Inclusion of OpenShot into AV Linux

Thanks for the email! OpenShot should work in a pure Debian environment.
It works on Ubuntu too (which is my focus), but I've been told people have
it running on Debian, Mint, and Gentoo. Soon we are going to try and get
OpenShot into the main Debian repository.

Yes, please feel free to package OpenShot for AV Linux. Just let us know if
you have any questions about the dependencies. If it helps, you can take a
look at our .DEB files, or our PPA... to see how we have it setup. We have
the same basic dependencies as Kdenlive, except we also need the SWIG Python
bindings generated from the MLT++ src... and added to the Python
site-packages folder. Also, we use the distutils with OpenShot (python
setup.py install), so that might help automate the packaging as well.

Thanks,
-Jonathan

On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 8:30 AM, GMaq
<email address hidden>wrote:

> New question #85814 on OpenShot Video Editor:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/openshot/+question/85814
>
> Hello
>
> I am the developer/maintainer of AV Linux a Debian based distro
> specializing in Pro Audio and Multimedia Content Creation. I feature
> Cinelerra and Kdenlive among others and since AV Linux utilizes the LXDE
> Desktop a gtk variant would be a much better fit than Kdenlive. I would be
> very interested in including OpenShot. Do you have any plans to expand to
> Debian? If OpenShot could be compiled and run on a pure Debian Environment
> would you consider allowing OpenShot to be included in the AV Linux ISO?
>
> For more info: http://www.bandshed.net/AVLinux.html
>
> Thanks for your time, this looks like a great project. -GLEN
>
> --
> You received this question notification because you are an answer
> contact for OpenShot Video Editor.
>

OK,

I've managed to install the .debs for Ubuntu Hardy and the program runs fine - very impressive. AV Linux uses Debian "Testing" and I've noticed my version of mlt is at 0.4.6 which is quite a bit newer than the supplied 0.4.3. I've read on the Kdenlive forums that mlt 0.4.6 is quite a bit more stable and was wondering if you would consider supplying a newer mlt build or sharing your recommended ./configure command (with SWIG suppoert) for me to build my own. With AV Linux my intention is to work with mainstream Debian and GIT instead of having AV Linux custom packages in a separate repository.

Debian has a newly re-energized Multimedia Team and I'd really love to see Openshot get their attention and get included into Debian. AV Linux runs a light LXDE desktop and Openshot integrates so much better than Kdenlive. I will play around with OpenShot this weekend, I am planning a release of AV Linux 3.0 very soon (within the next 2 weeks) and with your blessing would like to have OpenShot included.

Thanks for your time and countless hours of hard work on this very promising app!
-GLEN

Hello Again,

Argghhh, Linux is so great and terrible at the same time! Openshot runs great, very stable, nice GUI, sensible layout, I love it. Only problem...it breaks the JACK Audio Server in AV Linux, since the Openshot dependencies are checkinstall debs it's hard to know what they are doing on an install but after installing Openshot JACK will not run. Since AV Linux is optimized for Pro Audio this is not a good thing. I'll wait to hear from you on doing a local build and try to see if it can be worked around, This is a heartbreaker!

Here lies the paradox:

The developers of a package depend upon the package maintainers for any particular distro to hack the dependencies and conflicts on that distro. So we can only tell you what the conflict is and how to fix it if you can first tell us the same.

Only hint I can add is that it is probably connected with the ffmpeg version.

I will link this to a FAQ which might help a little, depending on how Debian your AV Linux is.

Helen

Helen McCall suggests this article as an answer to your question:
FAQ #723: “Installing OpenShot causes other packages to be removed”.

Helen,

Thanks for the replies and the link, you were absolutely correct that ffmpeg was the culprit even though synaptic didn't register a version conflict. Being new to Openshot I installed all of your dependencies even though I had a Debian unstripped ffmpeg, frei0r and x264 already on the system to support other editors, it seems other than openshot-mlt the other dependencies were not needed. I am going to continue testing until AV Linux 3.0 is released in the next week or so. If all is well I will let you and Jonathan know and if you like you can link AV Linux as a LiveDVD way to try Openshot if that would be helpful, if you'd rather not that's OK too. Thanks for your help!

Continued success, -GLEN

Glen,
Glad to hear it's working now! If you have all of our core dependencies
(mlt, ffmpeg, x264, frei0r), there is really only 1 dependency left: the
mlt++ swig python bindings. After I build MLT, there is a /swig/ folder
that builds a few files needed by Python:

/mlt/src/swig/python/mlt.py
/mlt/src/swig/python/_mlt.so
/mlt/src/swig/python/mlt_wrap.o

In the DEB installers, I copy these files into the Python /site-packages/
folder, so any Python program can import the "mlt" library. This is the
only "custom" thing OpenShot needs compared to an install of Kdenlive.

We will absolutely link to the liveDVD version of AV Linux on our website,
once it's released. I can't wait to see it.

Thanks and good luck!
-Jonathan

On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 3:28 PM, GMaq
<email address hidden>wrote:

> Question #85814 on OpenShot Video Editor changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/openshot/+question/85814
>
> Status: Answered => Solved
>
> GMaq confirmed that the question is solved:
> Helen,
>
> Thanks for the replies and the link, you were absolutely correct that
> ffmpeg was the culprit even though synaptic didn't register a version
> conflict. Being new to Openshot I installed all of your dependencies
> even though I had a Debian unstripped ffmpeg, frei0r and x264 already on
> the system to support other editors, it seems other than openshot-mlt
> the other dependencies were not needed. I am going to continue testing
> until AV Linux 3.0 is released in the next week or so. If all is well I
> will let you and Jonathan know and if you like you can link AV Linux as
> a LiveDVD way to try Openshot if that would be helpful, if you'd rather
> not that's OK too. Thanks for your help!
>
> Continued success, -GLEN
>
> --
> You received this question notification because you are an answer
> contact for OpenShot Video Editor.
>

Jonathan,

Thanks very much for the mlt info, I will try it out. I really like this program.. it is very easy to use, just what is needed.

The only other caveat is that any export with libfaac kills the program, other exports work fine. My guess is that this is the age-old silly difference between Ubuntu and Debian in relation to the libfaad and libfaac libraries which will probably only be fully resolved if and when Openshot is included in Debian proper and pointed to the appropriate library.

Great Work! -GLEN