[MPlayer-users] Quicktime playback on MPlayer/Linux -- Somevideos play in ultra-slow-motion?

[evert vorster]

We seem to have drifted a little off topic here, but I'll bite.

On Mon, Sep 1, 2008 at 2:27 AM, Phil Rhodes <phil_rhodes at rocketmail.com> wrote:
>  Nope. The initial environment was plain-vanilla Debian Sarge (back when
>> that was stable)
>
> See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. "I used this, when it was OK to
> use this, which you... sort of have to just know. Now, I'd probably use
> something else, which you also sort of have to just know." Nobody's keeping
> track of this. None of this is documented anywhere. None of this is in any
> book. It's dark secret knowledge which you have to find out by trial and a
> rather large amount of error. Today, X works, and Y doesn't. Tomorrow, who
> knows? Who's in charge of all this? Who's responsible for making things
> work? Mister Nobody. And thus it doesn't.

You, actually. If the software you choose to install on your system
does not work, it is nobody's fault but your own.
Be thankful that there are people that are kind enough to share their
hard labor with you for no cost at all.

No, I am not trolling, I am just amazed at just how ungrateful this
reply sounds.

There are companies who supply pre-built software, and support it, but
they charge for this service.

>
>> source tree (initially taken from a release tarball, then later on
>> downloaded via Subversion)
>
> Which you have to get. And unpack. And copy to the right location, or more
> to the point, perform the right get-and-unpack-and-copy dance of destruction
> for this particular tarball or SVN checkout on this day on this particular
> configuration of this particular linux distro with the particular
> modifications you or the software engineer or the packager has made, for
> each of which any variation involves hacking shell scripts all day and
> night, sacrificing a chicken and standing on one leg in a rainstorm.
>
> This is so typical of linux people - you make out that it's simple simply by
> ignoring the complicated bits. Compare Windows or Mac experience: download
> installer. Run installer. Done.
Then discover bug in software... then ... what then?


>
>> This was the case a decade or so ago. It isn't the case now.
>
> God help those who tried to do this a decade ago, if the current situation
> is considered -good-.
As long as software was being developed, there were people willing to
share their work for the betterment of mankind, for free. Then there
was also the group of people who decided to gloss over the complexity
of software development, and just charge you for an end product, which
created a third group of people who just use software but share no
appreciation for the complexity and the amount of man-hours that went
in to creating the software that you like to bash.

Have you ever tried to write even the most simple piece of software?
MPlayer does 99.999% of the work for you, they even spend the time to
make their install scripts detect and optimize the hardware and
software that you use. All you have to do is type three commands, if
you work from source.

-Evert-
-- 
You are the gardener in your own life. Be careful what you sow...