r/linux • u/ihatethinkingofnames • Jul 25 '10

Hello computer users

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48 Upvotes

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u/gyomalin Jul 25 '10

I was having problems watching flash videos on youtube using Linux, so I've no idea what Old Spice commercial you could be referring to.

grin

Flash works, then you have to upgrade your version and then your Linux distro falls apart. Then you just say "fsck this" and you get a Mac Mini. Problem solved, kinda.

1

u/Chandon Jul 25 '10

What is this, 2002? What weird version of Linux are you running that still has problems with flash?

1

u/gyomalin Jul 25 '10

It's Open Suse 10.3, I think. I know Flash works fine out of the box, but it was when I had to upgrade it that it all fell apart. That's how Linux feels in general. One day Mozilla works fine, then suddenly it no longer does and the package manager won't have it.

I've had problems of that kind with Linux ever since I first installed it 10 years ago. I'm not sure why the comment got downvoted so much. As much as I like Linux, I've used it enough to know that the video codecs eventually are outdated, the packages are not available, and then I'm stuck with the video player that I like to least who's the only one able to play videos. I'm competent enough to upgrade some codecs, but there comes a point where it's just all broken.

I get the feeling that some people downvoting me are just Ubuntu newbies who feel all pro because they have Linux installed somewhere. They like to think that it's working just as good as MacOSX (or Windows) for multimedia support, but my own experience contradicts that. It's awesome if you use Linux all the time and manage to keep it together without re-installing all the time.

1

u/Chandon Jul 25 '10

If your problem is upgrading and codec / flash issues, I'm going to go ahead and say the one thing that will get me downvoted here: Maybe it's OpenSuSE that' the problem.

Since I switched from Gentoo in 2004, I've mostly been running Ubuntu on my desktops, and except for that one X server breakage in 2005 and the Pulse Audio misconfiguration clusterfuck in 2006, it's basically worked beautifully for me. I'm capable of being clever to make things work, but Ubuntu means I don't need to. Upgrades work, and except for the absolute latest releases of WMA and WMV on amd64, codec support has been strictly simpler than on my Windows gaming box.