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Flickr uploaders for Linux: secretive, but not endangered beasts
4 days, 4 hours ago
Flickr is almost like Xerox, or Kleenex, in that its name is in some ways inextricably linked to the service it delivers. There are many other photo sharing sites, of course, with similar (or perhaps even superior) features and options. Maybe it's because it is one of the first services that's managed to grow, add features, and consistently stand out from the others, it is often the first service people try, and the one many ultimately choose to continue with. -
NVIDIA VDPAU benchmarks
4 days, 7 hours ago
"NVIDIA is bringing PureVideo features to Linux through a major update in their binary display driver. The NVIDIA 180.06 driver adds VDPAU support on Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD operating systems, with VDPAU being a set of APIs designed by NVIDIA to accelerate video decoding, provide post-processing capabilities, timstamp-based presentation of video frames, and compositing of sub-picture elements. We have now had the time to benchmark the Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix and have seen the benefits of PureVideo features finally arriving on alternative platforms." -
Miguel de Icaza on Mono 2.0
1 month, 1 week ago
GNOME project co-founder Miguel de Icaza discusses the release of Mono 2.0, in this interview with Henry Kingman, executive editor of DesktopLinux. The conversation includes some interesting discussion of Mono's use on embedded devices like the iPhone, Wii, XBox, PS3, and Dell's Linux-based Sansa Connect PMP. -
Interesting Improvements In GNOME 2.24
3 months ago
Earlier this year prior to the release of GNOME 2.22 we had shared eight interesting improvements in GNOME 2.22. Some of these improvements included Epiphany with the WebKit back-end (if built with the proper argument), Evince Document Viewing improvements, Cheese web-camera software, Mousetweaks, the Vinagre VNC client, and Totem enhancements. Now with the official GNOME 2.24 release due out next month, this time around we're sharing a few of the interesting highlights for this GNOME update. -
Gnome has Empathy for You
3 months, 1 week ago
Just after 2.22 was released, I took a look at the upcoming Gnome release, and I said, for probably the fifth time, that I wish Empathy and Telepathy would make it into Gnome, but that it wasn't going to happen because. -
KDE 4.1 Released
3 months, 3 weeks ago
Earlier this year, the KDE team released the highly-anticipated 4th major revision of the KDE desktop. Instead of bringing evolutionary changes, KDE 4.0 effectively delivered a complete rewrite of KDE, and as a consequence the first release of the KDE 4 branch lacked a lot of features of KDE 3.x, while also being quite unstable and rough. Many even complained the KDE team shouldn't have released KDE 4.0 as 4.0, but rather as a developer preview release or something similar. During this storm of criticism, the KDE team calmly pointed out that KDE 4.1 would fix many, many of the issues people had with KDE 4.0. Starting today, there's no more pointing towards KDE 4.1: KDE 4.1 has been released today. -
Listen 0.5 - Yet another good GTK audio player
3 months, 4 weeks ago
Listen is a not so widely known audio player written in Python and using the GTK toolkit, with an interface similar to the one of Rhythmbox, and including features like a music library, podcasts support, lyrics fetching, Wikipedia integration, and Last.fm song submission. -
The Big X Window Manager Guide (with Screenshots)
4 months, 1 week ago
This time we’ll take a look at the various interesting window managers for the X Window System which aren’t (necessarily) a part of a certain desktop environment. So what are window managers? Officially, a window manager in GNU/Linux is a piece of software which controls placement and appearance of windows in a graphical user interface in X. So, what you get is a module which could be used in a desktop environment, or as a desktop environment (in conjuction with other modules, such as a idesk). All the WMs listed here can easily be obtained through your distribution’s respective repositories. You can also visit the project’s website and download the WM from there. -
Exaile Music Player Review - A Good Choice for the GTK Fans
4 months, 1 week ago
Exaile is an audio player built in GTK, and although it's not as popular as Banshee, Rhythmbox or Audacious, it's feature-complete and offers a unique concept by using multiple tabs for showing several playlists, each one in its own tab, and other dozens of good features which an audiophile will definitely find useful. -
KDE on KDE 4.0
4 months, 1 week ago
There has been a bit of a dustup about KDE 4.0. A lot of opinions have been expressed, but I thought you might like to hear from KDE. So I wrote to them and asked if they'd be willing to explain their choices and answer the main complaints. They graciously agreed. -
As shares tumble, Nvidia faces minor meltdown
4 months, 1 week ago
Nvidia is going through some trying times, grappling with defective chips, falling shares, and a resurgent AMD-ATI. -
Audio/Visual synthesis for Linux: the new art, part 1
4 months, 3 weeks ago
"The Linux Journal recently published an article I wrote on Jean-Pierre Lemoine's AVSynthesis, a program designed for artists working with the computer as a medium for the synthesis of image and sound. I'm fascinated by that program, so I decided to research the existence of similar software. This article presents the current findings from that research .... " -
ATI Radeon HD 4850 Linux performance
4 months, 3 weeks ago
"Last week we exclusively shared the steps AMD was taking to make an evolutionary leap in Linux support with same-day support for their brand-new Radeon HD 4800 series, Linux drivers shipping on the product CD, some manufacturers showcasing Tux on the product packaging, and their proprietary Linux driver reaching a feature parity with their Windows driver .... " -
Where Is Mainstream Video Content On Desktop Linux?
5 months, 1 week ago
One has to admit, regardless of their feelings of just how idiotic the idea behind Digital Rights Management (DRM) may be, it is frustrating to watch the other two platforms have content we cannot enjoy ourselves. -
10 Best KDE Applications Not Included in KDE
5 months, 1 week ago
Review of the best ten applications which don't ship by default in KDE: Amarok, K3b, KTorrent, DigiKam, Kid3, KVirc, Gwenview, Kaffeine, KDevelop, Yakuake. - More News
Linux.com : Graphics & Multimedia
Manage your music with ID3 tag editors
The Linux desktop comes with a variety of multimedia players, such as Xine, MPlayer, and Amarok. Yet all digital media players are only as good as the files they have to work with, and preparing those files requires the best tag editor you can find. I checked out half a dozen of the more popular and stable graphical ID3 tag editors available for Linux. I found that going from no tags to great tags requires keeping more than one of these editors on hand.
sK1 vector in on good illustrations
From its name, you'd never know that sK1 is a good vector graphics drawing program, in the same category as better-known names like Inkscape, Dia, and OpenOffice.org Draw. Moreover, sK1 includes a feature that other Linux applications lack: it can read CorelDraw's CDR files and convert them to Linux-friendly formats.
Enrich your Joomla! site with image extensions
Several extensions can help you work with photographic images on your Joomla! content management system. Here are some of the best.
Automated processing tools for better digital pictures
When you return from a trip and copy your digital pictures over to your file server, you might like to rename the image files or (losslessly) rotate them to their correct orientation to make finding and viewing them simpler. You might even want to embed comments right into the image files in such a way that all image viewing tools should be able to harvest and share this metadata. In this article we'll take a look at some command-line tools to help you with these tasks.
Collabora funds development of open source video editor PiTiVi
Open source multimedia specialist Collabora is hiring developers to work on the nonlinear video editor PiTiVi. The Cambridge, UK-based company contributes heavily to the GStreamer media framework and other GStreamer-dependent projects, so PiTiVi is a natural fit -- and it fills a sorely needed niche on the Linux desktop.
Listen to your music anywhere with Subsonic
If your music library is tied to your CD collection or MP3 player, you can still hit the road without losing access to your tunes. Subsonic is a free, Web-based media streamer that lets you -- and your friends -- access your music collection over the Internet.
Hugin panoramic photo editor extends its reach
The developers of the free panoramic photo editor Hugin released version 0.7 this month, culminating a two-year development cycle. The new release incorporates key new technical abilities and usability improvements to help demystify the panorama creation process for the average shooter.
Indamixx sound box plays on Linux base
Hip hop artists might not be the most obvious target for Linux evangelists, but a little-known distribution called Transmission is making waves. It's what powers Indamixx, a pro audio production system that runs on a customised Samsung handheld computer created by Trinity Audio Group. Developed by 64 Studio Ltd. on a mixed Debian/Ubuntu base, Transmission and its bundled applications are a quintessential open source story.
GIMP 2.6 changes are mostly internal
The GIMP -- the GNU Image Manipulation Program -- is one of the flagships of free software. On October 1 the project released version 2.6, with many new and improved features. Most of the user-visible features are just polish; the real changes are lurking under the hood.
Vinyl + Audacity = MP3
If you were born before 1975, you may have a collection of records that you want to convert to digital format. Some open source software and a cable are all you need to convert your prized vinyl to something portable.
Picasa 3 for Linux: A video tour
Google's Picasa is all about photos -- it helps you instantly find, edit, and share all the pictures on your computer. Although it isn't released as open source it is free to download and use from Google's Web site. The new version 3, which is currently in beta, is available for Windows as well as Linux.
The KOffice 2.0 beta, part 2: Graphical and charting programs
Yesterday, I looked at the major applications in the first beta for KOffice 2.0. Now it's the turn of the rest of the beta: The KPlato project manager, KChart, the vector graphics editor Karbon, and the raster graphics editor Krita.
Become a multimedia pro with the Vector Linux Multimedia Bonus Disc
Many audio, video, and graphics professionals would like to make the switch to Linux, but don't want to deal with the hassle of figuring out multimedia on Linux or are scared off by the purported lack of such tools. I created Vector Linux Multimedia Bonus Disc (MMBD) to address this problem and perception. It's a complete multimedia creation and production system that contains hundreds of the best multimedia applications available on Linux.
New Manju project plans to redraw desktop art
Most free software projects produce applications for users. A minority, however, produce specifications or libraries for developers and other contributors. An example of this second type is the recently announced Manju project, whose goal is to make themes easier to create. The project's goal is to write the specifications and scripts for using scalable vector graphics (SVG) files to store widget and other theme-related information that can be used on a variety of toolkits.
Tools for editing vector graphics in GNU/Linux
Over the last decade, vector graphics have gone from being a revolutionary format to a standard method of rendering computer images -- so much so that they are standard in the KDE 4 desktops. This popularity is based on the fact that, because they represent images as mathematical equations -- usually in SVG format -- vector graphics open faster, render better on screen, and can be resized more readily than raster graphics, in which an image is created pixel by pixel. Free software includes a number of options for working with vector graphics, including several simple ones: OpenOffice.org's Draw, KOffice's Karbon14, and Inkscape, which is currently the premier vector graphic editor in free software.
VLC goes to nine point two
Sometimes I get the feeling that I only know about 5% of what VLC can do. Everyone knows it's a dependable, free, cross-platform media player. But read through the release notes for the latest version, 0.9.2, and you will see a dizzying array of server, network streaming, and conversion functions, most of which I have never even touched -- and the new VLC exposes a lot more of that functionality.
Easily displaying two-dimensional data with GtkDatabox
Many applications need to graphically display the relation between two data axes. Common examples are how one resource such as CPU load or an exchange rate varies over time. GtkDatabox makes presenting such information in a GTK+ desktop application much simpler.
How to add metadata to digital pictures from the command line
Digital media files are more useful and accessible when tagged with metadata -- that is, descriptive information about each photo that either can be embedded inside images themselves or stored in external databases. ExifTool is an efficient, flexible, and portable way to manage image, audio, and video metadata under Linux. In this article we'll see how to use ExifTool to manage EXIF data inside JPEG files.
GIMP User Filter allows use of Photoshop filters
One brake on the GIMP's popularity is that, while it boasts dozens of filters, a rival like Photoshop boasts thousands. You may only occasionally need a special effect that imitates a pencil sketch or a famous style of painting such as Impressionism or Cubism, but, when you do, having a filter to create the effect instantly saves serious amount of time. To help bridge this divide, the GIMP is reviving the User Filter from its 1.x releases. This filter is a kind of meta-plugin that allows users to import and manage Photoship filters or, if they have the knowledge, to write their own.
SMPlayer: A high quality wrapper
Loosely speaking, in software terms, a wrapper is something that provides an alternate interface to another object. SMPlayer is an advanced multimedia player wrapped around MPlayer that provides a friendlier and more powerful front end to the underlying application. SMPlayer can play practically anything -- you can watch DVDs and VCDs, stream videos from a URL, or play audio CDs or MP3s.
