[juneau-lug] Re: Linux advice for newcomer
- From: Jamie <jamie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: juneau-lug@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:12:16 -0900
Kevin Miller wrote:
> On 12/15/2009 09:51 PM, Larry Hurlock wrote:
>
>> Am new to Linux. Installed Kubuntu 9.04 and satified with progress
>> to date. I have a working system, but would like some tips: 1. What
>> is the best media player combination to view/listen to CD's and
>> DVD's?
>>
>
> I use mostly SUSE but it's similar to Kubuntu. My player preference for
> music is amarok. For DVDs you'll probably have to install libdvdcss
> which may be a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (aka
> DMCA) in the US. I generally watch video footage in smplayer (I think
> that's mplayer w/an improved interface) or VNC. Both work well. I
> haven't tried to watch commercial DVDs on this box in several years.
> Would rather sit comfortably on the couch and watch them on the big screen.
>
>
Kevin, you meant VLC for a media player, not VNC - right? I tend to
like mplayer from the command line because of the additional information
it gives you, like which codecs and formats are used.
As to commercial DVD's, some recent distribution I tried (Mandriva
maybe?) contained LinDVD by InterVideo. This product is similar to
their popular WinDVD program and comes with the necessary licenses, but
it may cost(?) and I don't remember how well it worked.
>> To burn same?
>>
> K3B.
>
>
Ditto.
>> What is best way to install these, SynapticMgr or PackageKit?
>>
>
> Don't have either of those on SUSE, but use whatever you're comfortable
> with. They'll both probably pull from the same repositories - just
> present a different user interface. On my Debian system at work I
> usually use apt, but will sometimes use Synaptic.
>
>
Like many things open source, "best" can be very subjective and
personal. Try them both.
>
>> 2. My Epson Perfection 1240 scanner (which ran beautifully under my
>> old system, Win98 running under Dell 700Mhz machine w/256 RAM) will
>> work using xscanimage, but marginally. Xscanimage seems a limited
>> graphical interface, and I have tried all combination of settings.
>> Xscanimage identifies the scanner correctly, and it scans quickly
>> enough. But even viewed on the screen using the GIMP image editor
>> which came with Kubuntu, the output seem light and ragged.
>>
>
> Try xsane. I've had pretty good luck scanning with it. Pretty flexible
> and as nice an interface as any I've used on Windows systems.
>
Xsane has always done what I needed and very easily. One missing
element is OCR (optical character recognition). I've found nothing in
the open source world that does this well and have to fall back to
windows when I need this.
>
>> Of course the machine came with a complete set of Windows programs
>> to run it, and I do not expect the same functionality with Linux.
>>
>
> Why not? I would. Even more actually. There are few programs in
> Windows that I miss in Linux. For the most part, it does all and more
> that Windows boxes do. Sometimes you have to hunt around to find the
> right fit though. There's a lot of half baked programs out there and
> some real jewels.
>
>
Agreed - expect more functionality, flexibility and choices. The price
is your time and effort in selecting and setting up.
>> Final printed output is tolerable if I jump to 600 dpi scan and then
>> a 600 dpi printout -- through the GIMP image editor. However the
>> fonts printing out to the HP 1150 printer are ragged, even when dark
>> enough.
>>
>> Have identified the printer to the system, but printing through GIMP
>> seems to do little more than get the printer to act in the most
>> simplistic default ways. Must confess that I am don't know enough to
>> even guess why the same scanner/printer worked so well until now.
>> True, my knowledge of fonts, PostScript, etc is zip.
>>
>
> Shouldn't have to print through the GIMP, unless you're talking just
> about scanned images. If that's the case, the printer will only do as
> well as the source image. If it's dicey, the printout will be too. If
> you print from other programs I'd expect it to be good. Remember that a
> scanned document is a graphic image, not a stream of alphanumeric
> characters. A letter in a graphic image is just a bunch of pixels. In
> a normal document or email or something, it's a specific character.
>
>
>> If anyone can help with any of the above, would be appreciated.
>> Guesses are fine, and more detailed background info will be supplied
>> immediately if needed.
>>
>
> Hope this is of some help.
>
>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Larry Hurlock
>>
>> PS: The printer does fine printing from the Internet.
>>
>
> Ayup. Garbage in, garbage out. And the converse is true as well - good
> input, good output.
>
>
So if it prints fine from one application, but not another, you can rule
out the OS and the printer itself.
>> Hardware: Dell 360 (2004 vintage) -- 2.8, 1G, 80G. Epson 1240
>> Scanner. HP 1150 Printer. HP dvd 1270 24x Multiformat Writer.
>> Software: Kubuntu 9.04
>>
>
> That's close to what I'm running. Just upgraded from 1 mb to 1.5
> tonight. Rendering videos can take a while, but other than that it's
> plenty of machine for most tasks. Darn it. I'd love to get one of
> those quad-core, 4 GB smokehouses at Costco, but just can't justify it. :-)
>
> ...Kevin
>
Good luck, I think you'll find the effort is well worth the results.
-Jamie
--
Browns Homepage - newest pics: 17 Oct 2009 - http://jdb.homelinux.net
--
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