replacing XMMS

[duncan brown]

Aaron Bennett said:

> My users' greatest frustration with Linux is exactly that.  Under
> windows, if you want to install a new MP3 player, you go to download.com
>  or somewhere, find one that looks cool, download it, save it on your
> desktop, double-click it and click next,next,next and it's installed.
> Try doing that with Linux.  It's impossible for a ton of reasons -- many
>  of them very good.  I've talked to many of my users about this... and
> they are smart people -- engineering students.  What happens to them
> with Linux is usually something like this...

this is where fedora needs to more seriously look at apt as something
default, and getting synaptic to behave more like apt on the command line.

i've changed the default behaviour on my gnome desktop to run 'apt-get
update && apt-get install %s' (not exactly, there's a wrapper script), but
apt checks the rpm file and then downloads the requirements.  synaptic
needs to do this, which i've tried and it doesn't work.  i havn't been
able to find any real documentation on the command line flags for it.  if
a pretty gui came up and grabbed all the dependencies for you, users would
be very happy.  i feel taken care of when apt comes up in a terminal and
installs what i need.

sorry for forking this thread.

> They have a class assignment that they need to write some python code
> for, so they reboot their laptop into Linux.  They log on, start writing
>  their code, and think "Boy, Linux is really pretty cool.  I'd like to
> use it more but I hate this mp3 player. "  They open up google and query
>  on "Linux MP3 Players," follow the links, download a few programs.
> These are usually either rpms or source tarballs.  They download the
> rpms to their desktop, and then click them.  It doesn't work.  They
> click the tars and it extracts them.  They keep clicking.  No amount of
> mouse driven clicking will get that program installed.

you should point them to ways to install synaptic and apt, and they won't
have to worry about things like that once they configure some mirrors with
mp3/etc.

i have a semi-completed walkthrough for things like that.

http://www.linuxadvocate.net/apt

> The more adventurous of them manage to stumble onto some documentation
> about the rpm command -- maybe someone told them about man pages, or
> they look online.  So they type rpm --instal <rpmfile>.  What they get
> back is "Foo-2.4.5 depends on bar-2.5.61."
>
> Usually at that point they say "screw this" , finish their homework ,
> and reboot into Windows as fast as possible.

again, synaptic being modified to work the way apt does.  i think focusing
on apt/synaptic instead of 'do we need 2 media players?' is more along the
lines of where you should go.

not only that, but synaptic depends on gnome, what about the folks in kde?
 what if they want xmms?

-d

-+(duncan brown
-+(duncanbrown at linuxadvocate.net
-+(http://www.linuxadvocate.net

()  ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail
/\                        - against microsoft attachments

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy
evidence of the fact.
                -- George Eliot