danboid

I've now installed the 'Free' version of RealVNC server which includes vncserver-x11 which seems to be absent from the open source version. You need a license off them and its restricted to 5 desktops. Anyone found an open alternative to vncserver-x11? We actually only need its ability to show (and approve/block if required) existing connections.

I have installed vnc4server from the Ubuntu 12.04 repos and its working great except for two things: * We are using VNC to share one (KDE) desktop between multiple users and we really need an easy way to be able to see when there are other VNC users logged onto the session. Looking at the docs for the enterprise, non-free version of VNC server I can see it has a system tray icon/menu that should tell us this. This menu doesn't seem to be available in the open source vncserver - or is it? Maybe there is an alternative like a KDE plasmoid that does serves a similar purpose? I've not tried the 'free' RealVNC server as it requires you get a license and I also prefer to use apps from distro repos where possible but maybe that does have a desktop menu? * We have been accessing the vncserver mainly using RealVNC viewer under Windows but copy/paste doesn't work and I'm under the impression that recent VNC versions should support this. Maybe this is another limitation of the free server, maybe we should use a different viewer or am I missing something else? Thanks!

Hi Cam! If you're a Vegas user you should feel right at home with KDEnlive, which often gets Vegas comparisons. A lot of people like Openshot but I prefer KDEnlive which seems more mature. The other good options are using the blender VLE or waiting for Lightworks but LW will be overkill for many (schools).

Bananas! Whoah! Chill out on the 3GP thing please! I'm just giving a few free software hints and tips mate! You seem to be right though - I thought there was a res or bitrate restriction on 3gp but a quick scan of its wiki makes no mention of such restrictions. Nonetheless, 3GP is not a format I would recommend anyone ever intentionally transcode to, mainly due to its limited support on both hardware and in software. xvid/avi is best for compat where quality is not a priority then I'd encode to webm if you want better quality and smaller file sizes but the file only has to play on computers. webm is my video format of choice because its open source, royalty free, high quality, good compression ratios AND You can play webm files under FF and Chrome without any extra plugins, so there! EDIT Remember to only use xvid and webm for distributing your final edits - you should avoid lossy formats like these during editing!

Bananas - Thats a shame to hear about Lightworks beta not opening your movs - you should report that as a bug if you've not already. I presume they play fine under VLC or whatever you normally use do they? 3gp is such poor quality I'm not surprised Lightworks aren't bothered about supporting that as its unusable for any semi-serious purposes - I wouldn't waste their time asking about it personally. As for converting your files- there is winff which is free for both Windows and Linux as is Lincoder, which should run on OSX too I'd imagine as its just a Java front end for mencoder. Achandler: Sony Vegas may be cheap but KDEnlive is not only totally free, its fully open source too and if you did have some Linux machines then its installed with one simple command under all popular Linux distros hence very easy to install and learn/use. I'm waiting for Lightworks to get released for Linux before I try that but I expect KDEnlive will be easier to use for beginners and kids (and everyone else too). KDEnlive is more than powerful enough for teaching kids the basics of video editing so I'd recommend anyone who's not locked into Windows for their video editing check it out.

Arthur: OK so its just GPL 3 software thats incompat. with the MS market then is it? I wouldn't know as I've never used it and I obviously never read any corrections to the article I linked to. Regardless, having spent most of my 3 decades using and observing MS I've seen all their tricks which they continue to pull and I as a result I only ever use or implement MS where there is no other realistic option. Truth of the matter is that even if MS did fully open source Windows 8 (never going to happen) I would still have zero interest in MSs warped concept of where computing should be headed. Win 8 is just ONE (big) example of how MSs dominion over IT frustrates me but I could provide a sizeable tome of moans over probs with MS apps that I know will never be fixed and there is no option for myself or a 3rd party to fix the sinking ship MS as there is with FOSS. If you like MS and their treatment of you and your machines - you have every right to carry on subjecting yourself to it and paying dearly for it - I'm not trying to convert anyone here, I'm just explaining how I see it. MS xenix I was aware of and it proves nothing - have we forgotten about the SCO cases which was basically a front for MS trying to prove they owned unix too? Anyway, lets drop the MS bashing as they don't need any help in making themselves look bad - back to virtualisation! Archipel looks promising but its it beta and seems to be trailing most of the other solutions mentioned here as its web page states it doesn't have HA clustering yet, which is one feature I do want. Cloudstack and openstack seem to offer more features than say proxmox but they're obviously aimed at large enterprise deployments of 1000's of hosts and vms - they sound like a pain to set up and I don't think I'll need all those features if I'm only managing say 20-30 guests over a 2 or 3 hosts. There is stackops.org which claims to be an easier to install distro of openstack but I've not found many details or any comparisons of that to say proxmox. Purely going off feedback, comments and reports given across the web, in forums etc. it would seem proxmox is the easiest virtualisation solution to set up and maintain as I've heard nothing but praise for it which I cannot say about vmware, hyper-v, rhev and xenserver.

Here's a pretty recent example of MS's hostility to free software beyond just free software that doesn't run on Windows. MS prohibits GPL and equivalent free software and libraries from its Windows marketplace: Microsoft bans open source from the Marketplace | ITProPortal.com

bossman: I know you like Xen but from all the benchmarks I've looked at KVM has the edge over Xen in most cases Also, Redhat are the big boys in Enterprise Linux and they've put their money behind KVM and so when they get a management inteface that us Linux and Mac users can use too without resorting to having a VM just to run IE in then I'll take them much more serioiusly as a competitor - but I may well be swayed on RHEV yet if CyberNerd tells me what I'd like to hear about the alternate interface. vmware also have little love for Linux admins too its seems - lunacy when you consider how prevalent the penguin is in the server room!

Totally closed view of the world? OSX, Android, Linux etc etc = unix variants Its MS that is the walled garden that doesn't want to know, because if you do see their secrets they may lose their monopoly! MS aren't quite as hostile as they used to be towards unix, linux and free software but its still a very real threat. I'm not a fan of any sort of lock in and digital chains so I try to avoid MS as they are the masters of pinning you down- if its not Apple but I prefer OSX to Windows if I have to pick a prison! xenserver would be no good if I was more the Mac fanboi and the same problem applies to RHEV - proxmox and opennode def sound the best on paper to me so far.

CyberNerd: So if IE gives you the plague or you're running a decent OS/browser, what are your options for managing RHEV under 3.0? I've heard the alternate method, whatever that is (cli/java?) is unsupported in EV 3.0. Does the alternate manager work well enough to use on a daily basis already or are we waiting on 3.1 for a sane (post MS;) management setup?

RHEV 3.0, like Xenserver, is a bit of a joke to me because its management console still requires IE and hence Windows. I know this is because RH aquired another company but this is such a gaping flaw to its cred that they should've held out for its java port to stabilise instead of rushing out a product thats dependent upon their biggest rivals platform! Also, anything that requires IE to me is a software engineering fail of the highest order as its still the most standards lacking browser. I admit it has greatly improved in its compliance in recent years but it still stinks compared to its open source rivals. Since my last post to this thread, I've discovered opennode which seems to be a better looking, centos-based alternative to proxmox although I don't know how they differ feature-wise yet. Has anyone here tried both proxmox 2.1 and opennode 6 yet?

IE 'comes with wine in ubuntu'? I dunno what version of Ubuntu you're using but it can't be an official release if your wine package includes IE as I'm sure MS wouldn't be too pleased with that! I've not tried IE under wine but appdb says that IE6 is about the only one that runs in any kind of semi-usable way, which is kinda sad/strange when Office (2007 at least) and Photoshop work so well under wine these days. However, there does seem to be a FF ActiveX plugin although I've not tried it: Esker Software We have some Axis IP cameras and I have successfully recorded its raw stream to HD with vlc under Linux like so: cvlc rtsp://user:[email protected]/axis-media/media.amp :sout='#std{access=file,mux=ts,dst=/home/dan/Videos/test.avi}' I'd expect that command would only be sure to work for Axis cameras and of course you'd need to replace user and password and the dummy IP address/ output path EDIT Thats how you'd record from the terminal but if you just wanted to view an Axis IP camera under VLC you would use VLC's open network stream feature, select RTSP and then enter the rtsp://user:[email protected]/axis-media/media.amp Bit. As before, that says 'user : password' but without any spaces if the forum is parsing the : and p together as a smiley again!

As for other great free video editors, Linux users can enjoy KDEnlive which has been compared to Sony Vegas and soon both Windows and Linux users will be able to get Lightworks, the original profressional video editor dating back to '89 used for many feature films, soon to be open sourced!

I'm disappointed no-one has mentioned Blender yet as it has a perfectly capable and really quite easy to learn and use video editor built in, its totally free and open source and available for all major and minor operating systems- you do not need to know how to use any of Blenders 3D modelling or compositing features to edit video with it although it all helps. What blender lacks is an easy way to do simple animated 2D video titling but I solved this prob using GIMP + GAP - Linux users can compile the latest gap git easy enough but we're waiting on a new GIMP GAP release for windows afaik so that you can export pngs or tiffs with transparencies then import the frames into Blender to do credits etc. without having to master Blender in full. Maybe there is a different, free app for video titling that could be used under Windows to accompany Blender? I suspect you could pull it off with a paint app and ffmpeg with some command line fu and patience but thats not such a kiddy and consumer friendly solution as GIMP/GAP which lets you point and click your creation.

Free webcam recording software with a capital F you say? In that case its guvcview for you! GTK+ UVC Viewer but thats only of use to those running a Free OS, otherwise: Recording webcam videos with VLC Media Player « Dan Newcome, blog