For some reason, I find Ubuntu a bit painful. When you eagerly want to play a youtube video, you 1st need to install flash player, IF you want to play an MP3 song, 1st install the necessary codecs, etc. Whereas, Linuxmint is a complete package.
Well, that is because Ubuntu is remaining true to only incorporating and using OpenSource software in their distribution. Unfortunately, these other technologies and codecs are not open in their implementations, and thus have restricted the distribution of these technologies. Also the reason that systems like Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X are simply not given away..as they have to license the use of these technologies within their products.
The beauty to me of the Linux system, is that the end user has complete control to easily change and rectify what isn't to their liking. Thus, with Ubuntu, if the end user chooses to download and use these technologies, the OS will allow it. In fact, it's even well documented on the Ubuntu site how to add these features into your OS.
For the board's reference, on Ubuntu 10.04 (the current release), here are the quick and easy steps to rectifying these issues. These things are super easy when you know exactly what to type. Just copy and paste these into a terminal and you are all set.
Getting multimedia working
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
Installing VLC movie player
sudo apt-get install vlc
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh
Installing Sun Java Support and Firefox Java Plugin
sudo add-apt-repository "deb
http://archive.canonical.com/ lucid partner"
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-bin sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin
