Video editing, Open Source, and Community

This year my job kept me away from the developing cycle of MX Linux 17.  When I realized, the new release was already available.

I installed it in my ThinkPenguin laptop because the latest Ubuntu did not play nicely with it.  To me, that was quite a shock since that laptop went from Yakkety Yak to Zeisty Zapus without problems, but Artful Aarvark was another story.

MX-17 ran almost perfectly.  The only problem I saw was OpenShot; when trying to render animated titles, the video editor kept asking for a blender version 2.62 or up.  That was a requirement that my system met (it has 2.78a), but Openshot threw the obnoxious "No frame was found in the output from Blender" error.

I tried several fixes from different forums to no avail.  Then, I asked for help in MX forums, but nobody seemed to have a solution.

Then, I went to the page of OpenShot and downloaded an appimage of Openshot 2.4.1.   It worked flawlessly!

Thus, I went to MX forums and told them about Openshot 2.4.1, hoping to help other people in the future.

Ah, but I had forgotten the community sense that distinguishes Linux and particularly MX users and developers.  One of the lead developers asked me "Do you want to place a package request for Openshot 2.4.1?"

I did it and in about a day, the great packaging team had the new version of the video editor!  I downloaded it from the repos and it does everything without any problem.

It's great to see how people help each other in the community of free software.

Thanks a lot!

One More Year Using Linux

Year 2014 is almost over...and I used Linux every single day of it.  I used it for work, to get things done.  I also used it for leisure, to play games or to watch movies or listen to music.  I even made lots of memes to make fun of myself, err, to enjoy myself!  :P

I learned new things, of course.  But I am still far from calling myself a Linux guru or power user.  I haven't become a master of the CLI, either, but I feel much happier when I see that I am learning how my systems work.  In addition, little by little, I get Linux to do what I want (instead of only doing what the OS wants, as it is the case of other Operating Systems!).

Am I happy with Linux?  Yes.
Satisfied?  You bet.
Do I feel free?  Absolutely.
Do I feel part of a community?  Yes.  Actually, I'm part of several.  My contributions may not be big or great, but I'm happy to hear developers always appreciate them.

As I see it, I'll be using Linux next year, too!  :)

December Starts!

...and it seems I just compiled a package from source for the first time.

I had been having problems with Wine (not the drink!) on Pisi Linux.  Apparently, I was not the only one.  Fortunately, a forum member by the name of poyraz76 kindly posted a solution on the forum.  I tried it and boy!  I had no idea what was going on!

The process took quite a long time, but at the end Wine started running the programs it did not run before (I especially needed JWPCe and Kanji Gold.)

I'm glad it worked.  Things are falling into place.  Now I have to do my homework and learn in more detail what happened. 

Also, I have a new challenge: teaching my mother how to create memes!

Good News: Pardus Still Breathes!

I recently visited Pardus Life, a blog dedicated to the fine Linux distro called Pardus. There have been rumors of Pardus dying and some in Turkey have been hiding in the darkness and, acting as poachers, they have tried to kill this big cat. Fortunately its community is not letting the big cat/linux distro fade away into extinction. Apparently, the community has managed to keep a little Pardus cub alive. Its name is Anka, and this leopard cub is beginning to walk into its early testing process. People at Pardus Life are optimistic. Anka brings a ray of hope to users of a Linux distro that was always characterized by its elegance and great functionality. May you grow big and strong, little Anka!

MEPIS 11 Is Finally Here!

This is a quick post to say that the final version of MEPIS 11 has been officially announced!

That was a long wait, but it was definitely worth the patience!

I don't have a MEPIS 11 DVD because I have been running MEPIS 11 for some time now (I installed one of the betas and upgraded progressively until final), so I'll have to burn one soon.

Now, if I had to mention "negative" aspects, I guess I'd say:

1. Lack of multilingual options (although you can easily install locales from the repositories)

2. Increase in the size of the iso: now MEPIS comes as a live DVD.

That's all in my case. MEPIS has fulfilled all its promises and more on the hardware I have and the other PCs I've managed to test it on.

What do I like best of MEPIS 11?

This may sound weird (especially to some Windows readers), but what I like best of this release is that it let me get involved a bit more with the community and feel for myself the human side of Linux. During the testing stages, my bug reports and suggestions were taken seriously. In fact, all the issues I reported are gone. I was also able to help other users who experienced the same issues I had during the test stages with my temporary workarounds. Nothing fancy there, just little things that I tried and seemed to work, so I shared them and worked for the other people.

Along with that, the community gave me the chance to contribute with the very little aspects I was capable of. No, I'm not a Linux guru (and judging by my learning rate I'll never be,) so my modest contributions were what a newbie could do. Still, the more seasoned members let me feel their appreciation and encouraged me to keep helping. Boy, I'm thankful for that!

As Mechatotoro said when he wrote about the faces behind the distros, the human interaction of Linux is powerful. It is indeed refreshing to be treated as a human being and not as a number in a sales figure!

A Mepis User Rooting for Mageia...WHY NOT?

Today I read something very good: Mageia Alpha 1 will be ready for January, 2011!!!

At this point some users of other distros may be thinking "so what? My distro is much better anyway!"

Others might be secretly grinning while thinking "Look! A Mepis user rooting for Mageia!" "It seems that this guy is coming from the moons of Coockoo-land or Mepis is not such a good distro after all!"

Neither is true. Well, maybe I'm a bit crazy indeed...some colleagues say it is a vital requirement for my job! :P

But that has nothing to do with my support to Mageia, or the fact that I am learning to use Mandriva, or that my main OS is Mepis.

To me, the crazy ones are those who push only to favor their distro. That "MY distro is THE distro" mentality, in conjunction with a constant mudding of all the other distros is, in my honest opinion, what keeps many away from Linux.



True, I have my favorite distros: Mepis, Mandriva, Pardus, Antix...

Also, some Linux flavors out there don't please me much. But the fact that I dislike them does not mean those distributions or their communities are useless. If there are 2 people following them, that means those distros have something to offer. Is that so hard to understand? Still, some Linux fans, or better said, Distro Trolls, don't seem to understand it.

True, something happened among the ranks of Mandriva and that led to the birth of Mageia. Should we then be forced to choose one or the other? Should we, users of other distros, throw mud at both of them so that our distro may have less competition?

I have a question. Who are we competing against? Are we competing against someone? So, is choosing free software the equivalent of entering a giant arena?

This is not right. I don't even see free software as the competition against Microsoft or Apple. Why? Because Open Source belongs to a different model. Open Source is about learning, sharing and improving. The greedy ideology of the traditional business model and its compulsive "kill or be killed" philosophy do not fit well in Open Source mentality.

Let Microsoft and Apple do the competition against each other. Also, let them keep directing lots of resources trying to kill Free Software. So far, they haven't been successful in spite of all their money. They are wasting money trying to kill an idea...an idea that grows slowly, but that keeps growing thanks--paradoxically--to their abusive business practices.

Instead of competing against them --or against ourselves-- let's invest our time more wisely: let's support each other...let's root together for Mageia!!!

Happy Birthday, MEPIS LINUX!

Today, Mepis is celebrating its 8th anniversary!

The members of the community are very happy and thankful to Warren Woodford, the developer of Mepis.

Even though I am quite new to Linux and to Mepis (I entered both worlds at the same time), I could feel the warm welcome that they gave me at Mepis community.

For those who don't know, although Mepis made great innovations to Linux in the past, it is a little known distro nowadays. It even faced criticism in the past "for making Linux too simple" coming from UBUNTU users!

Although Mepis doesn't get much press, I personally find it very stable and easy to use. Actually, that's why I chose it for my migration.

Now I am testing Mepis 11 Alpha 2...a nice way to celebrate the birthday of my favorite distro!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MEPIS!!

EDIT: I haven't finished playing with Alpha 2 and Alpha 3 is already available! Gotta download that one, then...

Numbers and the Death of Desktop Linux

The news is clear...according to the numbers, desktop Linux is dead.

It is dead because after years of being stuck at 1% of market share, it started to shrink. Now, Linux dropped to 0.8%.

Yes, the dream is over...Linux desktop is DEAD!

Still, some Linux advocates tried to defend their beloved, but dead penguin. They said that Linux is not dead because server Linux and super computing Linux is alive and well (actually, it is Windows the one who is cold as a meatloaf there).

However, that reasoning is faulty because supercomputing and server computing are completely different from desktop computing. Remember, the premise here is that DESKTOP LINUX is dead. Period. Sometimes the truth hurts, yes.

You just have to go to the nearest mainstream computer store and count how many computers sold there come with Linux preinstalled...

WAIT A MINUTE!!! This way of thinking is fallacious, too. It is as fallacious as counting servers to say that desktop Linux is alive!

We are talking about DESKTOP LINUX, remember? What does that mean? Well, that is pretty self-explanatory: it means desktop computers that RUN Linux. We are not talking about sales figures here. We are talking about desktop computers. Sales figures are sales figures; desktop computers are desktop computers. These are different concepts as the realities they embody.

You may say that sold computers with Linux preloaded are almost inexistent and you may be right. But that does not mean that desktop computers running linux are inexistent. That's as false as saying that pirated Windows copies that can be downloaded are an urban legend because no sales figures reflect their existence. Are you reading this from an inexistent pirated Windows computer, by any chance? Well, I wrote this from an inexistent Linux computer! How about that?

Well, what about the information taken from monitoring sites online? We have two problems there: how can we tell if those computers online represent faithfully our reality? You may go to the park and count all the pigeons there and say that the stained ones are the majority, but you cannot say that they account for all the pigeons in the world, can you? The other problem is worse: online traffic depends on the content of the site. Taking the numbers of those sites as true would in turn enable me to say that most computers in the world run Linux (most of my visitors use a Linux computer...maybe because this blog is about Linux? Nahh!)

Back to the market, people usually think that it is the only true reality. What about those who have no money to be part of the market? They do exist, in case you didn't know, and they are not dead, either. They struggle every single day to beat their harsh reality. Ganesh Prasad stated that the market is now the politically correct way to solve all problems. But the market, as we have seen, doesn't recognise the existence of those who have nothing to offer as suppliers and nothing to pay as consumers. They are invisible people. They may be invisible to the market, but they do exist and are millions.

Well, it's pretty much the same case with Linux. It may be invisible to the market (although those figures are still questionable), but even so, being invisible to one reality does not mean being dead in all the others. How many people buy a Windows computer (because they have no option,as it is in my country) and then wipe that OS away to replace it with Linux? That counts as a Windows computer to the market, sure...but we are talking about desktop computers, not about sales. What OS does the computer run? If it is a desktop computer and runs Linux, what is it, then? Not hard to tell, huh?

Again, the truth does hurt sometimes.