I've tried and tried and tried again, still my father is a fumbling noob with anything with more than six buttons, it must horrible even scary for some ol' folk
He's an avid lover of all types of music, mostly prog-rock, and his living room is like walking into a friggin archive for the wall-to-wall madness he's got goin on in there.
It's getting serious these days, im trying to convince/teach him the basics with Ubuntu and at this point after using this Distro for the first time this past six months myself I am realizing ol' Ubuntu ain't so user friendly...Or I have'nt found a suitable theme or media player.
Can anyone suggest a Linux OS with real pensioner style interface thats more geared tword media center style?...Fedora looks pretty is it an good?
Elisa media looks like what i need for him but I can't make head nor tail of elisa myself...
If you can't get on with Ubuntu forget Fedora, you will have to really know your stuff for that. Security is great on Fedora but if you don't find Ubuntu very user friendly the Fedora will throw you! Have you tried Kubuntu? (KDE Ubuntu) It can be a little easier! You can download an ISO of the live CD or better still, they will post you the latest version for nothing. Check the Ubuntu site for more.
Yer wouldn't really bother with Fedora for a media center. It's becoming more user-friendly but is still geared more towards networking/security/server..ing etc.
I know there's a mega media center for Linux, Linux MCE I guess, for Kubuntu. It covers a wide variety of things so might work for your needs. I believe its the prettiest one around too, although Linux developers tend not to have a great sense of style, so that might not mean much.
But, this is where Linux really starts to p*ss me off. If you follow the Linux link from that site then you're presented with this http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?p=185738 And as a self confessed computer illiterate, that page might as well be written in Ancient Hebrew for all the sense it makes to me. Clicking on the links in that page only adds to the confusion of what the hell am i supposed to be doing ? On one of the links it tells you to follow a path in Linux to a particular application so you can set things up to add a new suppository or something . But the Linux version i'm using doesn't have anything remotely like that quoted path, or even the quoted application.
Why on earth it has to be soooo complicated to download and install a new programme into arguably the best OS out there really really frustrates us non PC geeks. Still, i can live with these frustrations if it means i don't have to go anywhere near anything made by..(shudder).. that other company
I think its probably more that Linux is jibberish to you. It all vanilla to me. If you have Linux installed, here's some advice, remove it and go back to windoze.... your just not ready for it yet. If that is the case, why are you bothering with a thread that revolves around Linux? You think a suppository is only something you should poke up your @$$?
Tools you need? GOOGLE AND A KEYBOARD, AKA RESEARCH THE OS YOUR USING!
Whoahoho didn't know this had been released for PCs. Absolutely brilliant media center. I ran it for several years on my xbox, and I'm sure anyone else here who did will also agree it's pretty darn good. Hopefully the PC versions are just as good, well worth a look.
A better approach would be: Ascertain what you are trying to do, then choose an OS based upon that. If that means you need to use a *NIX based OS for example then you'll need to take the time to use it.
Linux is pretty straightforward to me too, I've used a non-noob distro lightly for several years. I'll tell you what though, I sure love being able to drag and drop a single icon to install my Applications, rather than busting out a terminal.
Edit: Just given the Mac version of this a whirl and yep, definitely look into this CSU1. If I was in the market for media center software this would be the one. Linux MCE does have many more features but I imagine most of them would never be used, such as light control. Also just confirmed my suspicions, the GUI is frankly a horrible blend of lurid colours and overlays. Shame really because I bet it works really well once it's been set up properly.
Tried running XBMC on my PC and it failed epically. However, I'm going to be dual-booting with Fedora soon (can't be arsed doing it now :shy, so it should prove a neat alternative to...err...nothing really
Ummm no, you missed the point, Oh I openly admit I was insulting you..... and only you, but then you did a good job of insulting yourself.
pb32000, each to there own. Tbh, I prefer a good bash on term, there is something so satisfying about it. I'm not a big fan of pretty colors and fancy gui's, I just like something to be functional, complete the task its intended for without wrapping it in a big box and putting a red ribbon on it. I think it was Henry Ford who said something like "if it does not have it then it cant got wrong"? Just the way I look at things.
#quit your jibber jabber and gimme an .exe fool ! lol..
thanks for the suggestions people im gonna give fedora a spin for pig iron, hopefully by the end of the day i'll have a package put together for my dad.
Fedora and Ubuntu both use Gnome for their desktop enviroment, so they will look roughly the same.
How about reading the page instead of just looking at it and think "wtf this is bullshit crap too long blah blah".
Now let's see what you should do.
Great! Some guys made some software and they want you to try it.
Even better! With this repository system, you'll always have the latest and greatest version, without looking for it yourself.
Ok. There's a repository for GUTSY, HARDY and a bleeding edge version. Now what version of Ubuntu do you have? Probably HARDY if you always kept it up to date.
Ok, let's take a look at that.
Exactly what we need. we have some third party software that we want to install.
No rocket science here, let's do that.
Ah, now i need to set back to the XBMC page. Let's see...
Ah, the repository for HARDY. Just what i need. And i remember some quote above...
So let's not use that one for now.
Now let's copy that first line
And paste it in that dialog box we just opened.
OK, done.
WTF IS THIS!!!211one
Well, i didn't see a GPG key, so they probably don't have one.
Well, ok.
And now? HELP! I'm stuck!!!
Granted, they leave you in the dark now. But in fact, you can now install it like any other Ubuntu software. You can add and remove software using Synaptic.
Search for XBMC and you should find it. There are some bonus packages as well, including extra skins and some other tools. You can install those too if you want them.
You see, it isn't hard, it's just a bit different. And you'll love it in the end.
* I don't use XBMC myself though, but this should work. And yes, i've got too much time.
Whilst that's great, dragging and dropping a single icon and then having an update button on the application is probably easier.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, Linux on the whole is still not ready for the average user. And I don't mean average LFS Forum visitor, I mean the average computer user.
It has it's advantages over MS tbh, look at it's universe for example, any noob can understand when told once that you do not need to search the interwebs for possibly virus riddled bloatware but just type in a descriptive search into synaptic and whalla!
The only let down is live help, go anywhere in vista and a noob can get popups telling him this and that or rather buy this buy that, and the lack of eyecandy or poor design taste as you pointed out lets it down a great sum...whats the story with brown! yuck.
All in all Ubuntu leaves the user with very little to do with a half noob friendly GUI but lacks the vast forum of MS knowledgebase which sometimes can leave on staring at a screen of commands and wondering wtf is going on.
Surprisingly when strolling through the Linux forest one can't help but notice that anyone isn't willing to do jack shit for you unless they get something in return, a strange attitude for a community of one of the biggest open source distros on the planet
/rant over
lets know how you get on with this and if you find any interesting plugins or themes Pb
This thread has evolved, It was about the better choice to make on Linux for a user with less experience. Now its more about the Crayola Gui and how it compares to Windows. If I was to ask which van would suit my needs best would I expect later to be comparing a transit or sprinter to a sports car??? If your bothered about ease of use, forget about Linux as a whole. Go back to Windows, click, drag, drop and short cut your way to happiness! Windows is a standard car with a CD player and electric windows. Linux is more of a Van with nothing more than a lot more space and a good engine!
Windows is just too much pretty colours, waiting for things to load and annoying "here's what you already know" for me.
...Which is exactly the point of this thread. If you've read the OP you'd have understood I'm an average linux user looking for accessibility addons for use in a media envoirment.
Windows, no thank you, I've had enough of the command console and a gazillion services that are as usefull as tit's on a bull.
Judging from your previous posts you're an uber Linux fanboy, correct?
I wasn't talking about Windows tbh. For me, the only thing Windows does better than other OSes is play games, so I don't use it more than a couple of times a week.
Might as well give Fedora a whirl, you really can't go too wrong. I used to use it for web development before moving over to all Mac machines. It's easy enough to get a grasp of and lot of Linux applications come in .rpm format for easy installation. It does have a very fast life cycle though which means they release new versions every 6 months or so.
But yer I'll keep checking back to XBMC if ever I need a media center
Rawr, I want to download Fedora 9, but my dad won't let me download a whole 3.6GB. I have Fedora Core 6, but it's a PPC build, and I need x64...I'm a bit of a Linux noob - what's the difference between the 3.6GB normal Fedora 9 download, and the 700MB Fedora Desktop download? Google says nout
All of this talk of OS's, and I'm seriously considering getting an Mac, seems much easier to use, more suited to my use (Mainly music, net browsing and light gaming)
As long as LFS and Crysis 2 works, I'm game for any OS
was it not about accessibility and themes for a media-type environment...?
{YOU mentioned Windows first btw}
Yes, but you've misunderstood
To be honest you could have said anything to me and you've still have pissed me off...i guess it's the way you jump people's throats[in-their-face]
If i seen someone jump on someone irl like you just did i'd knock you clean out.
You've completely misunderstood your place here, this was a thread of Linux Accessibility and god forbid a noob walks in to ask questions ! you'll jump on them and suggest that they install windows. ?
. But the Linux version i'm using doesn't have anything remotely like that quoted path, or even the quoted application. 
You're cool, real cool...
, so it should prove a neat alternative to...err...nothing really 
