Recently, I was charged with the task with editing and authoring a DVD. I recently upgraded my setup to Ubuntu Intrepid (64 bit). Supposedly, there would be at least modest speed gains when it came to encoding various video formats. So, I started off on my task, albeit with a new set of tools. Let’s start of with an inventory of resources, and then go through the actual process for making a DVD.

For capture, I used the most standard, stable solution: Kino. There is one issue when capturing video over Firewire(IEEE 1394) in Kino: It has to be run as su. Open up a terminal, type “sudo kino”, enter your password, and you will have no troubles. If you are editing in another program, I recommend capturing your video as a single file. To do so, you will have to turn off “auto split”. This automatically determines when the camera cuts off, and then chops up the video into separate DV files. For an hour of footage, this will often be 70-100 individual clips to keep up with. To keep this from happening, go to “Edit > Preferences”(shortcut CTRL + P) under the Kino main menu, click the “Capture” tab, and uncheck “Auto Split Files”. This will make the video much more manageable.

Normally, my editing/encoding setup consists of a Cinelerra installation(the best configurations are those contained in the Akirad repositories). I used it for editing, titling and most of my FX work. It has worked flawlessly for me, however, it has a few hangups. The interface is really rough, and the learning curve is high. Keyframes and motion paths are a pain to work with. It’s rendering is incredible, and it has no issues with font aliasing after rendering. It was the only program I could get to work on a consistent basis with Linux.

That all changed with the release of Kdenlive 0.7.2. Earlier versions of Kdenlive were buggy, unpolished, and crash prone. If you saved your work every 15 seconds, it still wouldn’t be enough. The new version is incredible. Not only have stability issues been taken care of, but they have added some incredible realtime FX, a stellar editing experience, and given the user interface a much-needed overhaul. The editing experience is closer to mainstream programs like iMovie and Final Cut Pro. There is only one drawback, at least on my version of Kdenlive: Font aliasing in titles. While it handles the the video editing like a pro, the rendering of titles(at least in 0.7.2) is a disappointment, giving you jagged, unreadable lettering as rendered product. Because of this issue, I was forced to do titling in Cinelerra.

After I finished editing my files, I rendered it as a RAW DV file. While this was quite large, it also gave me an excellent starting point for putting the titles on DVD. I had two options for this process, but one was vastly better than the other. In reading the Linux forums, their were two options that gained my trust: tovid gui and devede.

The main differences between them is stability, and what can be done with the DVD after you finish encoding it. ToVid’s GUI allows you to specify background and play buttons, along with a menu tree. The output is rather crude, and the options are limited. The main drawback was an inability to customize encoding quality. Even with the script settings being locked down, it still had a hard time rendering properly. Of the 3 times I tried to use it, only 2 resulted in a successful encoding. It also adds the burning process as one of the “features”. I was routinely met with botched burns and buffer underruns. Don’t use ToVid’s GUI unless you absolutely have to.

DeVeDe offers you a better user experience. Previews of your menu title are available. You can do a 60 second render to make sure your video and audio will not suffer if quality is adjusted. Yes, it actually allows you to adjust the quality of the render, and gives you an estimate of disk space that will be taken up after conversion to MPEG-2. If you want something like a looping video clip and music for your disc menu, it offers access to this as well, without causing you substantial mental anguish. For me, the best parts are the many rendering options. DeVeDe allows you to render just the disc structure, the mpeg files, or combine them into a disc ISO. You can even flag the rendering process to take advantage of optimization for multi-core processors. They don’t try to integrate burning into their options, as there are many fine programs that have designed to do exactly that. This shows the wisdom of the development team. Once the ISO is ready, you just have to select the burning program that you would like to use. One cautionary issue with DeVeDe: It defaults to PAL(European 25 FPS format). North American users will need to set the encode format to NTSC under the video and main menus before encoding takes place. A failure to set keep the format the same between menus will result in a botched encoding.

I present the ultimate burning solution: K3B. I love it. This can burn every type of disc imaginable. Its management of hardware and software buffers is incredible, and quite frankly, it just works. The only botched disk I had while using this as my burning program was my own fault (I had a microscopic amount of peanut butter on my thumb when I picked up the disk, and it caused the laser to scatter on the DVD surface). K3B even plays a bugle call to let you know the burn was successful. Even though Brasero comes standard on my installation of Intrepid, it still managed to drop the ball. Use K3B and reclaim your wasted time.

After you are done burning, be sure to test your disk in different types of players. Be sure to test it in a standard DVD player for your region, and not just in your computer’s DVD player. It needs to be tested against hardware based codecs. As an extra step, you may want to test on a Blu-Ray player, just to make sure it runs/scales properly.

Hopefully this overview will put you on the path to the stable encoding and burning of your next project. I have to leave you now, as six hours of raw footage await me. God bless and success to you.

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Beryl Ubuntu Desktop tonycai.com

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About Author

Kurt Hartman is Head of Employee Training at Mobile Fleet Service, Inc. He develops quarterly/bi-monthly tire video magazine for them, ironically titled “OTR Weekly”. If you’d like to read more of his commentary on Ubuntu, Google iSnare and his name. Or, you can head over to http://www.buybigtires.com, and check out his other writings.

As I was sitting here, preparing to write this article, my mind wandered back to the day I accidentally wiped out a Windows installation with a Gutsy Gibbon CD. I thought I was in trouble. I had just knocked out my work documents, including various templates I made, along with scanner support, and my Adobe 8.0 suite.

It was at that moment I decided to make a go of it with Linux as my sole operating system. After nearly 2 years of tweaking, making mistakes, fixing those mistakes, and then making even more mistakes, I finally feel qualified to give you advice.

In light of this experience, I now present “11 Crucial Things An Ubuntu Newbie Should Know”.

Commands

1. ps -A: One of the reasons I hated Windows so much was the task manager. When a program would hang, you’d have to open task manager, tell it to kill the program, and wait 5 minutes for the system to kill the application, All the while, it would bog down the processor, hog memory, and be an overall nuisance. 50% of the time, you would have to restart the computer to get the process to clear.

Not so in Ubuntu/Linux. All you have to kill a program is open the terminal, and type “ps -A”. This will pull up a list of all the processes currently running, with the name of the program, along with a 4-5 digit number next to it. Then, type “kill -9 PN” (PN should be substituted with the actual Process Number), and hit enter. This will kill the app, no questions asked. It will not ask you any questions, or give you any excuses. That program is now dead, until the time you decide to resurrect it. This will not work with things like Apache, or other process daemons. If you’re not sure, just try to kill it. If it doesn’t die, then it is probably a daemon. You will have to find the actual documentation to stop the daemon.

Bonus tip: In Ubuntu (Gutsy and later), the command to stop Apache is: sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 stop To restart: sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 start

2. gksudo nautilus: Nautilus is the GUI-based file browser for Gnome, which is the default window manager for Ubuntu. If you are not used to the command line, this command will save you hours when it comes to file operations. Well, it will only save you hours for things that have to be done as root. Things like special system configuration, and other things where you need upgraded privileges will be much faster when you use this command.

Just open the terminal, type “gksudo nautilus”, enter your password, and magically you can do anything you want. For faster access, right click the Desktop, select “create launcher”, enter “gksudo nautilus” as the command. You can now click the shortcut on your Desktop , rather than opening the terminal and entering a command each time you need access to Nautilus.

3. dmesg: If you have managed to really mess something up, or are having trouble getting things to work, you may need someone with greater experience to take a look. Typing “dmesg” in your terminal window will call up all the messages from your system kernel. Copy and paste this into a text document, attach it to an email, and let a true expert get a look at what is going on with your hardware.

Upgrades:

4. Ubuntu’s package manager, Synaptic, is a GUI front-end for Aptitude. What you don’t know is that Synaptic is set to run in what could be called “safe-mode”. It will not go get the latest and greatest versions of the software you are running. It will get the last (often 6 months older) version of the software you want to run. You can upgrades faster by enabling optional software repositories.

To do this, open Synaptic (System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager), then select Settings > Repositories. Once you are in the repositories window, select the “Updates” tab. The Ubuntu “security” and “recommended updates” repository have already been selected. To get the newer stuff, you need to check “backports” and “proposed” software. Apply, and reload. This should get most of your software up to date, along with the kernel.

5. The kernel: While having the latest and greatest stable kernel can improve system performance, it can also break little fixes you have made along the way. An example: I had gone through the painstaking process of editing some configuration files to get my webcam to work. The last kernel update overwrote the changes I had made, and in the process, disabled my webcam. This can get irritating, but eventually a kernel release might fix an issue on its own, so I guess it is an ok, if not completely lossless tradeoff.

6. Upgrading to the newest version of Ubuntu: Don’t do it right away. Always give a new version at least two months in regular use before you decide to upgrade. I have tried to upgrade for 3 releases now, in the first two weeks of availability for the upgrade. Each time, there has been a major failure, mostly in the area of graphics and sound. If your release is stable, there is no reason to upgrade right away, other than a few minor changes in speed and stability. You forfeit these if you upgrade on the first day of a new release. You have been warned.

Got Help?:

7. You can Google it: If you haven’t googled it, do not trounce into a forum and ask the question. People are nice, but they really can’t stand laziness. If you have searched, and can’t find it, it may be a more advanced question that really needs more expert analysis.

Here’s the search formula that reaps the best rewards for me: [manufacturer] [model] [problem] [ubuntu distribution]…(e.g. sony vaio webcam installation hardy). You can vary this formula a little bit, as sometimes it takes a few searches to get the hang of it. The one thing that you should not change is having your version of the distribution in the search. The reason is that fixes, and places where applications install can be different depending on the version you are using. This will ensure that you receive the best solution possible.

8. The Forums: Most of the time, Googling the problem will send you to the Ubuntu forums. Get a user name, log in, and be respectful. Be sure you try everything they tell you to before griping that it won’t work. The help and advice is free, and usually very helpful in nature.

9. Launchpad: This is a bug reporting service that Ubuntu users use to get bugs and various other problems fixed. You can reach the project at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu . Once you get there, click on report a bug, and follow the instructions. Be sure the problem has not been reported already, as they will ask. Provide as much information about the incident as possible. They will keep you posted on the progress as far as the problem being resolved, and assign a priority rating based on the severity of the problem. I’ve had to use it 2 or 3 times. Even the minor problems have been resolved in 2-3 weeks.

10. Don’t Be Afraid To Break It

This is the most important rule. This ain’t your Granny’s china. Stuff will break, you will be the one to break it. You will also be the one fixing it, along with your friend Google. Be patient, be persistent, and walk away for a bit if the solution just won’t come. Vindication will come, and when the fix is done properly, or you changed a variable that caused performance to increase, there will a mountaintop rush. Chances are, your significant other won’t care, but that won’t matter. Feel free to prance around in your boxers, and act like you just won the Nobel Prize.

11. Everything in Windows can be replaced with Open Source software: Really, it can. It takes a little time to find it, but when you do, a whole new world will open up. You’ll start to see how things work better than you expected. Things will play that would not on Windows, you’ll be able to open every attachment you ever wanted to. Productivity will increase, thereby giving you more time to make your system work faster, and work on your own open source program.

I can’t include everything I’ve learned over the past two years here. There are some other articles that I have written on software packages, and the pros and cons of each. Just google my name and iSnare to get a full list of what I have written on the subject. In conclusion, have fun with Ubuntu, share your knowledge with others, and fear God. Seriously.

That’s all the advice I have for you.

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I got my hands on Thinkpad T400s with a intel gfx and a SSD, grabbed the latest Ubuntu Karmic and tried it out. The major 3D problems on intel gfx seems to be fixed for good.

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About Author

Kurt Hartman has been using Linux as his primary operating system for the past 2 years, and has loved (almost) every minute of it. He uses it regularly in his role as Head of Employee Training for Mobile Fleet Service. They sell Titan Tires in addition to several other brands, including Michelin, Bridgestone, and Goodyear. If you enjoyed this article, please search for Kurt over on iSnare, or read his blog at http://www.buybigtires.com .

As a business consultant, web designer and photographer my technical know-how around doing system administration on my Microsoft desktop is limited and sometimes I do require the assistant of my computer engineering son to get it right. In a Microsoft Environment, keeping updated with respect to potential security breaches and patches is a constant vigil. The rigor of keeping current with OS updates, Norton updates and Spyware updates is time consuming. Valuable business hours each week are spend and lost on this task of self-administration dictated by the Microsoft Operating Environment.

So with the purchase of an IBM T40 (a tough notebook), increasing system administration time was not an option. This alone forced an serious consideration of Linux as an alternative operating environment. That was five years ago. Now an established Linux user, I can clearly profess the capabilities and benefits of Linux for small and large businesses, especially, when it comes to notebook deployment.

What Linux variant is best for small business and notebook deployment in your company?

As a small and medium business development manager with Sun Microsystems, exposure to Linux and the debate around its viability was a daily event. Questioning and challenging the virtues of Open Source (FREE) Linux versus Licensed Linux versions like Red Hat and Novell SuSE continues to this day . After years of personal use of Open Source (Free) Linux, I can never go back to running the Microsoft Operating Environment on my notebook. And once you can get Linux versions of Quick books, Quick Tax and Picasa (now available on Linux), there is no reason to stay in that perpetual administrative nightmare world of Microsoft.

Having successfully deployed two Open Source Linux variants on my IBM T40 notebook over the last 5 years, a compelling comparison can be made between Fedora and Ubuntu. Fedora, the Open Source version of Red Hat, required the installation expertise of some Linux gurus from Belleville Ontario. It worked fine, but required some Linux ninja system administration every 6-9 months. Administration items applied during these visits included upgrades to Open Office (the open source version of Star Office), Linux OS fixes and new peripheral drivers. This, again, turned out to be a drain on my scarce time for doing real business.

Now the Linux called Ubuntu is installed on my notebook. Ubuntu by Canonical is a full Open Source Linux based on Debian Linux. Ubuntu is now available on Dell systems and Federal Governments are adding this Linux operating environment to their list of standard available OS’s for all desktop and notebook computers.

Right out of the gate, Ubuntu was simple to install. You could even bring down a trial copy to experience exactly how it would behave on your notebook before downloading and committing the Ubuntu OS environment to your machine. But the best part is that Ubuntu continuously keeps on top of OS and all related application software updates. Ubuntu has an Update Manager that magically appears in desktop tool bar. And with a simple click (and password) you are kept current on the latest versions of Ubuntu patches, any Linux application software you have installed from Canonical and Open Office upgrades.

With Linux rebooting your machine after an update is nearly non-existent.

Oh, as an added treat with Ubuntu, Ubuntu boots up on your machine in less than a minute. I still go get a coffee when my Microsoft desktop is booting up. An additional benefit of Ubuntu: there is no requirement for installing ant-virus and anti-spyware software. Ubuntu inherently repels these vial scourges of the internet.

With Ubuntu your system administration life will become simple and painless. You can spend more quality business hours selling and marketing.

Want to cut hidden costs in your organization that manifest themselves as Microsoft self-administration by your end users?

Ubuntu is a must for you or your IT folks to consider. Seriously consider, test and deploy.

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Desktop Effects on UBUNTU 8.04, i think those effects are more advanced and cool than the ones you can get on Mac Apple. The way to have a cool desktop. TO GET ALL THOSE EFFECTS, INSTALL ComipizConfig Settings Manager, THEN, FROM ITS CONTROL PANEL, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO ACTIVATE AND SELECT THE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS OF EVERY EFFECT.

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About Author

Carl Chesal is a business and channel development consultant, trainer, internet marketer and professional photographer. He operates BizFare Enterprise Inc, providing business development, marketing, and internet marketing services. Bizfare Enterprise also operates a number of secure on-line shopping sites.