For any person fed up with Windows may discover that Linux is a desktop alternative that can even run Windows apps natively.  As a matter of fact Linux has become much more user friendly and a lot of the formerly snobbish Linux forums on the web now cater to the newbie as well as the Linux veteran.  An aspiring noob may do research, choose a major distribution such as Ubuntu or Fedora, and even get the OS installed and running.  However, the user will immediately run into a standard Linux problem.  Most commercial media formats are not free and while Windows and MacOs software either pays for the software needed to playback certain video or audio files (called codec software) or uses free alternatives, Linux itself is designed to be free and open source.  This means, in order to legally allow you to use and modify the OS freely, the developers have to disable or not use codecs that aren’t licensed freely.

Although this presents no problem to a saavy Linux user, someone who is used to the automagic handling of software by Windows or MacOS will start their new Linux box and not have any problem with it initially.  At some point however, they may pop in a dvd.  The dvd playback software will then start up automatically and warn the user  that there is no softare installed to handle playing a dvd.  Wierd huh?  At least recent iterations of the user interface have added an option to buy playback software, but this is still ass backwards for anyone used to everything just working.  The user will then have the same headache playing back Mp3s, videos on websites, and God forbid they have a library of Divx, Aac, or Windows Media files.

Linux’s strength and weakness is its foundation as an open source and free platform.  While it allows you to have a modern OS and all of its software for free, it also means common file formats require effort and research to use.  Fortunately with excellent search engines like Google, using the right search terms will lead to a blog or forum post somewhere.  There are enough Linux users, who happen to be support each other via the web.  Someone somewhere has had the same problem you have, and posted the solution for all to see.  There are also walkthroughs, which are usefull for anyone from a Linux newbie to a system administrator who simply wants a structured way to set up new workstations.  For example, the walkthrough at http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-f9.html#binarycodecs lists everything from installing DVD support to adding True Type fonts to Fedora 9.  These types of articles are definite frustration busters because they allow you to open up a command line and a browser and get your media to playback by simply cutting and pasting commands.  I would recommend any Linux user, however, learn what the steps in the walkthroughs are doing and how to research and find solutions independantly.  Linux is like a different culture.  Until you learn its language and its techniques, your Linux install is just waiting to be broken.  Practice is essential, and most people will break and re-install Linux dozens of times before they get a grasp of how the software works.  It will be worth it however, when you are able to upgrade to the latest version for free and take advantage of features that are a part of Linux that Windows and Mac users tout as unique to their systems.