gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly has inadequate documentation and package description.

[lexual]

It appears that currently in dapper, there is no gstreamer0.10-mad and therefore no mp3 support for rhythmbox, etc.

[Ernst Persson (ernstp)]

the plugins are packed together and the mad plugin
is now in gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly

[lexual (lexhider)]

The package description for the package: gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly, is really inadequate.

One of it's main uses will be as a provider of mp3 playback. The words mp3 or mpeg do not appear anywhere in the description.

contrast gstreamer-mad's description:
  Description: MAD MPEG audio decoder plugin for GStreamer
    This GStreamer plugin enables the decoding of MPEG audio streams. It
    currently supports the all three audio layers of the MPEG 1 standard (Layer
    I, Layer II, and Layer III, the latter often colloquially known as MP3.)

    http://www.mars.org/home/rob/proj/mpeg/

****************************************
To the description of gstreamer-plugins-ugly:
Description: Collection of various GStreamer plugins
    This collection of miscellaneous GStreamer plugins is useful to process
    different types of streams. You most certainly want to install this
    package.
*****************************************
This package's description is essentially useless. I would have a go at writing a better package description, but I don't know what plugins the package supplies. Also, the documentation in /usr/share/doc doesn't give the information either.

You most certainly want to install this package?!?!?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

You are welcome to write a better description, those kind of rants are not really useful

[Wouter Stomp (wouterstomp-deactivatedaccount)]

This is from the 10.1 sources from the gstreamer website. Would this list be the same for Ubuntu?:

gst-plugins-ugly Plugins

    dvdlpcmdec - Decode DVD LPCM frames into standard PCM
    lame - Encode MP3's with LAME
    mad - id3 tag manipulation and mp3 decoding based on the mad library
    mpegaudioparse - MPEG-1 layer 1/2/3 audio parser
    rmdemux - Realmedia stream demuxer

[Sebastian Dröge (slomo)]

I'll take care of this... thanks

[Sebastian Dröge (slomo)]

Ok, after a discussion we now have better descriptions but don't include all contents in there because users shouldn't care about these packages. Packages that work better with these packages installed should have them in Recommends or even Depends so you get them automatically.
Also the package name won't change for the very same reason and we want to stay with upstream's (beeing debian and gstreamer) naming.

[Wouter Stomp (wouterstomp-deactivatedaccount)]

It would be great if the user wouldn't have to care of this, but I don't agree with this being the current situation. That would mean the next Ubuntu version would ship with mp3 support by default, because totem and rhythmbox would depend on this package! I don't see that happening, so users will still have to install it manually and I would still suggest a more friendly and descriptive name.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

The description should mention mp3 but not list every file shipped their is no point to that

[Wouter Stomp (wouterstomp-deactivatedaccount)]

I agree with that (that list wasn't a suggestion for the description, I only wanted to verify Ubuntu includes the same codecs).

Maybe an alternative to renaming this package would be to include it with a nice name (e.g. Extra multimedia codecs) in a codecs/plugins category in gnome-app-install (along with flash, java etc.). That makes it possible for people to find it on their own and would eliminate the need for a lot of howto's/guides.

[Wouter Stomp (wouterstomp-deactivatedaccount)]

Just saw the new description, it is much better, but it should certainly mention mp3, as that is what 99% of all people install it for!

[Wouter Stomp (wouterstomp-deactivatedaccount)]

It still doesn't mentions mp3 or any of the other codecs it installs.

[Ernst Persson (ernstp)]

I think you can say that automatic codec install has closed this, as -ugly is now associated with the mp3 mimetype!

[Wouter Stomp (wouterstomp-deactivatedaccount)]

No it hasn't. The package description is still inadequate.