One of my biggest pet peeves with an all linux environment is the serious lack of video editing software.  I had tried Kino, and Cinelerra but Kino was only good to cap vid from my camera, not edit it.  And Cinelerra while somewhat over my head didn't seem happy to me.

I used vlc or mplayer to do quick cuts but that was a pain.

Well finally someone stepped up and delivered.  Pitivi has gotten a HUGE overhaul thanks to some cash and development infusion and is now a very easy to use (and functional) editor/converter.

Give it a spin.  In Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty) create a pitivi PPA sources list:

vi /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pitivi.list

Add these lines to the empty file:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/gstreamer-developers/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/gstreamer-developers/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Then install via apt, aptitude, synaptic etc.  Ex:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install pitivi

And enjoy!

UPDATE 2009-06-11:  Not confirmed but the PPA structure has changed so I have updated the location of the repos.  I have not tested to see if the packages are sane or not.  Hopefully someone will be able to confirm. Bogdan (and another user) have confirmed that the PPA is back online and functional. Please use the updated PPA (instructions below have been updated).  THANKS Bogdan!!!

UPDATE 2009-06-10: This method currently doesn't work.The PPA maintainer is working on fixing the packages.

UPDATE 2009-04-25: Wow!  I wasn't expecting this much of a response to this article!  I'll try to clean it up as some of the commenters have had issues with the first couple of steps.  Hope that helps!  Also just want to clarify again that I'm not the maintainer of the PPA.  I am simply a messenger showing you how to use it... :)

I recently upgraded to the latest release of Ubuntu (due out at the end of April) and found that they had replaced Amarok 1.4 with the incredibly nasty Amarok 2. I spent a day messing with Amarok2 trying to get it to behave but it just wouldn't. Not to mention the CPU spikes it was causing, so I trashed it.

I tried other media players but after 3 - 4 years of using Amarok I've been spoiled and have come to rely on certain features no other player has.

So today I hunted down a way to install Amarok 1.4 in Jaunty and found this PPA

Here are the steps I took:

Add the PPA to your sources by creating a new file for the Amarok PPA:

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list.d/amarok.list

Then in that new file add the following two lines:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/bogdanb/amarok14/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/bogdanb/amarok14/ubuntu jaunty main

Add the key for the PPA:

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com \
0x1d7e9dd033e89ba781e32a24b9f1c432ae74ae63

Now update your sources, remove Amarok2 and install Amarok1.4:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get remove amarok
sudo apt-get install amarok14

And enjoy the best media player ever made!

UPDATE: Wine 1.0+ works great with this issue. All the menu’s seem to work.

I had a requirement to convert a desktop to GNU/Linux but still provide access to the MLXchange web site. I found this link which helped but I have some improvements on it.

Using Ubuntu it’s as easy as:

sudo apt-get install wine

Then download and install ies4linux or ie4osx and install it as per the instructions on the respective sites.

Then grab the latest version of mfc42.dll (6.2.4131.0) and place that in ~/.ies4linux/ie6/drive_c/windows/system and ~/.ies4linux/ie6/drive_c/windows/system32 overwriting the existing versions. I found this helps with speed.

Then launch ie6 and you will have access to the MLX. The only thing I have noticed is that the soft dropdowns do not work (the ones controlled by ActiveX). So you will need to enter some info manually. However this is a minor inconvenience and not a show stopper. Everything else seems to work. I will update if I find more problems.

I have created my first .deb package for Geany 0.13 for Gutsy. I place no guarantee it will work but it worked on a couple of my Gutsy systems.

I may have made some mistakes in packaging. If you find any I would appreciate some feedback as I would like to learn.

geany_0.13-1~gutsy1_i386.deb