Yes yes yes, but where are the answers you ask? I never claimed that I had any answers, though I will describe my own experience in short terms.
As I said I’ve been a long time Windows user, from 3.11 to Windows 7. I was never really pleased with it, but I didn’t know any better. Then at some point I came to learn about Linux, which I found interesting and all, but never really got into. I like so many others messed around a bit with Ubuntu and that was basically it.
Then one day, not too long ago, interestingly enough just after I had purchased yet another copy of Windows, I realised that the only reason I really needed Windows was for one single game that I enjoy to play, which obviously was not created for Linux. So I made a decision and went pure Linux.
It’s wasn’t easy. First of all I had to make a decision as to which foundation I wanted. I’ve always admired the Gentoo way, but it’s way to complicated for a mere mortal like me. Debian has also been a favorite of mine, but they tend to lag behind with just about everything as they require exesive testing.
GNewSense is also a good idea, but they were still based upon Ubuntu and though there were plans to go debian instead, I really didn’t want that.
Then I stumbled upon Arch Linux, a minimalistic distribution I’d never heard of before. Apparently a distribution only for the most advanced users, but I gave it a go anyway.
The installation it self was not too complicated, but then I needed a desktop environment, I needed to get the hardware working properly, install any additional software, configure a lot of things and so on and so forth.
No it wasn’t easy, but it was fun. The documentation is the best I’ve ever seen and on the rare occation that it fails, the community is ready to help.
The cool thing about it all, my operating system is now tailored to suite my needs and I even got my favorite game working, even though it is made for windows only.

Well that was my Linux experience anyway and none are alike. Linux may not be for you, which is perfectly fine, but that does not mean that Linux is not great.

Linux is great, though the same can not be said for all Linux distributions.
Mac is also great, if you can live with the restrictions… And the pricetag.
Windows, I’m sorry to say, sucks, though it have improved over time. Hopefully the improvements will continue. The pricetag however is still the same and that will never change.

The choice is yours, but it is never free, be it money, time or compromises, there will be a pricetag.

What is Linux?

To many Linux is just about everything that isn’t Mac OS or Windows. This of course is ludicrous as there are many other operations systems out there that are not in fact based on the Linux kernel. Furthermore people who don’t know any better, continously blame the flaws of various Linux distributions on the Linux kernel it self, though many may in fact not be aware of that.

In the end, Linux is nothing more or less than a operating system kernel. It is the main component, that takes care of all the stuff that normal people usually don’t know or care about. The kernel will for example take care of the initial boot process, which is far more complicated than one should think, making sure you can access your hardware and such. This doesn’t mean that it will work out of the box as different hardware need different drivers to ensure correct and optimal use. This is why various tools, like the Windows device manager or the lspci command in Linux will often be able to tell you about the hardware, not least that it’s actually there, even though it may not actually work.

At this point I hope that it has become clear that anyone who know how, can take the Linux kernel and create a really bad user interface upon it. This of course does not mean that Linux sucks ass, as I tried to explain certain people in the comments section of a YouTube video with that excact title, but rather that the rest of the distribution, be it Linux or not, is in fact very low quality.

So what are the actual differences between operating systems?

That is a very good question, which unfortunately also is somewhat hard to answer, and it is at this point that I can no longer be unbiased.

Microsoft Windows

Being the most popular desktop distribution of all time, it is actually not easy to keep critisising Windows, because if it really were as bad as I’d like to think, then the success of it would obviously not have continued right?

Wrong! Microsoft has been clewer or just plain lucky enough to ensure that people rely upon them. There are much essential software that simply can not run on other operation systems than Windows and they have not made it easier. Where in the old days it was relatively simple to create a compatability layer or emulator to solve the problem, today it really is a challenge, not least due to concepts like the .NET platform, DirectX and so on and so forth.

This in it self of course does not make Microsoft Windows a bad operating system, especially not after Windows 7, that kind of made up for the fiasko called Windows Vista. Still, there is also a sacrifice that you make running Windows, which is that if there’s something you wan’t to change, like changing the position of your start menu or something similar insignificant, you just can’t do it and if you can, in some cases it may actually not be entirely legal as the Windows distribution on your computer is not in fact your property. I shall however not comment more on that part, as I simply don’t know a lot about it, which I may already have proven.

Lastly Windows isn’t free, not by a long shot, and there may be limitations as to which hardware platforms are supported. You may which to install Windows on your phone, though I can’t imagine why… Well you can’t, but with Linux you can.

Mac OS

In recent years Apple and Mac OS has gained more and more popularity and the reason is simple. I works and it works very well, but of course there’s a very good reason for this. As Apple has complete control over the hardware platform Mac OS run on, it is really a simple matter to ensure that it runs perfectly, but not only that, they also have complete control of the software in many cases, again to ensure that there are no bugs and such, but even more important, to ensure that it works the way that Apple want it to work. If you disagree with Apple, of course you’ll have a problem, but if everything works exactly as you like it, you won’t find a better solution.

Of course there’s still the problem that some native windows applications can not run on Mac OS. You may have a favorite game that you want to play, but that may not be possible. In fact the problem is even bigger than when trying to run Windows native application on Linux, because Microsoft and Apple are pretty much in agreement that they won’t have Windows applications in the world of Mac OS.

Again Mac OS isn’t free either and you can’t even choose your own hardware.

Linux distributions

There are many Linux distribution and quite a few popular ones, most famous of which may be Ubuntu. This is very sad I think, as Ubuntu really sucks in my oppinion. It is not that their intentions are not honerably, but that the end goal is simply unachieveable.

Though you won’t find this written anywhere, I firmly believe that what Ubuntu really is, is Linux stribing to be Mac. The first consequence of this is of course a whole lot of work, as the same kind of stability as Mac OS offer will need to be provided. This of course is not an achievable goal, not least as Ubuntu, like almost everything in the Linux world, is a community effort and those who do the work mainly do it for free. Ubuntu also want to impose the level of control that Mac OS does, while at the same time ensuring that your freedom is intact. This of course is also an unachieveable goal. Basically what they do is ensuring your right to blame them for your own screwups, and quite a few people do exactly that.

There are also many other Linux distributions of course. Linux Mint has become very popular for example, Fedora is quite successful and so on and so forth. There is however also a lot of other Linux distribution, like Debian, upon which Ubuntu is based, as is Linux Mint in essence, as it is based upon Ubuntu. So when people find that Ubuntu doesn’t serve their need, they sometimes go for debian instead. That is the source afterall, but it is also quite different and not really for the new Linux user. The user experience is quite different, as it has been given little attention, while the essential part of the opearting systen works better than anything else on the market, unless you want to compile everything from scratch (LFS), which I won’t get into here, although it is very possible to do.

Of course I also have to mention my new favorite Arch Linux, which is first of all a rolling release distribution. What this means is that it is always up to date if you want it to be. You don’t have to wait for the next release, but get the various updates as they come along. Of course that can course trouble from time to time, but my experience is that it works very well. However, Arch Linux is also a very minimalistic distribution, when the base install is complete, you’re left with a terminal or command promt. Nothing more nothing less. If you want a graphical user interface, you have to install it and set it up your self from scratch. Of course only the most essential software is included, so no interface to set up your wireless network, no wordprocessor, no nothing. This mean a lot of extra work for the end user, but more importantly it means that you can set it all up to your likings. There are basically no limitations and furthermore it’s free. This is not the case for every Linux distribution, but almost.

End of story

I hope that I have now explained that Linux distributions can be as different as cars and airplanes. They both basically do the same, which is to transport something from A to B, but the do it in a very differnt way and the quality may not always be the best.

Personally I prefer Arch linux and the only reason I still have Windows installed, is because of one crappy game I just can’t live without. I’m working hard however, to overcome that problem and when I finally succeed, I shall be free at last!

Instead of rambling about how much trouble I have had getting this to work, I’ll get right to it. First of all you need to acquire Fraps. It’s available for free, albeit with rather annoying limitations, but you can try it out and if it works for you, it really isn’t that expensive.

When that is said and done you need to go record some material, but first a few pointers:

1. If at all possible, record at 30 frames per second. Less will do if necessary, but more will not benefit you in relation to Youtube.

2. Do not force lossless RGB capture. It will come back to haunt you later if you do.

3. Use only 16:9 standard resolutions: 1920*1080, 1280*720, 854*480, 640*360 or 426*240. My recommendation is to not go below 720p.

If you follow these simple rules, you should have no problems with the next steps an it shouldn’t take long to record some video for testing purposes.

Preparations

Now that you have finished recording, you should be able to find some rather large video files in your Fraps folder and if you have recorded long enough, there will be multiple files, but don’t worry, we’ll fix that in a moment.

Before we can go on you will need to download VirtualDub and don’t worry, we will only be using it for two simple task that has little to do with the actual encoding.

When you have downloaded it, simply extract it and execute virutaldub.exe, or veedub64.exe, should you have opted for the 64 bit version.

Next step is to go to File > Open. find the first part of your video and open it. You may have noticed that the file names Fraps generate aren’t too easy to comprehend at first sight, but in reality it’s not that hard.

Name of the application you have recorded from followed by year, month, day, hours, minutes, seconds and 1/100 of seconds (I think). If you just keep your atention on the minutes and second, it shouldn’t be hard to determine which file was the first.

When you have opened the first file, you simply go back to File > Append AVI segment, find the next part and open it. Repeat until all the files have been opened and posibly play a little with the slider at the bottom, to ensure that it is all in the right order.

Next we want to rip the sound, which is done simply by going to File > Save WAV.

Lastly we need to save the video to one file without actually altering anything. This is done by choosing the option Video > Direct Stream Copy and while you’re at it you might as well choose the option Audio > No audio as we won’t be needing it embedded in the video at this point.

Lastly go to File > Save as AVI and save the video.

The long and tedious encoding process

Now it’s time to take those gigabytes of video and compress them, and for that purpose we need the x264 encoder. If you choose the 32 or 64 bit version doesn’t really matter.

Now simply open a command prompt, find your x264.exe and do the following:

x264 –bitrate 5000 –output-csp i420 –bframes 2 –b-adapt 2 –keyint 15 –ref 3 –output “output.mp4″ “input.avi”

The above is for 720p video. For 1080p a bit rate of 8000 is recommended. More on that at YouTube.

The rest of the options are non to obvious and even though I know what they do, I really don’t know what they do. All I know is that they adhere to the recommendations set forth by YouTube.

Of course we also need to do something about the audio and for that purpose you need the Nero AAC Encoder, which is free for non commercial purposes. This time you should end up with 3 executables, but you only need the one named neroaacenc.exe.

Open you command prompt again and execute the following:

neroaacenc -br 384000 -2pass -lc -if input.wav -of output.mp4

Again we adhere to the recommendations. 384Kbit and LC (low complexity). The -2pass option is my own doing and is not needed, but it is the proper way of doing things I think.

Putting it all together

Assuming that everything has gone to plan, you should be left with two MP4 files of the same length. One is a video file compressed with the H.264 codec and the other is and audio file compressed with the AAC codec.

Obviously we want these two files to become one, which is easily done with MP4Box so download it and get your command prompt ready.

The command needed is as follows:

mp4box -add input_video.mp4 -add input_audio.mp4 output.mp4

And that’s basically it. You should now be left with one file named output.mp4 which is ready for YouTube.

All that work for this?

The sad reality of things is that when the video has been uploaded to YouTube, it will once again be subject to alterations that is beyond our control, thus you should not be too disappointed it you experience a drop in quality.

In my experience the best way of handling any such problem, is actually in the editing phase, which is beyond the scope of this tutorial, but is doable in virutaldub, to a certain extend at least. You may for example have an verydark video, which is not something that YouTube likes, but this can of course be changed before the encoding process.

This tutorial sucks!

Hmm… I might have to agree with you on that part, but it is on purpose.

The fact is that this is a rather advanced subject that don’t end with this tutorial. You will likely be reading a lot more about the subject after reading this, in hopes that you may be able to tweak various settings, which is as it should be, so you can understand that if you can not handle the command prompt, manage where to save your files, what to name them and so on and so forth, then this topic is too advanced for you, at least for the moment.

This is the end of this tutorial for now, but as I learn, I will return at revise it. I would for example like to find a command line alternative to VirtualDub, that way people can begin to make automated scripts. I would also like to do multipass video encoding to further bring down the size, though for now I haven’t figured out how.

It took me many hours to get to this point and I will get further. I only hope that it’ll benefit not only my self, but you as well.

Should you have questions, I’ll try to answer, and should you have suggestions, I’ll be happy to listen. Simply write a comment at your earliest convenience and I’ll answer as soon as possible.

Best of luck and best regards.

The thing is that I really didn’t have anything else to put there. I couldn’t figure out any sort of logo, the name My Hideout didn’t look quite right, no matter how I styled it, so something had to be done. As I could certainly use the money and kinda like the text ads that Google Adsense provide, I simply thought why not?

Now I don’t expect to earn much if anything, especially as the terns of use are very specific, that I can not encourage people to click any ads provided by Google Adsense, but I think it works never the less.

In the end I think the biggest surprise was the question it self. The blog has only been up a few days, it has hardly any content so the fact that people actually read it already is quite surprising.

I once tried to create my own WordPress theme, and that’s when I learned to love to hate WordPress.

WordPress is rather ingenious in many ways. By a click of a button the looks change completely, when you want to write something you simply do it and so on and so forth.

Well, I’m a reasonable intelligent guy and I did make a proper attempt to roll my own theme, but failed miserably. The thing is that for reasons I can not comprehend, you’re simply not allowed to keep it simple.

But I just want a simple little site with text on it and maybe a picture from time to time…

Well, if you want for it to work properly, then you need to implement supports for all sort of little gadget, widget and other crap that normal people just don’t need.

So I decided to make my own blog… I never really made the effort, so now I have decided to go with WordPress after all, but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna spend a the better part of my life figuring out how the heck I’m going to get it to look the way I like.

The fact is I don’t really know how I want it to look. Truth be told I’m probably one of the most unimaginative people you’re ever going to meet.Of course when it comes to the menu structure and stuff like that, I always have an opinion and usually the right one I should think, but that doesn’t really help me does it?

So once again I find that I’m forced to ask the community for help, thus if you know of a good, proper, beautiful and simple theme, please do let me know.

Now that I got that out of the way, welcome to My Hideout, the blog that never was, but may be. It was never intended to be a blog in fact. No I had grand plans for it, all related to the most fantastic game in history – Entropia Universe (more on that later I promise) – but being about as creative as a doorknob and lazy as a dead dude, I never really got around to it.

Whether or not this blog will be the next big thing, I rather doubt it, but I will do my best to provide interesting content and if you have questions you need answered, especially related to computers, the internet, hardware, software, programming, etc. I’ll be happy to put my talents to work. No matter the subject, I always have an opinion at least. So do write a comment if you please. I’ll be sure to read and respond, assuming it is not utter hogwash.

Best regards.