Ubuntu Success Stories

[Zach]

I just wanted to share a couple of Ubuntu success stories, and just a
couple more things to add to the list of why I love using linux.

The other day I was getting ready to burn several podcasts to cd-r to
listen to in the car.  Some of the podcasts I listen to (namely This
Week in Tech) take up the whole CD.  I thought it would be great to be
able to arbitrarily slice them into tracks of equal lengths before
burning them to CD so I wouldn't have to spend a long time seeking
back to where I left off if I changed discs or something. 
Unfortunately K3B (my preferred cd burning app) can't do that,
although it can split a track into two parts at an arbitrary point. 
Serpentine can't do it either.  As a last resort, I decided to see if
there was any other tool that could.  I fired up synaptic, and with
universe and multiverse enabled, I searched for the terms 'mp3 split.'
 There were about four hits, one of them being the package 'mp3splt.' 
After reading the description I discovered this was a command line
tool (nice for scripting :-) that had various mp3 and Ogg/Vorbis
cutting capabilities.  I installed mp3splt with synaptic, then checked
out 'man mp3plt.'  The man page revealed that the -t option would do
just what I wanted, which was to split the mp3 arbitrarily into slices
of t length and put them into the -d <dir> directory.  After playing
with it for a few minutes I had the hang of it and had all of my
podcasts carved up into 5-minute tracks which I cold then burn to cd-r
using k3b or Serpentine.  Awesome.

The other success to happen this week was with my flatbed scanner. 
One of the problems with scanners (and other hardware in general) in
linux is that the driver support lags behind the products'
availability in retail channels because drivers have to be developed
by the community.  Consumer product cycles are so short that often
manufacturers will introduce new models within 12 or even 9 months of
introducing the previous model, so by the time a particular product
has a working driver in linux, or xsane, or whatever, that model is no
longer available in retail channels.  A few weeks ago I was asking the
list what types of flatbed scanner folks were having success with,
since my Epson isn't well supported.  Many people responded that the
Canon LIDE 30 works well with xsane.  Of course the LIDE 30 is no
longer available in retail stores, and there isn't much information
for models that are available, so I left it alone for a while. 
However I really can't get by without my scanner so I decided to check
out ebay.  I found several LIDE 30 scanners on ebay, and I placed a
bid on one.  The auction closed with me having the high bid of just
over US$18.  Add to that about US$10 shipping and I had myself a
scanner for under US$30.  The scanner was used, and the seller had
bought it used himself, but I figured for this amount of money, if it
doesn't work, I'd be disappointed but not broke.  I've spent more than
this on dinner from time to time (but not often).  The scanner came in
yesterday.  It is very obviously used, but not in terrible shape. 
There are a few cosmetic dents on the metal lid, and it just feels
less than brand new.  The seller included a usb cable, which I didn't
expect.  He also was thoughtful enough to burn Windows and OS X
drivers to cd-r, though I won't likely make use of those.  One of the
neat features of the Canon LIDE scanners is that they actually take
advantage of USB's ability to power the device, rather than relying on
an external power adapter.  My ubuntu laptop, a Vaio PCG-V505, was
already on the kitchen table and up and running, so I took the thin
and light scanner and it's accompanying USB cable, layed it next to
the laptop and plugged the cable into both devices.  Nothing visual
happened on the screen or the scanner, but I wasn't worried.  I
started up the xsane program which scanned for devices, and detected
my scanner.  The scanner then powered up and acquired a preview.  This
was very cool--no software installation or mussing or fussing.  I
closed xsane and fired up the Gimp.  I clicked acquire and xsane
started again.  I placed a document on the scanner and picked some
settings for black and white, etc. then clicked preview, and a preview
appeared.  Then I clicked scan (or acquire, can't remember) and a full
size scan was performed and sent to the Gimp.  Although I haven't
tried photos yet, I can say that the scanner appears to work as
expected.  And the really cool part was that it Just Worked(tm).  No
installing of drivers or additional software (which I would have had
to do with Windows).

Well I just wanted to share these success stories as evidence of the
high quality of the Ubuntu Linux distribution.

Thanks to the developers of Ubuntu and all of it's included projects
for great software.

Zach C
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