Progress: opposed to innovation?

[Michael A. Peters]

On 12/12/2004 11:20:26 PM, Brian Fahrlander wrote:
> 
>     I promise you, this is not intended as a troll or rant.  I just
> need
> to vent a little here, maybe it'll help.

I send my venting to /dev/null :D
OK - that's not true, I vent on lists sometimes too ...

> 
>     New to a fresh install of FC3 on the same machine that's been
> running Linux (and only Linux) for 4-5 years, I bring up RB, the new
> default I'm told will be staying with Fedora development, not the  
> age-
> old XMMS that worked so well.

There actually is a sane reason for moving away from xmms as default -  
I don't know if this is Fedora's reason, but I'll offer it anyway.

Rhythmbox uses a GStreamer backend. GStreamer is a multimedia framework  
that many applications can use - install appropriate plugin, and lots  
of apps benefit. xmms also uses plugins, but they are for xmms -  
GStreamer is a framework intended for use by LOTS of multimedia  
players, video and audio, and even to provide multimedia capability to  
apps who's primary purpose is not multimedia. I think there is a GPS  
application for nar navigation that uses GStreamer for its audio  
output, for example.

With respect to Rhythmbox - I have become less fond of it as it has  
gotten older. I can't pinpoint why.

Currently I primarily use gamp - a GStreamer backend audio player that  
will play my aac filres. I really like the UI of another GStreamer  
player, Eina - but it does not work on fc3 for me. Another one I have  
been looking at is Jamboree. It only wants to play mp3 and ogg at the  
moment, but it is faster than Rhythmbox at startup (I haven't tested it  
with a huge library) and offers smart playlist etc. It's young (all of  
the Rhythmbox alternatives are) but I'm hoping that it will mature, add  
support for audio other than ogg/mp3 - it's a nice player.

>  First I have to tell it what to play,
> or
> I'll be listening to the same song(s) all the time.  I tell it to
> open /shares/Music where I keep several hundred titles, and three
> hours
> later, it's still stepping it's way through the list.

Yes, Rhythmbox is slow at indexing a large collection.

>  I kill it,
> part
> stays behind and keeps the CPU usage at 100%, mysteriously.  When it
> eventually gets done, it will *still* play the same song twice in a
> row,
> despite shuffle being turned on.

That I haven't experienced myself.

>  Evolution's new- let's see what's
> been added:  Connector. (Great if I'm ever sentenced to a workplace
> with
> Windows, there must be more) Well, they've moved things around, the
> 'map
> it' fuction's still not there, musta been some _other_ version of 2.0
> it
> was intended to be introduced in.  The fonts are uglier....nothing
> much
> else changed.

I don't like evolution myself.
I prefer Balsa. Balsa has its own quirks, but less than evolution imho.
The balsa that ships with FC3 doesn't work so well, but 2.2.5 does.

> 
>     OpenOffice is still there.  My whimpy AMD 1300 isn't up to the
> challenge tonight

I can't stand OO.o.
I prefer the AbiWord/Gnumeric combo.

-=-=-=-=-=-
I think there is a general problem in Fedora of defaulting to bloated  
big software packages.

OO.o is a perfect example - sure, I think it's the only OSS way to view  
PowerPoint - but I think AbiWord is a better word processor, especially  
for creating rtf files - and I'm almost 100% positive that Gnumeric is  
a better spreadsheet program.

When it comes to MS Office documents, I haven't had one sent to me that  
AbiWord doesn't handle well, I have found some on the web when I  
specifically search for complex word documents - but OO.o didn't handle  
them well either.

Exporting to Office - AbiWord understands KISS. While OO.o will try to  
write to a .doc format, AbiWord creates a .rtf file and calls it a .doc  
and that works very well without introducing bugs of a reverse  
engineered document format. It works really well - AbiWord creates  
excellent .rtf files.

Same with Evolution - I think it is overly complex for what 95% of the  
users need. Let those who specifically need exchange compatability  
install Evolution, but put your efforts into and default to a smaller  
code base leaner e-mail client, like Balsa.