www.andyduffell.com

Re-encoding video can be a bit baffling. I’ve tried a whole slew of different apps (Handbrake, Avidemux, Iriverter, PiTiVi) but they all seem to be far too complicated for the simple job of re-encoding a video file for a specific device.

That’s why I’ve really grown to  like Arista Transcoder. Instead of fiddling about with codecs, aspect ratios, and a million other obscure settings, Arista simply asks what device you want to view the video on. Some of the presets also allow you to tweak the quality, but that’s it. And when you think about it, 99% of the time that’s all you actually need.

Some of the highlights:

• It seems to be multithreaded (or use multithreaded codecs where possible) so it’s fast
• Integrates nicely with Gnome, including notification bubbles on Ubuntu
• Includes presets for most common devices, with more available on the website
• Can rip straight from DVDs
• Queues jobs

You can get it from the Ubuntu Universe repository, Arch AUR, or you can grab the pythony tarball off their site.

Chrome has been doing well, gaining new users faster than any other browser

Google’s rising star Chrome is now officially out of beta on the Mac and Linux.

They’ve bundled a couple of new features in with the release, such as expanded syncing (it now syncs other personal settings in addition to bookmarks). Otherwise it’s the same polished browser that you’ve come to expect.

Ubuntu users who’ve already plugged into the Google repo can upgrade by hitting the following apturl: Chrome for Linux. Macbois and folks with a non-Debian flavoured Linux can download a standalone version (you’ll have to keep it up-to-date yourself if you do).

Wishing you a harmonious minimalist experience

I’ve blogged before about how cool Ubuntu minimal is.

The one problem is that you have to know exactly what packages to install to get your system set up. So i’ve written a script that should take some of the guess work out of it and make installing a useful Ubuntu desktop from the minimal ISO as simple as answering a series of yes/no questions.

The script is a modified version of Robbie Ferguson’s Perfectbuntu script. Perfectbuntu is designed to be run once you’ve installed the default system, and adds a lot of useful software.

I’ve left all that in, so you can go from a command-line system, to a fully up-to-date and usable Ubuntu desktop in one step. Or you could use it to install a bare-bones system with a variety of desktop environments such as Gnome, KDE, XFCE, or LXDE. You can also install Myth TV. All of this from a single 13MB disk image!

How to use the script

1. Install a command line-only system using the Minimal ISO
2. Download the script:
   

   wget www.andyduffell.com/perfectminimal

3. Make it executable:
   

   sudo chmod +x perfectminimal

4. Run it:
   

   ./perfectminimal

5. Profit!

Ubuntu Minimal project page, comments and suggestions welcome.

Why lug around a massive fat office suite when you can pull one down from the sky when you need it?

The soon to be released new version of Ubuntu contains some nifty new features that have been quietly snuck in. One of these is the ability to seamlessly use web-based  mail and office apps as if they were locally installed.

Simply install the packages desktop-webmail and webservice-office-zoho to get your machine all clouded up. For webmail you can choose to use Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo or Zoho. Once installed, all mailto links will open in your webmail instead of Evolution.

For office apps it will use the Zoho online office suite. Zoho was chosen over Google Docs because it doesn’t require you to log in. The integration is pretty good. Any local file will open in Zoho when clicked, and you can save new files locally or online in a range of formats.

This really shines on netbooks with small drives, where ditching 300MB of Open Office lard can make a big difference.

Sod going to multiple inboxes, get it all from one place

Googsystray is a notifier gizmo for Google Voice, GMail, Google Calendar, Google Reader, and Google Wave. It sits in your system tray and notifies you by popups or sound. I particular like the way you can set a threshold of new items in Reader before it bugs you. It’s also the only decent Google Voice notifier out there. Having everything combined into one lightweight notifier is nice and tidy, too.

Available for Windows and Linux. No love for the Mactards sorry!

Google have launched the beta of their Chrome web browser for Mac and Linux.

Until now people using non-Windows machines have been forced to use the open source Chromium branch of the project, but now we’ve got an actual release. As a beta it may still be a little wobbly, but probably less so than using daily builds of Chromium.

The verdict so far: it’s nice. Desktop integration is good, and if anything it seems even faster than Chromium. Yikes!

Get it here:

Linux (both 32-bit and 64-bit RPM and DEB, nice one Google!)

There’s also a Linux repository available to get automatic updates. I’d highly recommend this, it’s important to get security updates for a browser.

OS X

Use a Google account to log in

Blimey, the rumours were true! Google have released an early version of their netbook system Chrome OS into the wild.

You could try compiling it yourself, but there’s pre-compiled VMWare disk images available already (they work fine in Virtualbox too, btw) If you want step-by-step instructions you can check out Techcrunch. Otherwise proceed straight to the downloads:

Torrent (280MB)

http://rapidshare.com/files/309484345/chromiumOS-1.tar
http://rapidshare.com/files/309485808/chromiumOS-2.tar
http://rapidshare.com/files/309487192/chromiumOS-3.tar
http://rapidshare.com/files/309488963/chromiumOS-4.tar
~720MB total.

The interface is built around the familiar Chrome web browser

To log in, use your Google account (or better yet, a fake one you’ve made just for this).

As expected, Chrome OS turns out to be a totally browser-based experience. It’s totally about using Google’s web services, with no locally installed software available, although Gears means you should be able to keep using the system even when you’re offline. This should keep the overall size of the system down to a miniscule size, and Google have said they’re keen for all Chrome OS netbooks to use solid state drives. The small system footprint should keep this affordable, and performance will doubtless be through the roof. The system may lack a lot of features you’d get in Windows 7 or Ubuntu Netbook Remix, but it’ll be blazing fast!

Lots more info, including some details of what’s under the hood, can be found on the Ubuntu forums. Enjoy!

Sneak peek of Chrome OS available soon? Maybe?

Ludicrously unreliable internet rumours, gotta love ‘em!

But this one’s a doozy: the Washington Post’s technology bods have a “reliable source” that says Google will be releasing an early version of their Chrome Operating System into the wild within a week.

This could be a complete load of rubbish, or we could be getting a super-buggy dev build of it on a limited release. Or we might get a reasonably usable system on public beta. Who knows? Well, we will in a week’s time I guess.

In the meantime, have some screenshots of parts of the system that people have nicked off some servers that Google “accidentally” had facing the internet. Needless to say, it’s just the same familar browser with some interface bits for OS functions cobbled on.

Hopefully, more on this in a few days…

SETI@home analyses astronomical data for signs of life

In fact, you might be able to do a lot better than double it, some people have reported a tenfold improvement from one simple tweak: CUDA!

Put simply, CUDA is a way of getting your graphics card to help out with computational tasks. And it turns out that in the hands of CUDA-enabled software the peculiar architecture of a graphics processor absolutely rocks at hardcore number-crunching like SETI@home.

What do I need?

1. A compatible Nvidia graphics card. Generally speaking: Geforce 8XXX or better.
2. The latest drivers for that card.
3. The latest BOINC software.

How do I get started?

Simply update to the latest version of BOINC. If everything is ok you should see a message about CUDA and your GPU being detected as a coprocessor when you run the CPU benchmarks (done automatically after installing).

There are some problems. BOINC’s site claims in one place that 6.4.5 is ok for CUDA, but mine just wouldn’t work. Elsewhere on the site they say you need 6.6.36 or better, but the version in the Ubuntu repos is only 6.4.5. You can get the latest version here, just uninstall any existing copy of BOINC, extract the folder somewhere on your system and set the contained run_client file within to run at startup (System > Prefs > Startup Applications).

What sort of performance will I get?

BOINC say between 2 and 10 times the speed. But a picture is worth a thousand words:

Can you tell what day I switched to CUDA?

Is it just for SETI@home?

No, you can also sign up to GPUgrid to do biological simulations, and users with ATI graphics cards will soon be able to crunch for Milkyway@home and Collatz Conjecture, all still using the BOINC distributed computing platform.

This system is so light you might need to watch out for strong breezes

Ordinary Ubuntu LiveCDs are pretty portable and useful things, but come with all the same hardware requirements as the full desktop install. I’ll show you how to create a fully-functional Ubuntu system that will idle at 80MB of memory and use 1.2GB of disk space.

Why?

• You could install this system onto a 2GB USB stick and still have room for more.
• Want to create an Ubuntu guest VM to run Ubuntu apps? This one will boot in about 30 sec and not take up your whole hard drive.
• You’ve got a netbook with a small SSD, and want to have the smallest OS possible.
• You’ve got some crusty old hardware with a tiny sliver of RAM that needs the lightest system possible.

How?

The secret:  the Ubuntu Minimal image!

1. The Minmal CD image is a 10MB download (!) that can boot you up into the installer. From there you can choose one of a whole slew of different types of system to install, from servers to the regular KDE or Gnome desktops. What we want to install though, is the basic command line system.
2. From there, use the command line to add packages until you get the system you want.  To do this really easily, you can use my Perfectminimal script.
3. If you don’t want to use the script a good suggested list of packages for a fairly minimal Gnome desktop is:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install gdm xorg gnome-core gnome-codec-install indicator-session-applet update-manager firefox-3.5-gnome-support gnome-themes network-manager gdebi dkms

4. The dependencies from these packages will cascade down and install a very minimal Gnome system that punches well above it’s weight.
5. Enjoy!

Put it on a 2GB+ USB stick

If you want to put this on a USB stick, then you can install Remastersys. Run Remastersys in backup mode and it’ll generate an .iso of your customised minimal system, which you can then feed to Ubuntu’s regular “USB startup disk creator”, or the cross-platform LiveUSB creator Unetbootin.

If you use the former to create a “persistent” LiveUSB you can allocate a couple of hundred MB for persistence on even a 2GB USB stick. That’s enough room to store files, perform updates, install new software, and generally do everything on a USB stick that you’d do on a hard drive.

One word of caution though: USB sticks have a limited lifespan, and running an OS off them will reduce that. Make sure that you’re safeguarding your data. A good solution would be a could-based file storage system, such as Ubuntu One, which gives you 2GB of remote storage for free, and integrates nicely into the Ubuntu desktop.