How To: Make an impression with Linux to your friends

[pizzach]

An MPlayer How To:

Here is mine. First, make sure you have mplayer installed. (Enable the universe/multiverse repositories then apt-get install mplayer. A little terminal experience to be able to switch directories is also expected.) Go to the console. open a document with:
mplayer movieName.extension -vo aa
This opens movie player with the text "aalib" output so your movies with be displayed in text! Make sure to "cd" into the movie directory first. Then Put the name of the movie in place of "movieName.extension." This is sure to wow your friends and impress them into using linux!!! I just wish I had the quake example ready...

Or you can go Ctrl-Alt-F1 to go to a real terminal. Then go mplayer movieName.extension -vo aa to get the movie. When done, do Ctrl-Alt-F7 to return to gnome/kde. Nice thing is that it takes little battery power on a laptop too. (~_O)


Note: I'm halfway wondering if this thead with be removed for being oddball. Please, add yours too! It doesn't have to do with mplayer. It just has to make a strong impression!

[zenrox]

really instering
ill have to rember that when showing off my os agine
also another way to impress them is
try to crash to a progam and show them it dont take the whole system with it un like it windows counterpart :rolleyes:

[doclivingston]

Even better then the "aa" is "caca" which has colour, although I don't know if it's build in Ubuntu.

Geek activity #4096: watching "The Matrix" using the 'caca'.

[jrib]

Wow that's awesome! Thanks for sharing. And "caca" worked in my mplayer install from the repos too so it is included by default.

[doclivingston]

You can also do this with gstreamer, but it doesn't work quite right in Totem.

Preferences->Multimedia Systems Selector: Default Video Sink="cacasink"
Then open totem, turn on visualisations (goom or syntaesesia; normal or large) and play some music.

[majikstreet]

I used the caca option and that was really cool ;)

[pizzach]

Freaking cool! I didn't know caca was related! It hurts my eyes so more than aa! That is so cool!

Edit:
Take that statement back. After a bit of caca, aa hurts the eyes more. I hear you can play quake with this output too.

[mike998]

I'm going to have to give this one a try!

[Juippisi]

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=77694

This made an impression to my friends ;-).

[sbassett]

Where to start? How about opening openoffice is trying to explain to them that this comes with the OS, not additional purchase required. Then you can show them the default browser, firefox, but if they don't like this, they can actually uninstall it, or if it freezes for some strange reason, they can still use their computer. Then show them the spyware on your linux system, oh yeah, there isn't any (subject to change with growing popularity). Viruses, worms, unwelcomed registry edits??? History. One could go on and on, but I don't want to bore everyone with all the things that we already know, but others simply refuse to see.

[Master Shake]

Currently watching an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 using caca... This is great!

[hesee]

3d desktop pager(3ddesk) makes windows users really jealous. Poor guys don't even have a proper desktop pager. (I tried to install nvidia's desktop switcher to work computer, but it killed apps from desktops :???: )

[Master Shake]

Here's a screenshot of an episode of "Cartoon Planet"


http://ubuntuforums.org/gallery/files/3/6/7/6/6/Screenshot.gif

[dakira]

Another neat way to impress you friends is the window manager from Project Looking Glass.

If you don't know it follow these links:
General Info (http://www.sun.com/software/looking_glass/)
Download and installation instructions (https://lg3d-core.dev.java.net/lg3d-getting-started.html)

You need a fast computer (2Ghz+) and at least 512MB of RAM for this to work.

EDIT: here are some screenshots

http://www.sun.com/software/products/projectlookingglass/ss10_sm.jpg (http://www.sun.com/software/products/projectlookingglass/ss10.jpg) http://www.sun.com/software/products/projectlookingglass/ss12_sm.jpg (http://www.sun.com/software/products/projectlookingglass/ss12.jpg)

[christooss]

Hm nice future but it use more (much more) proc than xine.

[monkeyking]

I don't understand what's kool about watching a movie in ascii.
Maybe someone can elaborete on this??

Now what is überCool, is 3ddesktop.
http://desk3d.sourceforge.net/images/car1.jpg
You can find more in for here. http://desk3d.sourceforge.net/

And if you wanna install it just type.
sudo apt-get install 3ddesktop

[pizzach]

As the author of ttyquake put it, "If you have to ask why, you're not a member of the intended audience." I think it's either an insanely cool thing or an insanely stupid thing depending on who you are. Does have uses though. Could telenet a movie probably. Pretty geekie though. :D

Quake 1 Text mode how to:
http://webpages.mr.net/bobz/ttyquake/
Quake 2 Text mode how to:
http://www.jfedor.org/aaquake2/

[christooss]

Hm is there a way to transform random pictures to ascii? In Gimp maybe?

[pizzach]

Gimp supposedly has the power according to the AA homepage. I see in File>Save As... an option for ASCII text as export. Haven't tried it with any real success though.

Can anyone verify is one of these 3d deskops are really usable yet and if they actually work well?

[Jenda]

The aa / caca thing is just amazing. But I can't get it to work out of mplayer. The multimedia sys selector doesn't seem to do anything, and neither does the "driver" adv. setting in xine.

[dakira]

Can anyone verify is one of these 3d deskops are really usable yet and if they actually work well?

Looking Glass looks promising and has some nice ideas behind it, but it is still a project in very early stages.. through installing it you don't get more than a tech-demo. But still enough to impress your friends. i.e. you can use a 360 degree panorama pricture as background an and when you switch desktops it's like 'looking around'. Another nice thing is, you can put post-its on the back of windows..

Regarding usability: I don't see a point in representing 2D information in a 3D-fashion to view it on a 2D-screen. The 3D advantage gets lost along the way. It doesn't make windows more accessable to have a 3D taskbar instead of a regular 2D one. Nonetheless Looking Glass looks promising and might be usable in the future (n.b.: currently it only runs as root).

[23meg]

there's also a looking glass demo live cd available if you don't want to experiment with it on your existing installation: https://lg3d-livecd.dev.java.net/

[monkeyking]

Regarding usability: I don't see a point in representing 2D information in a 3D-fashion to view it on a 2D-screen. The 3D advantage gets lost along the way. It doesn't make windows more accessable to have a 3D taskbar instead of a regular 2D one. Nonetheless Looking Glass looks promising and might be usable in the future (n.b.: currently it only runs as root).

Well the topic is "Making an impression with linux".

[bored2k]

I think people would actually be more impressed of mplayer with caca than free OOo (specially those who pirate..).

[blackjack6.21.91]

No spyware. Simplicity yet customizability. Seems fast if your friend's computer is ridden with spyware. XGL + Compiz should make a pretty signifigant impression. Installing software is easy. THE GAMES. They are the best for smaller children! Supertux, PPRacer ect.

peace, blackjack

[hype]

I have to say "I Love caca !"
You guys need to kno "caca" means "poo" in french ^^
Sorry for lame joke, but i had to say it. :]

[piratepenguin]

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=145068
that impresses!

(same effect as compiz through Xgl)