Dear friends,

Please use this thread for any feedback of our live DVD/USB key.

Kind regards,

Jean-Michel

Please would you kindly confirm the following for myself and other would-be users from the world of Windows...

Is it as simple as this - get a cheap/old 2GB USB stick, prepare it as per the instructions, boot up with it and the PC will be running Linux with Kdenlive there on the desktop - and it will be able to access video clips stored on the Windows hard-drive and save the rendered results there too?

i.e. a Windows user can load/manage/convert their clips as required in Windows, then plug in the magic stick, reboot into Linux, work on the video, save it, and then reboot again into Windows and enjoy their video there?
(or, if Firefox and net connections work, they may even find that they don't even need Windows any more, half the time?!)

Thanks for clarifying this for those of us who find it almost too good to be true if it all goes to plan!

It is my understanding it is as simple as that. You may to explicitely indicate to the system that you want to *write* to the Windows disks, as it probably only allows reading by default (to avoid accidents).

Please do check if the usb images has been updated to 0.7.4 though - jmpoure write about a week ago that they should have been, but the pages still indicates its 0.7.2.

> the pages still indicates its 0.7.2.
Yes I noticed that :)

> You may to explicitely indicate to the system
> that you want to *write* to the Windows disks,
> as it probably only allows reading by default
That would limit its usefulness a bit, I hope it is possible to save files larger than the remaining spare space on the USB key!

Thanks

i.e. a Windows user can load/manage/convert their clips as required in Windows, then plug in the magic stick, reboot into Linux, work on the video, save it, and then reboot again into Windows and enjoy their video there?
(or, if Firefox and net connections work, they may even find that they don't even need Windows any more, half the time?!)

Exactly.

Thanks.. 3 more questions if I may :

a) "Please note that after this step your USB mass-storage will be unreadable by Windows." - I assume that the USB key is not set to Linux for good, but may still be updated to new versions when they become available - and can be converted back to a Windows (FAT32) key if required?

b) Do the Linux/Kdenlive settings get stored on the USB stick, such that if we upgrade later to a newer version we'll be back to the defaults again?

c) How much setting up is required? Surely the USB-stick Linux will need to be configured for our PC specifics such as graphics/sound cards, display resolution etc?

thanks - it is a bit daunting :)

a) The USB key will be upgraded everytime a Kdenlive version comes out.

b) No. I don't know how to do it. Probably by providing a /home seperate folder. Will enquire.

c) GNU/Linux is mostly plug and play. A recent computer should suffice.

About persistence, I just discovered that page:
http://live.debian.net/manual/html/persistence.html#id2543904

********

7.5.1. Full persistence

With "full persistence" it is meant that instead of using a tmpfs for storing modifications to the read-only media (with the copy-on-write, COW, system) a writable partition is used. In order to use this feature a partition with a clean writable supported filesystem on it labeled "live-rw" must be attached on the system at bootime and the system must be started with "persistent" boot parameter; this partition could be an ext2 partition on the hard disk or on a usb key created with, e.g.:

# mkfs.ext2 -L live-rw /dev/sdb1

But since live system users, not always can use an hard drive partition, maybe because they aren't allowed or they wan't to repartition a drive, and considering that most USB keys have laughables write speeds, "full" persistence could be also used with just image files, so you could create a file representing a partition and put this image file even on a NTFS partition of a foreign OS, with something like:

$ dd if=/dev/null of=live-rw bs=1G seek=1 # for a 1GB sized image file
$ /sbin/mkfs.ext2 -F live-rw

Then copy the live-rw file in a writable partition and reboot with "persistent" boot parameter.
7.5.2. Home automounting

If during the boot a partition (filesystem) image file or a partition labeled home-rw will be discovered, this filesystem will be directly mounted as /home, thus permitting persistence of files that belong to the e.g. default user. It can be combined with full persistence.

*******************

If an second partition with label home-rw is present during boot (on Disc or USB) it will be used to mount a persistent /home partition. Will test that shortly.

I am rebuilding the Debian live USB keys with persistent features. This will completely rock. Thanks MJ Peg for your input.

Thank YOU! I will buy a cheap USB stick now!

This may be all it takes for a huge wave of newbie Windows users trying it out... prepare for the onslaught :)

Go ahead, the new USB images are available for download.
Also, follow the tutorial page: http://www.kdenlive.org/user-manual/downloading-and-installing-kdenlive/live-demonstration-dvd-or-usb-storage/full-persisten

I tested the USB stick. There are problems with Kdenlive SDL initialization, in fact an MLT due to Frei0r. So please leave me some more 5 hours to upload a new version. Best. JMP

Thanks, it will be a few days before my bargain 5-pack of USB sticks arrives.

For confused newbies, I looked up MLT and Frei0r out of curiosity...

http://www.mltframework.org/twiki/bin/view/MLT/
- Media Lovin' Toolkit is an open source multimedia framework, designed and developed for television broadcasting. It provides a toolkit for broadcasters, video editors, media players, transcoders, web streamers and many more types of applications.

http://www.piksel.org/frei0r
- a minimalistic plugin API for video effects

:)

I've noticed the interesting new page
http://kdenlive.org/user-manual/downloading-and-installing-kdenlive/live-demonstration-dvd-or-usb-storage/full-persisten

May I make a suggestion?

Newbies like myself may be attempting this with the one PC available and no other machines nearby online to refer to for help. Would it be a good idea to have help available there on the new Linux desktop to guide us through each step?

Ideally, I imagine firing it up with my new USB stick and being greeted with the (alien looking!) Linux desktop with Firefox there, running, showing an HTML guide of what to do.... i.e. a local copy of the webpages here. A web browser is something we're all familiar with (many of us are already using Firefox on Windows already) and having it there in front of us as the first experience of Linux would make that initial shock of a strange new desktop a bit less baffling.

Even more ideally, seeing as 90%+ of people trying this will be coming from Windows, make the desktop as comfortingly similar to Windows as possible.... task bars at the bottom, desktop background that familiar teal-blue colour etc. It would make it a bit less daunting for so many people, and every little bit of friendliness helps... there's only so much challenge people can take in one go! If the learning curve can be flattened as much as possible, more of us will make it to the top :)

If I were to boot this thing up and be greeted with a webpage saying "Welcome to Kdenlive...." etc... and be guided through each necessary stage... that's as painless as it could possibly be!

Thanks

I will publish the build script shortly. Feel free to participate to add the required steps that you describe.

Presently, the USB build stops with an error. I am trying to fix this problem. When the build is available, you can work on screenshots and describe the required steps in Drupal. Maybe a video tutorial would be nice. Let us first publish the USB key, then we can work to produce something suitable.