[sf-lug] Youtube Issues

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Asheesh Laroia (asheesh at asheesh.org):

> When my brother asks me, "How do I put Flash on, and how do I add support 
> for MP3 decoding. and where do I get Google Earth?", do you have 
> another suggestion for what I should tell him?

1.  I strongly concur with Kristian about Automatix.  It's a classic
case of a plausible-looking trap for the unwary -- and is a good
illustration of a broader point about how you should be extremely wary
of installing software outside your distribution's package regime.  More
at: http://linuxgazette.net/118/weatherwax.html#1
http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Rants/spyware.html#cultural

2.  Google Earth for Linux is a really incredibly badly designed program
(completely aside from being proprietary).  

3.  See: 
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Gutsy#How_to_install_Mplayer_with_Multimedia_Codecs
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Gutsy#Browser_Plug-ins
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Media/Codecs
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/tag/dvdplayback/

Etc.  I strongly suspect you didn't actually look very hard for
non-Automatix methods.