Linuxcrypt.net

I have started another podcast with fellow Ubuntu LoCo team member Nick (boredandblogging). We cranked out the first show yesterday. We do a live stream as well as record the video and audio. The goal for the podcast is to have a frequent release of news, events, how tos, interviews and commentary on all things Ubuntu.

For those who watch and like the linuxcrypt podcasts, don’t worry, we will resume shows starting next week. Joel and Eric have been on vacation so we haven’t put a show out for a couple weeks.

For more information on the new “Ubuntu Podcast” series, please bookmark the link below, and make sure to add the RSS to your readers. We welcome comments and suggestions, as well as live interactive feedback in our chat channel as we are streaming.

http://ubuntupodcast.net

XBMC media center is a free cross-platform media-player jukebox and entertainment hub. XBMC is open source (GPL) software available for Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows operating-system, and the Xbox game-console. XBMC can play a very complete spectrum of of multimedia formats, and featuring playlist, audio visualizations, slideshow, and weather forecast functions, together with a multitude of third-party plugins. Originally developed as XBMP (XBox Media Player) for the first-generation Xbox game console in 2002, XBMC has eventually become a complete graphical user interface replacement for the original Xbox Dashboard, and it is currently also being ported to run natively under Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows operating-system. This, The XBMC Project is also known as “XBMC Media Center” or simply “XBMC”).

Team-XBMC is always looking for talented developers to help with this effort.

Official XBMC software application names:

• XBMC for Linux
• XBMC for Mac
• XBMC for Windows
• XBMC for Xbox

XBMC en Ubuntu 8.04 from MuyComputer on Vimeo.

So UDS is taking this week in Prague. For those who aren’t familiar with what UDS is, it’s a working summit for developers to discuss, and develop existing and new applications to further the development of Ubuntu. Below are some video podcasts from the event.

Travis Watkins, Jono Bacon, James Westby, and others have been conducting interviews and posting them on the yourtube channel. Since there doesn’t seem to be any other resources available for streaming /flickr stream, this is the best we have thus far. This is an open invitation for Canonical to feel free to fly me out anytime to do photo / video / streaming media for the events

This episode Josh, Joel, and Eric cover some recent open source applications, as well as discuss new methods to stream media.

I greatly apologize that the audio .mp3 file is not available for this cast. We record the audio as a separate stream, and the HDDD failed so we only have the video portion available this time.

Also available on our Main Podcast Page

Linuxcrypt.net Vidcast Episdoe #009 from linuxcrypt on Vimeo.

First off, I want to thank Dan Trevino from the Florida LoCo team for helping me get this working. I was beginning to rip my hair out and cry like a little baby, (F this linux crap, I’m buying a mac) moment. So for a long time I have used “rippedwire” to rip my “legally” purchased DVD’s out to my network so I can stream them. If you haven’t heard of rippedwire, RippedWire is a graphical front end to HandBrake, the open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4 converter.

It works just fine on Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon 7.10. I was having mono dependency errors however installing it on Hardy Heron 8.04 LTS release. Below are the instructions for installing this (BAMF) application.

First, download rippedwire DEB package to your home directory.

$ sudo apt-get install mono-mcs

$ sudo apt-get install mono-2.0-devel gtk-sharp2

$ cd to your home directory of where the deb package is i.e. cd /home/username

$ sudo dpkg -i –force-overwrite –ignore-depends=mono –ignore-depends=mono-devel handbrakegtk_1.0.1_i386.deb

**UPDATED Instructions

The instructions should be modified to be:
1. sudo apt-get install mono-mcs mono-2.0-devel gtk-sharp2
2. sudo dpkg -i monofix_1.0_all.deb
3. sudo dpkg -i handbrakegtk_1.0.1_i386.deb

Download the monofix package here 

I should also point out… if you’ve already installed with the ‘old’ instructions you can ‘fix’ your system by doing:
1. sudo apt-get install -f
This will remove handbrakegtk
2. sudo dpkg -i monofix_1.0_all.deb
3. sudo dpkg -i handbrakegtk_1.0.1_i386.deb
Ok, now you are ready to party like a rockstar.

Go to Applications > Sound & Video> HandBrakeGTK

Load a DVD, you click on the source button, select your movie and desired settings, and rip away, like you see below as I’m ripping Snatch!

Thanks again Dan !

This how to will show you how to install the ATI driver and Compiz Fusion. It will demonstrate as well enabling the desktop cube. This does not use the xgl server.

Ubuntu – How To Install ATI + Compiz Fusion from linuxcrypt on Vimeo.

So one thing I have recently been complaining about is how running Ubuntu 7.10 on my HP nc6400 laptop tends to frustrate me because of the power consumption issues I have been having. The system runs hot, the an is always blowing hard, and the battery is only lasting for about an hour and 5 minutes.

When I run Windows XP SP2 PRO on it, I tend to get about 2 hours and 15 minutes, and it stays very cool. I have run the same tasks with both operating systems from surfing the web, ripping movies, running multiple applications and compiling. So I was stoked to find this cool little application called “PowerTop” today.

PowerTOP has these four basic goals:

• Show how well your system is using the various hardware power-saving features
• Show you the culprit software components that are preventing optimal usage of your hardware power savings
• Help Linux developers test their application and achieve optimal behavior
• Provide you with tuning suggestions to achieve low power consumption

I hope this helps you determine what applications or procceses are taking over your lappy.

You can download PowerTop here.

If you are running Ubuntu, you can install it by doing the following:

$sudo apt-get install subversion

$svn checkout http://powertop.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ powertop

cheers,

~j

If you are like me, you heavily rely upon your gmail. Why would you ever want to back it up? Suppose you needed some sort of information in an offline mode, or perhaps you just don’t want certain data hosted with gmail? For whatever reason, I just think it’s kind of a cool idea. I like it for keeping a copy of my data on hand so I can manipulate it however I like. I can easily find any piece of data without having to use the gmail web filter options.

Pyropus Technology has developed “getmail” which is available under the GPL license. Feel free to download it and try it out.

Once again, Codeweavers delivers a product that owns. I have been using the Crossover Office product for the past coupe years, and it keeps getting better and better with every release. Well I just got an email that introduced the “Gaming” product they have released for Linux and Mac. Can you say “bad ass mofo”? Below is a list of supported games:

• World of Warcraft
• EVE Online
• Guild Wars
• Prey
• Steam Games, including:
  • Half-Life 2
  • Team Fortress 2
  • Counterstrike
  • Counterstrike: Source
  • Civilization IV
  • Peggle Extreme
  • Call of Duty 2
  • Max Payne 2
  • Grand Theft Auto 2

  I will be giving this a try this week and posting the outocome, but if it’s anything like their office product, then I will be thoroughly impressed. Sure you can use Wine of ocourse, but their application has a great interface, and management. You can great a different wine bottle for each instance of every application to make it easier to manage. Here is a screenshot fo the installer for games:

Definitely try it out if you like the latest apps. They have a trial, and it’s a great project to support.

cheers,

~j

Screenlets is a pretty cool little widgets application. It allows you have a similar interface which is available in Mac OSX. If you are running Ubuntu, there is a deb package available for it here.

Below is a screenshot of some it’s uses, and you also have more widgets you can download and use. It’s more of an eye candy utility than a functionality tool for me. But who doesn’t like eye candy?

cheers,

~j