Anyways, I have never done any podcasting/video creation using Linux. I did not know where to start off, so I started trying the programs one by one. The sound category is a winner, and audacity does all that I need really well.

The video part, is another story! I tried cinelerra, and it was way too complicated for me to use. I have the sneaky suspicion that it has a steep learning curve, but is a great tool. Only time will tell

I ended up using kdenlive to put all my videos together. I also used avidemux to edit some of the clips. It took me a while to understand how everything works, but I finally got a handle on it. Everything was fine and dandy till I tried exporting my video. The audio sync with the video was screwed up, right at the end. No matter what I did, it screwed up the video that I captured from my video camera. The frustrating part was that the preview window displayed the video correctly.

I finally googled around, and looked at a bug related to ntsc and audio sync problems on kdenlive. I changed that to PAL (who cares, we are doing digital video anyways!) and it exported correctly. Here is the obligatory youtube link!

http://www.robotgeek.org/articles/passport_tutorial/tutorial.html

Have a great new years, and hopefully this tutorial will help you when you travel

Then, things got better. I installed yellow dog linux. For the first time, I had Linux on my machine. It worked decently. I could browse on the internet. I could listen to music. Life was good. Then, rpm-hell caught up with me, and I moved to Debian.

Debian was very nice to use, once you set it up. And I did a lot of setting up. I would recompile my kernel so many times. It got to the point that I was ‘setting up’ my machine more than I was using it. Of course, it was not Debian’s fault as Debian is the Universal Operating System. For everyone, and for all architectures. However, it was not working out very well for me.

Then Ubuntu, came along. There was not much new learning to be done, as in the previous cases. See, cause Ubuntu was based on Debian and worked exactly the same way. And it was setup for mostly correctly. It did come with binary blobs for video cards, but that was a useful compromise. A stopgap arrangement, I thought.

The stopgap arrangement was necessary only till a free driver comes around to liberate us all. And in some cases, it did come. For example, the Broadcom drivers were reverse engineered.(though it still uses binary blobs). The Ralink wireless card come with a completely free wireless driver. I personally must have done a lot of sales for ralink, cause I recommended those cards to everyone I knew who was in the market to buy a wireless card.

It is going to be a long war to give you the right to much around with the hardware/software you paid for. It is not going to be an easy thing to do. And we were making progress, as mentioned in the previous paragraph.

However, I really like Ubuntu very much. It seemed like the right vehicle to fight the battle from. The community was good, and helpful. And for the first time, I felt like contributing to the Ubuntu community. And I think I did. I spent a lot of my free time on Ubuntu IRC channels, helping new users who were brave enough to install Linux. Once I even helped a nice lady in New Zealand on IRC to recover partitions on her son’s computer. The community grew by leaps and bounds, just because Ubuntu was easier to use. Every release was better, because it was better to use. And a bit more free to use.

Dapper came out, and it was the best Linux distro I’ve used. Everything worked. Great tools like network-manager were available. Good documentation. Life was good.

Then, I heard about the Accelerated-X Spec

I have no issue with people choosing to install binary drivers. That is their choice. Heck, I even maintain EasyUbuntu (though I dont use any non-free software on my home machine). The key point is people choosing what they want to get.

I am a card carrying Ubuntu user and a member of the community. I will fight this issue from within, take up the issue with the Community Council. But, if Ubuntu takes this step towards binary drivers by default, I would be left with no choice, but to not use Ubuntu.

Linux did not get to where it is by compromising on its principles. Well, I am still to confirm if this is all true and is going to happen for sure, I am going to stop using Ubuntu (or atleast not upgrade). More on this later.

Read Burgundavia here .

Anyways, we released a beta on April 25th. Since then, we have about 3237 downloads in April, and 4580 downloads in May! A total of 7817 (and counting) downloads in 17 days!

Makes you feel nice, doesn’t it

BTW, this beta of EasyUbuntu supports Breezy/Dapper, Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu and X86/PowerPC/Amd64 architectures. Go on, download away!

Conky is running in the background. Neat app. Also notice that I have it tell the weather too, right there!

The way I have them configured is to give me maximum width and height when launched, by using Devil’s Pie! I have stopped using x-chat after i configured my irssi properly

The first screenshot is from Breezy, the second when i was still using Hoary.

More details on my setup later. If you want any of my config files,leave a comment with your email.

First thing I did is put Firefox on it, got Filezilla. Then I put Openoffice 2.0 beta on it. Installation was a snap. Finished in less than 2 minutes.

Firstly, interface…awesome work. More intuitive than 1.1, looks and feels like Microsoft Office (yeah, get people using Office to move to Word, for their own good)

But you can’t beat this feature… Go to Tools, Options, Load and Save -> MS Office, and enable check boxes for compatibility to save in MS Office formats.
Like conversion of Math Formulas converted to MathType (a.k.a Equation Editor). My professor asked me to type something up. And I did in OpenOffice.org, saved it as an .doc, and it opened perfectly, flawlessly in Word, with equations, diagrams made in OpenOffice draw open flawlessly in Word, Powerpoint etc.

I am just waiting for the Mac OS X port to become more active. Too bad I dunno much of C++/Java and also don’t have loads of time! Maybe later.

Here is what the FSF site says about the issue.

The fundamental difference between the two movements is in their values, their ways of looking at the world. For the Open Source movement, the issue of whether software should be open source is a practical question, not an ethical one. As one person put it, “Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement.” For the Open Source movement, non-free software is a suboptimal solution. For the Free Software movement, non-free software is a social problem and free software is the solution.

Though both are different, for all practical purposes, both are same. The basic difference is not in the licenses (though they may vary), but that the term open-source is open to more ambiguity.

Still, doesn’t affect me in any way…from now I shall use the software which are free/and open source

Thanks again to the poster who lemme know.

What does open source mean? For a detailed explanation, go to the Free Software Foundation site.

In a nutshell, it means that you have the source code of the program which you plan to use. You have the freedom to change whatever you want in the program (by changing the code!) , and if you want to redistribute the program, you must also give out the source code to the program.

One of the common misconceptions about Open Source is the you give away your software for free.

One important note is Open Source Software is “Free as in freedom” and not “free as in beer”,though, most Open Source software is free.You can sell whatever you code. The only condition is you must make the source code available at the same price or less.(imagine..double the money!). This is according to GPL, and there are other licenses with variations (berkeley has one).

Now that we have our fundas clear,the scenario is:
Programmers from all over the world come together, code a beautiful application, try to eliminate all the bugs and then, give it away for free. People (loads of them) + unpaid for the work they do. Ah…this sounds similiar…aaaaaaaaaaw…reminds me of something..Communism!

Well, this was what struck me when i looked at this scenario superficially.
Now, let me remind you the basics of communism, an evil which still exists in the world today. Communism says, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

So, in this context, this applied would be:

You need free bug-free software, and you don’t have the ability to write it. So, you force some one capable enough of writing the software, and then don’t pay him.The programmer doesn’t have the choice of accepting your proposal or not, he has to code the application you need. He has to code it for you, whether he likes it or not.

And this is what happens in Open-Source:

You make a proposal. If someguy likes it, he picks up and develops it, because he has some selfish interest in accepting your proposal.When he loses interest,he puts it up on the internet for someone to pickup. If someone else likes it, he picks it up and codes it, till it becomes a big application. Given that millions of programmers from all around the world look at this, chances are good that someone likes the idea and codes it.

That’s about it. It all boils down to choice. In communism, you don’t have a choice. Open source, it’s all about the choice