Pinguy Linux anyone?

[davidnix71]

It's Ubuntu with all the non free stuff added so you can just play your music or videos without patching later.

Is this a problem? It sounds unusual. A lot of Linux distros won't even play mp3's until you manually add LAME. And forget about playing store bought dvds without a lot of patching.

[piratePenguin]

I haven't looked it up but if they haven't got copyright licenses then indeed it's breaking the law the world over, in the possible scenario where they do have those licenses (much of the non-free software we're talking about is probably redistributable by everyone? I've no idea) but don't have patent licenses, then they can probably get away with distribution in the EU, and will be lucky if they aren't brought down in the US in any of these cases.

If they have all the licenses - I'll be surprised and impressed.

I used to think it was smart for Ubuntu to officially produce an EU version that included the actually free software that is required to play mp3s and other stuff, but that violates US patent laws. I'm sure that it would be popular in the US too, but I dunno if Canonical would be liable if downloaders agree that they are European.

[piratePenguin]

Btw, to license these patents in the US costs money. It's clear where Apple and MS get that money from, but what are your proposals to gathering a few quid per Ubuntu user so that they can play mp3s and dvds out of the box and all the other things you desire?

[davidnix71]

I installed Pinguy and am here using it as a VM. The default desktop background puts everyone else to shame. To install mp3 codecs I had to check a box. The text next to it said the codecs were licensed from Fraunhoffer and Thompson. I got the iso from the SourceForge, so I guess it's legal. Maybe they paid the fees. SF has money and cred.

This thing is "busy looking" for lack of a better way to put it.  It has a dock at the bottom like OS X. I can't seem to resize windows or move them partially off screen like other os's but after playing around a while maybe I'll get the hang of it.

I just did a max out ram of this MacBook. It has 8GB now but even with 4 VM's open it only used about 6.4GB

Here is a screen cap of me trying to overload the ram I now have. I was running OS9, 7 Pro 64-bit, XP Pro 32-bit and Ubuntu 9.10 32-bit all at once.

[piratePenguin]

I think a lot of new distros are starting to license some of that software, so maybe it's cheap (or free).

I don't have much of a problem with ubuntus behavior of starting the download if you chose to when you're playing an mp3 file.

[Lead Head]

It looks like MP3 Decoder license is $0.75 per unit. Not that expensive, but if you start shipping hundreds of units, it adds up quick.