Medibuntu : Penguin Liberation The Ubuntu Way
After almost ten years of loving, learning, and living in the Mandriva world, I feel, at this time of my first blog post about Ubuntu Linux like an auto mechanic driving a stick shift for the first time. These two operating systems come from two different philosophies when it came to packaging GNU/linux. Ubuntu comes from the Debian Linux fork and Mandriva comes from the RedHat fork. The most obvious difference between these two *nix’s is the package management system. Mandriva took the RPM system and improved on it with the urpmi (command line) and gurpmi / rpmdrake (graphic) systems for package applications management. Ubuntu started with the .deb / apt-get (command line) and improved it with the Synaptic (graphic) package manager.
There are some other obvious differences. Some of them I haven’t even learned yet. In fact I’m still working on finding the commands just to find out some basic information on my new Ubuntu box.
One area that Mandriva and Ubuntu have not forked away from each other is in the commitment to the idea of an open source operating system. I applaud them. I think the open source philosophy is the right way to go in software, education, farming and many other areas.
That said, sometimes you want to watch videos and hear music and play DVD’s. Sometimes that requires software that does not meet the strict demands of companies committed to open source. Luckily for us, the system user, there are people who also dream of a world filled with open source software who don’t mind stepping into the gray area of patent and copywrite.
In Mandriva, and as I understand it, until not long ago, Ubuntu also depended on the good people of the Penguin Liberation Front to offer these third party repositories. I’m a bit late to the game but it appears that the PLF dropped it’s Ubuntu support recently and left Ubuntu users clammoring for their codecs.
The good shoes of the PLF have been filled with the apt-feet of the people at Medibuntu .
I truly wish that someone at Dell would have slipped in a tiny piece of paper as they packed my lappy into the box. Just a short note. “I really shouldn’t be telling you this but if you want all your media types to work, visit this site.”
Had I known about Medibuntu just two short days earlier than I did, I would have spent much less time messing with mozplugger I guarentee you that.
Once I had the repository added to my synaptic package manager, little fixer apps almost threw themselves at me in an effort to help make things work. Mplayer and Xine became much more powerful applications.
So If you are a new Ubuntu user, and you live in a country that doesn’t oppress one’s and zero’s, then Medibuntu is an absolute must for a smoother running operating system.
Happy computing