Affordable, lightweight and powerful graphics processor.

The Nvidia ION is actually an Intel Atom CPU coupled with a Nvidia 9400m graphics chipset.

Most linux distributions install fine on most netbooks and nettops. However, their default video player may not be optimized for the Nvidia ION chipsets. For HD video playback, without tweaking the parameters of the video player application, the end result may be lacklustre and the playback may even be not in sync or skipping frames.

To fully comprehend the power of video acceleration of the ION chipset with HD movies, SGLNX recommends MPLAYER.

MPlayer is present on most distribution’s repositories. To ensure smooth playback of HD movies (mkv, avi, mp4, etc), a slight tweak of the Mplayer’s config file is necessary.

To edit the config file, use these commands.

Open terminal

“sudo nano ~/.mplayer/config”

Insert these lines and remove any duplicate lines that may be present

vo=vdpau
vc=ffmpeg12vdpau,ffwmv3vdpau,ffvc1vdpau,ffh264vdpau,
#vo=xv
ao=alsa
#subcp=latin2
stop-xscreensaver=1
font=Arial
subfont-text-scale=3
subfont-osd-scale=3

Press “Control-X” to save the file.

The changes to the config file ensures that Mplayer will make use of VDPAU technology which is present on Nvidia’s GeForce 8800 series graphics card and above. For full compatibility of utilizing VDPAU acceleration, see here.

Next download a HD 1080p file from here.

Use Mplayer to playback this file and experience smooth HD playback with the ION chipset!

This guide would also apply for Nvidia graphics cards of the 9300 series and higher!

Source of inspiration for this entry : pts.blog

Introducing the OpenShot Video Editor for Linux!

Easy to use “drag & drop” graphical user interface

Combine video clips and insert in nice transitions between the scenes.

Videos can be in 4:3 or 16:9 format.

To try it out on Ubuntu, you may follow instructions here

Here are some demo clips on OpenShot:

OpenShot: Demo Movie

OpenShot: Non-Linear Audio Editing

Source: MakeTechEasier.com

In the survey, a preselected list of apps for voting includes closed-sourced applications such as ITunes, Photoshop, Spotify and Pandora.

Would the upcoming Ubuntu distro include these applications if the demand is large enough? Will Canonical implementation be Wine-based of the popular applications originally created on only the Windows platform? Or will it be coded natively on Linux?

If these closed source apps are created originally for Windows, eg Apple’s ITunes and Adobe’s Photoshop, how is Canonical going to convince them to code for Linux?

Many argue the fact that opensource linux OS users aren’t a large significant market and therefore many paid apps are not developed for the linux platform. But the recent rise of popularity of Ubuntu and its variants may just shake up the market share of users on linux and attract such developers to write apps for the rising numbers of Linux users.

Source : WebUpd8 Canonical To Bring Closed Source Apps Like iTunes And Photoshop To Ubuntu?!?!.

1) is sick of dual booting just to play games using Windows?

2) Prefers not to corrupt hardened linux workstation with linux games?

3) Complains of not having enough games on linux?

Supergamer is a permanent fix if you answered YES to any of the question!

Fierce Looking Desktop Background

SuperGamer is a games oriented Live CD/DVD Linux OS. It has all the normal Linux desktop applications such as the Firefox Browser, OpenOffice.org, etc., but also has a great many native to Linux games added, as well as some demos of proprietary games.

Here is the list of games it comes pre-installed with :

Download torrent here

or

Purchase the Live-DVD direct from On-Disk if you feel 8 gigabytes will take too long to download.

Source : Linux Journal

Or visit Supergamer website!

You might also wanna read up what Distrowatch has to say about the Supergamer linux distribution here.

By Wikipedia’s definition of lm_sensors :

lm_sensors (Linux-monitoring sensors), a free open source software-tool for Linux, provides tools and drivers for monitoring temperatures, voltage, and fans. It also monitors chassis intrusion detection.

lm-sensors is already included in many popular linux distribution repositories.

For Gnome desktop users, values obtained from the lm_sensors can be placed in the “top panel” by installing “sensors-applet”.

Here is a good “lm-sensors” guide for Ubuntu users to add lm-sensors to your customized installation [ for both Gnome and KDE users ]

For those with bleeding edge hardware, the usual repositories lm-sensors package may not yet support all the latest sensors on their mainboards and graphics card.
However, there has been some new developments in the detection of new yet to be supported sensors that can be installed with a simple script.

More on this lm-sensors update here from Phoronix.

Source: Phoronix

via LM_Sensors Gets A New Configuration Utility.

2.0 GHz Arm-based processor

Wifi, Bluetooth, Gigabit Ethernet, Mini-USB port and “Ready to download” Linux 2.6 SDK for developers.

Low power, low price, small form factor

Below is an extract from UberGizmo

[CES 2010] Marvell has just launched its Computer 3.0 platform based on the Armada 300 processor. New the system still uses an ultra-low power and thermal envelope, but manages to reach 2Ghz and includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and built-in 1.8″ hard drive. The overall package is also much smaller (and sexier) than previous generations. Once again the semi-conductor mantra “smaller, better, cheaper” is beautifully applied by Marvell to these tiny computers. Developers can already get their hands on the SDK, and we’ve heard that a number of big-name brands are working on products based on Plug Computer 3.0.

Source : Marvell Plug Computer 3.0.

Other links of same product news

Linuxfordevices : Plug-in computer rev’d with WiFi, 2GHz SoC

LoopyGadgets : Marvell Plug Computer 3.0 with Built-in Wifi and Bluetooth

In fact, the data centre that was in charge of rendering the visual effects of Avatar, uses up to 4000 blade servers and is positioned at 197 of the top 500 supercomputers in the world we live in today!

The operating system used for such a huge array of blades…

LINUX

Because, nothing else comes close..

News Source : Opendotdotdot

Since the launch of this hardware to accelerate HD video playback on netbooks, only Windows drivers were supported.

Just days ago, they decided to release the source code for linux kernels 2.6.11 and higher.

Read the full article at Liliputing.com: Linux drivers for Broadcom HD Video Accelerator

From Eternity on a Rock: Nathaniel in Stencil Art.

But with the frequent updates of newer versions of distros such as Ubuntu [every 6 months], it gets a bit tiring to re-install from scratch and do “apt-get” commands for all the packages required for customization and personalization of the OS. To make matters worse, it is hard to remember each and every package that was installed previously.

At linuxers, a guide containing a few easy terminal commands can save the trouble by saving the list of installed packages from the current distro version.

When doing a fresh install of the distro, all that is needed is just to run the dkms command to get the packages to be installed on the freshly installed new version distro and within minutes, the newly installed distro version would have installed the same packages that used to be in the old version.

Read the full instructions at Linuxer: A dpkg trick for fresh installations.

Now who says you can’t do anything without a graphical desktop manager?

The full article/tutorial here at TuxArena ” How to Post to Twitter from Command-line “

Once you have set it up, try the command below..

twitter.sh SGLNX:Singapore's Local Linux News Matters : http://bit.ly/7LNiua


At “Linux-Tipps“, there is a guide to enable VAAPI (Video Acceleration API) for netbooks with the Intel GMA500 graphics chipsets.

Once VAAPI is enabled, Full HD videos can be watched and CPU utilization will only be 30%.

Source : Liliputing.com

Read the full article here at liliputing.com

VDPAU = Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix

Since most standard linux distributions does not include it in their repositories, users have to download and install it manually, or if using Ubuntu, a new PPA repository can be added..

More on how to install VDPAU in the link below

Nvidia 195.22 Beta Linux Display Driver Available In Nvidia Vdpau Team PPA [Ubuntu]

Thanks for Webupd8.org for the heads up

Comparison of how techies see their favourite OS versus other OS.

via How Fanboys See Operating Systems.

via Firefox 3.5 Now the Most Popular Browser Worldwide.

I am using Firefox… Are you?

Source : LXer Linux News : Wine 1.1.35 Released.

But this is about to change very fast.

Linux Is Regaining Netbook Market Share Quickly – O’Reilly Broadcast.

SGLNX strongly believes that with the upcoming release of Google’s Chrome OS, market share will be recaptured for sure!

Source :OSDIR: Shuttleworth Steps Down As Canonical CEO.

via Install MS office2007 on ubuntu using PlayOnLinux.

Well… If you really really really cannot work on Openoffice..