video

My #2 use-case, after #1 of 'sofa browsing', is video playback.

I copied over a couple of large mp4's easily enough - I plugged in my old Win2k 20Gb disk in the caddy. It mounted it on the desktop, open up, copy, paste - easy.

Double click a movie, the default Xubuntu video player chokes. Maybe not the best, but hey, I prefer VLC anyway. Open up synaptic, search for VLC, click, go.

Reset video files' 'open with' to VLC, double click, opens nicely.

Plays really nicely too, smooth, even when fullscreen, sound works too. Happy.

Why better than Win2k? Well, it could be the new disk, which is 5400rpm not 4200rpm like the old one (I think). Most of me thinks it's Win2k bloat; it just didn't seem to be able to get the video in and out fast enough, hence the pausing to catch up. Generally, Xubuntu does seem snappier and more responsive than Win2k, so it passes the smaller = better test for me. 512Mb RAM seems more than enough - postpone memory upgrade.