My PC just recently blew up and I was forced to shell out some money to buy myself a new machine. Anyway, I am taking this unfortunate event to push my reliance on Windows aside as much as possible, what better opportunity to just not install the programs I am used to in order to try cross-plataform applications on my new Linux install.
On my new machine I installed Ubuntu 11.11 Oneiric Ocelot, which from reviews seemed very good and made users happier than the Natty Narwhal release. Well firstly I have to say the aesthetic side of the new release is a nice change. The new menu is certainly better looking, the login screen is OK but I can't say I like it more than what it was in 11.04.
Well there have been 2 things so far that I've been trying to accomplish on Ubuntu that haven't been the most pleasant experiences. First I have been attempting to use Banshee to replace the bulky iTunes that I have been using for many years. I had moved to iTunes initially for the same reason most people did, which was for using our iPods more efficiently. I had a hard time going from something lightweight like Winamp to iTunes. Banshee actually has some very nice features, such as the way it is integrated to the OS which is very nice, the memory usage is another advantage and the fact that it seems to pick up album covers very efficiently is another reason for liking it.
Unfortunately so far my experience hasn't been 100% positive. One of my main needs for a media manager is for managing my iPod. I use my iPod very heavily during the week. I like music and especially enjoy podcasts and audiobooks. iTunes manual sync interface has done all this amazingly well for the last 4 years or so, but I still wanted to move away from it if there was a better open source option available. I way rather not support Apple and other proprietary applications if I have the option.
My first issue with Banshee has been the aparent inability to upload my podcasts to my iPod as podcasts. By that I mean that when you load a podcast to my iPod it doesn't show up under my "podcasts" section. I can get used to not being able to synch my files with a checkbox, but not having a "podcasts" folder is a bit annoying. Perhaps this is a problem with the hardware so that users can't get all the functionality without iTunes, idk. My next problem is that now that I have moved podcast files to my ipod it doesn't seem able to play it. I found them on the player but when I try to play it, it just stays at 0:00 and nothing comes out. I'm going to try a bit more and see if there are ways around these annoyances. If not I'll try a different open source option if it seems to do what I need.
Lastly, I have been trying to share media over my network to my PS3 through Linux. So far I've been using MediaTomb which seems kind of buggy most of the time. I can never tell if things are going to show up on my PS3 and often they show up and don't play. I can't claim that Windows Vista and XP were bug free at first, so I will keep trying with MediaTomb and if that fails I am sure there are other options out there.
I would love to use Windows solely for gaming and the occasional Excel spreadsheet functionality I don't get on LibreOffice. Unfortunately LibreCalc just won't cut it for my spreadsheet needs. I am trying to cut my ties to Windows wherever I can.
Wow, this post probably makes Linux sounds like a bad move. Don't get the wrong impression, these are just a few challenges I've had. I still love the two distros I've tested so far.
Just to even out my post, let me say that windows 7 gave me a blue screen on my 3rd boot after I got my new system. Not only that but I'm not the biggest fan of the Windows 7 task bar. I absolutely hate that I can't easily pin files directly in there. Either it takes 2 extra clicks to achieve the same action now or you have to trick windows with a pseudo-application. Considering the changes are supposed to be an improvement on the interface I would call that a big failure. Not only that but I almost feel like there is less room for customization as well. I still haven't found my loved "desktop" button either on my task-bar which is probably the one I use the most in previous versions of Windows. Sure, I'm sure you can still do it, and I'm sure there is another shortcut available, but I don't want to waste my time learning about an OS I already mastered a decade ago.
I then went to try to disable auto-play on Win7 for when you insert media like a USB drive. Well, not only its extremely difficult to figure out how to do it, but I ended up having to download some random script to do it for me. Microsoft is definitely disappointing me big time with this new version of Windows.
Lastly, what's up with not being able to make my desktop icons smaller. The small size is not small at all. I'm not blind or old, so don't give me that crap.
edit 1: I have found a way around the missing podcast directory on my ipod, which apparently shows up as a playlist called "podcasts", so that's not too bad. I have also found that some of my podcasts are working on my ipod but not all of them yet. I'm still having a lot of problems with Banshee, it seems buggy and it crashes a lot. I have yet to see any other software on my ubuntu that keeps crashing and Banshee seems to crash about every other time I use. I have done some reading, and found out this may be due to my large library size, the application is still a bit buggy for the moment.
edit 2: My frustrations with Banshee are leading me to try some other options, my next one will be Rhythmbox which I have heard good things about, we'll see how it does. If this one is also another application that doesn't work for me I will attempt Songbird, which does also look very interesting from what I've seen.
