alll about linux

SMPlayer intends to be a complete front-end for MPlayer, from basic features like playing videos, DVDs, and VCDs to more advanced features like support for MPlayer filters and more.

One of the most interesting features of SMPlayer: it remembers the settings of all files you play. So you start to watch a movie but you have to leave… don’t worry, when you open that movie again it will resume at the same point you left it, and with the same settings: audio track, subtitles, volume…

Other additional interesting features:

- Configurable subtitles. You can choose font and size, and even colors for the subtitles.
- Audio track switching. You can choose the audio track you want to listen. Works with avi and mkv. And of course with DVDs.
- Seeking by mouse wheel. You can use your mouse wheel to go forward or backward in the video.
- Video equalizer, allows you to adjust the brightness, contrast, hue, saturation and gamma of the video image.
- Multiple speed playback. You can play at 2X, 4X… and even in slow motion.
- Filters. Several filters are available: deinterlace, postprocessing, denoise… and even a karaoke filter (voice removal).
- Audio and subtitles delay adjustment. Allows you to sync audio and subtitles.
- Advanced options, such as selecting a demuxer or video & audio codecs.
- Playlist. Allows you to enqueue several files to be played one after each other. Autorepeat and shuffle supported too.
- Preferences dialog. You can easily configure every option of SMPlayer by using a nice preferences dialog.
- Translations: currently SMPlayer is translated into Spanish, German, Slovak, Italian, French, Simplified-Chinese, Russian and Hungarian.
- It’s multiplatform. Binaries available for Windows and Linux.
- SMPlayer is under the GPL license.

openSUSE 10.2 users: The latest package is always available via Guru’s repository:

Version: 10.2

http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/suser-guru/rpm/10.2/RPMS

BTW, most of the times when your Kaffeine player is unable to play some video, MPlayer does and with SMPlayer it makes the experience much better.

So which desktop should you choose? The answer must be both personal and context-based. Some users make their decision on the basis of aesthetics, arguing that one desktop is more corporate-looking or friendlier than the other. Others choose on the basis of a feature that is important to their work or habits, such as KDE’s multiple clipboard or Evolution’s business-like structure.

However, if neither GNOME or KDE seems decisively better than the other, why choose at all? With hard disk space no longer at a premium, you can install both desktops with all their bells and whistles in no more than six or seven gigabytes. If you are selective, the desktops and their basic utilities should occupy less than a gigabyte each. After all, not being locked-in to specific programs is part of the power of free software — so why not take advantage of the fact to pick and choose the best of both?

A list of resources that can be used to improve performance on your Ubuntu operating system.

1. Hacking Ubuntu to Improve Performance - This article includes various hacks to boost Ubuntu’s performance, such as viewing running processes, identifying resources, finding process startups, tuning kernel parameters, and speeding up boot time.
2. Ultimate Ubuntu performance tweaking guide - Detailed step by step instructions on what to do in order to improve performance on your system.
3. Improve Ubuntu Performance - This is an index of threads posted on ubuntuforums.org on how to get the best performance out of your Ubuntu machine.
4. Optimizing Desktop Performance - Skip to the section titled Ubuntu Services for Performance Tuning to find some performance tips. Excellent article series covering performance techniques on major flavors of Linux.
5. Feisty performance - Fly like a butterfly - A collection of settings used to tune the speed and performance of Kubuntu/Ubuntu Feisty.
6. Only Ubuntu Linux - Performance tip for Ubuntu Edgy and Feisty users by simply editing your /etc/hosts file.
7. Desktop performance tweaks - Here are a couple of performance tweaks that are nice for desktops/laptops. These tweaks are relatively easy to perform and reasonable safe. Everything you do is on your own risk.
8. Improve Performance in Ubuntu Edgy - Tricks and hacks on how to improve the overall performance of your system.
9. Ubuntu: 32-bit v. 64-bit Performance - Not specific to system tweaking but a nice article comparing performance on a 32-bit vs. a 64-bit server.
10. Best Ubuntu Guide Ever - This guide has everything you need.
11. Tweak ubuntu for speed - These tweaks will make your system faster and more responsive without a doubt. Read on to perform the tweaks and enjoy your faster system.
12. Ubuntu Customization Guide - About customization, we’re gonna make Ubuntu look and feel the way you want.
13. Local DNS Cache for Faster Browsing - Nice article explaining how to use DNS caching to speed up internet browsing on your Ubuntu install.
14. Super Fast Internet for Ubuntu - Basically you disable ipV6 which apparently conflicts with ipV4. Good post.
15. Ubuntu/Linux Roundup - Good collection of links/articles for Ubuntu users.
16. Ten tips for new Ubuntu users - Here’s a list of tips that might save you some time while you’re getting used to Ubuntu.
17. 10 most popular Ubuntu sites on the net - You should definitely visit these top 10 sites which have a wealth of information on using and troubleshooting in Ubuntu.

- lxpages.com blog

nybody who has tried to figure out why a Linux system is running short of memory can attest that the memory usage information made available by the kernel is, at best, difficult to use. Matt Mackall has recently been working on a set of patches aimed at improving this situation. Given the constraints imposed by embedded Linux systems, it is not surprising that Matt chose the Embedded Linux Conference to present his work (which, incidentally, was funded by the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum).Matt pointed out that the currently-available information is confusing at best. The page cache muddies the situation, and the sharing of pages between applications complicates things even more. The result is that it is hard to say where memory is being used; one can’t even get a definitive answer to the question of how big a specific application is. More detailed questions - such as which parts of an application are using the most memory - are even harder to answer. Trying to answer questions of interest to embedded systems developers - how many applications can run on a specific device without pushing it into thrashing, for example - is nearly impossible without simply running a test.

The problem is that the numbers exported by the current kernels are nearly meaningless.

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