Lobster wrote:Choice is about finding what is right for you
No quarrel here.
My quarrel is with Barry, I guess.
I spent the last several hours tinkering with Puppy 5.
I may as well go back to 4.3.2
I am really put off, by all this effort, for naught.
Did no one beta test this "puppy"?
My algorithm, i.e. "what is right for me", is very simple: just three steps:
1. power on --> desktop appears, with no passwords etc. Puppy passes with flying colors; Nice job. Well done!!!
2. One click on desktop on browser of choice, hey, Puppy 5 offers several choices, VERY GOOD. Thank you someone. Very wise indeed. Well, they are not yet on the desktop, but eventually, I hope to figure that out.... The fact that post install, the browser is inaccessible from the desktop, is just a minor irritation, nothing to write home to mother about....
3. One more click on the icon of my choice at this web site, the home page of my preferred browser:
http://www.listenlive.eu/classical.html
RESULT: MUSIC. yes. music soothes the soul..... RIGHT???
Well, at least the converse has some merit. Right now I am not hearing any, and that makes me more than a tad disappointed. I am really very unhappy, after several hours wasted with this bloody puppy 5.
So what exactly is it that I am dissatisfied with, and what does that have to do with the topic here, i.e. Browser of choice, 2010?
I am disgusted that with all the hoopla and pizzaz surrounding puppy 5, the damn thing can't play music, i.e. no useful interface to streaming audio.
So what exactly do I mean by "useful interface". What I mean is that JUST AS I ONLY WANT to turn on the power, in order to see the desktop, and only want to click once to see the home page of the browser, (any browser) sitting on the desktop, so too, I only want to click once on ANY ICON of my choice, among the three non-proprietary audio formats:
OGG
mp3
aacPlus
as shown at
http://www.listenlive.eu/classical.html
and hear music.
So, what happens with Puppy 5: half of the time,
nothing at all. Some of the icons give some music, sometimes.
Some of the icons, which work fine with other distros, other browsers, other audio players, do not work with puppy 5.
So, I downloaded, first Chrome (because it is faster than other browsers), and could get NOTHING at all, NO SOUND whatsoever.
Then I downloaded Opera, and I was finally able to hear SOME stations, once in a while.
This is a mess.
Puppy 5 is a complete, unmitigated disaster, from my perspective. I only need it to play music, nothing else. THAT'S all I need. Puppy 5 fails to deliver that simple request.
So who or what is to blame for this mess. Is it the browser? Is it me, maybe I am just too stupid to know how to configure puppy? Hey, that's not unrealistic, for I am not the sharpest tack in the carpet. Problem is, I am just as stupid today, as I was yesterday when I configured 4.3.2.
Now, I am not pushing Aqualung. Believe me, I dislike it intensely. But at least, I knew what I was getting with it. It was not glamorous, and there was no hoopla surrounding it.
Nope. I am blaming UBUNTU.
I am sorry to say that I have had similar problems with listening to music using Ubuntu.
So, let me end this angry speech on a positive note. Here's a WELL DONE distro, which those who are so enamored of Ubuntu may wish to study:
CRUNCHBANG. Another Ubuntu wannabee.
Crunchbang works right out of the box. None of this nonsensical trouble with this weird audio player or that strange beast, gxine??? Holy cow.
NOPE. Crunchbang uses VLC.
Why doesn't Puppy5 use VLC????
AHA. THAT's the real question, now isn't it. All this long palaver, and all I really wanted to complain about, was my inability to find, download or employ the best streaming audio software available, VLC. Not the browser, right? In fact, I don't care WHICH browser you give me, Sea Monkey, or Midori, or Chrome, or Opera, they are all the same to me. WHAT I CARE ABOUT is having VLC.
WHY? Because VLC is the only streaming audio player in my experience testing, 5 dozen different distros during the past year, that works every time, just the same way it does with windows 98 and XP.
So, here it is lobster, it isn't the browser that leads to finding "what's right for me", its the streaming audio player, and Puppy 5 ain't got one that works reliably.
Puppy 5: thumbs down, for me--> no VLC, no interest.
CAI ENG