I have used Kdenlive for a while now and it is my favourite video editing software. I've used it mainly in the KXStudio distro where it is pre-installed.

The funny thing is, though I have tried a number of times I have never succeeded in getting it to work properly when I try adding it to a fresh install of Ubuntu (10.04, 11.04, 11.10) by following the installation instructions for Ubuntu on the Kdenlive site. I use the terminal and enter the exact line of code shown to enable the ppa and install Kdenlive, but when I then start it up, h264 and various other rendering options - especially the 'website' related ones - are unavailable.(Is there something missing in those instructions, or am I just being unlucky? Perhaps there ought to be some additional steps added to the existing Ubuntu ones for inexperienced users like myself to prevent this if it is happening to other people? - but that's not the main reason for my post).

My experience of trying to install Kdenlive and get it fully working in Ubuntu makes me ask - which distro would people say gives the easiest installation of Kdenlive that results in a fully working version without any features unavailable?

I used to work with Kdenlive and openSuse 11.3 and everything was fine. Last year I decided to move from openSuse to Arch Linux and it also works perfectly fine - out of the box.

Hi,

AV Linux is a Debian-based installable ISO that comes with the most recent versions of all major Linux NLE's (CinelerraCV, Openshot, Kdenlive, LiVES)installed, pre-configured and all ready to use as well as a huge amount of the latest Linux Audio applications. AV Linux differs greatly in it's approach from Ubuntu by leaving a stable base untouched and providing updated packages for the key multimedia applications (including Kdenlive). The LiveDVD is available to try, I will mention that a new 5.0.3 ISO is to be released in the next week or two which will have a custom Kdenlive GIT build including most of the goodies that have been committed since the release of 0.8.2.1.

Check it out if you're interested: http://www.bandshed.net/AVLinux.html

Gmaq - re: AVLinux - I really liked the look of this one. I first saw it last year, and was excited to see it had a working Kdenlive, so I decided to give it a try.

What stopped me from settling for it as my Kdenlive distro was that I wanted to make commentaries while doing screencasts and could not (believe me I experimented a lot!) work out how to get sound from my USB microphone or sound from the USB microphone in my webcam for that matter in AVLinux. Being new to it, I tried various settings in 'Sound', 'Gnome ALSAMixer' and got as far as finding out in Terminal that my USB webcam's microphone was on Capture1 - I think - but the microphone's icon consistently reverted to having a red X through it. I spent hours on it.

Setting up the USB webcam was one thing that was easy in Ubuntu with guvcview.

I'm on Opensuse 11.4. kdenlive is in the packman multimedia repositories, so an install is trivial. I just started using kdenlive, but haven't seen any glitches. An amazing software that is :-)

@frisbee, Ubuntu based if you want access to sunabs git builds PPA, although build script also great option.

Your minor glitch about rendering profiles is probably more to do with an old kdenliverc file than distro, changing distro seems a sledge hammer to crack a nut. Many users on Ubuntu with no such problems.

Yellow - this is what I don't get. I realise many people have trouble-free installations, but I'm not one of them. I must be doing something wrong, but I can't see what :-(

I installed Kdenlive into a fresh Ubuntu straight from the ppa using the code on the Kdenlive site where it tells you how to install into Ubuntu. As far as I can tell, that's the most up to date file available. There were no old files pre-existing on the drive to cause problems.

Which Ubuntu should I be using?

When you install Ubuntu, it offers to update all its files during the installation. Should I say yes or no to this before installing Kdenlive?

I'd be really grateful if someone who has done it could talk me through the steps of exactly (i.e. starting from a blank hard drive) how they got Kdenlive installed with everything working on Ubuntu. I don't mind if the steps seem obvious - I've wasted so much time on it already, I just want to know how to do it!

(Thanks by the way to the people suggesting OpenSUSE - I've never used it, but will make a note to try.)

Hi frisbee,

AV Linux is primarily an ALSA and JACK environment and doesn't use Pulseaudio. Recent versions also now use guvcviewer which usually allows you to select separate audio/video devices in the preferences. In other applications it may require you to have your USB device plugged in and run 'arecord -l' or 'cat /proc/asound/cards' to determine the actual hw:X number of the device you want to use for capture.

I think integrated capture in Kdenlive is great however sometimes a smaller dedicated program is the more effective way to use a particular device.

frisbee, depending on your processor choose 32bit or 64bit build of the distro you choose, I've been using Linux for just short of 20yrs and out of all distros in that time Debian / Ubuntu (in recent years) have proven to be least headache.

Ubuntu 11.10 64bit is what I'm using with Gnome, but choice of Gnome / KDE / etc is personal choice.

I don't really think it matters how you go about it but I'd start by doing the 'update files' bit manually after a clean install by using the Update Manager.

Then get the display driver set up, I use NVidia always and I use the proprietary driver. Having got monitor resolution, refresh etc setup, I'd next check your sound is working.

If you're using Ubuntu, I'd then go into Synaptic Repositories and tick the universe, multiuniverse, proprietary boxes, there's no point wasting hours trying to get something working only to find choices in repository restrictions is preventing something working correctly. :-)

Reload in Synaptic and update again pulling in anything new from the additional repositories.

Add sunabs PPA, reload and install kdenlive git build.

If you've already installed Ubuntu on a clean drive I'd just jump in at enabling the additional repositories, doing an update, adding sunabs PPA, reloading and installing sunabs kdenlive git build.

Yellow - I can hardly believe it after so much trying, but I now have a working Kdenlive in Ubuntu 11.10 with all rendering options available - not a single greyed-out option or yellow exclamation mark warning of a missing this or that.

I even made myself wipe the drive and repeat the install process just to make sure it had really worked. Brilliant!

I still have to install some other progs and am hoping they don't break anything, but if they do, at least I have a working platform to start from now.

Thanks for your advice! :-)

No problem. :-)