[LAU] Audio distros

[Simon Wise]

On 18/02/13 10:51, david wrote:

> One thing I noticed just a few days ago while updating my wife's netbook (it
> runs Ubuntu 12.04LTS). I mistyped a CLI command, and Ubuntu obligingly came up
> with a list of suggestions for what I was looking for.

yes ... that kind of search if there is an error is nice ... what shell/terminal 
is that? anything using readline under the covers gives tab-completion ... not 
quite that but it can still save a lot of typing, and avoid some typos to.


>
> Oh, I do business using words. And graphics. And sound. But remembering specific
> words to the degree of detail needed by many command line apps (how many people
> even remember all of mplayer's command line options, let alone their
> suboptions?) Especially when it's not something I do that often.
>

Certainly big, very flexible programs have big, complicated manpages with lots 
of options. Here an interface or a script offering only the few common use-cases 
is much easier to use if you don't need the whole program, hence the many 
mplayer front ends to choose from.

I personally find trying to work out how to use a big, very flexible menu and 
tab interface (like VLC's for example) much more annoying than finding the 
options in a manpage. Then if the task is something I'll do again I'll add 
another line to a text file on the subject, or perhaps save a one-line script, 
or even put in my desktop panel or keyboard shortcuts if it is a task I repeat a 
lot. For me its easier to keep a line of text on file than remember a whole swag 
of settings nested in tabs and menus, but everyone works differently.


Simon