people to avoid Linux like the plague is to associate it with weird Japanese adult cartoons.

If you think Pokemon is adult, you sure have low standards for what adult is.

Shhhh! My evil plan to convince the world that everything on the Rule 34 site is official is almost complete! I don't need YOU ruining it!

Re:There is one problem, though

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

You provided a list of "mainstream" amine titles. Of those I've heard of one. SO we agree that there is at least one mainstream amine title. There are others i have heard of that you did not list, so I'd assume you did not think those were mainstream. For the purposes of that post Adult == Not specifically written for children ( Ie not pokemon or Yugi). But the ones written for children are just as weird and just as Japanese.

Re:There is one problem, though

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy there. Setting up a booth at an anime con and including themed literature is /not/ the same as associating Ubuntu with anime.

Look, I've hugged gay men. Does that make me gay? Does that make me straight? No to both.

Anyway, props to this group. I'm very curious to see the follow-up. Anime cons tend to be very busy with fans trying to see as much as possible in the limited time. It'll be very interesting if anyone takes time to hang out and ask questions and look at demonstrations. If people just grab the comic & CD and run, that's good too. But if the UMLCT manages more than that it'll be worth looking at what they did, and what the reactions were.

(Nice captcha, /. - 'kindred')

Re:There is one problem, though

[initialE]

Let me introduce you to Madobe Nanami, the official mascot of Windows 7 Japanese edition. Voiced by a popular voice actress even. Microsoft feels anime is good enough for mainstream.

Re:There is one problem, though

[vadim_t]

There are others i have heard of that you did not list, so I'd assume you did not think those were mainstream.

Eh? If we were talking about mainstream books you'd expect me to provide the entire top 100 catalog? I listed a few, not the entire list.

Yes, Yugi is mainstream. So are Ranma, Zatch Bell, Doraemon, and quite a few others.

For the purposes of that post Adult == Not specifically written for children ( Ie not pokemon or Yugi)

The japanese concept of "adult" differs from the american one.

For instance, DBZ, Naruto, One Piece and Bleach all contain enormous by american standards amounts of blood and death. Characters fairly often die in dramatic ways, including getting blown up, sliced apart, shot and beaten up to death, which usually happens after getting beaten to a bloody pulp for an episode or two. But they're still targeted to teenagers or so. They have lots of action, nothing that requires any deep thinking, and themes teenagers can enjoy.

The adult targeted stuff includes things like Elfen Lied, Battle Royale, Uzumaki, Chobits, Planetes and porn, none of which are really mainstream.

But the ones written for children are just as weird and just as Japanese.

Well, see, that's precisely one of the reasons why people like it. I'm aware that in Japan it's all horribly cliche and been done 50 times before. But outside Japan many of the plot elements and conventions are still new and refreshing. And the elements of japanese life, culture and mythology are interesting as well.

Re:There is one problem, though

[WillDraven]

I was thinking more along the lines of Ornery Octopus or Slippery Squid.

Re:There is one problem, though

[asaz989]

On the other hand, the only anime that poster actually mentioned was Neon Genesis Evangelion - popular, but not exactly mainstream.

Re:There is one problem, though

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

So to sum up We agree about pokemon, Yugi are mainstreem. Plots are not normal. My definition of adult is not porn.

Based on that:

Few anime are mainstreem, admitting that you like it takes you out of the mainstream. In order to encourage more mainstream adoption of Ubuntu or any other linux desktop distro, it would not be a good idea to associate it with something else outside of the mainstream.

Re:There is one problem, though

[prozaker]

customization is an option under ubuntu, and pretty much any other distro... and might i add, in any other modern OS, so... what are you talking about?
gnome-look.org

Re:There is one problem, though

[cptnapalm]

Because destroying the world should be easy!

Re:There is one problem, though

[vadim_t]

Few anime are mainstreem

Few anything are mainstream. It's by definition. Things that are mainstream are something the majority of people appreciates. There can't be that many of those. Harry Potter is mainstream. Finnegan's Wake and countless other books aren't.

admitting that you like it takes you out of the mainstream.

To a point. You can like something without being completely obsessed about it. Somebody can be a stamp collector and still live a completely normal social life. Or they could be completely obsessed and unable to talk about anything else.

In order to encourage more mainstream adoption of Ubuntu or any other linux desktop distro, it would not be a good idea to associate it with something else outside of the mainstream.

Depends on how you do it.

Heavily promoting Ubuntu as something targeted to anime lovers would be counterproductive, yes.

On the other hand, graphics design, composing music and programming are all very non-mainstream tasks. Yet if you take everything non-mainstream together it adds up to quite a bit, and satisfying those people can mean satisfying other people at the same time as well, and gaining other benefits.

For instance, making Ubuntu a good OS to watch anime on would imply making sure the sound system works well, including a large selection of codecs, and good DVD playing tools. Doing that helps the musicians, people who work on video, and ordinary people who want to play games or watch DVDs. Anime fans often watch it subtitled; making sure subtitles work and are well readable also makes people with hearing impairments happy.

And making somebody really happy by giving them just what they're looking for can gain you a good advocate.

Re:There is one problem, though

[socceroos]

And the KDE variant seKsy sKoolgirl.

Re:There is one problem, though

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Mainstream == something you could admit to in polite conversation with out getting strange looks.

How it works:

I compose music => pleasant smile from crowd ( people are familiar with and enjoy music, even if they don't themselves create it)

I watch Japanese cartoons => blank stare followed by nervous eye movement looking for an exit sign.

Re:There is one problem, though

[Anonymous Coward]

The Penguin was the best character in the series.

Re:There is one problem, though

[vadim_t]

I watch Japanese cartoons => blank stare followed by nervous eye movement looking for an exit sign.

Eh. There's more than enough anime to find something pretty much anybody will like. If in doubt, try something by Miyazaki, who is sort of the japanese Disney equivalent.

Re:There is one problem, though

[Anonymous Coward]

In the context of this conversation, your definition does not matter. Considering how this topic began by talking about porn, are you really surprised that people misunderstood you when you mentioned "adult" cartoons?

Re:There is one problem, though

[Anonymous Coward]

10, actually.

Re:There is one problem, though

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

I doubt it, but that's not really the point ( I myself haven't found any, but I don't like any comic books either. Not that I've tried. I don't really want to. Too many other worthwhile things to do.)

. The point is the current perception of anime. What would happen right now with an average group of people? They wouldn't stop and say "hmm, before reacting in a normal fashion, I'll spend several hundred hours researching anime to see if any of it is any good. Then I'll let my non verbal reaction to his statement show."

Somethings just aren't cool. Like Star Trek. Doesn't mean they aren't enjoyable by many people. Or that its wrong to enjoy them. But they aren't cool.

John Coltrane? He's cool. You can hate Jazz with a passion, but that doesn't change the fact that John Coltrane is cool.

Re:There is one problem, though

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Sure it does. It does because I say it does. Each post is a universe unto itself. It may react to previous posts and flirt with a future reply, but each has a language all its own full of hopes dreams, non-sequitors, Rabbits, waterfalls, and chewing gum.

If you don't understand how words mean different things to different people whilst still engaged in a conversation, well, then you don't understand conversation.

Re:There is one problem, though

[Anonymous Coward]

association with non-mainstream media is what they're trying to avoid

The Japanese MS marketing team have a good idea of what their mainstream is. People lined up outside stores to get the Windows 7 with added anime mascot.

As a video encoder/editor from way back when Real Media was a common format and anime fansubs were distributed on tape, I find the anime fan community has actually played a big part in bringing FOSS encoding and viewing tools to where they are now on Windows. I recently came back into video encoding more recently and found that a number of newer resources and 'how-tos' even had screenshots of the tools and usage with anime in them.

The tools on Windows to facilitate softsubbing and nice font support is so far ahead in of what is available in linux. Avoid the community that would push advancement? No wonder the subtitle and encoding application support is so good in Windows apps.

I tried to switch to Ubuntu two years ago and my main requirement was that the videos with subs have to look good, at least as good as the windows equivalent software. The apps in linux were terrible, the fonts were horrid, the placement skrewed up (failure to render on multiple lines).

I'm still using Windows, because it just works (with help from many FOSS apps that only run on Windows). Accept the community and you'll get more than just hentai jokes.

Re:There is one problem, though

[Anonymous Coward]

I never said you can't have your own definitions. Hell, in other contexts, adult can mean not porn. But to repeat my question, given how this topic began with porn, when you first mentioned "adult cartoons" did you honestly expect people to think you meant adult in the non-porn sense?

Re:There is one problem, though

[vadim_t]

The point is the current perception of anime. What would happen right now with an average group of people? They wouldn't stop and say "hmm, before reacting in a normal fashion, I'll spend several hundred hours researching anime to see if any of it is any good. Then I'll let my non verbal reaction to his statement show."

Everybody has seen anime, they just may not realize it.

For a start, Pokemon. But also Speed Racer, DBZ, and so on. Younger people are almost certainly familiar.

Then there's plenty anime styled stuff made in America. Teen Titans and Avatar the Last Airbender are very anime-like in style. Friend of mine commented on seeing Avatar "pity it's dubbed" (because for anime the original audio is often better)

Anyway, way to miss my point. You can make Ubuntu a better OS for watching anime without making a huge deal of it. It'll benefit the anime watchers, and will also benefit people who use the same components for something else. I fail to see how that could be a bad thing.

Somethings just aren't cool. Like Star Trek. Doesn't mean they aren't enjoyable by many people. Or that its wrong to enjoy them. But they aren't cool.

I don't really get the whole thing about Star Trek. I never had seen it before watching the last movie, and thought it was a good one.

John Coltrane? He's cool. You can hate Jazz with a passion, but that doesn't change the fact that John Coltrane is cool.

Who? I seriously have no clue who you're talking about. I have heard of Jonathan Coulton (who is cool), but you're probably referring to somebody else.

Re:There is one problem, though

[DaVince21]

If you go Xubuntu you get a very slick blue and black theme though.

Re:There is one problem, though

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, anime is mainstream, IN JAPAN.

One step closer to the desktop ?

[ls671]

Reading TFA surprised me at first; what linux is used to do manga anime ???

But I guess after all it is a good sign that linux might be getting closer the desktop, e.g. multipurpose desktop computer ;-))

It wasn't traditionally used for such tasks, at least at first.

Re:One step closer to the desktop ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's easier to do that, than to fix the bugs with Ubuntu? Yes, it can be buggy.

Re:One step closer to the desktop ?

[tuppe666]

Ubuntu's has been very successful Destop Linux based Distribution supporting Millions of Users for years

Re:One step closer to the desktop ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux getting closer to the desktop? Just because one distro adaptation is attempting to appeal to anime/ manga otaku? Umm, I've been using a Linux distro on my desktop for years, and I can safely say it's had an anime/ manga theme (after some adjusting on my part) for much of that time. Quite a fair number of Ren'Py visual novels have been available for Linux desktops for awhile, actually, as one (and not the only) example. Much of the offerings for M.U.G.E.N. are also anime/ manga themed.

Just seems natural for me for Linux and anime/ manga to go together, as the two communities may share a common mindset, is all I'm saying.

News?

[tompeach]

No sarcasm intended, but I'm failing to see why this is news. What am I missing?

Re:News?

[Farmer Tim]

The "for nerds" part. That lowers the threshold for trivia related to anime or Linux; both together means bonus points.

If Star Trek was involved as well there'd be a lot of monitors in need of wiping down...

Re:News?

[Lord Lode]

Slashdot is "news for nerds". The news part may be missing here, but the nerds part counts double: Ubuntu AND Anime!

Re:News?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Man the nerd label is watered down these days. Back in My day it would have been Slackware floppies given away at recreational math conventions. Ubuntu Pah. Moving pictures with color and sound, Double Pah!

Now would all of you juvenile self-adjoint operators get off my hilbert space!

Re:News?

[Machtyn]

Anime game or movie playable only on Linux with an LCARS themed desktop?

Seems like

[mxh83]

it would be more productive to fix 9.10 first

Re:Seems like

[migla]

it would be more productive to fix 9.10 first

Ok. So, what would Ubuntu Massachusetts Local Community Team do in he mean time that would be more productive? I'm sure there are plenty others more qualified to do the fixing of 9.10.

I disagree that stopping the evangelizing would be more productive than evangelizing at this point, even if 9.10 is buggy. (I.e. I don't think it's buggy enough to hide from the public completely.)

Maybe I just got lucky with my installs on my hardware.

Re:Seems like

[mxh83]

It's bad enough that I would no longer recommend that anyone switch to it. Because if they have a crappy experience, they'll never try linux again.

Re:Seems like

[tuppe666]

One of the advantage of Ubuntu is and Linux Distributions in General...and to a Lesser extent Windows come with an Update button for fixes.

Re:Seems like

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello, everyone! can I have your attention? Ok, please stop your work right now. mxh83 wants Ubuntu 9.10 fixed before we can continue with our lives.

So, everyone please start hacking now. If you can't program, please just wait quietly and don't interrupt the developers, this shouldn't take long.

Re:Seems like

[SeaFox]

Hello. Anime fan here.

They need to fix SOUND in general in Linux, so it, like, just works. I have a dual boot system (WinXP64 and Kumubtu 9.10), and if there's one thing I'm having trouble with it's getting sound working on any video player. Regular system sound is fine, Amarok can play, too. But I haven't been able to get a video player that has a good interface, decent playback abilities for the latest codecs and subtitle formats, and sound working all at the same time. Some of this has to do with mplayer waiting forever to release a new "official version" so distributors would update their packages. Maybe some of it has to do with me using a USB audio device, but in general it's application and the O/S not working together on working with the "default" audio output setting in preferences and not supporting other methods (ALSA/PulseAudio/etc.) without config tweaking.

I can download and run VLC for Windows and it works as soon as it's installed, it should be the same on Linux, especially since all the VLC developers are Linux developers and not really focused on Windows.

Getting sound to work in video players (or audio players, web browsers, etc) has been a trial for me going back years.

Re:Seems like

[gzipped_tar]

Lennart Poettering, the pulseaudio lead, is an Red Hat employee. Jaroslav Kysela and Takashi Iwai, the only two persons in the world who get paid for their work in ALSA, are hired by Red Hat and Novell respectively.

So where is Mark (and his money) when we need him?

And Ubuntu is known to have done a great deal of damage to PulseAudio's reputation by royally fsck up Poettering's work.

Re:Seems like

[Anonymous Coward]

It's bad enough that I would no longer recommend that anyone switch to it. Because if they have a crappy experience, they'll never try linux again.

I modded this insightful because I had that experience with my father. Some years ago he wanted to ditch Windows XP at that time*, and I was in my Bachellors' "teh-linux-is-s0-c00l" days (I was even the founder of a local Linux User Group yay!).

The thing is, I installed Mandrake Linux (yup, it was that long ago) because it was supposed to be *the* most user friendly Linux distro. We even bought it (I remember I was surprised by the big manual they provided).

I had to fight for some time to get all his PC drivers working before leaving. After I left, he tried to use it for some time. Unfortunately, the thing did not work as well as WindowsXP and it stepped in the way more than helped so my father ended asking some guy to reinstall XP (I didn't lived in the same state as him).

Nowadays he just bought a computer with Vista and *really* really hates it as with most MS stuff(e.g. he liked Qpro and hated Excel, and also hates how MS changes the place where things are with every version of everything).

However, now he won't let me install Linux because of the bad experience we had before.

*He used to use UNIX some time ago and migrated to DOS and then Windows. Now he just wants stuff to work and not to thinker with command lines and whatnot)

Re:Seems like

[vadim_t]

From the post:

So in the past Ubuntu packaged PA in a way that, let's say, was not exactly optimal.

But it doesn't say how. Is there an explanation somewhere? I'd like to see what it was.

Re:Seems like

[X0563511]

The USB Audio module doesn't work very well. It's an extremely generic driver.

At work, where I use my older SB Live 24-bit External, I get a whole four controls:

PCM output volume, Microphone input volume, power LED, cms LED.

Yes, while it only supports the BARE MINIMUM audio channels on this thing (which is 24-bit 5.1 with optical SPDIF and all those whizbangs) I can toggle the LEDs on and off. Well, that's certainly useful...

However, I have no problems on my desktop with my SB Audigy 2 ZS.

Re:Seems like

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting sound in Ubuntu 9.10 working is about as rewarding an experience as removing dog dirt from your shoe using only your nose. It was more fun (and easier) setting jumpers and IRQs on weird old ISA cards in the Windows 3.1/95 days.

Linux sound sucks I tell you, positively sucks !

Re:Seems like

[GameboyRMH]

It's not *bad* - it's just that the chance of running into trouble while installing is relatively high. If you get it working, it's great, but the increased chance of running into issues has led me to advise linux newbies who will be doing the install themselves to stick with 9.04 for now.

Re:Seems like

[GameboyRMH]

can download and run VLC for Windows and it works as soon as it's installed, it should be the same on Linux

That's how it's been in my experience...I've had to fiddle with some settings to get recording to work, but I've never had any trouble with playback...

Re:Seems like

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like your dad needs a Mac.

Re:Seems like

[Kamokazi]

They could not try and milk donations for a futile effort in the first place. Most Anime fans dedicated enough to go to conventions that I know are WELL aware of what Linux is, and most have tried it at some point on their own. I don't think they will do a lot of education in that audience or create any awareness that isn't already there. Also, I agree with what the GP said in his reply to you-people will much less willing to try it a second time if they have trouble the first. I still firmly believe Linux is not ready for the average home user's desktop. I run straight up Debian and Eeebuntu on two of my computers at home, and I have to go to the command prompt way too often just to install basic software or drivers or perform some other fairly routine tasks. You can't expect an average user to do that. You also can't necessarily expect them to be happy with pre-installed apps.

Re:Seems like

[Draek]

Maybe some of it has to do with me using a USB audio device

Yes, it does. I've got three systems, gXine, Totem, Mplayer and VLC installed on every one of them and they all work perfectly out of the box, but two of my PCs have an internal sound card and the other one uses the integrated one, no USB devices of any kind are involved.

Also, I haven't personally tried it yet but I've heard that Kubuntu is far buggier than the rest of its *buntu brethren so some of your problems may be originating there as well.

Re:Seems like

[geminidomino]

By "not bad" does that imply "better than 9.04?" Because I'm sticking with 9.04 only long enough to find another distro passable for the desktop (the only other distro I'm familiar with is Slackware, which, while awesome, is too much work on a general desktop box...)

Re:Seems like

[GameboyRMH]

It is better than 9.04, as long as you don't run into any post-installation issues you can't fix. I have no plans of switching distros, but I've heard Mint is another good desktop distro.

Re:Seems like

[geminidomino]

I looked at Mint, but couldn't get any solid answers on how it was different from Ubuntu (besides the desktop themes) to determine whether or not it would actually address Ubuntu's myriad shortcomings.

Re:Seems like

[flydpnkrtn]

You're not the only one that's noticed Linux sound has sucked for a while... ever had Flash player just up and decide that it either a.) now owns your sound card and nothing else will play or b.) just stops outputting sound altogether. It's really sad to say this, but Flash support is a basic thing I look for before I want to play with other alternate OSes like OpenSoliaris. For the forseeable future, much of the web depends on flash.

On Windows and on OS X sound er, just works.... I wish Linux would get there. It's bad enough that an Adobe dev posted a plog post entitled "Welcome to the Jungle" in reference to developing for Linux... guess what annoying part of Linux he was writing about? I especially like the chart...

Yeah, right!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because another 16.000 clueless, facebooking, twittering and oh-so-creative metrosexuals is EXACTLY what the Ubuntu community needs.

Re:Yeah, right!

[migla]

Because another 16.000 clueless, facebooking, twittering and oh-so-creative metrosexuals is EXACTLY what the Ubuntu community needs.

Well, total world domination, or even some sort of world domination would have to include some clueless, facebooking, twittering and oh-so-creative metrosexuals too. Besides, maybe some of the clueless, facebooking, twittering and oh-so-creative metrosexuals will show their newly found OS to some not so clueless, facebooking, twittering and oh-so-creative metrosexuals. Sure, the clueless, facebooking, twittering and oh-so-creative metrosexuals aren't the most important movers and shakers, but you do what you can. Any convert could send ripples of Freedom through our culture.

Re:Yeah, right!

[wisty]

Was the event secretly funded by Red Hat?

Re:Yeah, right!

[tonycheese]

Well, I'm sure that's exactly the attitude Linux needs to gain market share: bigotry and elitism. Keep it up guys, year of the Linux is coming any day now.

Re:Yeah, right!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because another 16.000 clueless, facebooking, twittering and oh-so-creative metrosexuals is EXACTLY what the Ubuntu community needs.

You forgot the "so into cartoons that they'll go to a convention" part. Nothing screams maturity more than people who dress up as cartoon characters.

Re:Yeah, right!

[sakdoctor]

Isn't there a collective noun for "clueless, facebooking, twittering and oh-so-creative metrosexuals"?
It's getting hard to read this thread otherwise.

Re:Yeah, right!

[AliasMarlowe]

Isn't there a collective noun for "clueless, facebooking, twittering and oh-so-creative metrosexuals"?

There were clueless urban poseurs of great self-importance, even back in the days before twitter & facebook. We called them "yuppies" - would that term be demeaning enough?

Re:Yeah, right!

[Velex]

We called them "yuppies" - would that term be demeaning enough?

But that word doesn't have "sex" in it, and it doesn't sound like the words "homosexual" or "transsexual." As we know, sex is dirty enough, but homosexuals and transsexuals are all disease-ridden, AIDS-infested, sex-crazed, godless, hedonistic, er..., I'm sure there are a few more words I could use along those lines but I haven't had my tea^H^H^Hcoffee yet (of course I'm a real man! tea is for girls!). At any rate, no, "yuppie" wasn't demeaning enough.

Besides, someone who's young and upper class might just be well-connected and a hard worker. Homosexuals, transsexuals, and their newest effiminate (nothing worse than being feminine, a fate worse than death) sexual deviant might be well-connected, but hard-working, even deserving? Pfft. </troll>

Cheers

Re:Yeah, right!

[RiotingPacifist]

As a member of the unwashed masses, i would like to think that some of us eventually goon to become developers and generally help out when we can. Personally i've not done much other than help even newer users out with even simpler problems than my own, but a group of 16000 largely teenage geeks, will likely produce at least one developer, probably a few competent bug reporters and dozens people who will spend time on forums/irc to help out new users. So Canonical and the ubuntu community tend to think that more users = better, if you disagree your welcome to use fedora (or another distro that has a similar philosophy).

Re:Yeah, right!

[DNS-and-BIND]

I don't see how it's racist at all. I'm sure it is in some aspect (everything is) but I'm just not seeing it in the GP comment. And Facebook/Twitter/etc are hardly "elite", in fact they are the unwashed masses. What's next, pogroms against grouphug users?

Re:Yeah, right!

[gzipped_tar]

As we know, sex is dirty enough, but homosexuals and transsexuals are all disease-ridden, AIDS-infested, sex-crazed, godless, hedonistic, er..., I'm sure there are a few more words I could use along those lines but I haven't had my tea^H^H^Hcoffee yet (of course I'm a real man! tea is for girls!).

Terrorist? ;)

Re:Yeah, right!

[Anonymous Coward]

bigotry != racism. and elitism refers to /his/ attitude, not the people he's referring to. as in, "wow he uses twitter, he's too lowly to use /my/ operating system."

Re:Yeah, right!

[lxs]

I believe it's "Apple users"

Re:Yeah, right!

[drinkypoo]

Yuppies have money. Anime fans, by and large, do not, after spending it on Cels.

Re:Yeah, right!

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting. What's the difference in maturity level between dressing up as some anime character and dressing up as a Klingon? Neither character actually exists. Are all actors immature, as well? Is it an indictment of someone's maturity to dress up for Halloween? If an anime gets made into a novel and someone dresses up as a character based on the novel only because they never saw the original, is that better? I'm wondering exactly where your maturity line is.

Re:Yeah, right!

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't a particularly good description of the kind of hardcore anime fan who would go to a convention. You're more likely to find them trolling 4chan. So they should fit in perfectly around here.

Re:Yeah, right!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention, isn't using Linux still banned in Boston?

(There was a Slashdot story a while back about some guy who had his computer taken by the police because he was running Linux.)

Re:Yeah, right!

[jedidiah]

I would have gone more for the "pretending to be some professional athlete" angle here.

No one gives some "sports fanboy" any flack because it's socially acceptable.

Re:Yeah, right!

[Tikkun]

Well, I'm sure that's exactly the attitude Linux needs to gain market share: bigotry and elitism. Keep it up guys, year of the Linux is coming any day now.

Bigotry and elitism didn't prevent Linux from getting healthy amounts of market share in the server space.

Re:Yeah, right!

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like you've never been to an anime convention. You won't find many metrosexuals there. Much of the fandom is still made up of guys and girls with bad hygiene, the opposite of metrosexuals. And this is from an anime fan who attends at two anime conventions each year.

Re:Yeah, right!

[Anonymous Coward]

i would like to think that some of us eventually goon to become developers

"Goon" - is that the Scottish version of "go on"?

Re:Yeah, right!

[Provocateur]

Oh don't worry. Us Hanna Montana linux users will put up a booth right directly ACROSS from these anime worshippers, all the better to emerge victorious in stare-down contests. That ought to even things out. They'd wish they had those eyes taking up 80% of their faces...

Re:Yeah, right!

[bostei2008]

damn, I was too late... :-)

Re:Yeah, right!

[RiotingPacifist]

Aye! n I'd shut yer face, unless yous want a Glasgow kiss!

Re:Yeah, right!

[gbarules2999]

Thanks for assuming the AC was a Linux user, and represents an entire community as a whole. Yup, we all have these prejudices; we're like a hive mind.

Re:Yeah, right!

[0racle]

Bigotry and elitism got Linux this far, don't knock what works.

Re:Yeah, right!

[mdwh2]

Indeed, I'm having trouble seeing the difference between them and Slashdot geeks ;)

And as an aside, I love it that both "meterosexual" is used as an insult, as well as accusing people of the complete opposite of bad hygiene. I mean, which is it? And why is it only men who seem to have this confusion? It's like, if I have long hair I'm either an untidy hippy, or if I take care of it, I'm suddenly a "meterosexual"... This issue comes up on the occasional stories we have about geeks and work dress codes - simultaneously, people are insulted for not putting in an effort in, and putting too much effort in (e.g., goths being the obvious example).

Re:Yeah, right!

[mdwh2]

Yeah but at least they moved out of their mum's basement.

Re:Yeah, right!

[DarthVain]

While the British did have quite the empire at one time and are consummate tea drinkers, they are hardly the manly men, with their "pip pip" and "tally ho"! (Not to mention their crazy drag humor)

Of course on the other hand, China and India pretty much ensure that more men drink tea on this green earth. Of course while populous, I am not sure how many statistically are in the manly men VS Nancy Boy variety, but I would defiantly say as a straight up comparison, even given a moderate prediction that manly men prefer coffee to tea, the manly men who do drink tea likely outnumber those that do not.

But of course we know all real manly men are like in the Western USA...er like San Francisco and stuff... Can't get more western and manly than that! Go West...

Re:Yeah, right!

[realityimpaired]

I think it could be more the implication that because you have Facebook, you must have, at some point, had friends who'd want to keep in touch with you, thus disqualified as a true Slashdot Geek/Geekette.... Because we all know that everybody on slashdot is a basement-dwelling, never-bathing, man child who subsists on Sarah Michelle Gellar porn... that's just not compatible with the kind of person who's got friends, or might not actually be male...

Signed, a Facebook-using, "oh-so-creative" person who enjoys writing and drawing in her spare time... to my credit, I avoid Twitter like the plague, and it's kinda hard to be "metrosexual" when you're actually gay....

Re:Yeah, right!

[BitHive]

Welcome to the Republican party

Re:Yeah, right!

[Trillian_1138]

As we know, sex is dirty enough, but homosexuals and transsexuals are all disease-ridden, AIDS-infested, sex-crazed, godless, hedonistic, er..., I'm sure there are a few more words I could use along those lines

Fuck!! Why wasn't I provided with the handbook when I started on hormones?! And where are all these hedonistic, sex-crazed parties I'm supposed to be attending? I'm not opposed to hedonism or sex-craziness, mind you, but if I'm being obliged to live up to the standards set by my trans sisters and brothers, I'd like to know what I'm supposed to be doing.

You'd think with time for all the destruction of family values and breakdown of gender roles trans people seem to be doing, we could get our shit together for a nice handbook...

Re:Yeah, right!

[Pteraspidomorphi]

Probably a January 1st.

Re:Yeah, right!

[box4831]

A two cylinder engine might move an 18-wheeler but there's likely a better way to make progress

Re:Yeah, right!

[WillDraven]

Well, good thing they don't need any for what we're marketing to them then.

Re:Yeah, right!

[ZarathustraDK]

Nothing screams maturity more than people who dress up as cartoon characters.

Yeah, just like people who put on jerseys with their football/soccer-hero's name on it, or people wearing band-names on their shirt whose music they love, or people who don't go with the default "bliss"-wallpaper on their XP-desktop. Please...

Cosplaying takes more guts and dedication than any of those. It's fun as hell if you're into anime (for spectator and cosplayer alike). Kudos to the people who go an extra mile in pursuit of their hobbies/interests, "nerds" if you like.

Re:Yeah, right!

[coaxial]

Well releasing a HOWTO in manga form will surely eliminate that. I can hear it now, "What? It's not read from right to left? Worst manga ever!" ;)

Re:Yeah, right!

[Velex]

Fuck!! Why wasn't I provided with the handbook when I started on hormones?! And where are all these hedonistic, sex-crazed parties I'm supposed to be attending?

I know lol!

Re:Yeah, right!

[CAIMLAS]

You're not paying attention. Total world domination needs cannon fodder or it tends to fizzle out in the "take out Russia and/or overseas powers" stage of things.

Re:Yeah, right!

[polemon]

Nope. You've never seen those Anime/Manga people I assume.

What Ubuntu is reaching out to, are 16.000 mostly obese, antisocial men (and a few women), that dress like their favourite character, even though they should weigh about 1/4 of their actual weight to even resemble their characters physique!
Yes, they're clueless, but what you're referring to, are hipsters. People who have sexual fantasies with drawn characters, and spend all day watching Anime and reading Manga are "oh-so-creative"? Some of them doodle, but once they're told their "work" looks like a drawing of a 3 year old that suffers from ADHS, they stop.

Alright, I am Into Anime and Manga, but I keep it in secrecy. I don't want to blend with what Ubuntu is reaching out to right now.
I don't really like the Idea that they're forcing that subculture into Ubuntu. It looks like they're trying to hop on that OS-tan train, that Microsoft is riding on right now.

But metrosexuals, is not what they're gonna get!

Ubunchu!

[Anonymous Coward]

Gesundheit!

I Had to Read This 5 Times...

[RobotRunAmok]

...but now I think I get it: You're asking us to donate money so that your local Linux User Group can have a booth at your local anime convention.

Did I get that right? If so, props for chutzpah, my brother...

Re:I Had to Read This 5 Times...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but now I think I get it: You're asking us to donate money so that your local Linux User Group can have a booth at your local anime convention.

Did I get that right? If so, props for chutzpah, my brother...

I don't get what's wrong with that? I read enough slashvertising every week, a call that goes toward something positive isn't bad now, is it?

Re:I Had to Read This 5 Times...

[Maguscrowley]

I think that their plan is quite ingenious. Hell I'd love to have a paid pass at otakon and hand out install CDs of my favortie distro ... Only ... I use gentoo ... ._. I'd probably have a disgruntled narutard use it like a shruiken at my head after he fdisks away his vista partition at his hotel room.

Re:I Had to Read This 5 Times...

[ericrost]

No, he'd never be done compiling before the convention folds (ducks)

Re:I Had to Read This 5 Times...

[Maguscrowley]

Well otakon is 3 days ... My lappy is done X and xfce with me being away most the day way before then. If he tries KDE4? I'll have a dedicated page in his Death Note ... written in blood.

Re:I Had to Read This 5 Times...

[Ixitar]

That is what membership dues are for. Ages ago, I was the president of a UNIX users group and when we had booths at shows. We would either pay for it out of membership dues or get the show to donate the booth.

awesome!

[thernx]

I've been drawing a lot of linux manga lately ^^ http://thernx.deviantart.com/gallery/ -- my gallery if any1 is interested I belive it's a perfect match! to bad I'm not living in the US.

Re:awesome!

[Tribaal_ch]

Pretty nice stuff. I like "creaper and the rose" and "gnu power" especially.

Re:awesome!

[thernx]

cheers mate ^^

Re:awesome!

[GameboyRMH]

+1 nice work! "Ulquiorra tux" would be a big hit as a laptop sticker!

I have found a reason for the Idle category!

[MrMista_B]

The reason for the Idle category is so crap like this can be put there, and I can block it.

Re:I have found a reason for the Idle category!

[selven]

You must be new he... UID 891430... wait what?

Re:Whisky Tango Foxtrot

[SharpFang]

A booth.
Some news.

Every year Ubuntu reaches out to 450,000 fans of various alternative music - punk rock, folk and many others, at Woodstock Stop in Poland.
(they have a small tent where they give out CDs and leaflets, and talk about the system.)

This is surely a joke?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a joke, right?

The next distrobution is going to be called ...

[DeadDecoy]

Touchy Tentacle. It will feature advanced social networking services that will allow people to finger their friends over Twitter, Facebook, Pidgin, etc and see what they're up to. Their new motto will be: "Linux for Human Beings and their noodly appendages.".

Re:The next distrobution is going to be called ...

[vadim_t]

And soon after that, Ubuntu will reach out to the furries with Ubuntu Yiffy Yaffle, which will come with a wallpaper from Dark Natasha and Second Life as part of the default install.

Re:The next distrobution is going to be called ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the fact that you know the name and website of a furry artist precludes you from being able to make derisive jokes about them.

Re:The next distrobution is going to be called ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure he found them on Something Awful where everyone watches furry porn and hentai, but in an ironic way that proves how much smarter they are then everyone else on the Internet.

Re:The next distrobution is going to be called ...

[vadim_t]

I think the fact that you know the name and website of a furry artist precludes you from being able to make derisive jokes about them.

Which part was derisive? I find the idea of Ubuntu making that funny, but wouldn't see anything really wrong with it. I'm a furry, even.

Re:The next distrobution is going to be called ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. The same people also secretly build private stashes of spooge art that fill multiple terabyte hard drives. You know... because they're being ironic.

Re:The next distrobution is going to be called ...

[X0563511]

I don't get the Furry hate. I'm not one of them, but can identify with the idea of it. I also find the artwork to be appealing as well (and no, I'm not talking about the porn).

Re:The next distrobution is going to be called ...

[gbarules2999]

"Linux for Human Beings and their noodly appendages.".

Oh, so when did the Pastafarians start funding Ubuntu?

Re:The next distrobution is going to be called ...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a significant portion of furries that are an overflowing font of drama. These mainly fall into two groups: the batshit insane, and the ones who take everything Too Fucking Seriously. The first one consists of the fursuiters, the people who serious believe they are an animal trapped in a human body or some shit like that, and so on. The second consists of the people who indignantly say "it's not a fetish, it's a lifestyle!", the people who scream "fursection!" and start namedropping Hitler and Nazis like it's the early 40s all over again, the people who simply can't handle someone calling them a pervert and feels they absolutely must correct their flawed way of thinking at once, the people who turn every little fucking slight against their furriness into their own personal one-man war, and so on.

It shouldn't be too hard to see why furries thus draw so much loathing and mockery, even when you might think that, say, guro fans ought to be objectively disliked more.

Re:The next distrobution is going to be called ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they could appeal to another demographic with Yaoi Yak!

Re:The next distrobution is going to be called ...

[DarthVain]

What no Pedo Bear joke?

Re:The next distrobution is going to be called ...

[DarthVain]

Oh course anyone that has watched Anime can tell you, the new Anime version of Ubuntu is going to have some really long load times...

Likely it will timeout and shut itself off mid load, however not to worry, the engineers have devised a way to, continue the load from where you left off at the next boot. It is estimated that it should only take 36 boots or so to finish.

Re:The next distrobution is going to be called ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tentacles are not animals by themselves. Obscene Octopus would be a little closer.

A perfect match

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubunchu provides the soulless, uncreative, moemoe slice-of-life comedy that dominates and defines the tastes of the average anime fan, and Ubuntu itself is well-tailored to skills (none) and mentality (also none) of the average drooling idiot (K-On fan). You could not have chosen better.

Re:A perfect match

[not flu]

Mod parent up. As a Ubuntu user and K-On! fan I can attest that he is spot on.

Re:A perfect match

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that you, Artefact?

I'm an Ubuntu fan...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and I think Anime is fucking stupid. Agreed.

Re:I'm an Ubuntu fan...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I think that Ubuntu and anime *both* suck.

Re:I'm an Ubuntu fan...

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is why they're prefect for each other. That, and a common constituency of morons.

Excellent...

[Virak]

And then we unleash them upon Slashdot.jp and set back Western-Japanese relations by decades. The plan is flawless.

Ubuntu and anime?

[Mad Fish The One]

Sounds great, but the situation is that anime cannot be watched with the default Ubuntu player. It lacks support for ASS subtitles and MKV linked chapters. The only good approach to this problem now (for any distribution) is to build mplayer from git development tree (for MKV linked chapters).

Re:Ubuntu and anime?

[Delkster]

"Cannot be watched", when (judging from your post) the only way to make it possible would be to use a player compiled from development source? Considering how few people do that, I believe there must be an awful lot of people watching anime who can't watch anime.

Re:Ubuntu and anime?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds great, but the situation is that anime cannot be watched with the default Ubuntu player. It lacks support for ASS subtitles and MKV linked chapters.

The only good approach to this problem now (for any distribution) is to build mplayer from git development tree (for MKV linked chapters).

Huh? Just install SMPlayer or VLC from the Ubuntu Software Center and you're good to go. Or "sudo aptitude install smplayer" if you prefer the command line.

Re:Ubuntu and anime?

[Talderas]

What it means is that the video playing problems of Ubuntu, and other *nix distros in general, is acting as a barrier to bringing in the one group that relies heavily on video players. These users utilize more complex video (even if they don't know it). By bringing them in and getting a good solid player that works for them, you would -in theory- improve the video player for all users.

What bothers me is that a lot of slashdotters hold an elitist attitude about linux and it trickles down into an elitist attitude about who uses it.

Re:Ubuntu and anime?

[HBI]

Some of us never thought commercializing Linux was a good idea at all. We had a perfectly usable OS for geeks and now it gets progressively dumbed down to make it 'more desktop friendly' with very little market penetration ensuing. We're getting taken for a ride by some folks who want to make money off it. It's bullshit.

Re:Ubuntu and anime?

[rdnetto]

These users utilize more complex video (even if they don't know it). By bringing them in and getting a good solid player that works for them, you would -in theory- improve the video player for all users

The 'more complex video' the parent refers to is the .mkv container, which is used since it allows the video to contain audio and subtitles in both Japanese and English. It also seems to be the most commonly used with HD content, since it supports h264 (the newer content from Japan is increasingly in 1080p). I've never had any problems using SMPlayer, but the version in the main repositories is outdated - you have to add a PPA to get the latest version, something that can hardly be seen as user friendly. Most anime sites recommend *against* VLC, since it's performance can be a little lackluster.

tldr: Just replace Totem with SMPlayer, or at least keep an update version of SMPlayer in the repositories.

The English translation of Ubunchu is still flawed

[Shin-LaC]

I sent the maintainer some corrections back in April, but he thought my criticisms were too harsh and chose to ignore them.

Sometimes the translators simply failed to grasp the meaning of the original text. In panel 3, the girl says "Yokenna, kono!" ("Why you, don't dodge!") and the boy replies "Maji iteendazo!" ("Those really hurt, you know!"; they are both referring to the CDs she's throwing), but in the English translation it turns into "Stop messing around! It can't be any good!". The third girl's line, "Hamori nagara kenka shinaidee!", is not so easy to render in English, but it definitely doesn't mean "Stop talking at the same time!": it means "You were speaking in unison a minute ago [panel 2], so don't fight now!"

Other times, the translation is clumsy. In panel 1, "Saikin ninki no desktop na Linux desu!" ("It's the most popular desktop Linux these days!" - or, more literally, "It's a desktop Linux that is popular these days") becomes "It is very popular with the users, and it is the hottest desktop Linux distribution available."
And that's just the first page.

I reported these and more flaws months ago, but since the maintainer took offense to my harsh but polite comment ("the translation should be redone", I said), he simply rejected the "patch". It's hard not to crack wise that this is just like a real open source project. :-)
(Actually, I know most maintainers aren't like that, so hold those Flamebait mods. :P)

Hooray for Anime!

[Terminus32]

I love my anime - classic stuff like Fist of the North Star, Cyber City Oedo 808, Wicked City, Ninja Scroll, etc.
Would love to see a distro geared towards anime fans!

Re:Hooray for Anime!

[clickclickdrone]

>Would love to see a distro geared towards anime fans!
And I want an OS based around gardening, sericulture and possibly quality headphones but then I've got my head stuck my ass and no life.

Re:Hooray for Anime!

[ZarathustraDK]

And I want an OS based around gardening, sericulture and possibly quality headphones but then I've got my head stuck my ass and no life.

You should probably roll your own version of Damn Small Linux then. Because there probably wont be much room left considering you're farming silk-worms while wearing head-phones up in that tight ass of yours.

Wait.....Goatse is that you?

Desu...

Perfect!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's got Transmission and Totem. What more could anime fans need?

TrueCrypt for hiding away your most embarrassing material?

Re:I'm an Anime fan...

[clickclickdrone]

>and I think Ubuntu is fucking stupid.
Sums it up nicely. This has to be the dumbest combination of two random things since someone tried to sell Windows 95 at a double glazing exhibition. Hey, we all like the word window, right? Don't we?

Problems for anime fans with Linux

[abigsmurf]

There are some big problems anime fans will have with using Linux: Windows boxes are more capable media players. I generally prefer Zoomplayer and MPC-HC to stuff like VLC (although this is naturally personal preference) but a big issue is the lack of Blu Ray playing capability under Linux.

There's also gaming, with the exception of Onscript based games, very few visual novels play well with Linux and most Tohou/doujin shooters are Windows only.

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[Virak]

Windows boxes are more capable media players.

Not really.

I generally prefer Zoomplayer and MPC-HC to stuff like VLC

See, here's your problem. You're comparing competent players to an incompetent player. One that in particular has terrible support for ASS, by far the most popular subtitle format for fansubs. Try mplayer (or a GUI frontend if that's your thing) sometime.

but a big issue is the lack of Blu Ray playing capability under Linux.

For you, maybe. For most people it is a tiny, tiny issue though. And anyways, that's certainly not the case anyway.

There's also gaming, with the exception of Onscript based games, very few visual novels play well with Linux

Plenty of them run well with Wine, but the amount that manage to make something as simple as a VN not work at all under Wine is certainly impressive.

and most Tohou/doujin shooters are Windows only.

The Touhou games all work fine under Wine, minus the occasional minor graphical glitch.

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[Nerdfest]

Doesn't bluray have region coding enforced? I would think that would cause a lot of concern in North America with so much Japanese anime. (ie: people use ripped content anyway)

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

but a big issue is the lack of Blu Ray playing capability under Linux.

Um, why do you want to play Blu Ray? Do you have a 60 inch computer screen?

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[SeaFox]

Japan and the U.S are in the same BluRay Region (A).

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[SeaFox]

[blockquote]See, here's your problem. You're comparing competent players to an incompetent player. One that in particular has terrible support for ASS, by far the most popular subtitle format for fansubs. Try mplayer (or a GUI frontend if that's your thing) sometime.[/blockquote]

VLC gets it's SSA/ASS subtitle rendering support from the mplayer project. So except for being a step behind MPlayer's they are using the same code. Implementation, however, may be making a difference.

At least I can get sound to work on VLC.

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[Qzukk]

Doesn't bluray have region coding enforced?

It does, but they abandoned the DVD regions for "zones", and Japan and the US now share a zone.

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[tuppe666]

MPlayer now supports most of the Bluray and HD-DVD codecs. I don't know about the others as lack of Blu Ray playing is not a big issue for me...or almost anyone else.

As for Visual Novels there are 4 engines with over 100 games supported. You should look harder

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[drinkypoo]

I generally prefer Zoomplayer and MPC-HC to stuff like VLC

See, here's your problem. You're comparing competent players to an incompetent player. One that in particular has terrible support for ASS, by far the most popular subtitle format for fansubs. Try mplayer (or a GUI frontend if that's your thing) sometime.

Now see, here's your problem: You're an arrogant asshole. I have TONS of video clips that mplayer won't play; vlc plays them all. From where I'm sitting, mplayer is the crap software.

but a big issue is the lack of Blu Ray playing capability under Linux.

For you, maybe. For most people it is a tiny, tiny issue though. And anyways, that's certainly not the case anyway.

It's getting to be a bigger issue. People who watch on their PC would often like to take advantage of the additional resolution, so it's not just HDTV owners — nevertheless a growing segment.

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[Virak]

Now see, here's your problem: You're an arrogant asshole. I have TONS of video clips that mplayer won't play; vlc plays them all. From where I'm sitting, mplayer is the crap software.

Now see, here's your problem: You're an arrogant asshole. I have TONS of video clips that vlc won't play; mplayer plays them all. From where I'm sitting, vlc is the crap software.

It's getting to be a bigger issue. People who watch on their PC would often like to take advantage of the additional resolution, so it's not just HDTV owners -- nevertheless a growing segment.

Please note the story and the OP's post. This is in the context of anime, not in general.

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

mplayer supports hd audio?
There's more to Blu Ray than just the picture resolution.

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[abigsmurf]

I can download CCCP and after 30 seconds, I can play almost any video file with no configuration required. Another 20 seconds in MPC-HC and I can completely eliminate screen tearing in TV Out. Then I never have to worry about deciding on a GUI, worrying about certain combinations of container and subtitle format not playing together and any sound issues at all.

To say ripping and playing a blu ray at the moment is a bit inelegant is an understatement. It simply doesn't compare to popping a disc in and having the disc play almost instantly.

Using Linux as a HTPC box involves lots of little extra hurdles or putting up with minor glitches. With Windows I can sit down and enjoy a game or film without needing to worry about 'preparing' them beforehand.

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[Virak]

VLC gets it's SSA/ASS subtitle rendering support from the mplayer project. So except for being a step behind MPlayer's they are using the same code. Implementation, however, may be making a difference.

I just went and downloaded a more recent VLC version and played something with it and surprisingly it wasn't hilariously broken. It's like I'm really using a player developed in the 21st century. I suppose I must tentatively (only tentatively because I didn't do a thorough test of its capabilities) retract my jab at VLC's subtitle support, but maintain my vague assertions about its general quality as a video player and the frequency with which it kicks defenseless little puppies.

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[Kizeh]

I played for weeks trying to get Ubuntu to work as a HTPC. All the media players I found in the repository either had horrid tearing problems, jerky motion, no audio, crashed constantly, or could not display the subtitles in a sane size on my plasma TV -- either tiny scribble or humongous letters, despite changing the settings I could find for the subtitle font. (Not to mention that the SB card defaulted to digital out and no peep on analog, and good luck finding that switch in the GUI...) Put Vista on it, downloaded CCCP, everything works fine -- it even had native drivers for my ATI Remote Wonder II, which never worked under Ubuntu either. Also, setting up SMB workgroup in Ubuntu is akin to waterboarding -- there needs to be a decent GUI or even text-based setup for that, and integration into system accounts and passwords. All of this can presumably be fixed, but when someone who uses CentOS for a living at work gives up after two weeks it can't be much easier for the average teen who just wants to watch anime. Okay, done ranting ;-)

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[Virak]

Then I never have to worry about deciding on a GUI

You already decided on one, namely MPC-HC.

worrying about certain combinations of container and subtitle format not playing together

I'm curious as to exactly what combinations do this, and with which player. I've got a bunch of stuff in all the common formats (Matroska/{H.264,MPEG-4 ASP}/{Vorbis,AAC,MP3}/ASS, AVI/MPEG-4 ASP/MP3, raw DVDs), and some stuff in some less common formats (OGM/SRT, anyone?), and mplayer plays anything I throw at it without a problem, even incomplete or broken files.

and any sound issues at all.

And I'm also curious about these sound issues. I hear people complaining about general sound under Linux all the time (though it's Just Worked for me since forever), but I've never heard of sound issues with mplayer specifically.

With Windows I can sit down and enjoy a game or film without needing to worry about 'preparing' them beforehand.

For video, there's always piracy: cheaper and you get a better product for your (lack of money) too! Or you could always take over the big media companies and get them to stop producing evil formats that hate your freedom and want to take it away. Though if being able to play Blu-ray videos without a bit of extra effort to get around the shit they lock it up in is by itself important enough to you to switch OSes, then I guess there's nothing I can really do for you.

As for the games, you brought up Touhou and VNs; all the Touhous work fine (as noted), and out of the box, with no 'preparing' anything in any way. With VNs, generally what you see is what you get. If it crashes horribly and vomits out some cryptic error when you try to run it under Wine, probably even the darkest of dark magics won't get it running, so 'preparing' is futile. Though with their low resource usage and lack of using things like fancy 3D graphics, you can usually get them running flawlessly under a VM (I suggest VirtualBox if you're willing to consider this).

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[Virak]

I don't really have any experience myself with setting any Linux distro up as an HTPC. As for the average person who wants to watch anime, they're not going to be setting up a fancy HTPC setup like you are, so the situations aren't really comparable. And I think you're underestimating them a bit. I know quite a few who are into anime and have switched to Linux (or at least dual-boot it), generally with few problems, and often willing to work through the problems they have.

Technical competence in general seems to be a lot higher in the anime community. Another poster was spot on when he linked to this. It's not rare for me to have lengthy and in-depth conversations about theoretical physics or the finer points of operating system design in channels ostensibly about discussing anime.

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[Kizeh]

Well, the setup wasn't "fancy." It was my old desktop PC hooked up to the VGA input on my TV, with stereo analog audio into the amp. No different than watching it from a monitor with headphones or computer speakers.
As far as drive sharing and, I don't know how common that is for the average user, but I'd imagine that's a pretty basic use as well.

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm at least with Blu Ray we share the same zone codes as Japan, so you can order or purchase the originals :-) when they come out.

With regular DVDs, we dont have the same region codes as Japan, so we have to wait for fansub or official release 'when it's ready'.

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[supersloshy]

Touhou runs almost perfectly in Linux with Wine the last time I checked, which is almost every single day that I play Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (with the english patch, but japanese works too).

TIP: Run the game on a virtual Wine desktop! Switching windows causes this weird and annoying glitch where it seems like a button is stuck, and if it's on a virtual desktop the window won't technically lose focus.

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[discord5]

Windows boxes are more capable media players.

While VLC used to be horrendous at ASS/SSA subtitles the 1.0 versions seem to handle those gracefully (if I'm not mistaken the humously named libass is to blame). VLC does still seem to choke on H.264 from time to time, especially when you're fastforwarding. A really good media player experience are the latests incarnations of XBMC, but the disadvantage is that you'll be dedicating your computer to it (not that you're doing much else while watching tv). MPC(-HC) or any other ffdshow based player is probably still a better media player on a desktop though for H.264 with ASS subtitles

Tohou/doujin shooters are Windows only.

They run on wine, without glitches these days even. No need to give up on your bullet hell game addiction. FWIW, switching to the correct locale to get them working, and/or fiddling with Applocale takes about as much time as getting them to run on wine.

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[Spykk]

I generally watch anime on my EEE 1000 netbook running ubuntu 9.10. There shouldn't be many machines out there with lower specs. I can watch most h.264 720p encodes with only the occasional stutter using mplayer. 420p encodes all run flawlessly.

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[pky666]

Sorry, but I don't see how squeezing Tux into a skimpy bikini is going to attract these manga fans. (although the tight swimsuit will bulge out his eyes to the right size ;)

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[drinkypoo]

Please note the story and the OP's post. This is in the context of anime, not in general.

Bite me, fanboy

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[danomac]

I have a HTPC setup in my living room. I have an old TV (which underscans, unfortunately - both in Windows and Linux with no "easy" fix) and routed through my amplifier. I used MythTV from portage and tweaked everything with few issues. The biggest problem I had was getting lirc to recognize my HTPC IR receiver so I could use my Harmony remote with it. After a lot of head-scratching about that one (support for the iMon receiver in lirc was piss-poor at the time, must have changed by now, it's been over a year) I did manage to get it to work, and once that worked [surprisingly] MythTV used the LCD screen as well. Basically had no issues with mplayer and sound. My old TV sucks, and I couldn't get it to overscan enough to fix the screen, but that was in Windows too, not just a linux issue (must be a fault of the tv-chip on the card.) Using plasma TVs are sketch with a HTPC is sketchy anyhow quality-wise, so next time I need a TV I'll be getting a LCD panel that supports native resolution over the HDMI input.

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[danomac]

It just dawned on me that this story is about Ubuntu, which I don't use. Whoops!

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[Kizeh]

I tried MythTV (okay, Mythbuntu) as well, but never got it to work worth anything. It wouldn't play hardly any of the files I had :-(

That being said, my TV is a plasma, (Samsung 50") and other than taking some care against leaving a static image for hours on the screen, the picture quality (over VGA) is outstanding. Both Ubuntu and Windows autodetected the screen and used its native resolution without any trouble.

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[danomac]

Well, on gentoo (which is what I'm using) getting codec support is easy. Mplayer has a bunch of USE flags available for all sorts of codecs (both audio and video), so I set this and the package manager pulled in all of the dependencies. The main reason I use gentoo is because of the package manager's flexibility.

I haven't come across an unplayable file in years now. 'Course I have built support for almost everything under the sun for mplayer, though...

I remember reading several articles regarding plasmas w.r.t. using as a computer display, and (back then) was suggested to get a LCD display as it has better viewable quality for use with a computer. It's quite possible that that has changed now.

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[^_^x]

This is it. Also, I've been to cons - even booths with Western-made anime-styled comics get mostly passed over. Go even more unrelated and try to promote an alternative computer OS that doesn't get the best exposure even among computer geeks, and I think this booth will be completely invisible, assuming they're allowed to exhibit there in the first place (space is usually at a premium at these things.)

But yeah, while you can run many Japanese games on Linux with enough knowhow and the right software, I don't think there's an official version of any big hits for Linux - Fate/Stay Night, Tsukihime, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Touhou Project, etc...

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[cptnapalm]

"And I'm also curious about these sound issues. I hear people complaining about general sound under Linux all the time (though it's Just Worked for me since forever)"

I had been in this same camp until yesterday. Now sound is doing some pretty weird stuff. Plays fine, stutters, then disappears. The only thing I've messed with was installing D&D Online under wine and told wine to use OSS, since that is the only thing that works. Now, though, my sound is goofy everywhere. The default response in this case is to blame PulseAudio, so I've decided to do that.

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[Raptor851]

I have to respectfully disagree with that, mplayer is an amazing player for anime/fansubs (which probably accounts for 99% of the video on my system). Most current shows are in HD as well and current versions of mplayer have no issue with them. VLC, in my experience, is fairly sub-par on linux, try out mplayer using smplayer as a front end, you'll love it :)

For blu-ray, it's considered unstable at the moment so you won't see it in a mainline distro, but check out the doom9 guys and the posts over on the gentoo forums, I've had working blu-ray playback for nearly a year now using my sony blu-ray drive. I've had no issues with it but yrmv, it is still unstable :/

I also play tons of visual novels and danmaku shooters/other doujin games (I own Touhou 6-8 as well), they play perfectly under wine, BUT you first need to install the Japanese font set's from windows. (i forget it's name, there's a Free version of it that replaces it you can just copy in, you don't need to rip it from windows). My biggest issue of late has been the text in Touhou 12 is partly transparent, makes it hard to read. Working on a patch for that now so when i buy the game I'll be able to play it fully :)

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[Raptor851]

change the settings to disable directinput, on some systems it causes this. (not just wine, it happens in windows too!)

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[mvdwege]

I'm still in that camp even though Debian just rolled out PulseAudio in unstable. I was surprised to see it running and not have any issues at all. The general wailing and gnashing of teeth seems to be a bit over the top from this end. about half a year back it occasionally didn't play nice with things like Flash and Skype, but apparently that is now fixed too.

And as for anime, when I see the hell my Windows using friends have to go through to manage their codecs and matching video players, I'm glad I have mplayer available.

Mart

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[cptnapalm]

My memory of the last time I decided to install Windows for some games has stuck with me. I couldn't get audio to work at all. I had to go looking for video drivers amongst other things. A frustrated thought ran through my mind, "Why can't this be simple, like Linux?" A humorous reversal of fortune.

I think my system currently has 3 different audio systems. OSS, ALSA and Pulse. Like I said, previously everything was hunky dory, until I assigned wine to use OSS, since the ALSA bit stopped working with DDO. I'm not sure why that affects audio when I am not using wine. The multiple audio systems running simultaneously does need resolving; it has to be a maintenance problem, so I'm sure it will be. My Ubuntu experience since '06 has been of a few glitches, but overwhelmingly I like the take on the system. Having used Linux before that, I know where to go to fix certain things if there is a goof, audio excepted.

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[izomiac]

There's also the state of h264 acceleration. Animated subtitles can easly have double digit CPU usage on a Core 2 Duo, and higher resolution/bitrate h264 isn't possible on anything short of a quad core (last time I checked). Anime fansubs tend to encode at higher levels so hardware acceleration is iffy even on windows. Without it there are limitation as to what you can watch, and you have to contend with a lot of fan noise.

I suspect whoever had this idea is forgetting just how taxing fansubs can be. Personally, I dual boot and this is something Windows simply has proven to be better at. (MPC-HC with DXVA, ffdshow, and Haali VS the latest SMPlayer and Intel drivers on Gentoo)

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been playing Imperishable Night under Linux since... well, way back. (Not on Easy Mode, thank you very much) The others mostly work I think. I can vouch for STB, with the exception that you don't get to see your pretty pictures (which takes the fun out of it). It does still score you for them, though.

Re:Problems for anime fans with Linux

[Virak]

Holy fuck man, anime on fucking Blu-ray! You just blew my fucking mind!

I'm quite familiar with anime Blu-ray releases, but apparently you are not. There's nowhere near as many releases on Blu-ray in English as there are in Japanese, and plenty of people just watch fansubs, in which case the restrictions of the original media are of no concern to the viewer. My original assertion, that "for most people it is a tiny, tiny issue", still stands, and you are still a whiny, ignorant asshat.

Re: exactly. it'll just hurt us.

[Anonymous Coward]

This. I came here to post that any move to associate Ubuntu and Manga could only hurt public perception of Ubuntu, since it will only help to convince fence-sitters that Ubuntu is not looking for a mainstream audience.

This is great!

[DoofusOfDeath]

This will give Ubuntu the mainstream credibility we've been seeking!

Re:This is great!

[GrubLord]

:D

Re:anime?

[Anonymous Coward]

yessss +1 insightful, great job, guy-with-mod-points

Re:anime?

[GrubLord]

This gets modded +1 Insightful, but all my snarky comments get -1 Flamebait? I hate you, mods!

Re:I'm an Anime fan...

[Roman Mamedov]

This has to be the dumbest combination of two random things

In no way this is a dumb combination, on the contrary, it's a perfect match! :)

Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[ThePhilips]

I really believe the Anime fandom is a perfect match for Ubuntu, as they are by nature very much in line with open source and remix culture.

That is getting stupider over time - considering that out of box Ubuntu can't play 99% of anime found on say mininova.

And even after installing all possible drivers, applications and codecs, Linux video playback - especially as anime concerned - is still eons behind of CCCP on Windows.

And what about the "remix culture" reference? Manga and anime fandom is interesting because there are more people who do new/original stuff - and few who rehash the old stuff. And even if they "remix" (what a stupid word lessig came up with) they still do it their own way, not some dumb copy paste like what many CC-lovers do.

Ubunchu!

That is manga, not anime.

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[Anonymous Coward]

Just needs a port of Windows Movie Maker: If you can prove that Ubuntu can make shittier AMVs than Windows Movie Maker, then you've have con goers switching in droves. Blue scrolly text titles considered a major plus.

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[tuppe666]

"is still eons behind of CCCP [cccp-project.net] on Windows." eons is not just an exaggeration...but a falsehood. Multimedia Playback on any Linux Distribution is Superior and easier to maintain. The fact that you link to an non Microsoft maintained collection of codecs with no verification that I've never heard of is just another possible security flaw. If you had talked about licensing on the Non Microsoft platform or even on the Microsoft Platform well thats another matter.

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[ThePhilips]

Though personally I would consider possibility of making (even shitty) AMVs on Linux a great plus.

Fact that Linux still doesn't have half-decent "standard" movie editor is really frustrating.

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[ThePhilips]

The fact that you link to an non Microsoft maintained collection of codecs with no verification that I've never heard of is just another possible security flaw.

F*ck security.

What the point of having secure (Linux) PC if it barely can play fraction of my video collection? Gathering dust???

P.S. And those are not "MS maintained" codecs - many are actually free software, some of it even GPLd. GPL software isn't limited to Linux, there are boatloads of Windows GPL software too. After introduction of WMS (Windows Media Service), multimedia support of Windows also plunged. Though at least with (free) 3rd party software one can get it all to work on Windows.

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[drinkypoo]

Multimedia Playback on any Linux Distribution is Superior and easier to maintain.

You're nucking futs. I run Karmic x64 on my desktop system (and soon on this LT3103u - I tried Windows 7, but it is shit just like I suspected it would be) and even with all the codec packs installed for gstreamer and everything installed from the medibuntu repo I still get requests to install codecs that do not exist. Windows with the CCCP definitely has superior media support. Sure, it doesn't come with Windows, but no Linux distribution I've ever seen installs all the codecs to begin with, and even after they installed you can't play everything you can with the CCCP.

Perhaps you should allow the knowledgeable people to have this conversation.

As for security, that was not part of the specification. I think we all know that Windows is a less secure OS than Linux. Or at least, most of us feel that way. That doesn't mean that Linux is the right tool for every job.

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[shish]

considering that out of box Ubuntu can't play 99% of anime found on say mininova.

I clicked a .mkv, it said "I don't have a codec installed, shall I find one?", I clicked "yes", and it did, then it played. Not "out of the box" in the literal sense, but pretty close, and better than googling for codecs...

(Though after checking that it worked, I still went back to mplayer, which has so far played 100% of things I've thrown at it, and with hardware accelerated decoding now too :-P )

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[ThePhilips]

Mplayer is nice, but it integrates with the rest very poorly. I still prefer to run Mplayer from command line, since most of the front-ends (official included) fail very often.

Ages old problem of A/V sync in Mplayer was never fixed. If I try to work in parallel (e.g. compile 2-3 files) Mplayer still easily looses A/V sync.

And aspect ratio handling is also sometimes fails.

And in GUI there is no usable bookmarks/favorites: restarting playback at later time from place where I stopped last time is at best dysfunctional. Last time it failed for me because video file name contained *OMG* international characters. With default GUI it is possible to automagically remember only single position in a movie what sucks for anything longer than 15 minute short.

Mplayer still can't get out of Gnome/KDE setting my preferred audio card. And no real-time change of audio card is possible (e.g. switching from loudspeakers' sound card to headphones' one (built-in on motherboard) and back).

AVC support is still subpar (compared to Windows-only CoreAVC) what makes it unusable for many HD movies: Mplayer starts dropping frames and jitter goes into tens of seconds - if many fast moving objects are in frame.

Mplayer forums are also very welcome place, flooded with "works for me!" trolls.

Mplayer is surely best what Linux can offer in multimedia. Even most subtitle formats work now. But it is so rough on the edges that one can't simply rely on it in long run.

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you just install videolan and be over with all of that.

Plus there's always plenty of streaming sites. Firefox + Downloadhelper = HD or LQ flash video/mp4 without any hassle or waiting time. That plugin even sorts the most popular streaming sites so...

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[shish]

Ages old problem of A/V sync in Mplayer was never fixed. If I try to work in parallel (e.g. compile 2-3 files) Mplayer still easily looses A/V sync.

Back in the day I found that the autosync option fixed this; I've not needed that in years though, trying parallel building while playing video now I get lots of frame dropping, but the one or two frames per second that do appear are still in sync o_O Aspect ratio too I remember being a problem 5 or 6 years ago, but it's been so long since needing to correct it that I can't even remember how...

Mplayer still can't get out of Gnome/KDE setting my preferred audio card. And no real-time change of audio card is possible

I'm not aware of anything at the application layer to do these, but AFAIK pluseaudio will take care of them (including real-time change of audio output to a card on the other side of the network, bluetooth headset, network media player, etc)

[mplayer guis]

They do suck, but I'm not sure why one would use them; "double-click to play with sensible defaults" has always been plenty for me (and many others too, judging by the number of people who have converted to mplayer-win32 after seeing me use it)

AVC support is still subpar (compared to Windows-only CoreAVC) what makes it unusable for many HD movies:

X264 is slower than coreavc I admit, but Linux-only VDPAU seems to beat them both :-) (Also coreavc is available for linux, but it involves patching :( )

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[ThePhilips]

VLC is helpless when it comes to HD and/or subtitles.

And FlashVideo quality is sorry but acceptable only for funny short videos on YouTube. Nor do I expect the the 4+GB 720p HD videos would be streamed any time soon.

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[polle404]

That is getting stupider over time - considering that out of box Ubuntu can't play 99% of anime found on say mininova.

Neither can Windows, the major player on the OS market. What's your point?
Most people capable of finding stuff to download, are capable of installing a mediaplayer.
hell, on Windows there's not even a p2p client, so they'd have to find and install one as well?

And what about the "remix culture" reference? Manga and anime fandom is interesting because there are more people who do new/original stuff - and few who rehash the old stuff. And even if they "remix" (what a stupid word lessig came up with) they still do it their own way, not some dumb copy paste like what many CC-lovers do.

I believe he's talking about Djinshi? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga#D.C5.8Djinshi

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[ThePhilips]

Neither can Windows, the major player on the OS market. What's your point?

But that can be painlessly compensated by 3rd party software. One download, 2 minutes to install and after that it works pretty much flawlessly.

On Linux: find a repo where to get the fitting version of Mplayer; install Mplayer; spend couple of hours figuring out how to remove/disable the PulseAudio crap; spend more time properly configuring ALSA if you happen to have more than one sound card; spend couple of hours reconfiguring everything to use ALSA; then spend more time updating/finding a version of X.org/video driver because shipped version usually happen to have no support for video acceleration. Done. Almost. Because after every update you have to pray that it all still works. (E.g. on my system, after every other update (sometimes on reboot too) ALSA forgets default sound card and I have to fix it quite often.)

I believe he's talking about Dojinshi?

Dojinshi is absolutely different story. And precisely dojinshi are most often the new/original material, are the work of self-published amateurs trying to make something new. (Though in west they are most often associated with parodies and side-stories to other mangas or anime.) Pretty much all manga artists were starting with dojinshi before becoming professionals. Doing it for money on contract from a publisher: that is the difference between manga and dojinshi.

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[ThePhilips]

Or in other words: I would have dropped my home Windows PC 2+ years ago - if only video playback under Linux was half as good.

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[redkazuo]

And even after installing all possible drivers, applications and codecs, Linux video playback - especially as anime concerned - is still eons behind of CCCP [cccp-project.net] on Windows.

My good god, are you really a Linux user? You sound like you never heard of mplayer. I have been watching anime on Linux weekly for years, in several formats like mpeg, divx, realmedia and mkv!

I'm not an Ubuntu user, I love the simplicity of elden distros like Debian and Slackware. Maybe it's just that Ubuntu doesn't have an mplayer package, or has its very own "Super Cool Ubuntu Media Player" that overshines it. Could anybody enlight me?

Either way, when I use Windows (it's rare) I use mplayer anyway. The Windows players are that bad. I guess this is what we get for encouraging the average "click on the movie icon" Joe to use Linux, but *man* I didn't know things were this bad.

Next on Slashdot: Linux is way too hard to develop on, it doesn't have a Visual Studio alternative!

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[ThePhilips]

You sound like you never heard of mplayer. I have been watching anime on Linux weekly for years, in several formats like mpeg, divx, realmedia and mkv!

B.S.

Softsubs were relatively recently properly implemented in Mplayer. (Though "couple of years" technically is "for years" too.)

Likewise, proper MKV support is also very young. Before Mplayer wasn't demuxing the files properly nor could switch between audio/subtitle channels on the file. Due to bogus demuxing audio skips were also common.

I'm not an Ubuntu user, I love the simplicity of elden distros like Debian and Slackware. Maybe it's just that Ubuntu doesn't have an mplayer package, or has its very own "Super Cool Ubuntu Media Player" that overshines it. Could anybody enlight me?

Getting Mplayer never was a problem. In past I was often even compiling it myself. No big deal.

The problem is getting the rest of it to work: audio and video.

Audio on Linux is a total mess, unless of course you are lucky to have single sound card in your PC (and distro of your choice hasn't succumbed to PulseAudio madness). Many have at least two, since modern MBs have some primitive card always on-board. Managing two sound cards under Linux is still a must, since most applications (Mplayer included) do not integrate with KDE or Gnome and bypass most of the configuration.

Video and video acceleration is much cleaner on Linux. In sense that it is completely absent. And to smoothly playback H.264 files of 720p/bigger resolutions one need either H/W accelerated video playback (which is mostly absent) or properly optimized H.264 decoder (and forked ffmpeg of Mplayer isn't).

If you would limit you statement that you have watched DivX/XViD anime for years then I might believe you. Otherwise - B.S.

Next on Slashdot: Linux is way too hard to develop on, it doesn't have a Visual Studio alternative!

Don't be idiot. I develop for *NIX and my WS is a Linux. For past 10 years (I have started on SuSE 6.2 in 1999). The problem is that kernel team refuses to manage kernel related libraries and interfaces and in Linux scape there not a single entity dealing with multimedia issues. Thus the chaos and frustration - due to lack of organization. Developer are there. But with distros being openly anti-multimedia not much can be done about it.

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[Yosho]

an non Microsoft maintained collection of codecs with no verification that I've never heard of

... what? Quite frankly, if you've never heard of CCCP, it's obvious that you do not watch anime fansubs. It's the de facto codec collection used in the anime community, especially if you're watching anything in an MKV container that uses SSA or ASS soft-subs.

Oh, and SSA/ASS support on Linux has been horrible for years. To be fair, it's gotten better recently, and I can play almost anything with XBMC, but it's still not as good as Windows; playing a video that uses advanced stuff like scrolling subtitles or karaoke effects has noticeable artifacts and will make my CPU stutter, even though it would play perfectly under Windows.

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[Tetsujin]

Fact that Linux still doesn't have half-decent "standard" movie editor is really frustrating.

I haven't had much luck so far with trying to edit video on Linux...

But what's a "standard" movie editor?

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[ThePhilips]

But what's a "standard" movie editor?

Something that is shipped by a number of major distos (Ubuntu, Mandriva, SuSE, Fedora, etc).

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[redkazuo]

Softsubs were relatively recently properly implemented in Mplayer. (Though "couple of years" technically is "for years" too.)
Likewise, proper MKV support is also very young. Before Mplayer wasn't demuxing the files properly nor could switch between audio/subtitle channels on the file. Due to bogus demuxing audio skips were also common.

Seveal years ago, the MKV format was not used for anime. Today we the 400mb files for 20 minute eps abound, but back then, people simply didn't have the bandwidth to deal with it.

Also, only hard subtitling was used, probably because no good widespread player had support for soft subs.

Audio and video are screwed? I have no idea what you're talking about. I have not had any issues with them for several years.

Managing two soundcards on Linux is not a must. If Gnome and KDE don't know how to force programs that were not designed to be configured by them to use their configurations, it's not my problem or the kernel's. Let them provide their own media apps for their users, while the rest of us use what already works. They got the deep pockets, why are they trying to offload work?

And by the way, no developer cares about "proper optimization" of specific codecs if it doesn't make a difference, and that's exactly the case on any of my machines, even the several years old ones. If somebody did, she would pick it up.

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[cbeley]

I don't know about you, but I have yet to run into anything that I couldn't play or had to go out of my way to play on linux. I just emerged mplayer with all the use flags I wanted (I use gentoo) and I've never had to touch it.

Also, CCCP is just ffmpeg...which, mplayer uses. You make no sense.

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[mvdwege]

[codec support] can be painlessly compensated by 3rd party software. One download, 2 minutes to install and after that it works pretty much flawlessly.

Yeah, so? It takes the same amount of effort on Linux. Add a repository from a country with no silly patent laws, start your package manager, two clicks, download, install, done.

Mart

Re:Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously??

[fisuk]

You sound like you never heard of mplayer. I have been watching anime on Linux weekly for years, in several formats like mpeg, divx, realmedia and mkv!

B.S.

Softsubs were relatively recently properly implemented in Mplayer. (Though "couple of years" technically is "for years" too.)

Well, if I recall correctly, on VLC softsubs have worked quite a while. Don't know about mplayer, because it was only recently I noticed that it had support for ASS subtitles. It just had to be enabled manually. Even without enabling them, mplayer still could display the subs, they just were horrible to watch. VLC worked fine.

Likewise, proper MKV support is also very young. Before Mplayer wasn't demuxing the files properly nor could switch between audio/subtitle channels on the file. Due to bogus demuxing audio skips were also common.

Never seen anything like this. Though I never wanted to hear English dubs, so don't know about audio channels. Nowadays they do work, since I've watched some movies with multiple audio channels.

By the way, what does 'proper support' mean? I mean, I've never had any problems whatsoever.

I'm not an Ubuntu user, I love the simplicity of elden distros like Debian and Slackware.

Well, there's your problem.

Maybe it's just that Ubuntu doesn't have an mplayer package, or has its very own "Super Cool Ubuntu Media Player" that overshines it. Could anybody enlight me?

There is mplayer in Ubuntu (not installed by default). And it even ships with VDPAU-support (well, in 9.10). And if one chooses to use Totem media player (that's the shiny one you're talking about), it actually downloads the required codecs from the repositories (no searching the Internets, incredible huh?), and it just works. Anyways, all the codecs (atleast most used codecs) ARE available in the repos.

Audio on Linux is a total mess, unless of course you are lucky to have single sound card in your PC (and distro of your choice hasn't succumbed to PulseAudio madness). Many have at least two, since modern MBs have some primitive card always on-board. Managing two sound cards under Linux is still a must, since most applications (Mplayer included) do not integrate with KDE or Gnome and bypass most of the configuration.

Yeah, audio sucks on Linux. Without Pulseaudio everything basically just works (and on OSS4 even better). On the issue of several sound cards I don't have much to say, other than that problem probably exists only on minority. Why would a normal user want to use several sound cards? (The onboard one can be disabled from the BIOS, and it's possible from Linux also).

Nevertheless, even with Pulseaudio everything has worked for me. No playing around. Except when Pulseaudio decides to cap one core to the max. Or just crashes, or decides that I don't need to hear any sounds, but that's another story.

Video and video acceleration is much cleaner on Linux. In sense that it is completely absent. And to smoothly playback H.264 files of 720p/bigger resolutions one need either H/W accelerated video playback (which is mostly absent) or properly optimized H.264 decoder (and forked ffmpeg of Mplayer isn't).

Well first of all, 720p should play smoothly even on an older dual core (and even single core, haven't tested it though). My laptops Core Duo 1.6ghz plays even 1080p video smoothly, although on lower bitrates only.

Second of all, there IS hardware acceleration support on Linux, both with Nvidia and Ati cards. Nvidias VDPAU support is compiled in mplayer found in Ubuntu repos (9.10, once again). For what I've read, there's some support even for Ati cards.

I've watched anime for years, but on Linux only since 2005 when I made The Jump(tm).

I don't see the connection

[Anonymous Coward]

"I really believe the Anime fandom is a perfect match for Ubuntu, as they are by nature very much in line with open source and remix culture.""

Unless by open source you mean downloaded and not purchased...

Another open source innovation..

[PopeRatzo]

Product placement!

9.10 is a mess

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully they'll have more luck installing it than I did. I ended up with the flashing text install bug and could never get it to the actual desktop.

Makes it harder to appreciate...

Re:9.10 is a mess

[Cnik70]

Strange.... it quickly installed on my laptop w/o any problems at all. So far, so good.....

Re:9.10 is a mess

[Yamata no Orochi]

-1 Useless anecdote.

Shouldn't the name ubuntu be upgraded for 2010

[cellurl]

I don't know about you, but I am kind-a luke warm on the name ubuntu.
Perhaps they should upgrade it for a nice year like 2010.
How about "extinct woodpecker in Arkansas"....
Just sayin... -jp

Re:anime?

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that the parent was modded down only shows how uncomfortable fags are with their lifestyle choices.

Fact: Linux is for fags.

Fact: anime is for fags.

If you cannot come to terms with your lifestyle choices, then I'm afraid you will lead a very unfulfilling life (most of it will probably be spent soliciting gay sex in public restrooms).

Well this was the best damn Fedora ad all week

[nikanj]

"I really believe the Anime fandom is a perfect match for Ubuntu" I've come to the same conclusion and ran away from both!

Why is this on the front page?

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, so the Ubuntu Massachusetts Local Community Team have decided to host a booth @ some convention, but they need to secure a booth, print materials, & general support. What was happening during the months of planning? Why is this on slashdot?

Re:There is one problem, though,Christmas gifts

[Anonymous Coward]

Could this douche be banned or something? the ONLY thing he has posted is this

Re:What? Why? Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you do sound pretty stupid.

Re:I'm an Anime fan...

[X0563511]

A small part of me died, just now.

Re: exactly. it'll just hurt us.

[ElectricTurtle]

I'd like to know in what universe people who are wondering whether or not to use Linux base their decision on whether there's a booth at the local animu con. After all, unless they read /., go to the con, or have friends who do, how would they even know?

Re:What? Why? Huh?

[Maguscrowley]

"children's cartoon shows"

Granted their intentions are dubious, there's no need to illegitimate a fandom because you don't appreciate it. Anime is marketed for ages up to 35 and covers a wide range of genres not appropriate for children for reasons ranging from violence and sexual content (hentai gore etc) to slow moving plots and novel based stories which children would find boring or would not understand. I doubt that Grave of the Firefly's could be classified as a children's cartoon show, neither could Monster, Mushishi, and the Ghost in the Shell is really marketed at older teens to those in their late 20's.

You may not have even heard of most of these and that is probably because US TV doesn't think they should bother showing anime that is more for an older crowd that can appreciate serious themes. Part of that is because they know that people like you will turn on the tv, see animation, and immediately classify it as a children's show and switch. I'm going to guess that you're either someone in their late 20's or above and that you've only been exposed to things like Naruto, Sailor moon, Pokemon, etc and had an entire childhood of cartoons for kids.

I am not going to ask you to research or explore this beyond your exposure, but I will ask that you please not make an uninformed generalisation about a whole medium based on maybe filtered exposure to one of it's genres. It would also be nice for you not to be a dick.

Now get off my lawn kudasai

Re:anime?

[hort_wort]

I appreciate that you turned it around to attack the poster and made it more accurate at the same time. People get upset about "offensive words" right now. It's a sad fad, not even able to use them in a humorous inoffensive way. They'll be over it in a few years. I like to think about language as a bunch of random chimp grunts when people are offended by each other. It's quite entertaining. I imagine our alien overlords feel the same way watching us.

Get me a fan of Elfen Lied and have him explain how he isn't a pedophile. And, interestingly enough, 3 out of 3 of my gay friends prefer Linux to windows.

Mainstream

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, not the first two. The second two, DBZ and Pokemon, definitely. During my brief military stint, the sergeant ended up as "Goku" and a private as "Snorlax". An to reinforce this not being niche ~ both the nicknamed and the nicknamers were lower-class blacks...and all of this occurring in a country that isn't the US. But I have yet to hear any "mainstream" mention of Naruto or One Piece; even my anime/manga-following friends have to be reminded which series those are.

Re:Mainstream

[vadim_t]

But I have yet to hear any "mainstream" mention of Naruto or One Piece; even my anime/manga-following friends have to be reminded which series those are.

That's very strange. Go to One Manga for instance, and see the top popular manga for shonen (same genre as DBZ): Naruto, Bleach, One Piece.

Huge manga nerds may not be very interested though, as this is THE mainstream stuff, the anime equivalent of whatever sitcom is currently most popular. It's simple, mindless entretainment to appeal to pretty much everybody. The plot is formulaic, and they all work along the same lines: Slightly dimwitted hero with a heart of gold and huge amounts of determination saves everybody by defeating countless enemies against all odds. Pretty much every series of this kind will pontificate about the power of friendship. It can be fun to watch, but not something somebody who wants something profound or artistic would spend a lot of time on.

There's even Naruto branded ramen on sale (because the main character likes it a lot). You probably won't see it in a shop outside of Japan, but might if you go to an anime convention. Naruto cosplay is trivial -- pretty much everything can be bought already made.

Oblig XKCD

[Lemming Mark]

Guys, I'm disappointed you haven't got here already. http://xkcd.com/178/

One day....

[fialar]

One day I will invent a time machine and go back in time and destroy anime before it was ever created.

Re:One day....

[Anonymous Coward]

One day I will invent a time machine and go back in time and destroy anime before it was ever created.

Cool story bro, you should sell the rights to Japan for an anime adaptation.

Re:One day....

[Tetsujin]

One day I will invent a time machine and go back in time and destroy anime before it was ever created.

And you'll be born and grow up in a world where anime never existed... So why will you go back in time?

Yay! Stereotypes!

[GameboyRMH]

Most anime fans tend to have above-average computer skills, and I'd say the clueless are a clear minority - but you don't ever see the intelligent ones making Youtube comments, shitty fan sites / fanfic / fan art or abusing facebook/twitter. In fact most of the anime friends I've met face-to-face have well above average intelligence - I have a relative who is a very successful game developer (has worked on a who's who list of awesome games), a huge hit with the ladies (top models have given him their phone numbers), speaks many different languages, and he's a huge anime fan. But he's artsy and metro and even uses social networking sites! You don't want his kind in the Linux community, right?

And, this even gets better...

[hadriano2]

As far as people have told me, he hasn't actually RESERVED the booth yet.

Re:The English translation of Ubunchu is still fla

[Shin-LaC]

I was really aiming for "Informative" there, but thanks. :S

Not many Linux users last time

[TejWC]

When I was at Anime Boston 2009, there were many people that brought their own computer to use the free Wifi, but almost everybody used Windows. The only Mac users I saw was a cosplayer trying to be Watari and the guy that did the anime quiz show. I saw one guy with a XO-1 laptop with Sugar; but thats was the only Linux person I saw there. On top of that, right before a presenter would show some powerpoint presentation, I could see a bunch of crapware on their desktop and think "augh!".

I'll probably help out in the booth but we need to make an anime gnome-theme or something to convince the non-techy people to make the switch or perhaps talk about how easy it is to use SMPlayer + codecs on Linux vs. Windows. I was thinking about making a workshop on the technical side of anime watching (what are codecs, mkv vs. mp4, etc.), but I would need to get somebody to co-panel it with me.

xkcd 178

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu... I'm not really into Pokemon.

Re:xkcd 178

[Tetsujin]

Ubuntu... I'm not really into Pokemon.

OSOI!

Count me in.

[John Pfeiffer]

I might be going to Anime Boston this year, I'll have to check it out. I hope they get some copies printed in the original Japanese, I'd love to buy them. This whole thing needs more of a hook though. Here's two ideas that would go a long way I think:

1. Use Ren'Py to make a game that puts users in the middle of this story, interacting more directly with the characters and asking their own questions about Ubuntu. The best part is, with a click of a button, the game can be distributed for Linux, Windows, and MacOS.
2. Throw some character wallpapers and desktop themes on an 'event-only' Ubuntu LiveCD with a custom splashscreen and stuff.

Thousands of dollars spent on little plastic anime girlies and ero 'hug pillow' covers would seem to speak otherwise, but practicality and usefulness are big with otaku culture. Highlighting certain capabilities of linux would help too. For instance, things like graphics apps, game development with Ren'Py, and story/comic/game writing and asset management with celtx. Also the fact that Linux will run on just about anything specs-wise.

Re:There is one problem, though,Christmas gifts

[hairyfeet]

Dude see the number after the name? See how it says 125? I started noticing this douche around 118, but I wouldn't be surprised if he started with an even earlier number. Basically a lot of mod points are being wasted keeping this retard at -1, but he just keeps cranking out new UIDs and pushing his lame ass shit. You'd think on a geek site he would be peddling dodgy RAM or something, but apparently the guy is too damned stupid to even target his audience effectively.

So the better question is why hasn't Slashdot banned this butt monkeys IP address? Because it is pretty obvious that otherwise Sir Spamalot isn't gonna get the clue. Or even better yet just auto erase any posts with links to his spam site. I'm sure that would be one bit of censorship we could all get on board for, unless there are morons here that actually do their Xmas shopping at spam sites.

To all the slashdotters with snide comments...

[seandiggity]

I have been working for a large university for almost a decade, and have a staff of student IT workers that changes from year-to-year. We use as much free software in-house as possible. Almost all, if not all, of my students are into anime/manga. Most of them run Ubuntu or another distro at home. There is much overlap between the anime/manga clubs on campus and computer/video game clubs; in fact, they throw conventions that combine those interests (and other aspects of geek culture).

Japanese entertainment is as much a part of geek culture nowadays as American comics and video games, so it's not a stretch to think otaku would be interested in Ubuntu. In fact, one of my students goes to Anime Boston every year, and I just sent him a link to this /. story.

Besides, I think it's cool to have Ubuntu manga out there, especially cost-free and under a CC license.

Re:The English translation of Ubunchu is still fla

[Anonymous Coward]

The mods of Slashdot are fickle mods. What they giveth they taketh away. Or just give you funny mods that don't give any karma.

I didn't bother to read Ubunchu in the original Klingon (looking up kanji is :effort:), and certainly not after seeing how terrible it was from reading the English translation, so it's interesting to see this comparison. I'm glad to see it's up to the usual standards of Professional Animu Translators. That is, making ridiculously basic mistakes, making shit up when you don't know what the original means, and vehemently denying it all when confronted.

Re:What? Why? Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

You were doing well until the very last sentence. English is not Japanese, don't use random Japanese words in it. It just makes you look stupid and they are incomprehensible to the average person. If you wish to use Japanese then please go learn the language and write in Japanese with other people who know Japanese.

To all the complainers about snide comments...

[Anonymous Coward]

You may have some good points but let's face it - it's more fun to laugh at anime fans than to be serious about Ubuntu.

Try renpy

[Requiem18th]

You nailed the main problem, all japanese games are for Windows, without a super advanced version of wine that knows how to install and run japanese encoded games this idea is going to blow.

But while you are at it, load the distro with renpy games.

Re:There is one problem, though,Christmas gifts

[realityimpaired]

So the better question is why hasn't Slashdot banned this butt monkeys IP address? Because it is pretty obvious that otherwise Sir Spamalot isn't gonna get the clue

You just gave him an Andy Warhol moment. That's why he's doing it.

Re:The English translation of Ubunchu is still fla

[Anonymous Coward]

The romhacking community (known for editing classic Japanese console games and translating their text into English) behaves the same way said maintainer did: complete refusal to translate something properly (retaining original context while converting to another language).

Bad Japanese-English translations are more or less "the norm" at this point, especially in Anime-centric communities. There's entire fansub groups that do nothing but suck -- quite possibly literally.

I propose that they should call the distro...

[Anonymous Coward]

Weaboontoo

Linux as an OS for geeks

[Tetsujin]

Some of us never thought commercializing Linux was a good idea at all. We had a perfectly usable OS for geeks and now it gets progressively dumbed down to make it 'more desktop friendly' with very little market penetration ensuing. We're getting taken for a ride by some folks who want to make money off it. It's bullshit.

I don't think the changes have been all bad - but there are bits of this that I strongly agree with... I think Linux users have come to take it for granted that Linux should become an OS that anyone can use... That wouldn't be a bad thing, but I'm more interested in it as a system by and for computer geeks.

In the immortal words of Quattro Bajina...

[Tetsujin]

I'm glad to see it's up to the usual standards of Professional Anime Translators. That is, making ridiculously basic mistakes, making shit up when you don't know what the original means, and vehemently denying it all when confronted.

"It smells like a colony..."

(See also: "Amuro! You're fast!")

Re:The English translation of Ubunchu is still fla

[Anonymous Coward]

The comic is released under a creative commons license, and they have the SVG sources there too... if you're up to it, you could make your own fixed-up releases. I, for one, would give it another look with a more proper translation. :)

silly, but cute

[OrangeTide]

It's a cute manga. The idea of doing it about a sysadmin club and making it like a marketing campaign for Ubuntu is a little silly though. I can relate to the girl that wants to run Slackware and use the command-line. I would not have given up so easily and allowed the other two to install Ubuntu though. Why is there no fat mouth-breather character in it, seems incomplete for a Manga? The mouth-breather can be an OpenBSD user obsessed about security.

The real reason they're going to Anime Boston...

[Tetsujin]

See, originally the plan was to go to PAX East - they had the whole booth setup arranged and everything - but they were laughed out of the convention by the planners as it is technically impossible to play games on a Linux machine... So being in a rather awkward spot, they arranged to get into the next convention at the Hynes - Anime Boston, taking place one week later...

Video Editing on Lee-nooks

[Tetsujin]

But what's a "standard" movie editor?

Something that is shipped by a number of major distos (Ubuntu, Mandriva, SuSE, Fedora, etc).

Well, I can see where it'd be very helpful to have a clear path to follow to start editing video on Linux.. I mean, I didn't really know where to start. I evaluated 5 or 6 different packages, most of them were so failure-prone that I couldn't get anywhere with them.

That said, though, the software exists, and some of it actually works... Going from that stage to a point where a package may be considered a clear-cut default choice is largely a matter of adoption... It's an unavoidable process really... (you can't adopt a package as a "standard solution" for something until it's proven capable)

Anime fans with Ubuntu fans

[FunkSoulBrother]

Can you imagine the stench in that room?

Re:What? Why? Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

>Anime is marketed for ages up to 35

Not really. Maybe in the US it is, but not in Japan.

Re:What? Why? Huh?

[PenisLands]

PENIS MASTER. PENIS. Land of PENIS. PENIS WORLD. PENISLife. BIG PENIS.

Jumping the Gun much?

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy doesn't have a booth, as, well, booth signups and sales haven't opened yet. He's likely making up the bit about being on staff, too. But hey, lets give him a frontpage article on Slashdot!

Re:The English translation of Ubunchu is still fla

[Anonymous Coward]

That's always the solution, isn't it?

Just fork it all.

CLI-tan!

[steveha]

I read the English RtL versions of the first two Ubunchu comics. The last page of the second comic has one character showing off a "CLI-tan" she drew. Oh, wow.

There is this Japanese thing of making cute anime-style characters based on operating systems; such a character is called an OS-tan. The "-tan" part is a playful tweak on Japanese honorifics; it a small child's mispronunciation of "-chan", which is a very informal diminutive (the Japanese equivalent of "Johnnie" would be "John-chan"). An OS-tan is an example of Moe anthropomorphism.

Here is a site devoted to OS-tans, including variants such as the Linux distro-tans.

There are two Ubuntu-tans listed: first second

The CLI-tan is a moe-ified picture of Akane from the comic, with gloves that leave her fingers free to type, and with her fingers extended in an action pose. I think if I could get a full-size poster of that character, I'd put it up on the wall of my office.

steveha

Re:anime?

[ZarathustraDK]

If you cannot come to terms with your lifestyle choices, then I'm afraid you will lead a very unfulfilling life (most of it will probably be spent soliciting gay sex in public restrooms).

So, you went to Harvard, studied psychology, and THIS was what you chose to major in?

Funny coincidence

[ZarathustraDK]

I went to J-Popcon 2009, and I noticed that the staff at the entrance had a couple of Eee-pc's (901's I think) running Ubuntu.

Re:There is one problem, though,Christmas gifts

[hairyfeet]

I doubt really seriously some hairy old biker in mudsuck AR calling him a douche would qualify as an Andy Warhol moment. Hell it wouldn't even qualify for the 15 seconds of fame I had when I was shown beside David Lee Roth on the MTV music awards in '86.

Nope this is just some bottom feeder that has figured out he can keep cranking out UIDs and spamming Slashdot without the editors doing jack shit. Hell I Wouldn't be surprised if he has the shit automated using some easy scripting tool to crank this spewage out. What really pisses me off about the little shitass is this-If you are gonna be a little spamming capitalist shitbag, well then TARGET YOUR AUDIENCE MORON!!! Hell this shit for brains might as well be selling bulk tampons for all the sales he is gonna get from THIS crowd. If he is gonna spam us at least be fake CPUs, maybe some dodgy RAM or funky ass cheap USB shit or off brand motherboards.

Sadly this guy just proves to be a candidate for "world's stupidest spammer" for the Air Jordans and fake handbags he is peddling on a TECH site. I don't what is worse, the constant spmming or the STUPID spamming. At least we used to attract quality trolls like the GNAA and the guy that made filthy ASCII art. Now we just get the same retards you would see at Digg. Oh how the might have fallen.

darn

[WeeBit]

I love Anime, but I love Gimp too... Why can't I have both?

Re:What? Why? Huh?

[DaVince21]

You know, Japan is different enough to consider cartoons not only for children. Those are never brought to the US or Europe because the common misconception there is that cartoon are only for children.

Kind of like what they're doing with comics. Comics were serious business in the 50's, nowadays all of a sudden they're only for kids or obsessive creeps or something.