That’s not an attack on ffmpeg. It’s 1,000% not fud. I’m not disputing its libre bonifides. H265 is not libre. It’s also not part of the ffmpeg code. But they can be distributed together because it’s non-commercial.

My apologies if I worded something in a way that wasn’t clear about that.

Separate from that issue.

There are distros that do not want to incorporate any non-libre elements into their OS for ideological reasons. They won’t have h265.

Then there are distros that have commercial elements, or for which their parent company has some kind of commercial interest in the distribution. If they don’t want to pay for licensing they may have legal limitations on their ability to incorporate h265.

But any completely non-commercial software that wants to bundle h265 in has cart blanche to do so.

I hope that clears things up.

H.265 is royalty free for non-commercial use. It’s ownership is kind of complicated with a bunch of patents and it is commercial licensing is controlled by a few groups.

If I understand correctly (and I’m no lawyer) FFMPEG is completely non-commercial so they don’t have an issue. Although I think anyone using FFMPEG for commercial applications (streamers, professional productions, etc…) should be paying a license.

I guess some distros felt that was legally murky for them and others aren’t comfortable with non-libre software.

I really wish Fedora would figure out a legal workaround and bundle in the codecs, but for now I just have to remember to set it up before I add any media.

H.265 is a pretty major one. E-AC-3 for audio. Ideally, for a desktop user, you want to be able to play anything. So you need know if your distro includes those codecs. Then how to install them if it doesn’t. Then you need to delete your thumbnail cache to fix the thumbnails.

It’s not hard. You just have to know that that’s a task you need to do. Coming from windows, a user is likely to just assume linux doesn’t support video properly and it’s thumbnails are broken.

Little quality of life stuff.

• How to install video codecs
• How to get thumbnails working in the file manager.
• Adding cloud storage to the file manager.
• How to make libre office save files with MS office filetypes by default (depending on work / school requirements)
• Maybe samba shares if they have another computer in the house.

For truly casual users (grandma or a student taking notes) there isn’t a lot to learn. Here’s your browser, here’s your office apps, this is like “notepad”. This is the software center for updates or any other applications, press the “windows key” to get your menu.

Came here to say drive letters. That’s a weird one for converts. A guide for noobies should explain that drive is mounted somewhere in the file structure. Cover how to find it, and how to mount it where you want.

Fair. I think most people start with the assumption that users are coming from a workflow they preferred in the first place.

Out of curiosity, if you hate Aqua, why did you get a Mac? Is it an industry thing or a specific software?

I’d say Mint or Fedora KDE for windows converts. They’re both good “just works” options, but KDE just by virtue of being more popular has excellent software and support that make it a great option.

Fedora w/ Gnome for Mac converts is a no brainer, and I’d add that you’re probably going to want the Dash2Dock Lite or Dash2Dock Animated extension for a Mac convert.

Having used DEX quite a bit over the years, they’re going to have major software issues if they don’t get developers to make their apps desktop friendly.

• Many apps hate resizing.
• Sub-par keyboard and mouse support in lots of apps.
• UIs concieved to get by on small screens but don’t work well.
• Lightweight mobile versions that don’t hold up to their desktop counterparts

This could be good for a lot of casual users if they put the effort in to execute it well. It could also grow android tablet and phone sales. The idea of a single unified platform for desktop and mobile could be helpful for a lot of users. Especially if one device can do both.