The coolness factor of Linux
Can your Windows Vista PC do the cool things in the video below? How many bucks do you have to shell out to get something close to this on Windows? Can it do these wonderful things out of the box?
The answer’s no. I took the time to produce a small showcase of what modern Linux is capable of. This is, honestly, my typical (non-work) computing session, in 90 seconds. The cool Linux things you’re about to see will leave you drooling:
And here’s the link to the better-quality version (DivX codec needed to view).
What’s on the video
This video showcases a demo of my typical computing session (really!). The video makes my computer looks fast; it’s not (see below). It’s actually “fast-forwarded” because the computer can’t capture 10 frames per second. However, even with all apps open simultaneously, it’s perfectly usable.
The sidebar on the video illustrates what’s being showcased at each moment:
- Window management and effects are provided by Beryl.
- The Matrix effect is simply the GLMatrix screensaver that comes with Linux xscreensaver, colorkeyed in real time onto the screen with xwinwrap.
- The applications are:
- Amarok: the best music player ever
- KDissert: a fabulous dissertation writer and mind mapper
- Akregator: I’ve never had to go to a single Web site to read news again
- The universal sidebar in KDE
- Konqueror, in Web browser mode
- Kopete: my favorite multi-system chat application
- KTorrent: how else did you think I get all the music on my library?
- MPlayer: it’s playing snips from an episode of Prison Break
- KSysGuard: it lets me keep an eye on Rudd-O.com’s health at all times
- xvidcap: it makes a cameo appearance during the first seconds of the video
The artwork on the top of the cube was created with Inkscape.
And the music is a short edit I made of The world is mine (F*** me I’m famous remix) by David Guetta, available in the album RTL 2 I love house, disc 1. I used Ardour to produce this edit.
The making of The coolness factor of Linux
All in all, this video took about 4 hours to make, including the time to install and set the required software up. Here’s the step-by-step lowdown:
- Used xvidcap to record the video at 10 frames per second into an MPEG file.
- Used Kino to find out a suitable end frame for the video. That way I can encode only from the start to a certain frame.
- Used mencoder to scale and encode the MPEG movie into a DivX AVI file. This is the command line:
mencoder -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=1000:mbd=2:v4mv:autoaspect test-0000.mpeg -o youtube.avi -frames 950 -vf scale=320:240 - Used Ardour to create a mini-mix of The world is mine, for the audio track.
- Used mencoder to encode the audio and copy the DivX file into the final DivX video. This is the command line:
mencoder youtube.avi -audiofile track.mp3 -oac mp3lame -ovc copy -o final.avi - Uploaded the final video to YouTube.
- Uploaded the final video to my Web site.
- Wrote this post.
All done with Free Software. Free as in beer, Free as in freedom. Most remarkably, all software was installed using packages specifically done for Fedora Core… this proves useful applications are available to install by point-and-click. And I hate compiling from source.
Some software used here is patent-encumbered. This doesn’t apply to my country, though.
The hardware powering this video
Nothing special, really. If anything, it’s very old. It couldn’t even capture 10 frames per second in real-time! Thus, the video is kind of “fast”. Here are the specs:
- a GeForce 2 MX. Beryl runs slowly because of it. It also runs slowly because I told it to run only at 10 FPS.
- 768 MB of RAM. The system swapped heavily because of all the loaded applications.
- a lowly 3-year-old Athlon XP 1.5 GHz
November 18th, 2006 at 22:30
I’ve never had Windows®, back in the day I switched from AmigaOS to Linux.
This video is so horrible it makes me want to buy Windows®.
I frankly don’t understand how any human being can endure such environment.
November 19th, 2006 at 5:27
f:
I honestly understand if you found the video ugly. But I was really disappointed that you didn’t explain why. Oh, by all means buy Microsoft Windows Vista. We’ll see how you do :-). Come back in a few weeks and tell me how you did.
November 19th, 2006 at 5:29
btw I don’t “endure such environment”. I enjoy it. It’s mine, it runs at 30fps (which is not reflected in the video, because of the lacing hardware speed) but it’s enough for me to be productive.
November 19th, 2006 at 14:59
Could you produce a similar clip that only runs at half the speed? I think it would be a nice clip to show around but to be honest it is running much too fast to be of any use for showing (off) to non-Linux users.
November 19th, 2006 at 17:03
I will try to halve the frame rate; but it’d look less “wobbly”.
November 20th, 2006 at 0:01
[...] Ja miltä tämä tilpehööri äärimmillään vietynä voi näyttää: http://rudd-o.com/archives/2006/11/18/the-coolness-factor-of-linux/ Ubuntu Developer Summit - raportti [...]
November 20th, 2006 at 5:05
Great video and great idea. I saw a few months ago a promotional Mac video that had the same idea: Show you a neck-breaking speed a glimpse of what your computer world could be like outside Windoze. You did great!!!
November 20th, 2006 at 6:22
Cool, re: framerate: you could add cortado to your toolbox use open codec theora!
r0g1
November 20th, 2006 at 9:41
I’d do it but the Ogg Theora videos don’t have the social networking built in YouTube. Nevertheless, it’s a good idea and I was planning on using it for my screencasts of Turbocharged.
November 20th, 2006 at 17:21
So you freely admit that you steal music via bittorrent? You do realize the trouble that could get you in, and that it gives legitimacy to the RIAA’s bullying and lawsuits? You might want to edit that post a bit, for your own sake and interests.
November 20th, 2006 at 17:58
The letter of our “intellectual property” laws is even more stringent than the U.S.’ edition. I know because I have read it.
But damn the day I start hiding what I do openly “to save my ass”. I believe in a set of values, and I’m not planning on starting a coverup or participating in the hush-hush samizdat that is today’s music scene.
There are two kinds of people. The rational ones, those who change with the world; and the insane ones those who change the world to suit them. Thus, progress depends on the insane.
November 20th, 2006 at 17:58
Eugh, you have no style at all. That desktop makes me want to puke, it’s so cluttered and horrible.
November 20th, 2006 at 18:00
Richard John: as opposed to your style?
December 6th, 2006 at 20:53
Hey Rudd-O you have to tell me who song that is playing in the video clip.
December 6th, 2006 at 20:54
Never mind if I would have read the whole post I would have seen who did it. Sorry about that.
December 7th, 2006 at 21:48
Rudd-O, I actually do agree that sharing a disc with a buddy is not stealing, but I do think that taking [a copy of] something that was produced at expense for the purpose of profit, is stealing. You can argue all you want that you’re not hurting anybody (and I don’t believe that you are), but that doesn’t mean that you are not stealing.
Anyway, I don’t care if you steal. Just don’t imply that Bittorrent assists you. I’ve already got BT locked down at my university so I can’t download Slack. Don’t need that little protocol getting in any more trouble than it already is!
By the way, did you see that bit about the RIAA executive who admits that his kids were stealing music? Google it. It’ll piss you off (it pissed me off).
December 8th, 2006 at 9:12
I know we disagree. But, for me, and for the dictionary and etymologists, the defining quality of the world “steal” requires that the victim no longer have what was stolen, which is not the case even when illegally selling copyrighted works.
Nevertheless, I do agree that misappropriating copyrighted works for commercial purposes should be a civil offense, just as it was before.
December 10th, 2006 at 4:14
Hey man, thanks for sharing the vid. I happened to be setting up Ubuntu’s latest and greatest on my box when I saw it. I decided to set up Beryl for myself as a 3d desktop env.
Only problem now is that playing with those desktop features is tres addictive
December 17th, 2006 at 20:50
hey, awesome! glad to see people spreading the word. (or actually, the video). too bad there are people who are just so obsessed with the small reality that anything new and innovative terrifies them. oh well. still, cool!
December 31st, 2006 at 17:53
this video is very ugly to me, but it does’t mean that this sucks or whatever. Always when some people create tecnology (SW, HW etc) most of people says “that is stupid, no one will use it, it’s not useful, it is just a damn toy …. and a very large etc”, but ALWAYS time and history demostrates the opposite, remember the case of telephone, when some people (very limited of minds) said that telephone will be just for some time because it’s not useful, it’s just a toy and …….. but see us now, almost people have a cell phone in a pocket.
I want to say that always will be some people (limited of minds) who will opposite the new tecnology and tendencies, but that should not stop us, because time and history demostrate that they are simply wrong.
XGL + Beryl it’s really amazing, and opposite most people think (or not think) it makes PC use faster, now VGA’s do the work of paint and calculate everything to the monitor, not the cpu.
I use Suse 10.2 with XGL + Beryl and i can work faster than in windows or whatever, i use netbeans to do some things in java and know my pc is more useful.
February 19th, 2007 at 13:13
Awesome video Rudd-0. Linux needs some leaders. I think it has already started breaking away. Ought to be an exciting year for all of us.
March 17th, 2007 at 7:01
[...] I just spotted this The Coolness Factor of Linux post on another blog. I’m not sure the video does a great job of explaining it, and it’s more of a Free Software thing than a Linux thing. Still, he’s definitely getting at something I agree with wholeheartedly — Free Software, and KDE in particular, are amazing. [...]
March 31st, 2007 at 18:10
que distro usas ?
April 6th, 2007 at 9:25
I totally agree! I’m one of those people who use loads of different OSs (For various reasons I use Windows, Mac OS, Ubutnu & Solaris), but I really love the graphics that Linux has these days. But I do think that they are sometimes a bit garish. The Apple-Like expose feature is something that every OS should have.
Oh, and anyone looking for a great linux distro should try Ubuntu Ultimate 1.3 - it has Beryl pre-loaded (I Think).
April 29th, 2007 at 14:25
I like the concept of what you were trying to do. The video is a bit choppy though.
The main problem with the Linux GUI are the icons, they look like a two year old made them.
It would be nice to get a Linux distro with it’s own look and feel with nice icons. KDE and Gnome just doesn’t cut it for me though, at least not with the lame themes and icons they use.
Mac OS X is the way to go.
May 3rd, 2007 at 1:53
OMG! You said that: -a GeForce 2 MX. -768 MB of RAM. -a lowly 3-year-old Athlon XP 1.5 GHz
is a old Comp? What about me: -ATI Radeon 9200 64MB -512MB of RAM -1.2GHz Athlon XP
Huhu..poor me, no wonder if Beryl run flicky.