popey.com blog » Advocacy

Ubuntu at Non-Technical Events

popey — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 10:53:54 +0000

We seem to be quite good at turning up to technical events such as LUG meetings, technical conferences and other self-organised events and telling everyone how great Ubuntu is. However we seem to spend a lot of time preaching to the converted, speaking to people who already run Ubuntu or some other distro, rather than ‘converting’ people who have little or no exposure to Ubuntu.

Amber Graner recently wrote about her experience evangelising and advocating at a local Goat Festival. She was also interviewed about this on the Full Circle Magazine podcast recently.

When I heard about this it made me think that it’s something we should think about. Not specifically Goat festivals, but non-technical events. I wanted to canvass the group to see what events people might want to have a presence at. I’m not (at this point) asking for volunteers, but just ideas of events where people go and we might be able to have a stand where we could talk to people about Ubuntu and how they might want to use it.

These could be non-technical business events, they might relate to a specific sector such as education, or they could be cultural events like festivals. Anything goes really. I’ll start the ball rolling with a fairly generic example that pretty much anyone here can do:-

Village Fêtes

These attract families from all walks of life, and would be a great opportunity to have a public stand at little or no cost to run. Other attractions could include simple games (always popular at Fêtes) with prizes perhaps donated by community members, sponsors or (if willing/possible) Canonical. With summer coming it would be a great opportunity to get geeks outside in the sunshine and show off what we have to offer.

What events local to you would you like to see a stand at?

Also posted on the UK LoCo mailing list, so some responses may appear there too.

Working Around blip.tv Video Conversion Failures

popey — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 08:51:20 +0000

One of the things that’s important to me for Ubuntu Screencasts is that they are accessible to people on non-Ubuntu platforms. That basically translates to Windows and OSX, but could also mean set top boxes, media players etc.

One reason I like blip.tv is that they will take the Ogg Theora/Vorbis video I create in RecordMyDesktop and edit in Pitivi, and transcode it to FLV and MP4 (H264/AAC). The FLV is for streaming to a flash based player. The MP4 version is used in the iTunes feed. They also feed directly to our YouTube channel for maximum reach.

I also use the flash stream and mp4 video to supplement the Ogg video on the site. So visitors with browsers that support the video tag such as Firefox 3.5 will see the Ogg video embedded, users of ‘lesser’ browsers will either get the MP4 stream or the Flash one. I have tested this in Safari for example which shows the fallback MP4 video using the Quicktime plugin. On Windows in IE I get the Flash based player. Here’s the code I use:-

You can see this in action here at http://screencasts.ubuntu.com/2009/09/03/Ubuntu_Partitioning.

One problem I have though is that sometimes the blip.tv automagic video conversion fails. I have a ‘pro’ account with blip.tv so that lets me retry the processing, but it almost always fails on a retry so that’s a kind of pointless feature for me. The conversion that fails is the MP4 one, so that means the iTunes feed doesn’t get populated, and I can’t embed an MP4 video into the site for (for example) Safari users.

It dawned on me this morning whilst looking at the YouTube page that they also convert to MP4 (H264/AAC). So I downloaded the MP4 from YouTube and uploaded it to blip.tv as an ‘alternate’ format to an existing movie. It worked.

I tested the MP4 in Safari on the Mac, and sure enough the quicktime plugin loaded. I also checked that it would download and play in iTunes however it won’t even sync to my iPod. I guess iTunes decides it’s in a format my iPod won’t play. The videos that previously did convert okay at blip.tv do work on the iPod, so I assume there’s some resolution/codec issue in the YouTube converted ones.

Now, dear blip.tv, please fix your own transcoder, or allow me as a user to ‘pull’ MP4 video out of my YouTube account, back into my blip account. This ‘download from YouTube, upload to blip’ process works for me, but it’s time consuming and unnecessary.

A Video Editor that Just Works

popey — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:07:59 +0000

After my troubles this morning and the subsequent helpful comments from readers, I’m pleased to say I’ve worked around the pausing issue with recordmydesktop. Here’s the command line I used to record a Window hard up against the top left of my display.

recordmydesktop --width 1024 --height 768 --full-shots --fps 15 --channels 1 --device hw:2,0 -v_quality 63 -s_quality 10 -v_bitrate 2000000 --no-frame --no-cursor --delay 10 --no-wm-check

As usual I had a VirtualBox window up, which had been booted off of an Ubuntu ISO image, with the first hard disk image being a Windows XP install I use sometimes for work. The aim was to show the Ubuntu install process, and how easy it is to use in no more than 10 minutes. Of course it’s not possible to go into detail about encryption, mirroring, partitioning and so on in 10 mins, so I didn’t. I stick to clicking the defaults basically, which under normal circumstances most users should expect to work. I will make further screencasts later about all the other subtleties of installing, but for now the basics.

Once the 20 mins of video was created – with long pauses in between – I opened up various video editors (see the update on my last post for more on that) and attempted to do something very simple – cut a chunk out of the ogv created by recordmydesktop. Most editors either failed to load the file or crashed in one way or another. I’m not complaining about those editors because I know for certain scenarios they probably all work fine, but not for what I specifically wanted. For example I know avidemux is great at chopping up an MPEG2 video, Kino is great for managing DV from a video camera, and Kdenlive and Blender are great for editing video from a camera.

However the only editor (of those that I tried) that would load the video and even play it sensibly – with me scrubbing back and forth without it crashing out, was Pitivi. Using version 0.13.2.2 from the Ubuntu Karmic (9.10 to be) repository I was able to cut small pieces of silence from my video in a fairly sensible way. It goes something like this:-

Watch the video or scrub forward to a point where I need to cut. Note the time and scrub back and forth until I get to the point I want to cut. Click the cut icon on the toolbar, then move the mouse to where the red line is and click. Thats the first cut point. Repeat for the second cut point, then highlight the bit between and press the trash icon. Simple. I then moved the various bits down the video to bunch it all up and get rid of the gaps and finally exported out to a new fresh ogv file. Job done.

A couple of things though. I could probably RTFM a bit and find out how to en-masse drag all the video down the timeline to get rid of the gaps. I could also do with figuring out how to make my defaults in the output renderer stick (I had to keep changing from stereo to mono and 44K to 22K audio), or find some way to make my own export profile. I’m sure this is probably documented somewhere, however the point I’m making is that to do the basics I didn’t need to read any manuals. Pitivi just worked.

This is quite a departure from my previous experience of video editors. I appreciate that all applications have some learning curve and video editors are especially complex beasts. However part of my motivation for doing this series of screencasts was to develop a fast efficient workflow, and be able to pass that on to others. If I can tell a new potential screencaster that they can install two apps – one for recording, one for editing – and know confidently that they can churn out a good quality screencast to short order then that has got to be a great way to get more people in.

So, thanks to Pitivi I now have a new screencast up on the site called Ubuntu Dual Boot Install.

Also note we’re now distributing the video both from YouTube as well as Blip.tv and of course the main site too. You can also get them via iTunes if that’s your bag. Also a big thank you to Michael from UbuntuClips who originally registered the YouTube account for me 2 years ago!

Screencasting To A Script

popey — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:30:45 +0000

Following on from my previous blog post about Getting Back Into Screencasting I’ve put another one together. There’s been some really interesting discussion on Ian Ozsvalds Screencasting Handbook group about the methods people use for screencasting, and I’ve used a couple of ideas here.

As part of my experimentation, I made some changes, but a lot the process has stayed the same. I created a very simple screencast just going through the basics of the Software Sources app in Ubuntu. The result can be seen on the screencasts site. Here’s what I did differently. Feedback welcome.

Increasing screen resolution

The Ubuntu Live Installer Boot Screen was recorded at the resolution which the virtual machine ran at for the boot screen of Ubuntu – 640×480. This is pretty low, but the boot screen isn’t very complex, and the font sizes make it perfectly readable at that resolution.

I figured 640×480 was a bit cramped to show Software Sources and Update Manager so I went to 1024×768. On the screencasts site I have set the window size to 640×480 so it may be some text is unreadable in that window, but if you go ‘full screen’ or indeed download the video and maximise it, it should all be very clear.

Scripting (almost) everything

I decided this time to script the whole thing because I want to get some terminology spot on. In the past I have talks on the fly with no script and got a bit of a beating from people for getting a couple of facts wrong. Having the script online also means that those people who can’t keep up with my voice speed or accent can read the text and get the same information.

I did stray from the script once, but not too badly

Challenges

Having the VM on screen along with the script, a terminal running recordmydesktop and a stopwatch got a bit cramped, even at 3360×1050! Here’s a screenshot I had to maximise the text editor and reduce the font size down so I could get the whole text on screen at once. I tried normal font and this meant I had to wave the mouse over from the VM to the text editor to scroll which I think would be off-putting. Maybe a console based text editor would be better at conserving space.

I also found myself looking at the text editor whilst keeping my peripheral vision on the VM. So you may notice less mouse movement in this screencast as a result. Maybe a possible solution would be to have the script on a second computer with a separate mouse (and of course keyboard) so I could scroll the script whilst keeping the mouse on the VM focussed. Another option would be to print the script out.

At least partially as a result of using a script I re-recorded this screencast more times than the one I did a couple of days ago. I found myself stumbling over my own text, ad-libing and getting stuff wrong, or just realising that the script didnt work in places.

I rewrote the script a bit here and there and finally recorded the 5 min video after about the 10th take! This can be esepcially annoying if you’re making changes to a machine during the screencast. Luckily the VM software I use has a snapshot feature so I can roll back. But this is all time consuming for a 5 minute “record and go” screencast. It’s also quite frustrating having to start again and re-do the same thing over and over.

I think it worked out okay. It’s not a deeply technical screencast and doesn’t cover massive detail, but it’s only 5 minutes long so digestible to the youtube generation. Annoyingly I left the feature of recordmydesktop which outlines the recording area switched on. This is why the thumbnail you see on the site has a big black box on it. Messy.

Feedback welcome.

Trust In Remote Support

popey — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:59:12 +0000

Recently in the Ubuntu-UK LoCo team IRC channel we had a new user arrive with a problem on their Ubuntu computer. Nothing new there, it happens every day, but the way the problem was solved was slightly different than the way we usually do it. I’m looking for feedback on this.

Emma told us that Ubuntu worked fine but at 800×600, and she couldn’t get it to run at a higher resolution such as 1024×768 on her TV/Monitor. It had previously worked at a higher resolution on another family members display. Over a period of about two hours late one evening we had an exchange of log files from Emma, and commands and config files from various people in the channel back to Emma.

I don’t want to go into massive detail about the problems, but in summary there seemed to be a mixture of versions of the binary nVidia driver installed, coupled with a display which didn’t correctly report its capabilities.

We collectively crafted a configuration file which should have fixed things, but due to it being late and done in a hurry a mistake slipped in, so it didn’t work. The next day Emma returned to our little channel and we continued with the investigation.

After a further hour of back and forth with Emma, I decided that the easiest (for her) and quickest (for me) way to solve it would be to remotely control her computer. I suggested this and Emma agreed this was a viable option.

The method I used to remotely control was to provide Emma with the following:-

1) A method to switch from the GUI to the console via the keyboard (and back):-
CTRL+ALT+F1 and CTRL+ALT+F7.
2) A command she could execute which would log her onto my computer, and allow me remote control (SSH) access to her machine. Something like this:-
ssh emma@myhomepc.dyndns.org -R22222:localhost:22
3) A method for her to kill the connection should she wish to.
4) My (@ubuntu.com) email address and my mobile phone number.
5) When finished, a complete rundown of what I did to her machine to make it work.

She had another machine which she could use to get back on irc whilst I was bouncing her machine, so I could ask questions like ‘Is it at the right resolution now?’. Of course sometimes I could figure that out from the logs, but it’s always nice to have remote hands/eyes to check things.

It took about an hour (in between me cooking lunch for my children) for me to resolve the issue. Overall it was probably no more than 30 minutes work for one expert user, but delays are of course introduced when passing log files and commands back and forth which don’t happen when the ‘expert’ has direct access to the machine. Overall I think it went pretty well.

However, this process raises a few issues, and I wondered what other people in the Linux community do about this kind of thing – these are in no particular order:-

Side band communication

I needed to continue to be able to communicate with Emma during the diagnostic process, and it was lucky that she had another computer (also running Ubuntu) so that she could use to talk to me on IRC.

Many new users may only have one computer. How would I communicate with the person whilst their computer is in an unstable state? She had my phone number and email address.

Remote desktop (VNC) not an option?

During the problem diagnosis and resolution I had to restart X a few times. So I figured that traditional Remote Desktop or even Gitso would not be useful here as the connection would drop, closing the support connection. It’s also no good starting an SSH tunnel from inside a graphical terminal on the desktop because it would drop as soon as I restarted X to test changes.

We need an easier way for users to be able to open a channel for remote control via ssh. Once the remote user requiring support can paste in the command it’s not difficult for me to tunnel over it, but it’s hardly elegant. I’m beginning to think we need a console based equivalent to Gitso which allows people to setup, monitor and close an SSH session for someone else to come in over. Would also be nice if there was a little chat window in it so we could talk to eachother.

Perhaps something using screen -x with a split window?

Trusting the other person

Emma hadn’t spoken to me before and didn’t know me from Adam. I could have been anyone, and could have done anything to her computer including installing keyloggers, accessing personal data, sniffing the network and so on. Of course I _didn’t_ do any of those things. But it was possible.

I did ask up front whether there was any data on the machine, not because I expected her to have to do a reinstall, but because I felt more comfortable touching a machine that I knew didn’t have much ‘user baggage’.

How can a new user know who to trust?

Trust goes both ways

In order that I could SSH to her machine over a tunnel I asked her to SSH to one of my machines. I clearly have to trust that she isn’t going to do nafarious things to my computer, just as she does with me on hers.

Is there some way of opening a remote SSH tunnel such that the user opening the connection can’t do anything on the remote end? Maybe it’s good that they can.. Mutually Assured Distruction

Remote user root/sudo

In order to effectively resolve the issue quickly I asked for Emmas password to allow me to use sudo. I could of course have poked about on her machine as another user, but using hers was again easier.

Perhaps we need to be able to use a guest ‘support’ account for remote support? A user whose every move is logged somewhere they can’t delete it, and has no rights to use sudo?

I’d be interested in hearing from other Ubuntu support people how they go about helping ‘strangers’, and ways in which I can improve the process I went through to allow Emma to access my machine, and me hers.