Not yet ready to switch to Linux

I keep flirting with switching to a completely Linux OS for my computing needs, but can never quite make the switch.

15 years ago, SCO System V & HP UX were my first introduction into the Unix world. After which I played around with Slackware Linux to help solve a problem we had in Defence to enable some X.25 legacy hardware to run over TCP/IP.

That started me on my Linux journey, but at the same time I started developing web applications using the Microsoft stack using Classic ASP (version 1) on IIS 3.0.

My latest play is with Ubuntu 12.04, in fact I’m writing this post with it (although I’m just using a browser, so it could be Chromium OS, Windows or anything really).

I’ve got several issues. But my main problem is related to codecs. The Rhythmbox Music player won’t play mp3s out of the box so you need to install a package called ubuntu-restricted-extras. (This is one bit where Ubuntu is lovely. Installing and updating via the package manager is a lot less faff than doing the similar thing via windows)

Now I can understand that the codecs have IP/licensing issues, but VLC player works just fine - and Rhythmbox can play streamed radio perfectly. But Rhythmbox still refuses to play sound for mp3s.

Another issue is youtube/iplayer in Chrome both play at stupid-fast speed with incredibly choppy sound. Firefox makes a better attempt, the video seems almost normal speed, but the sound is still incredibly choppy.

I’ve tried installing and reinstalling ubuntu-restricted-extras without success. And the supposed solutions online are of no help. All of which just sends me running back to the comfort of Windows. For now…