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I'm always annoyed how any Linux media player or encoder needs to bring its own entire media operating system, down to each individual nut and bolt. On Windows

I'm always annoyed how any Linux media player or encoder needs to bring its own entire media operating system, down to each individual nut and bolt. On Windows there's Windows Media Foundation and DirectShow that centrally manage everything and also support the "individual nut and bolt" approach. Android has its own central thing (MediaCodec?) that must be used. MacOS and iOS presumably have their own central manager (Quicktime?) too. But Linux? It doesn't serve as an operating system for media. It's tremendously inconvenient as an admin/user rather than an evangelist.

shmerl 3y ago
You don't need to implement every nut and bolt in the application. Lot's of useful things can do the heavy lifting (Pipewire, ffmpeg, libplacebo, Mesa and so on). Linux isn't after calling it all using some uniform "DirectFoo" naming scheme, but tools are there. Comparison is also invalid. Linux as a whole (not the kernel but OS experience) isn't controlled by some Big Brother who decides what and how it's done single mindedly. So such kind of composite result is somewhat expected.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Hence why it will never be embraced by desktop application developers, and Electron it is.
  - shmerl 3y ago
    Yeah, keep complaining about everything not being proprietary enough, while everyone who needs just makes it work (OBS, mpv, etc.).
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      Those 2% will appreciate their efforts.
      - shmerl 3y ago
        Those who use it appreciate their efforts. You aren't using it, why are you even complaining especially with complete nonsense comments. Anti Linux shilling should be getting old.
        pjmlp 3y ago
        Unfortunely I still have to, from time to time. Luckly Android, ChromeOS and WebOS as proper Linux distributions have replaced most of it.
        bmicraft 3y ago
        Android hasn't displaced Linux on phones, there wasn't any. ChromeOS hasn't displaced Linux on school laptops, there wasn't any. LG WebOS hasn't displaced "Linux", it competes with Google TV (formerly Android TV)
        pjmlp 3y ago
        Oh boy, another Linux advocate on the lose. So here goes a children explanation. > Unfortunely I still have to, from time to time. I, pjmlp, still have to use GNU/Linux desktop from time to time. > Luckly Android, ChromeOS and WebOS as proper Linux distributions have replaced most of it. Android, ChromeOS and WebOS, have replaced most of my needs, pjmlp, for GNU/Linux in the desktop and similar devices.
        arp242 3y ago
        > Android, ChromeOS and WebOS, have replaced most of my needs Great! I really hope you're happy with that setup! It's your personal computer and by all means, do what works well for you. In the end that's always a personal thing that's different for everyone. Who am I to judge how you use your computer? But maybe ... stop complaining about Linux desktop then? If you don't like it? This must be like the 3rd time I've seen these types of single-line dismissive "Linux will never win the desktop"-comment from you in the last few days. Just one line, little or no context, or explanation, and IMHO also zero value, and an entire discussion derailed. This is just becoming disruptive. You don't need to say anything you know. Personally, I rather dislike a number of things, but you don't see me complaining about it with one-liners every chance I get – and when I do say something, at least I make sure it's something of some substance, when I feel it actually contributes. And I sure as hell don't go around complaining people are "children" for disagreeing.
  - account42 3y ago
    Considering how user hostile most app developers are, I don't miss them.
pjmlp 3y ago
Yeah on UNIX side, NeXTSTEP, Irix, Solaris had their own thing, as graphical workstation UNIXes, and were great. Ideally that kind of thing would be part of GNOME, or KDE, but then there are those that rather keep using twm like experience, making GNU/Linux really only good for headless experiences, at least the UNIX/POSIX part is always there.
account42 3y ago
Install ffmpeg and you have all the codec support you need. How is this a real problem? Yeah, binary software will have to ship its own copy of ffmpeg... This isn't unique to media codecs though.
arp242 3y ago
And when someone installs some obscure or outdated and vulnerable codec on these systems, it's then automatically exposed to all sorts of applications to exploit. Maybe Windows sandboxes that these days(?) It was definitely a problem in the past. No perfect solutions here; both "system-wide codecs" and "every application brings their own codecs" have their own up- and downsides. Besides, with ffmpeg and gstreamer the system-wide codecs paradigm also works on Linux. This is one of those "it's different but it doesn't really matter much" type of things. Most people "just" install vlc or mpv or whatnot and things will "just work" for them, not really different from Windows. That it's technically slightly different is almost entirely transparent to the user.

shmerl 3y ago

You don't need to implement every nut and bolt in the application. Lot's of useful things can do the heavy lifting (Pipewire, ffmpeg, libplacebo, Mesa and so on). Linux isn't after calling it all using some uniform "DirectFoo" naming scheme, but tools are there. Comparison is also invalid. Linux as a whole (not the kernel but OS experience) isn't controlled by some Big Brother who decides what and how it's done single mindedly. So such kind of composite result is somewhat expected.

pjmlp 3y ago
Hence why it will never be embraced by desktop application developers, and Electron it is.
- shmerl 3y ago
  Yeah, keep complaining about everything not being proprietary enough, while everyone who needs just makes it work (OBS, mpv, etc.).
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Those 2% will appreciate their efforts.
    - shmerl 3y ago
      Those who use it appreciate their efforts. You aren't using it, why are you even complaining especially with complete nonsense comments. Anti Linux shilling should be getting old.
      - pjmlp 3y ago
        Unfortunely I still have to, from time to time. Luckly Android, ChromeOS and WebOS as proper Linux distributions have replaced most of it.
        bmicraft 3y ago
        Android hasn't displaced Linux on phones, there wasn't any. ChromeOS hasn't displaced Linux on school laptops, there wasn't any. LG WebOS hasn't displaced "Linux", it competes with Google TV (formerly Android TV)
        pjmlp 3y ago
        Oh boy, another Linux advocate on the lose. So here goes a children explanation. > Unfortunely I still have to, from time to time. I, pjmlp, still have to use GNU/Linux desktop from time to time. > Luckly Android, ChromeOS and WebOS as proper Linux distributions have replaced most of it. Android, ChromeOS and WebOS, have replaced most of my needs, pjmlp, for GNU/Linux in the desktop and similar devices.
        arp242 3y ago
        > Android, ChromeOS and WebOS, have replaced most of my needs Great! I really hope you're happy with that setup! It's your personal computer and by all means, do what works well for you. In the end that's always a personal thing that's different for everyone. Who am I to judge how you use your computer? But maybe ... stop complaining about Linux desktop then? If you don't like it? This must be like the 3rd time I've seen these types of single-line dismissive "Linux will never win the desktop"-comment from you in the last few days. Just one line, little or no context, or explanation, and IMHO also zero value, and an entire discussion derailed. This is just becoming disruptive. You don't need to say anything you know. Personally, I rather dislike a number of things, but you don't see me complaining about it with one-liners every chance I get – and when I do say something, at least I make sure it's something of some substance, when I feel it actually contributes. And I sure as hell don't go around complaining people are "children" for disagreeing.
- account42 3y ago
  Considering how user hostile most app developers are, I don't miss them.

pjmlp 3y ago

Yeah on UNIX side, NeXTSTEP, Irix, Solaris had their own thing, as graphical workstation UNIXes, and were great. Ideally that kind of thing would be part of GNOME, or KDE, but then there are those that rather keep using twm like experience, making GNU/Linux really only good for headless experiences, at least the UNIX/POSIX part is always there.

account42 3y ago

Install ffmpeg and you have all the codec support you need. How is this a real problem? Yeah, binary software will have to ship its own copy of ffmpeg... This isn't unique to media codecs though.

arp242 3y ago

And when someone installs some obscure or outdated and vulnerable codec on these systems, it's then automatically exposed to all sorts of applications to exploit. Maybe Windows sandboxes that these days(?) It was definitely a problem in the past. No perfect solutions here; both "system-wide codecs" and "every application brings their own codecs" have their own up- and downsides. Besides, with ffmpeg and gstreamer the system-wide codecs paradigm also works on Linux. This is one of those "it's different but it doesn't really matter much" type of things. Most people "just" install vlc or mpv or whatnot and things will "just work" for them, not really different from Windows. That it's technically slightly different is almost entirely transparent to the user.