Hello Everyone,

I have been tinkering with Linux for about the past year. The last 4 months it has been my primary operating system (only using windows a few times for laptop university tests that are online and require a proctor program).

I decided to install Fedora Core III on a Dell D600 laptop ( I didnt get to choose it university policy). I figured a operating system with a good installer would be the best considering I don't have the most experence with configuring linux manually and I don't even know what hardware is really inside the machine.

I live in Canada, and here MP3 file sharing is legal. I am wondering why Fedora choses not to support it and if Ubuntu (which I am thinking of moving to) is similar in its handling of copy right protection.

The way I see the copyright issue is that yes music companies are losing sales to pirarted music, however if I chose to pirate the music then I should face the penalty (in the US) but the distribution should have no real liability for the actions of its users. I can write a virus with linux does that mean it shouldnt include compliers? I think it should be up to the user weither or not they decide to break the law, not the software companies.

does Ubuntu incorprate MP3 playback and CD recording capabilities or is it a constant annoyance to handle these files?

Thanks,

Dave

I think the mp3 issue also has to do with licensing and not just file sharing issues. Theoretically whoever owns the mp3 technology could collect royalties from Linux distributions for licensing their technologies. Because Redhat is based in the States, I think it would be an easy target for lawsuits. I can understand their point of view, though its a bit irritating for users, because they have to find workarounds.

Ubuntu provides access to plugins for mp3 and other non free plugins, but not in the default installation and they have a disclaimer on their website regarding this issue. Take a look at this page.

The lack of mp3 support in Red Hat/Fedora and Ubuntu actually has nothing to do with file sharing at all. If they cared about protecting copyrighted music I don't think they would have installed a CD ripping utility as part of the default desktop package.

That said, adding mp3 support to Ubuntu is trivially easy. The page reddazz links to explains how to add it to the default mp3 player. Installing a different player like xmms would be just as easy once you enable Universe.

If you really want a distro that can play mp3s and burn audio CDs with the default installation, I know SuSE, Mepis, Knoppix, and I think Slackware all offer that. Mepis and Knoppix also both have really good video codec support by default with xine, if you care about that.