Linux and free software

[Daisensei]

It seems that Windows is the most used O. S. by members of this forums. Nevertheless, one can find few people, including me, whom uses Linux. For them I'm opening a topic to share some knowledges, hints and tips about Linux and other free softwares. Particularly infos concerning to our SPC/KNT works is welcome.
In the computer at my home, I use:
- distro: Debian GNU/Linux, testing ("etch") release;
- kernel: 2.6.8 (I can't compile Lucent Winmodem driver for newer kernels);
- desktop: Gnome 2.10.2.
For the tasks related to SPC/KNT I use regularly the following softwares:
- OpenOffice.org office suite (with support for Brazilian Portuguese and Japanese);
- Gedit (simple text editor, with support for Brazilian Portuguese and Japanese);
- Galeon (web browser based in Mozilla's Gecko HTML rendering engine);
- Gimp 2.2 (image editor, to work with screen caps, for example);
- Mplayer/Mencoder (player and encoder of several video/audio formats);
- Audacity (sound editor);
- VCDImager (VCD authoring program), cdrdao/cdrecord/xcdroast (CD burners).
I adopt two procedures to capture an episode screen, I use PrntScreen keypress on my desktop, or dump the video output of Mplayer as JPEG files.

[Valkyrie]

hooray for Gimp! Gimp is the ultimate free photo editor... free by legal means 
Mplayer is alright. BSplayer and ZoomPlayer I think are much better, but whatever floats your boat.

[Blackcat]

"¡Congratulacions shinji!" Evangelion

I still use windows 98SE, but I plan to use Linux if I buy a new PC next year, cause I really hate XP. This PC is 7 years old and had some upgrades, but next year is going to be retired from the active servive and jjoin the "MP3 player and OLD Games service".

[Threaux]

I use a Debian based Linux on all my systems.(Libranet or Gentoo)  I dual boot windows-linux on my gaming/multimedia PC and laptop as well because they just don't release enough games for linux.  Libranet is a great free distro of debian and so is gentoo.  Gentoo has a steep learning curve and  I  only use it because I know my way around.  The "emerge --sync"  command is great.

[Daisensei]

hooray for Gimp! Gimp is the ultimate free photo editor... free by legal means 
Mplayer is alright. BSplayer and ZoomPlayer I think are much better, but whatever floats your boat.

I didn`t know about BSplayer and ZoomPlayer, I`ll try these player when find them. Have you their homepages? Thanks for this tip.
Besides, Mencoder (the encoder program of Mplayer) is a good program, although the lack of GUI. I use it to encode MPEG-1 video files which is suitable to VCD format (sadly I can`t afford a DVD burner).

[Valkyrie]

Here's the link for zoom player: http://www.inmatrix.com/zplayer/
and bsplayer: http://bsplayer.com/
though I don't think they do encoding, just playback.

[Daisensei]

Here's the link for zoom player: http://www.inmatrix.com/zplayer/
and bsplayer: http://bsplayer.com/
though I don't think they do encoding, just playback.

I saw these links, but both programs is for Windows.  Perhaps you are thinking MPlayer as Micro$oft's Media Player. I am referring to the free software named MPlayer (not Media Player) used mainly in Linux and other Unix systems (there is a Windows version though). Here`s the link to the MPlayer: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/news.html.

[Valkyrie]

Yeah, I know it wasn't msofts, but I forgot those 2 were no linux friendly.

[Daisensei]

Then I'll still be using Mplayer/Mencoder. Thank you anyway, Valkyrie.
Now I'll show how to encode a video file to VCD format using cited program (prepare yourself to do tedious typing  ). In you favorite shell (in the MS world it's known as DOS Prompt) type the following:

mencoder -quiet -oac lavc -ovc lavc -of mpeg -mpegopts format=xvcd -vf scale=352:240,harddup \
-srate 44100 -af lavcresample=44100 -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg1video:keyint=18:vrc_buf_size=327:\
vrc_minrate=1152:vbitrate=1152:vrc_maxrate=1152:acodec=mp2:abitrate=224 -ofps 30000/1001 \
-o PutYourOutputFileNameHere.mpg PutYourInputFileNameHere.avi

Phew! 

[Blackcat]

Ok, any player for Linux that supports *.ogm?

Or better, any program I can use to covert ogm to *.avi?

[Daisensei]

Ok, any player for Linux that supports *.ogm?

Yes, Mplayer. 

Or better, any program I can use to covert ogm to *.avi?

Yes, Mencoder. 
I'm not  kidding, when I googled "ogm linux player" the Mplayer homepage was showed. Check its supported input formats at this link.
I also found some informations about OGM format in the Wikipedia.
That's all, since I have no OGM files I never tried to play or encode in such format.

[MTFox]

Has anyone tried Lindows? I think it is now known as Linspire, due to Bill Gates thinking the name was too close to windows. I read it is suppost to be based on Debian Linux with the capability to run windows software. Just curious about it, as I too still run Windows 98SE, and figure before too long Bill Gates will find a way to make it shut itself down due to non upgrade. And I don't think my pirated copies of photoshop 7, and DVD FAB will work on linux

http://www.linspire.com

[Guido64380]

well, all the computers at my school run an emulated version of windows from linux, so I'd guess that'd count. The best feature for them is that I can hit ctrl+alt+backspace and it reboots windows, even if it freezes, however anything saved on the C: drive is reverted to default

[adam808]

I think they gave up on most of that, instead trying for making Linux stuff easier to install. The WINE stuff is trying to make Win32 programs run in Linux. Hopefully in the future Direct3D will work better and some more games will be playable with WINE. I dream of the day I can play Uru in Linux.

[Blackcat]

I think emulating windows is lame, emulating DOS in the other hand…is cool.

[MTFox]

Wow, debian wasn't that easy to install. Finally got it on my network though with a lot of help from a friend with the app-get stuff Will be using it as a circlemud server, so I dont have to pay other people so much anymore Once I get more used to using it, and setting up accounts...ssh....sftp.... If anyone is interested in making a spc circlemud...... www.circlemud.org if you want any info on what a circlemud is   of course you would have to know how to code in C programming.

[Daisensei]

Installing Debian with dpkg or apt/apt-get can be very hard indeed, but you can use dselect as it provides more user friendly interface and cope with all dependencies automagically.
I don't know C programming, but installing CircleMUD doesn't requires that. Knowledge of how to compile C programs seems to be sufficient, tipically you must type make clean and make install or something like this.

[Daisensei]

I think emulating windows is lame, emulating DOS in the other hand…is cool.

How about emulating DOS to run Windows 3.1? 

[Blackcat]

I think emulating windows is lame, emulating DOS in the other hand…is cool.

How about emulating DOS to run Windows 3.1? 

Lame, Windows 3.1 games suck    

[Daisensei]

Not all games suck, see solitaire!  Just kidding! The best solitaire game I've seen was Klondike De Luxe III, for Comodore Amiga computer. Very cool! You can try it with UAE, an Amiga emulator.
Serious now, what DOS programs are you using in the emulator? I'm just curious.