It will play multimedia files, but you'll have to do some extra work if you want to play proprietary formats.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RestrictedFormats
I believe there are also scripts for this if you're lazy.

I'm sure you can find more detail on this by a quick websearch.

OTOH, IIRC, back in the day when I used Windows, I had to manually install codecs to play DivX files.

..because it just works. From the installation to the everyday usage. No compiling for stuff I don't need to, no tweaking all the time to keep it going, no doing magic getting apps or installing them..

That could be "user-friendlyness", but not in the sense Microsoft talks about it.

I like Ubuntu because of the ease of software installation, things don't break, apt-get rules. I'm a Slackware user and sometimes I like stuff to "just work." Ubuntu is becoming more and more polished, I'm impressed with the regular release cycle.
I'm going to be upgrading to 6.06 in June. Ubuntu is a more user friendly version of Debian. BTW, I've run both sarge and Etch and like them.........but, not as much as Slackware.

I really like Ubuntu for too many reasons to list, but heres a few.

It detected that I was using a SATA drive right off the bat and didn't give me any hassle to use it (Even Windows hassles me because I need to install SATA drivers while installing windows or else it won't detect it).

It got my sound card and my mic working flawless, this was a big selling point for me because at the time I didn't understand how to install anything in linux and couldn't get ALSA on other distros working... I use voice chat a lot and under FC3-4 and another disto, my sound sounded like crap and the mic didn't work.

Also it didn't give me any trouble detecting my USB keyboard and USB mouse and making them work right, some distros wouldn't detect them automaticly, making me dig my old $4 PS2 keyboard from Newegg out of the closet to install the distro.

Apt-get is a HUGE turn onto linux for me.. I was kinda questioning whether to give linux another try after all the trouble I had with Red Hat 5 back in the day and all the trouble that FC3, Slackware, and a couple other distros gave me.

Frankly, out of FC3-4, Slackware 10, Red Hat 5/7/9, Gentoo, and Knoppix, this distro set up easier, worked better, and has stayed unbroke longer than any of them...

Ubuntu is the sole reason that I have given Linux a second lease on life and could possibly be converting totaly to Linux soon (except for a couple games that just won't run on linux).

I use Ubuntu because it "just works". Mostly anyways. I love apt-get and it has good support and lots of info and a huge growing user base.

when you get a bigger repository list its nice to see updates to over 150 packages getting downloaded in one shot, hehe.

being debian based makes ubuntu awesome

Likes
- It works.
- Debian Based.
- Synaptic makes things simple to install and change
- Hardware support that simply works out of the box
- Good to learn on for newbies - great for more experinced folks

Dislikes.
- Still cannot get my PCMIA wireless card working right.
- Petty: I dislike the default background - simple enough to change though

I so totally agree!

As a Windows users I have tried RH 7,8,9, Just installed Mandriva, and just saw a screenshot for Ubuntu, I said look how simple that screen is and the way the windows opened and the menu's didn't have 10,000 programs that started with X or K and a number.

After using RH I was really turned off to Linux mainly because to install new programs wasn't as easy as double clicking. (Windows spoiled us)

Ubuntu's philosophy is what got me.

I mainly use my Home PC for Websurfing, Picture, Music, DVD, Email and occasional document or 2. I don't need 10,000 options already installed for me. Give me the basics first then let me find a list of easy to understand apps that I can choose from to download/install.

After I installled it, (Flawless install by the way) Everything worked. I just hit enter, I don't think I made 1 change, just entered through until it was done.

My Wife who is Linux illeterate really likes likes it. She only uses Email, Web and Music and so far it works like a charm.

-Easy to Install
-Easy to Use
-Easy to add stuff
-Most Basic stuff built in.
-Very Clean Interface

I am sold on it.

I cut my teeth on the old apple II (not IIe), amiga, atari, commodore64, etc. Was there with Windows 3.0 (and onward), not to mention the various MACs 020, 030, 040, etc. Then bit the bullet and tried many linux distros. Seems like everyone crawled out of the woodwork with them RH 6,7,9,10, Suse, FC1,3, 4, and several others.

All of that to say that when someone first introduced me to Ubuntu, it was like a dream come true. My young daughter asked me to wipe her win98 machine and create a ubuntu machine for her and her younger brother. Since then I loaded it successfully on 3 machines and working on the fourth.

How comes, tokenringman38, that neverending thread, Ubuntu breezy not configuring, is yours? I'm just wondering in a friendly way why you're that committed?

BTW, to me, Ubuntu is a revelation, too. I can do (almost) everything (and much more) I used to do with Windows, this is all free, it looks nice, I do learn, there's good support with the "community", etc...

i'm a debian user for two years.i've tried all the popular distros but i used to believe that debian is the best.all these years i read and get informed about ubuntu and the one that impresses me is the huge community and the great documentation.
i'm waiting for the new release, to download and install ubuntu, and i'm sure that this distro will be the best of me. it's a debian with newer packages,greater documentation, nice useful scripts, nicer hardware acceleration, so why not to like it???

I have this dislike of windows, combined with a love for learning new things. As for committing 3 computers to linux, guess that was fairly easy: 3 of the machines were win98 and the fourth was win2k. I originally loaded it on one machine just to play with it. MY kids enjoyed it so much that they wanted it on their machines too. What's not to love?

This is a work in progress and I am learning and asking questions.

I have 3-4 computers going in my house at any one time, with a mixture of windows and linux. I have used Gentoo (over a year exclusively), Debian, SuSE, Ubuntu, WindowsXP, Windows 2000, Fedora Core (1-5), and most other distros to test.

I like Ubuntu because it works.
-Not much configuring (don't know where my time has went, but it is nice that I don't have to spend that much time working on it).
-It detects all of my hardware, including my atheros based wireless card.
-It has a great community.
-My wife can use it easily.


I like linux and windows, and I run whatever I need on the computers it needs to be on. I now run Ubuntu on my linux computers.

I know my post doesn't really have a point, but you asked why I liked ubuntu.

To me it seems like the way Ubuntu (or perhaps just Linux) balances system processes etc in terms of priority is much better than Windows.
Just as an example, if you wanted to do a file copy in Windows you would have your pretty desktop UI remain flawless so you can see it go nice and slow, whereas in my Ubuntu when I do a file copy it really powerhouses through it, sometimes at the expense of a seamless interface. I dont mind the brief hiccup at all when there's that much of an advantage.

Of course, this probably has a lot to do with the file system and the way data is stored/moved on each, so maybe a file copy wasn't the best example.
And actually, it is probably the case that the advantage is the combination of that and the Linux kernel itself, so probably not Ubuntu-specific.

Either way, Ubuntu gets points for opening the door to Linux for the average user to help ween them off of M$, as it did for me.