Mp3 must be the most widely used audio format. But it is not without its problems. Especially not so for open-source advocates. See, mp3 is 1) closed-source and 2) demands royalty for implementation. Want to know how much they ask? Look here for an answer. See how much it would cost for let’s say a linux distribution that wants to inlcude an mp3 codec so people can play their mp3 music files? I wouldn’t want to distribute one with 100.000 users downloading it. Big companies can afford this, but for almost everyone else this isn’t feasible.

But there is something you can do about this, and so help open-source initiatives. The answer is an open-source audio format know as Ogg Vorbis. What is this? Let’s quote their FAQ:

Ogg Vorbis is a new audio compression format. It is roughly comparable to other formats used to store and play digital music, such as MP3, VQF, AAC, and other digital audio formats. It is different from these other formats because it is completely free, open, and unpatented.

If you read their FAQ you will also find other benefits (such as smaller size) besides it being open-source.

But if you rip your CD’s, they are automatically converted to mp3, right? Not necessarily. There Vorbis site lists software for commons operating systems to play and rip your CD’s to the Ogg Vorbiss format, straight into .ogg files that is. There is also software listed there to convert already existing .mp3 files to .ogg format. One that isn’t listed for linux on the site is “audio convert“.

So actually there is no reason not to start using .ogg files instead of .mp3. And why not encourage your friends to do the same?

edit: I stand corrected: “Ogg is a container format, Vorbis is an audio codec.”

I like it when my desktop looks great. And I like it when I can switch now and then according to my ever changing moods. Bright and colorful on some days, dark and gothic on others.

To give me inspiration I daily take a quick look at http://www.lynucs.org/. This site gathers screenshots of user desktops from operatings systems like linux and BSD. On the main page you can see the latest entries. There are options too to see what desktops rate highest, and I think there are some real beauties in there. And by beauties, I do no just mean the girls on the wallpapers. ;-) If you can’t stand beauty in that sense, leave the babe filter off (you find it at the top of the page).

The site certainly can be improved somewhat as some things seem broken. Nevertheless, I look at it almost daily and hope to discover something nice everytime. If you, as me, like to look at desktop screenshots, check it out.

Intro

I am a newbie. There is no doubt about that. In the windows world, I know more than average. But when it comes to linux or BSD, I’m still in the first stages of getting my feet wet. I once used a linux distro (some version of Suse) for about 1 month without booting into Windows. But then things broke, productivity was lost, and I decided to go back.

For me, a computer needs to work in the first place. In my free time I can tinker with it. I hate it when it goes the other way: needing to tinker with it in order to be able to work with it. And so far my experience is just that: sooner or later it will brake, or I don’t have the time to delve into the manuals to get something to work. Since I’m no fan of Microsoft I keep on looking for replacements of Windows OS.

My last, and best, experience was with Ubuntu. To be honest, it was a fairly good experience. It almost replaced my Windows. Until I broke it getting to try to get some compiler to work and couldn’t build something I wanted. There’s no doubt this could have been fixed if I wanted to, but at that time it was easier to boot into windows so I could continue working, and look at the problem later. But that later didn’t came as I then decided to try Suse 10.0.

My biggest concern with linux are its package managers. My first experience was with RPM on Suse. However, it didn’t take long to experience the problem of dependency hell. Ubuntu’s apt-get is a big improvement for me. Although easy and convenient, a lay user like me got lost in what package exactly I needed to install to get the compiler installed.

So in the end I wondered if linux really was for ordinary users. Users that will devote some time to learn their system, but in order to do interesting things with it, not only in order to solve problems or make things work.

Enter PC-BSD

Enter distrowatch. I like to check it often to keep up with new developments. The last thing that cought my eye was an announcement of release candidate 2 of PC-BSD version 1. I remembered something about it being user-friendly, so I checked out the website. I was thrilled.

Not just because it had kde 3.5, which I was eager to check out, but because it had a revolutionary package system: the PC-BSD package manager using .pbi packages.. What’s so nice about it is that it seems to be developed for people like me. I don’t have to wade through filenames and hope I pick the right one for installation, or be afraid that the system will break. I just download one file and install it just the way it’s done in Windows. The package has all it depends on and installs graphically with an easy dialog.

There seems to be some discussions going on as to whether this is safe or not. I can’t give an opinion about this. I’ll let the experts fight it out. Probably it will be fought out in practice if the system becomes more popular. And becoming more popular is what I hope it will do because for now there aren’t a whole lot of packages available. Things will only improve, I’m sure.