What does Ubuntu have that some others don't?

[amtrakuk]

I can load-up live media of various Distros on the same laptop, "Out the box" generally all can browse and connect to shares on the NAS box, all will open remote media except video media, Some distros like Ubuntu are quite happy playing remote videos on VLC, SMPlayer, Totem etc, some fail - only playing if the video file is copied and played locally.

What does those that can have that those who can't doesn't?

[arochester]

Ask Ubuntu Forums and not Debian User Forums?

https://ubuntuforums.org/

[Deb-fan]

What does buntu have not easily done on others = easy answer, nothing. With a minor exception of being an actual commercial corporation. Meaning they do have full time developers on payroll, which engage in Ubuntu focused projects specifically. Clearly mostly stuff focused on making Canonical Inc money. Other distro's are powered solely by volunteers, though they still have access to all the same upstream resources. Much of what a distro like Ubuntu comes configged as out of box are things other, more advanced nixer's don't want, consider bloat etc and can easily be config'ed in any given gnu/Linux OS if users want things setup in such a way. They also make maximum use of closed source proprietary software out-of-box. Whereas something like Debian gnu/Linux put emphasis on supporting open source, though makes it easy to use nonfree if users need-want it too.

Really think it's a potatoe/potato situation. I trust Debian much more so than Canonical Inc though and prefer making my own configuration choices. Debian's in it to promote open source, Canon Inc has a vested interest in cashing in on open source and it's userbase. So it's netinstalls here, much of which only what I want and prefer, how I want. Though Ubuntu has a similar netinstall option for users who wish their OS be better setup according to their preferences too.

[Deb-fan]

For people who don't have any real interest in the gnu/Linux OS, are just looking for a drop in windows replacement. Then Ubuntu and similar focused on that niche are better. Though ewwwwww, all that bloat! Bloat over here, bloat over there ... bloat, bloat, bloat, bloat ... everywhere!

Overly anal edit, cause am obsessive about these things + had a lot of coffee: What I class as bloat encompasses a wide range of things too. So can look at this from another angle. Having more services (someone isn't using) running out-box can have an impact on system stability, performance(esp on lower spec hardware), adds to overhead, security, as more services running means greater potential attack surface and ease of configuration for someone to set up a gnu/nix install as they prefer it to be. Would have to strip out half a default Ubuntu install getting it setup as I like.

[amtrakuk]

Oops OK maybe I shouldn't have used Ubuntu as the example.

I was hoping someone would say "From a vanilla install of "distro X" with a LXDE desktop, to get an app such as VLC to play video media from a NAS box you need Samba + X, Y & Z making sure any firewall has ports xxx open"

[tynman]

On the surface, all you need to do to access a file on a remote server is (1) mount the remote directory and (2) have read permissions on the files in the directory.

Regardless of which distribution you are using, you would need to set it up to be able to access files on a "NAS". On my workstation (plain Debian, no DE), I may have had to install the nfs-common pkg, whereas maybe the nfs-common pkg is included on Ubuntu? But even with that installed, you still need to issue the mount command before something like VLC (or any application) will be able to access it.

some fail - only playing if ...

What error message is produced when it "fails"?