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Quicktime In Linux
brianmed writes "Yes, it works. Codeweavers has just announced their crossover plug-in. It enables users to access popular Windows files and plug-ins in Linux. Right now it is geared towards Quicktime, Shockwave, and Word viewers. Quicktime trailers play just fine. I also have pine setup to launch the the MS Word viewer on command. It is a happy day." Alright, time to start testing. I've also been talking with Jeremy White of Codeweavers: he's got a request for help, as well as an interesting piece on business models -- the Crossover is not entirely GPL. See the above for more information.
FINALY QT in linux
oh yeah FP!
Well, now I have two out of three of the major video codecs available... often, things only offer either Windows Media or Quicktime.
Of course, what I'd really like would be native Flash authoring...
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
That is great to hear ( I am being serious ). The only catch is that the most of the QuickTime trailers use Sorenson and I can't see any legal way of getting this working on Linux, unless Apple changes the licensing between them and Sorenson. Maybe its time to encourage the use of a non-Sorenson codec?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Linux is now a stronger than ever platform for watching porn.
Je t'aime Stéphanie
And that can cause problems. The website says that the plugin costs $19.95. I understand the need to compensate developers for their work but charging for a plugin that is free (as in beer) on other platforms is not going to migrate people to Linux. This will be news when there are free plugins that install right and work just as well.
The Anti-Blog
Exactly what are we (meaning the Linux community) doing when we reverse-engineer these kinds of procedures? I mean, we rant and rave and scream about how terrible proprietary formats are, about how they destroy innovation, about how they are held by Evil Corporations (tm)... And then we reverse-engineer the system calls until we have something that works for us.
Shouldn't we, as a community, be concentrating our efforts on ways to make the computer world a better and happier place, rather than trying to emulate the big companies that are constantly oppressing the minority Operating Systems (Linux, BSD, etc)? These corporations are doing nothing but destroying our rights, and we emulate them.
It's time for the free software "movement" to destroy these corporations and their powerful, vice-like grip on information (including Quicktime formats) and instead develop our own methods of showing video on operating systems that are not inferior *cough*Windows*cough*
Damn! I was hoping for it to be free. I understand they have to make their money someway.
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.
he he, so IE6 drops quicktime, and Linux picks it up. good deal. i must say i'm a little surprised that Apple is better about making a Linux friendly quicktime viewer, especially in light of what asses MS have been over the quicktime plug-in....
...that there's a Flash plugin for Mozilla on Linux already.
-=Maggie Leber=-
Don't worry,IE6 lost the QT plug-in but is likely to have gained the QT active-x component.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
20 bucks so I can watch Quicktime movies using a product that may or may not work with the next browser release?
Pass.
Closed video codecs = waste of time.
Funny thing is if Quicktime was open it probably would've been the standard by now(can you say pdf, mp3).
Too bad there isn't a video version of Ogg.
If I can write my software in Windows (90+% of the market) and know it will eventually be able to work through emulation on other platforms (EVER write a native app for a platform other than windows?
No flames / "Trolls!" / etc. This is a SERIOUS question from a professional (I get paid to do it!) Windows developer.
Prevent linux based DDOS's!
http://linux.denialofservice.org/
The world is upside down. We now have to pay for something for Linux , when we could have it for free on Windows.
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.
FINALY QT in linux
Yeah, but let's face it, Quicktime is for the most part dead.
If Apple had been serious about it, there *would* have been at least precompiled Linux binaries for it; my only guess is that Microsoft's financial interest in Apple may have helped to prevent that from happening.
Of course, Windows Media Player's ASF support for Linux would be great, but I see no mention of it in the press release. Given that Microsoft went after Virtual Dub for its support of ASF files (read the news archive):
"If I remember correctly, my reverse engineering of the ASF file format structure took place after the DMCA was enacted but before the anti-reverse-engineering clause took effect, and between the filing and issuing dates for the Microsoft patent. I will have to look up the exact dates, but ASF functionality existed in VirtualDub long before the infamous V1.3c release that will seemingly roam the Internet for eternity. This is, unfortunately, the same ASF parser that ended up in the Linux avifile library in modified form -- so anyone using that library needs to be careful. Frankly, I'm amazed my parser ever worked at all, given how nasty it was."[sigh]
Please join with me in wishing cancer on Mr. Gates.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Apple also needs for Quicktime to run on Windows, because that's what the content consumers use.
Apple does not care about Linux, because by comparison, very few of the content viewers use Linux.
Now, as much as you and I would love for there to be a Quicktime app/plugin for Linux, I don't see that support coming from Apple.
The only thing that will convince Apple to make Quicktime for Linux is a dramatic increase in the amount of desktop end-users running Linux. The best way you can make that happen is by increasing the usability and friendliness of Linux as a whole, by writing programs with clean GUIs and good documentation.
To put it in other terms, Apple does not care about a platform where you have to know to type "rpm -iv quicktime_plugin.i386.rpm" to install it. That needs to change first! 99% of the computing population can not, and will not understand the command line!
...but I think that this is one of the most important news items I've seen in some time. Getting QuickTime to the linux desktop is an incredible step towards making linux viable for the average joe's desktop OS.
Its a shame that apple's "open source commitment" doesn't reach to the QuickTime team, or this would have happened a long time ago...
___
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
You really should read the article before you post obviously stupid comments, but I'll forgive you of that, since I've done that myself (haven't we all). Anyway, to sum up the whole thing in one little line, CrossOver is a Wine-using thingy that lets you install the Windows version of the said plugins and use them as if they were Linux native Netscape plugins. (In other words, since you're using the Windows install of the Windows plugin, of course it works with Sorenson, and next time, click the link... it wasn't even slashdotted.)
The penguins bitch about the degradation of the web into "proprietary standards" like QuickTime and Shockwave, yet rejoice when these finally become available on Linux...
At least stick to your guns. If you dislike these formats because they are proprietary, it shouldn't matter if they are available for whatever platform you use, because you don't want it.
If you disliked these simply because they weren't penguin-friendly, then admit that, too...
It is pitch dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
- quicktime for linux
- flash for linux
- Word for linux
CrossOver IS a "netscape for linux" plugin that interfaces with a custom build of WINE, the Windows Emulator. Through this windows emulator, you may install and run the Quicktime (for Windows!), Flash (for windows!), and Word Reader (for Windows!) plugins. And CrossOver will handle the interaction for you, to make the windows VM appear in the appropriate window/panel for your browser of choice.Since it's a Netscape plugin, it will work with varying degrees of success with other browsers, like moz and konq. Remember, the Netscape plugin format is the one IE is abandoning, so there might not even be any plugins to use with CrossOver after a couple of years.
That said, it's pretty damn neat. And I can see why they're charging for it - it's kind of a way to get *any* windows plugin to work as native plugins would under Linux. Of course the functionality isn't perfect, but I can definitely see business customers being interested if they have a need for things like that. Could be the essential migration tool for some shop...
It's sad that this plug-in isn't free software, but I wouldn't mind buying it because they do contribute a fair amount to the WINE project. It would be great if the FSF or some government organization would buy the code and GPL it.
If the US government spent as much money in grants to write free software as they do fighting M$ the computer world would be a much happier place.
bash-2.04$
bash-2.04$yes "Don't you hate dialup connections?"| write USERNAME
Now maybe we won't have to listen to Taco whine every time /. links to something Quicktime.. was the "well guess I can't watch that" starting to grate on anyone else? :)
---
"how can the same street intersect with itself? i must be at the nexus of the universe!" - cosmo kramer
I think this is one of the most important news items I've seen in some time
Unfortunately it's not free (it costs $20) and it doesn't include the Sorenson codec which means that it won't play most Quicktime clips.
Okay, so you have a point about the MegaHertz Myth, but how can PowerPC compete with 2 Ghz systems shipping today and dual/quad+ 2Ghz systems on their way before christmas? I want some real world benchmarks to show me that these PowerPC chips are more than hype, that they really are supercomputers! Then I'll think about spending the extra $1000 over the cost of my cheap/modular PC hardware to get into a Mac. Now if all the Macs came with titanium cases it might be different. (MacOS is quite nice!)
Note that the avifile project has links to many other players...
XAnim is (AFAIK) the oldest player. It supports some AVIs but (IIRC) not ASFs...
Most of the ASF et. al. support comes from using the Windows binary codecs...
A buddy of mine was recently hired onto the streaming quicktime team at apple. When I asked him about QT for linux, he told me the team had it working months ago, but Jobs killed it.
Seems that quicktime is the feature that keeps Macs on the forefront of digital video production. To port it to linux would eat into Apple's niche market position.
to mail me, first remove the evil spam.
Personally, I would like to congratulate the guys on a job well done. I think the implications of what these guys have done have yet to be seen.
What I would suggest is that people look past what some consider to be the "limited" aspect of what has been completed, and imagine what can be accomplished with what they have learned.
Yep, I'll buy a copy. It won't be the first "non-open" software I've run on my linux box, and if they continue on the path they've chosen, hell, I'd like to help them!
o IE6 drops quicktime, and Linux picks it up. good deal. i must say i'm a little surprised that Apple is better about making a Linux friendly quicktime viewer, especially in light of what asses MS have been over the quicktime plug-in....
If there isn't one already, there will soon be a QuickTime active x component for ie6. And the quicktime-for-linux bit isn't by apple, its by the people at codeweavers. It allows the apple quicktime plugin for windows to work in linux. There is no apple support for quicktime on linux.
___
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
... Micro$oft announced it would not support netscape plugins anymore, including Quicktime.
Maybe it's just a sad coincidence, but who knows...
That needs to change first! 99% of the computing population can not, and will not understand the command line!
From that statement, I can see you've been involved in the technical community for even less time than I have. People will use whatever interface they've been trained to use. All the people screaming for Linux UIs to imitate Windows don't want an easy-to-use or easy-to-learn UI. They don't want a UI that they have to learn any more to use.
I know numerous non-technical people who got by just fine with a command line and text-based programs for years. Switching them over to a GUI system is almost invariably painful, especially a Microsoft GUI. There's too much inconsistancy and randomness (from the view of the user).
As for install, what about having two files in a .gz archive, one being quicktime_plugin.i386.rpm and the other being install.sh, containing the fillowing:
#!/usr/bin/sh
rpm -iv quicktimeplugin.i386.rpm
That brainless enough for you?
Or you could just use a distribution with a halfway-decent package management system and type: apt-get install quicktime_plugin
(This post will be modded down for containing a clue, a real-world estimate of the intelligence of the average human being, and a positive opinion of Linux.)
ASF is the suckiest suck that ever sucked.
RTFArticle
this can play sorenson video from what i see.
the quicktime for windows plugin plays sorenson videos.
this enables linux users to install the quicktime plugin for windows.
So you go figure it out.
Geez.
I agree totally. Might I add also that Linux also needs to get away from X and "su root." Don't get me wrong, both methods work fine, but X has some clear limitations, and always having to be the root user to install software is very annoying.
Nobody wants to compile his own software just to put it under his user's home directory instead of globally. There needs to be something like InstallShield or Wise Install for Windows -- I double click the executable on my desktop, answer a few simple questions, and, *poof*, my scripts are updated and the software is installed. Something else that the installer should do is put icons all over the place -- sometimes annoying, but generally helpful: I hate going into the menu editor ("kdesu" this time, but still from a cli) to set up a launcher.
That point also brings me to another thing: icon embedding. There's nothing more annoying than having to do "rpm -ql whatever | grep xpm" to find an icon!
X needs a color pointer. It's just as simple as that. Ok, so ub3r geeks find Onna-Ranma's head for a pointer cheesy, but I like my pointer in windows, and I wish I could use it in X. GTK for the Framebuffer seems to be on the right track. When X was written, video accelerator cards weren't very common. However, nowadays everyone has one. I really would like Quake III to run at more than three seconds per frame!
As for the plugin itself, I won't buy it because that's what I already have Windows for -- mass multimedia. I don't watch any kind of video in linux because X is too slow and there isn't an mpeg or divx decoder around that will do fullscreen under Linux. If you think that Linux is multimedia -- you're kidding yourself: my 750 MHz Thunderbird with 224 MB memory linux box doesn't even compare to my Packard H3ll 300 MHz with 64 MB of ram for multimedia.
Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
And that pretty much translates out to a negligible loss of 1% market share.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
What in the hell are you talking about? Have you actually read the contracts? Do you have proof?
Apple doesn't produce for Linux because a) there isn't enough demand - despite the preponderance of Linux users here and b) they have their own POSIX OS to work with.
Frankly, they don't NEED Linux yet.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
The truth is that I use windows just because
there are certain sites that are designed to be useless without these (IMHO bloated) plugins.
This may not be a huge help in getting Joe Schmo to try LINUX, but I'll _happily_ fork over $20 for something so useful.
In fact, if this is a decent product, let's try not to write an open source competitor to this so that the company can make some (well deserved) money.
If we want mainstream acceptance of LINUX, maybe having some decent commercial products out there will help.
We already have a free(ish) playing for divx (and various other) video codecs using Windows DLL's in the form of avifile (http://avifile.sourceforge.net/). So why can't someone do the same trick for non-open Quicktime codec?
If you keep your mind open, you're never sure what might wander on in.
dual 800s are like 11 or 12 GFLOPS (peak rate, anyway), i'd say thats damn fast =]
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
How can they be a free software company when some of the components in their products are closed?
"You will be helping to provide a much needed source of income to a Free Software company [...]"
give me bongo
...unless they specifically mean they can play the Sorenson codec.
They can. Read the article.
Most of the ASF et. al. support comes from using the Windows binary codecs...
Until FFMPEG came along, or more importantly, Xine 0.51, which plays MSMPEG and DivX encoded AVIs just fine, natively. Not sure about ASFs - should be pretty triviual to do, but I haven't texted it yet.
Oh, and if you want Xine with the ability to play the DVD movies you paid for, you should get the packages from here.
This is EXACTLY the sort of thing that Linux needs right now. Funny to think that with all the awesome software we have (Apache, KDE, the Gimp, Linux itself...) the thing we need the most right now is a lame little viewer for some proprietary media formats. But it's true.
:)
I have no problem at all paying for software like this. Especially since they have priced it quite reasonably.
Now, let's hope it actually _works_ and isn't just marketing hype surrounding a shoddy product.
> I also have pine setup to launch the the MS Word viewer on command.
Macro viruses and all?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Uh-oh, here we go again.
What are the "clear limitations" of X? We now have anti-aliased text, direct-rendered 3D hardware support, true-type font support, support for running on embedded devices (i.e. iPaq)... What else do you want?
Meanwhile, X has some *clear* advantages: much more seamless multi-display support, remote display capability, network font servers, easy extensibility...
Installation and icons are the responsibility of the distribution and the API. It's not about X, it's about Red Hat and GNOME, which could solve both problems. And color pointers have been done by several software packages, among them many of Loki's games. There are also X extensions around (or at least there used to be -- search freshmeat) for color and animated color root window pointers. Your speed claims are ridiculous. I personally watch full-screen DVD video all the time using vlc in X. It looks great to me, no frames are dropped, and my hardware is virtually identical to yours. Just search for 'vlc' at freshmeat. I also own and play Quake III all the time under X using my GF2 card, and it's within just a few frames of the Windows speeds I get, with some definite advantages -- like being able to run it in a window. If your 3D card isn't as fast, just maybe you should ask your video card manufacturer for some drivers! And don't make fun of my Nvidia card and their 'closed' drivers -- all of your Windows 3D drivers are closed.
Just because you don't know how to do it doesn't mean it isn't possible. And the things you're talking about would be just as difficult to get together if you had to do it by hand under Windows -- so blame the people who put it all on your CD-ROM (whoever made your distro) and not X, which is a great piece of software that is very stable, mature, and well-designed.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Since Quicktime isn't actually running in Linux but running under windoze with a hack...by your logic isn't it the "Linux superiority myth"?
;-P
that's good news. People that don't like to open star office to read a MS office document ought to be happy. personally, i'm using star office. It works just fine for me. Now for the the quicktime and shockwave it propably worth buying since more and more web sites are using shockwave and i haven't found anything to view quicktime movies in my computer.
I don't tire of it either. But what do you expect Apple and other for-profit companies to do? Their number one priority at all times is making money for themselves and their investors. They simply aren't concerned with anything else. Don't take it personally. The user Linux user base on Apple hardware is far too small for them to care.
Why isn't this modded as -1 : Offtopic?
Yes, we all know of the problems with Linux. However, the story really has nothing to do with Apple creating quicktime on Linux and especially not the reasons that they are not doing so. The story is about "Guys get quicktime working in Netscape on Linux"
Please don't use this space for your rant about the "State of Linux".
Mad Software: Rantings on Developing So
They also don't come with every distribution of Linux (no standard). Mom's PC at home may or may not work the same as the one she has at work.
These are usability problems that need to be addressed. The point is that GnoRPM and Red Carpet are GREAT - if you already know how to use RPM! But neither is as easy as "click setup.exe and look for your new program in the start menu".
Please note, I'm not saying to dumb it down for everyone - but there does need to be some standard for installing and updating programs. The Red Hat network is a good start (still too hard for a newbie, in my opinion) that is moving in the right direction.
You want nice stuff like the Quicktime plugin ported to Linux? You want Flash or Dreamweaver for development? You want the latest games? Then you're going to have to give a little on usability - these companies aren't going to be interested in selling those titles to 1% of the computer market.
You may hate "Joe Sixpack" and think he's an idiot, but the fact is, the market FOLLOWS Joe Sixpack. So if you want more stuff for Linux, figure out how to make it easy enough for Joe Sixpack to understand!
Every time I hear somebody say this, I wonder why bother improving the GUI for Linux, if you obviously don't want it user-friendly. My grandmother will not use Linux, so I got her an iMac.
That was an extremely lucid observation until the "it's a shame" bit ... Sorenson codec, 'nuff said. Yeah, Apple should probably seriously consider releasing QuickTime for Linux, if for no other reason than to keep from essentially saying, "I don't give a good flying fsck that you no-good commie open-source pinkos can't see view/see/hear content in this format." But it's not so cut and dry, or else folks wouldn't keep bringing up the Sorenson codec point over and over in these threads today. I'll just go ahead and show my arse by asking a question: who's out there developing open-source A/V codecs? Those are the guys who deserve some serious patronage, but that's another story entirely.
....
But what about the server tax? Am I missing something here? How about free, as in beer and speech. Let me get this straight: I can go to Apple's site and download the source code and/or compiled binaries for QuickTime Streaming Server 3 (Darwin Streaming Server 3) that will work under Windows, FreeBSD, and Red Hat Linux 6.2? WTF am I missing here? I guess all I'm missing is about $60k per server from Real, but I might be wrong
Even superheroes once were losers
Dude, if you just want to view quicktime files, save the twenty bucks and use real free software.
Install plugger and Xanim.
Now shockwave is an entirely different matter...
~~ What's stopping you?
It is a propietary, comercial, closed and non-free application. It is as far from GPL as it can be!
MOD THE CHILD UP!
This numerous people does not include my grandmother, or people who bought a mac because it was easier to use and no DOS.
Regardless of 'brainless' it's still more difficult than 'the mac way.'
Try to imagine it from a non-geek perspective.
Yes, they're guilty of this.
Netscape's plugin format is good, because it simplifies cross-platform and cross-browser porting. Why spend more to make an activeX and a Netscape plugin, when you can make one that works for everyone?
Second, MS just dropped it unexpectedly. No reason, other than to play hardball and FORCE ActiveX development. Now, if they made an announcement that the next release won't have Netscape plugin support, then there'd be a lot less ill sentiment.
My experience with the various video formats on Windows boxes suggest that QT for Windows is intentionally crippled by the folks at Apple to help sell more Apple hardware.
QT files (like the Mario 128 demo I downloaded from IGN) on my HDD constantly lagged and skipped on my old 233 MMX machine with 128 MB of RAM and a Diamond Stealth III (while RealMedia and mpeg files did fine). I assumed that Apple's QT player was bloatware and required something a bit more robust to play well. However, if I'm still having the same lagging/skipping problems with a Pentium 4 1.3 GHz, 256 MB of RAM, and a GeForce board, will I ever have good enough hardware? I know the Pentium 4 isn't the best-designed chip under the sun, but this is ridiculous! Especially when other video formats work just fine on comparativley ancient hardware.
And of course this problem is only worsened by sites like IGN that offer media excluslively as QT files. (And then IGN expects me to pay money for their premium content?)
Go ahead, mod me down as flamebait, but I don't even want QT software touching my Windows installs. Why would I want it running under Linux?
These are all excellent points.
The file stuff is a problem. We're using
the Yahoo store front, so we have a remarkably
limited amount of control over both the
file and the amount of information we can
add to the actual order pages. We're
working on it.
I've asked our sysadmin to post the EULA
to our pages; we very much intend for
our customers to know exactly what
they're getting before they buy.
Thanks for the input,
Jeremy White
CEO
CodeWeavers
I just purchased the crossover plugin, and here are my first thoughs with it: (testing with Netscape & Mozilla)
.mov file on my system with browsers led to:
.mov file played correctly, and in line
Installer: Very cool - makes it way easier to get the plugins.
Quicktime: Quicktime installed fine, but the opening video I played had no sound.
following attempts with opening a
Netscape:
Mozilla: Tried to launch Xanim
Gnome (nautilus): launches to Xanim
Shockwave: Shockwave installer had to be downloaded, but it's install went fine
Netscape: every file I have tried to use has worked to at least some degree. some things the sound only produces a crackle - but this could be my audio driver I suppose
Mozilla: only aboul a 1/4 of th eflash files Ihave tried have worked. Some sites cannot detect tha mozilla has the plugin installed.
Word: Word viewer installed fine, though it didthrow an error, saying the plugin wasn't detected.
Netscape: Files loaded fine (Note, if file has a space in it's name, you need to escape it, or it will take you to netscape's search site) Note: the file was not viewed in line
Mozilla: Didn't pick up the mime type, and so just displayed a normal dialog for running a file it does not recognize
Gnome: Files launched to the word viewer fine
Excel: Excel viewer installed fine, though it didthrow an error, saying the plugin wasn't detected.
Netscape: Files loaded fine (Note, if file has a space in it's name, you need to escape it, or it will take you to netscape's search site) Note: the file was not viewed in line
Mozilla: Didn't pick up the mime type, and so just displayed a normal dialog for running a file it does not recognize
Gnome: Files launched to the excel viewer fine
Note, the Excel & Word viewers did not show up in mozilla when one does an About:Plugin
Final judgement: This works pretty well in Netscape, but needs alot of work for Mozilla. this is to be expected from the release notes. For me, the word and excel viewers are well worth the $20 - and the rest is fun to play with
Devon Jones
- The unexamined life is not worth leading -
Serisously man... this rocks. Esspecially for a web developer. I'll I have to see which codecs it supports though.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
I fully agree with you about installing apps. It's no problem for most /. readers to go through the process of "download tar.gz, ./configure [options], fail, go get some libaries, repeat" or some other such system, but we're a relative minority. Unfortunately, we're the people in charge of making Linux easy to use; something that is never going to happen. I don't have any problem installing an rpm package so why should I spend my free time writing an easy-to-use installer for Linux?
As for the "su root" issue I think you could theoretically install any app to your home folder. It'd take a bit of modification of the config files (mostly adding paths that refer to your home folder and such), but once it was done you'd never have to think about it again. For the most part, though, root and its abilities are a necessary evil in a multi-user system. If you're going to have a lot of (potentially hostile) users on one system you have to have something to distinguish between people who should be able to do anything and people who shouldn't.
By the way, there was once an OS that was perfect for you. It was called BeOS and, if you had a supported video card, it would've kicked any other OS's ass in multimedia and had none of this silly "root" stuff to deal with. Program installation? Just drag it onto a special "Drag your app onto me!" icon and it would install. Don't remember whether it supported colorful pointers or not but it wouldn't surprise me.
(I'd like to make a few notes, though: I don't know what's wrong with your machine but I play Q3 quite comfortably under Linux and I know that at least Enlightenment supports colorful cursors quite well, it's just rarely used.)
I build model citizens.
What has to happen is that the different layers of user experience have to be separated more clearly. Any user should still be able to configure procmail, compile his own kernel or set up a firewall or router, if he so desires, but if he doesn't, he must be able to use Linux day-to-day without ever having to deal with the "uglier" parts of the OS. This is gradually happening, but it is a process which is not yet complete (mostly because of Microsoft's monopoly stretches out to so many areas).
...License text... seems fair...
Just thought I'd share that...
And then a friendly notice:
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
Xanim doesn't support any of the proprietary codecs that make up the majority of QT 4 and 5, and almost no one uses the versions of QT that Xanim can parse anymore. This is largely because of the Sorensen codecs, which Sorensen will allow an open source version of...
Try this:
http://fredrik.hubbe.net/plugger.html
Multimedia plugin for Linux which can handle Quicktime, MPEG, MP2, AVI, SGI-movie, Tiff, DL, IFF-anim, MIDI, Soundtracker, AU, WAV and Commodore 64 audio files.
I'm using it in Mozilla 0.9.3 and it works quite well. That, and the flash plugin that is available here:
http://www.macromedia.com/
I'm all set with Mozilla under Linux: Java plugin, Flash plugin, Quicktime, etc...
--- witty signature
Actually, you're right, I don't like it. Gates tends to donate to causes like third world vaccines while he holds stock in biotech companies. Sounds like a conflict of interest there.
I've just purchased it, but what they could have possibly done instead of charging us for it is offer it to other companies such as Apple. Goto Apple and say that we have a easy way to expand your quicktime viewer to Linux. Offer Apple a fair price and now you can download quicktime for Linux from Apples page using crossover. I guess they could still do that ;) You don't have to stop at Apple, then goto macromedia...
Of course this isn't as good as native support, just my thoughts.
Russell Valentine
But you have to be root to run either of them, which is yet another step in the way.
I don't know what you are trying to argue...
You don't want to have a root account under linux? If one person is using the Linux Workstation, then why couldn't he be logged in as root all the time? If you are wanting to have multiple people use the machine, give all their accounts full super user privs.
Doing this would be bad system administration, but Windows does precicely the same thing. Almost all applications under Windows (NT derivatives) require joe_user to be logged in under a superuser (administrator) acount to install software.
'DOS-based' windows (95,98,ME) had no idea of user permissions, so that point is moot.
Your argument doesn't make a whole lot of sense (if you saying that windows makes things easier to install from a security perspective).
As others have pointed out, most every video editing package on the market, even those that run on Windows, use QuickTime as their base technology. QuickTime is very much alive and healthy, for that matter.
OtoH, RealAudio is, for all intents and purposes, slowly sinking into the sunset, between the fact that equivalent bit rate files sound better in Windows Media format than the RealAudio versions do and MS's "forcing" content providers to use WM in association with XP.
Fun activity - go to a major streamer like WarpRadio and try to find a station streaming in RealAudio as opposed to Windows Media; good luck - they're few and far between...
On the other hand, equivalent bit rate QuickTime files usually look better than the equivalent Windows Media files or Real files, so there's a plus...
In short, plugger just provides an easy way for a plugin to call an outside program to do its thing; however, you still need a program that plugger can call, and by default it calls xanim to display QuickTime.
Unfortunately, almost all QuickTime 3, 4 and 5 content is encoded using one of the Sorensen codecs, which xanim does not support because Sorensen doesn't release source...
"Quicktime is not, repeat, not now called GNU/Quicktime. And related services are not called GNU/MS-Word, or GNU/Netscape. Thank you.
--hongpong.com
I already did, all I'm saying is for every codec I can think of except Sorenson there is already Free software than can play it. If this is the first that can do Sorenson, great, but personally I'd just rather see Sorenson stop being used than 'finally' have support for it.
That's not even starting to talk about the fact they want $19.95 for their thing.
Don't worry,IE6 lost the QT plug-in but is likely to have gained the QT active-x component
It's already done - just go to the Apple quicktime site, and it'll pop up an ActiveX install box.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
First of all, MS supported the Netscape plug-in architecture as part of their embrace/extend/extinguish philosophy. When they introduced IE, they needed plug-ins and forcing developers to write their plug-ins for two browsers would have been suicide for the adoption of IE at that time. Now that MS has succeeded in illegally destroying Netscape, they no longer need to support those plug-ins and can force developers to move to their exclusive plug-in architecture that cannot exist on other platforms, therby ensuring no more threat from potentially competative 3rd party browsers and OS's.
Second, Netscape is not quite dead. Its userbase may be much smaller now, but it is the second most popular browser and has millions of users. Apple being a relatively small software company (software not hardware) doesn't have time or the excess cash necessary for maintaining and supporting two different versions of their browser plugin. MS used to pride itself on backward compatiblility (remember DOS stuck around for an eternity), yet now they drop Netscape style plug-ins because of a whim, or is this a deliberate act to make sure that developers are stuck developing for an API that MS controls and can weild as a weapon to limit competition?
Thirdly, ActiveX breaks Quicktime webpages. Now tens of thousands of web pages need to be updated because ActiveX ignores the EMBED tag that Quicktime relies on. This is a serious problem. I cannot see how MS, a company that used to pride itself on backward compatibility, could justify this act. How long did it take them to get rid of DOS? Yet they don't seem to have any problem getting rid of something like this which affects millions of people. To me, this is MS at its worst.
In fact, X11 is still vastly superior to Win32 GDI (or whatever they're calling it today). I work from home two days a week, and I have DSL. I use Unix/X11 for everything - which means that I can do anything I need to using any program on any machine (whether it's at home or at the office) from either home or the office. Working from home is identical to working at the office - except for the noise, the constant interruptions, meetings, etc.
That one feature by itself is enough to blow all the Micros**t crap out of the water. (Leaving aside the fact that X11 can do anything that can be done on Windows. You might say that "Program X on Windows does foobar, show me an X11 program that does that" but you will miss the point. The lack of existence of that program is not due to any weakness of X11; it's simply because no one has written that program yet.)
You don't really think that a significant proportion of Linux/Unix users today compile things from source, do you? (A few do - gluttons for punishment like me... but I like having the source so if some bug really starts to annoy me, I can jump in and fix it.) Everyone else I know runs some sort of desktop; on Linux, K or Gnome. On both those systems, when you want to install something, you click on it, a window pops up that you type the root password into, and voila! it sets everything up, including billions of annoying icons everywhere, just like you want.(If you really mean to argue for the Windows Way of "everyone is logged in as Administrator all the time" - well, I wish I hadn't typed all this stuff in, because there's no hope.)
Don't get me wrong: if Program X that you need is only available on Operating System Y, of course your machine should be running Y. We use programs, not operating systems. (Again, except for the aforementioned gluttons for punishment like me - I've been writing code on Unix for 20 years and I just can't use any other OS. And I do watch video on Linux - you just need a video card that XFree86 supports well. And yes, it's not likely that Mom will be able to figure all this out.)
But don't make airy claims about "X having clear limitations".
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
I guess that the Linux user inside of me stepped aside when I saw this posting. The Mac user stepped forward and read, then curled over when it saw that there was mention of Windows along with Quicktime and no mention of Macintosh. Not trying to be critical but props should have been given to where the technology was born. I remember back to the days when no one who used windows wanted anything to do with Quicktime.
Well anyways it is good to finely see it coming over to Linux.
After all, that KDE Kpart is suppose to offer the _same_ fuctionality, without being proprietary. And that is even better... :-)
-Tim
-------------
"You would not get a high grade for such a design" -- Andy Tanenbaum on Linus' Linux design.
I bought it, and so did a coworker of mine. It is capable of a lot more than the /. story gave it credit for. Kudos to the authors
I bought it and have been struggling to download that bastard for 2 goddamn hours. I have a fat pipe but the yahoo.shit.server upon which the file resides is a PIG! The download makes it about 1 meg or so, then craps out and dies. Select download again and repeat ad infinitum.
I'm THIS close to saying "fuck it!" and "Give me my money back". Get the damn thing OFF YAHOO. THEY SUCK!! THEY'RE SLOW. THEY'RE IDIOTS!
If you wish to sell something for download, put it where IT CAN BE DOWNLOADED! Put it on an proper server so wget can be used (I tried it and it wont work on this goddamn moronic yahoo system). FIX IT OR QUIT SELLING IT FOR DOWNLOAD!
&$$!#!@#$ and the horse you codeweaver clowns rode in on!
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
If it's of no value the why not open it? I mean it seems rather daft to limit your costumer base to those who are willing to run closed code in super user mode. What does it do? It could install spyware or give my browser the yellow links for all I know.
I care a lot less about the program that runs in normal user mode.
read the parent post. Moron. You can't just expect people to update dead pages that have been around since 1996. Didn't you figure that out when Code Red smacked people around?
Using the kinds of workarounds CodeWeavers is making available only perpetuates such formats. You should instead ask web sites and content providers to use open, documented formats. Even if the open formats are encumbered by patents (like MPEG), that is still a better deal than using something proprietary; patents eventually expire, but undocumented proprietary formats never become open, they become obsolete and forgotten.
Besides, don't fool yourself for a moment: Microsoft and Apple will only allow this sort of thing to go on if they see it as being either useless or in their advantage. Otherwise, they have plenty of legal and technical means for stopping it.
First of nothing, let me tell you that for me Linux is almost a religion. I draged my wife and my little sister and her boyfriend to this BBQ (that was about something they don't fully understand) with my linux T-shirt and my "Linux 77" license plate in my lexus, just to see a bunch of people without any life or spark. I felt depressed with the attitude of these guys. My wife (who is more sociable than I) just went out there and met some people, and it was like, "hey guys! here is someone with a job!" thing.
I know most of us have our own lives and a lot of stuff to deal with daily, but I didn't expect these from my bretheren in the faith.
I do have to tell, though, that we met an old guy who saved the whole afternoon. Really cool guy and we shared a lot of interesting insights about using linux in education. I contributed with my link to www.LTSP.org at least. Better luck next time. P.S. You need to hire my wife as a social director (she accepts stocks...;))
You're saying ActiveX controls are standards compliant?
At least the non-standards compliant EMBED tag was supported by a wider range of browsers and wasn't platform-specific.
Alright, it is designed to run Windows-based Netscape plugins. Necessary evil - with the current low level of desktop penetration by Linux, manufacturers and software designers will not immediately rush to providing support. Case in point: hardware drivers - hopefully rectified when a stable API for drivers ala WDM is defined.
With KDE's reaktivate project offering ActiveX plug-in compatibility, whether or not Netscape plugins will continue to be produced is rather moot; there will always be a way for Linux users (unfortunately only those on the x86 platform) to run Windows browser plug-ins.
Offered the choice, however, between increasing Microsoft's stranglehold on browser technologies using a free software program, and helping to maintain a competing technology (Netscape plugins) using a closed-source program developed by a company that gives back to the community, I would choose the latter.
As someone who has bought shrink-wrapped Linux distributions and application suites, I am pre-ordering the CD version of CrossOver. Quite a nice touch, that gives you access to the download version as well :)
Regards,
Michel
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
Actually, it is not so much about Quicktime (which is just a wrapper, like avi) but about the codec used.
You can already get QT for Linux here or here. But you can't get the Sorenson codec used by most QT movies found on the net.
Sorenson has got an exclusiv deal with apple.
not more popular, just there was a substantial number of people who migrated to MacOS for it's LACK of DOS. It's a large number that I wouldn't ignore.
You're kidding right?
X has some nice capabilities but I wouldn't call it nicely designed.
This is this "nice design" which explain that I have usually 3 toolkit in memory at the same time?? (Qt, Lesstiff, GTK, Tk sometimes, etc.)
Talk about unnecessary memory usage! And these toolkits don't integrates together very well (look and feel, sometimes cut/copy/paste doesn't work very,etc.)
And have you looked at XLib programming have you seen how low level the communication are between the client and the server?? How "chatty" the communication is between the client and the server??
Berlin is well designed (but not ready for prime time), X design is at best so-so.
Eh? I was always under the impression MS got its Industry Hardball Bag-o-Tricks Start Kit from IBM.
And then they began refining the art...
Your point may be valid - I'm not aware of any professional studios using Linux for video editing. But I think you might be dismissing a trend. Linux is making headway in the film industry.
Two examples are Pixar (noteably Shrek) and Square (Final Fantasy). Linux has been doing some heavy lifting in render farms for a while now. But note that its also showing up as workstations. Existing product lines and tools are being ported to Linux, and some production houses are generating their own internal tools.
This might not be a solid example of Linux in video editing today - but it does show Linux could compete with Apple for the same niche markets in the future.
Where Quicktime runs has nothing to do with it. The point is that an activex control is NOT anywhere near to standards complient (strike your "oh woe for the unfair bashing of microsoft" troll). Netscapes' interface has become a defacto standard in so far as many browsers (including IE) support it and it doesn't require a platform specific architecture to implement.
That's a pity they do not have a trial version of this. Yeah, I understand the trial makes it easier to steal, blah blah blah. But making even functionally-limited trial version would allow me to see if it works for my system before I shell out the money.
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
From the "Real Dirt" FAQ:
> What we will make work: We will make Konqueror and Mozilla work as well as Netscape.
Ohhhh shit. Terrorists.
Actually, you're right, I don't like it. Gates tends to donate to causes like third world vaccines [salon.com] while he holds stock in biotech companies [businessweek.com]. Sounds like a conflict of interest there.
This rant is not intended to be polite political correct critisism. If you are offended by it, then good. If you're offended by it, then I'm probably offended by you.
This is one of the stupidest things I've seen on slashdot for a while, and it has some good competition. It's so horrible that Mr Gates invests money in boitech companies. The article says he's actually interested in seeing that the drugs work, and that they do what they are designed to do. He donates millions of dollars to vaccinate children in third world countries. There is no possible way he is actually making a profit from that just because he owns significant amounts of stock in biotech companies. However, there is a chance that it shows he really does care, and he's investing in helping create new medicines to make people's life's better.
Bill gates owns stock in a lot of companies. Someone always seems to want to whine that anything he does to help people is in some way a conflict of interest. He donates a significan portion of his income to charities to help people, especially those in dire need. He does a lot of good through those charities, and complaining about him donating money to vaccinate children so they don't die at a very young age, is beyond stupid. It's childish, craven, and pathetic. People's lives are at stake and you want to complain that possibly one or two percent of the money he donates may somehow find it's way back to him through profits of a company he owns stock in. You truely disgust me.
Releasing the decoder for Windows has absolutely no money in it either (you can download the viewer for free). The money is in selling the encoder for which having the widest level of acceptance in the community is a must. Thus it would only make sense to port a viewer to Linux so you can say your viewer is available on the highest number of possible platforms. Why they haven't done this is still a mystery.
X does not do color cursors. The call to set the cursor takes two bitmaps, giving you 3 colors at most (plus transparent). Most X servers use only 2 colors and make the third color be "xor" (perhaps this is required). Nobody has bothered to modify the call to take an X Pixmap, because they are all paranoid about back compatability.
Similarily, yea there is this marvelous XRender "extension" to do anti-aliased fonts, but use of it requires a huge library on the client end, completely defeating one of the main purposes of X! Why didn't they just replace the existing X font rendering? People always tell me "well, that's technically impossible, you don't know shit about X", but I know for a fact that the MicroSoft that we all love to deride successfully replaced *their* non-antialiased interface with an anti-aliased one and it didn't break any programs and all programs, including old ones, suddenly got anti-aliased text! I think it is pretty disgusting that the X designers cannot do this. Of course it is due to the absrudly complex internals of X and the horrid complex toolkits that are atop it that make them completely unwilling to change the slightest thing about how the calls work for fear they will break something.
And all that 3-D stuff is added on. I have to create different "contexts" for OpenGL than for X, I have to use totally different calls to set the color I want to draw in, and I can't share the fonts (especially I can't share the new XRender fonts). This is just stupid and has absolutely nothing to do with intelligent design. (Of course MicroSoft's 3D has the same problem so we aren't inferior to them there, but still...)
What the f**k is this? Since when is "install" user friendly? People have been so biased by Windoze crap that they call crap that is only slightly better than Linux "user freindly".
In reality the average user has no idea that you "install" anything.
How about this for user freindly:
The user clicks on the program and it RUNS!!! It does not "install" or any such crap. It RUNS, like programs did THIRTY F**KING YEARS AGO!
Then the user can try out the program. If they don't like it, they quit, and they throw the icon they clicked on in the trash, and it is GONE with no cleanup necessary!
Yea, of course "installation" is necessary. How about if the programs, if they need installation, would pop up a warning "Until you decide to install me, I can't do this wizzy network thing, so I will show you a simulation of what I do". The user can still experiement with it.
When the user quits the program it pops up a box that says "Would you like to make this program available to all users of your system?" (or if it needs root stuff to function, "Would you like to make this program able to do it's stuff for all users". It would then pop up a box that says "Please type the root password for your machine" (possibly with a button that says "this is what I am going to do" that shows advanced users the exact script it is going to run as root). The user does this and the program is then "installed", and the icon they clicked is removed (because a new icon appears on the startup menu or whatever).
When the user tires of a program they installed, they can pick "uninstall" from the program. It says "please type the root password" (and the "this is what I'm going to do" button) and then the program is removed and it exits. It may also offer "Do you want to save me so I can be used again" and if you say yes it asks for a location and an icon identical to the original one is created there.
I'm really don't understand, though, where people who otherwise appear intelligent, will go and say "Linux needs easier installation". What we need is *NO* "installation".
Hey, I'd love to get away from Slashdot and all the disgruntled anarchists here. Can you name one where Linux and Windows people have reasonable discussion without resorting to name calling?
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
So, what's the GFLOPS rating of a dual 1.2 Athlon MP?
Fair enough. There is quite a leap from one application to another. And Linux has yet to make that jump.
But the point I'm trying to make is - why discount Linux as unable to MAKE that jump? Linux made inroads in professional movie production handling server farm hardware. Now its showing up running workstation hardware (and not just for 3D rendering - I can't find the article, but I remember reading a studio had developed inhouse applications for storyboarding and inking animation frames). Movie studio professionals are being exposed to, and becoming comfortable, with Linux. Why wouldn't these same professionals start looking at Linux as a solution for video editing?
If I had aimed my hopes on a niche market, and watched other's niche markets slowly invaded by Linux (ie: SGI), I might be a bit wary of it myself. Especially if neither my software NOR hardware really was included as Linux's selling point.
In short - I could understand Apple being wary of Linux... if, in fact, that's what is actually happening.
That's the problem right there - just how is ActiveX ANY kind of standard (defacto or not)? The closest thing to a standard ActiveX manages is Microsoft's standard. Nobody else's.Of course - the img tag IS a standard. Whether Mosaic has implemented it is not the issue.
But for all your posturing, you've stumbled on one valid point. When do we not get upset about non-standard extensions? It doesn't happen. Netscape pushed forward the development of HTML standards by creating their own extensions while pushing standards bodies to adopt them (or adopting extensions before they became standards - can't remember the exact timing off-hand). Netscape had its detractors (for valid reasons, IMHO, although I'm not critical). The difference is - these non-standard extensions were easy to adopt, were not platform specific, and were presented by Netscape to become standards to the appropriate bodies.
ActiveX follows none of this.
Once again - Microsoft is NOT following a standard. They are NOT being criticised for following a standard. They are being criticised for forcing development towards a solution that exists nowhere else but on their own platform.
Wine is a compatability layer that supports the Windows API. There is no emulation going on. For God's sake, the name is a recursive acronym for "WINE Is Not an Emulator." How much more clearly can they make this point??
-DA
Uh, now that MacOS is UNIX, wouldn't it logically follow that Apple, the maintainers of QuickTime, should release a UNIX version themselves?
Not true. All it would take is the number of people running Linux desktops to exceed the number number of macs in the same use.
ou have to know to type "rpm -iv quicktime_plugin.i386.rpm" to install it.
And you apparently do not care about knowing that you do not have to do that. Point of Fact: There have been, and are, usefull GUI tools for manageing RPMS. "OH, I just have to click on this quicktime checkbox? That's easy!"
Oh, and 99% of the computer using population can understand a CLI. I would say, that at least 99% of the computing population certainly can, and most of them do, understand the CLI.
Availability of apps is a means to the end, but there also needs to be a bridge in the meantime. I am sure Codeweavers does not see this as a long term source of revenue. I am sure they long for the day these products are not needed. In the meantime, however, there needs be a crossover, or migration procedure.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
You should read the article. This is not about flash. It is about using the x-over plugin to run _multiple_ kinds of netscape-style plugins built for Windows on Linux.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
Yes, and that would be a dramatic increase. Which is exactly what I said.
Everybody needs to stop whining and flaming these guys. This is a huge accomplishment for the Linux community, and these are the only people who attempted this. Just because these guys need to put food on their tables (ie, charge for this product), doesn't make them evil. If you have a problem with these guys's accomplishments, why doesn't somebody go redo their work, and make it GPLed?
...Sorenson doesn't have to release source, they just have to give the xanim coder permission to write a closed source implementation, but they're refusing to even do that.
(See this page.)
All Glory To The Hypnotoad!