I downloaded the source to the (video editing) application "kdenlive" (version 0.9 just released), and following the instructions on the kdenlive web site, compiled it, and installed it on my Linux Mageia Cauldron laptop. Maybe I did something wrong, maybe not. Anyway, disaster ensued.

It is often said that Linux Desktop distros spend half their time playing catchup with the Windows or OSX Desktop environments. I'd agree for many years this has been the truth however something is happening in the world of Linux. I is starting to innovate again.
Some might say that it has been doing this for years, however i think its fair to say with the numbers of Windows users coming over to the desktop it's had to slow down the innovation and focus on the usability aspect.

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I recently did a post on cutting the cable which the article explained how you get XBMC 11.0 ontop of the ATV OS. Having run with this for a week or so it turns out that when streaming media from a NAS the playback becomes very choppy and out of sync audio and video occustrs a lot.

Thankfully there is another option however which involves removing the Apple TV OS and putting a Linux based OS onto the box which has been built specifically to work with an AppleTV containing the CrystalHD card.

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Thin Client computing is the current system of choice in so many enterprise systems today with the big players being VMware and Citrix and even Windows 2008 trying to nudge its way into the act with its Seamless Remote Desktop Applications. All of these systems provide clients which will access the applicaitons which are run from a central server and all of them are well tested and run on thousands of systems.

Not to be left out Opensource is now getting its act together and the rudimentry underpinnings of a thin client infrastructure with the recent release of Ulteo 3.0 and its Open Source Virtual Desktop and Application Delivery solutions

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Anyone who knows me, knows me to be a bit of a Fanboy, I love using Linux I use it on the Desktop, i've migrated may of our servers to it and am a firm advocate for Desktop Linux as an alternative for Windows. Using Linux is an entrance to a whole new world and I don' just mean with Linux, its the gateway to other OS's.

My trip into the wonderful world of *nix operating systems started over 20 years ago when working for the BBC a Sun Indigo was plonked onto my desk. I'd been using different OS's for a while, very early in my career i was using OS/2 instead of Windows 3.1 and this sparked an interested I guess in what was to be come the path for the future.

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The latest release of XBMC my preferred application for viewing my Movie collection on the TV and there has been an updated release just recently. I was urged to give this a whirl as it has an Apple Airplay server built in for streaming video on the TV from the iPad.

I have been running XBMC 10.0 on a Sabayon system for the past few months and it's beeen running well, however always one for the new and change I wanted to give XBMC 11 a bit of a go. The first stage was to see if the Sabayon repositories had an update, they did however it wasn't to the release version it was to the release candidate 2. This doesn't include the airplay functionality so an alternative was needed.

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Just a bit of rambling about Linux, as well as reflections and meanderings about computer history in general

Take a look out at the Linux Distro landscape and there are no end of small business server distributions, these are the distros which provide you with a cheap alternative to create a small business server which in turn provides eMail, DNS, DHCP, Web Servers and many other services you'd need on a server when running a small business.

Usually the scenario would be that you use Microsoft's server products to provide your staff with a reliable back end server system, however over the last few years some of the Linux alternatives have risen like cream does to the top. Everything you could do with a Microsoft server can now be done for free on a Linux Small business distro. Zentayal is an example of this type of Distro. Its polished, there are support options, its well documented, it runs on Ubuntu as a core OS.

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LMDE is a mixed bag. On one hand, you get a Debian install with the Mint specific user software that makes the end user a very nice experience. On the other hand, it's still being tweaked and played with. This can lead to some frustration with apps that haven't had all the kinks worked out yet.

Just been reading an interesting piece on zdnet.com by the love him or hate him auther who is Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols which talks about the possible rise of Ubuntu as a server platform when compared to RHEL. The article quotes the Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth on some figures from W3Tech.

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I've tried to include a few that are a bit less like on the other lists you might find..

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If you installed the Linux boot loader to the MBR and want to restore the Windows boot loader, this short tutorial shows you how to do it. It is an easy, point-and-click process. And the application that makes it that easy is called EasyBCD, a free-for-personal-use application from Neosmart Technologies.

Directly on the various Mobile operator sites there seems to be a choice of the iPad 2 going very strong 1 week before the new Ipad release, very little mention of "the new iPad coming soon" and either the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 or Orange are offering their own Tablet or th HTC 7" offering.

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While as a Sysadmin our world is generally speaking goverend by Windows Desktops and servers, Microsoft's OS isn't the best one out there at every task, for some tasks Linux is the answer, I've written on other blogs on a similar topic, about Linux Distros and which ones you will get he most out of. The idea behind most of these Linux Distros is they act as a tool or a set of tools to perform a certain task.
Each one of thses distros is free, downloads as an ISO and can be run (apart from one) booted from a CD without installation.

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The broad objective, if it is not already evident from the title of this article, is to: Dual-boot Windows 7 and Chakra Archimedes on a computer with one hard drive; then, create an NTFS partition at the end of the drive that will be shared between both operating systems. When completed, you should see this screen when you reboot or restart the computer.