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Linux Mint 18 Will Ship Without Multimedia Support (linuxmint.com)
An anonymous reader quotes this report from Distrowatch: Linux Mint 18 will no longer provide separate, codec-free installation media for OEM and magazine distribution. Instead, the distribution will ship without multimedia support while making it easy for users to acquire media codecs during the initial installation of the operating system. "OEM installation disks and NoCodec images will no longer be released. Instead, similar to other distributions, images will ship without codecs and will support both traditional and OEM installations. This will reduce our release cycle to 4 separate events and the production and testing of 12 ISO images. Multimedia codecs can be installed easily: From the welcome screen, by clicking on "Multimedia Codecs", or from the main menu, by clicking on "Menu"->"Sound and Video"->"Install Multimedia Codecs", or during the installation process, by clicking a checkbox option." Additional information on the upcoming release of Linux Mint 18 can be found in the project's monthly newsletter.
Softpedia points out that they're using Ubuntu 16.04 LTS as the package base, meaning "more hardware devices and components are now supported."
Softpedia points out that they're using Ubuntu 16.04 LTS as the package base, meaning "more hardware devices and components are now supported."
LMDE has had inconsistent releases. I'm not sure if they figured out whether they were pulling from testing or rolling their own packages. The Linux Mint website was hacked to distribute malware. Linux Mint devs managed to create some package name conflicts with upstream. I read they are holding off on systemd for now, but plan to switch at some point, a position calculated to annoy everyone. There are equally simple ways to get a distro with Cinnamon, and now they're not packaging multimedia libraries any more.
I'm out of reasons to consider installing Linux Mint, I think. Are there more positives/negatives I'm missing? Or can we just write them off at this point?
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Sometimes it's hard not to play said "game of 'is it open source enough?'". One cases of this happens when a distributor gets cease and desist notices from patent holders, which I imagine would be especially relevant to FFmpeg or the codecs of TFA.
in the project's monthly newsletter.
in the project's monthly newsletter. FTFY
Well, I read their blog post, and I'm having a hard time parsing it:
...although the absence of codecs is important for magazine and distributors and OEM installation images are required for manufacturers to pre-install Linux Mint on computers they’re selling to their customers, this is an area where a lot of work is done for a very small portion of our audience. With this in mind, OEM installation disks and NoCodec images will no longer be released. Instead, similar to other distributions, images will ship without codecs and will support both traditional and OEM installations.
So, to me, this sounds like: "Only a few of our users wanted us to leave the codecs out. So we decided it wasn't worth going to all that extra work all the time for just a few people. So we just took the codecs out of every build."
Am I just confused, or is this Bizarro logic? I mean, I'm definitely confused, but does this reasoning make sense to everyone else?
Did they just get sued by some the rightsholders of some patented codec, and just say, fuck it, if it's gonna be that kind of party, no codecs for anyone, ever? But if so, why wouldn't they just say that? What's with the doublethink? Is it doublethink?
I think I need a nap.
Linux Mint 18 will no longer provide separate, codec-free installation media for OEM and magazine distribution. Instead, the distribution will ship without multimedia support while making it easy for users to acquire media codecs during the initial installation of the operating system.
The OEM system install is essential to obtain measurable market share. Linus has said as much himself. Multimedia support out of the box is so essential in the consumer market space that excluding it from your OEM distribution is perfectly stupid.
Never used Linux, eh? You expended more energy typing your complaint than it takes to get the codecs.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
No media play in the store = no sale.
Disclaimers on-line that media codecs are not part of the baseline system install = no sale.
Walmart spent the better part of a decade trying to explain the ins and outs of OEM Linux to its customers before throwing in the towel.
Tell me more about this store place where you go to when you want to buy Linux?
The people I have moved on to Linux don't even know of this sort of nuts and bolts stuff. I just show them how to use it, and they are happy doing what they want to do, with a lot less hassle. The people that I work with that are Linux savvy don't care, because it is a non-issue.
Somewhere in the middle might be a few who sweat the market share. I don't know what your Linux experience is, but "Year of Linux on the Desktop" is a bigger joke among journeymen like myself, and the real gurus than it ever was for people who give a damn about that kind of thing.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
And more important, the support in Mint is lacking and very unfriendly if you happen to bump into certain someone on irc, Ubuntu keeps their code of conduct to prevent those abuses.
For the other flavors, Xubuntu and Kubuntu should do just fine.
Yup I've tried out those two, and even Lubuntu for eePC class netbooks.
As for the occasional asshole, you echo my experience - whihc sounds like time to relate......
Experimenting with Paspberry Pi, I tried to install and run Ubuntu Mate on it, why not, the computer I use most of the time has that. Their NOOBS OS is not bad, but why not?
So I downloaded, compiled and installed it. I had some problems, with the install of the amateur radio program I need, but the worst was trying to resize the partition to use unallocated space.. Every time I tried, it did something awful to the microSD card. I couldn't fix it on my Mac, Linux or Windows machines, I actually had to put it in my camera to reformat it.
So dealing with the group I was involved with that is Mint heavy, I explained my problem, and amazingly enough, it was "All my fault", with a couple guys first going the kindly grandpa route, then switching to insulting when I noted that I'd already tried so many methods of re-sizing the card, and the program install wasn't working. Worthless advice and getting pissed off at the person having the problem. And if anything, I was way more humble than needed.
The Ubuntu Mate People? Looked into it, fixed it, and everyone is happy.
The Minty flavored group with the program I needed group? I reported then that I found an issue during the configure process of the program install - it kicked me out of configure asking for an alsasound lib. And I had installed all of the dependencies. I installed it, and reported back that the initial problem was fixed, and after installing the lib the program I needed was working fine. Should have been a simple fix.
And I still caught a ration of crap. "You shouldn't have to install that lib because the program prefers you use Pulseaudio!" "You're doing something wrong, idiot!"
My last post to the group was that if I download, compile, and install the missing lib after configure asked for it, and the end result was the program working perfectly, and I'm still doing something wrong , then I'm hopelessly confused . Their loss - not mine, I contributed a lot to their wiki, and get chased away. They needed me much more than I needed them. Vigorous discussion is great. Being at fault for doing what you were asked to do, which allowed you to finish compiling the program? Not so much.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.