It’s called NeroLinux, and it’s the Linux equivelant of the Nero suite. Screenshots to gaze upon. Unfortunately, it seems that it’s using GTK+ 1.2.x instead of 2.x.
NeroLinux – Nero CD Burning App comes to Linux
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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nero is quite useless with k3b around
My laptop does not have KDE in it. So yeah, it can be useful for me.
no need for kdelibs with graveman too.
Wrong. I’ve had stability problems with the likes of k3b, so I use xcdroast. Plenty of people experience stability issues with k3b. As well, some of us users don’t even have KDE installed, so using KDE software seems kinda silly
In Windows Nero is the best option, in my opinion, so I’d imagine the Linux ver will be great too. Nero’s been around for awhile so they should be some healthy competition to k3b.
Thing is, nerolinux seems to be able to do more than either Graveman or GnomeBaker can currently do.
I didn’t see that coming.
…but do we really need it?
K3B > NeroLinux
KPDF > Adobe Acrobat
Mplayer/Xine + Kaffeine > Real Player
The only closed source app which is useful is VMWare.
There’s no point in porting to Linux these kind of stuff, when open source counterparts are far superior. Virtually noone will buy them. I’m still waiting for Photoshop, Cubase, the Macromedia tools, and so on.
Nero just frikin rocks. It knocks spots off anything else out there. KB3 kind of pretends to be a bit like it (like many things Linux related) but really it is maybe 5 or so years behind.
Don’t knock these guys. They took a brave step and we can only hope it maks the start of an increasing trend for commercial apps to move to the Linux platform.
GJ
“…but do we really need it?
K3B > NeroLinux
KPDF > Adobe Acrobat
Mplayer/Xine + Kaffeine > Real Player
The only closed source app which is useful is VMWare.
There’s no point in porting to Linux these kind of stuff, when open source counterparts are far superior. Virtually noone will buy them. I’m still waiting for Photoshop, Cubase, the Macromedia tools, and so on.”
Well sure, if you keep telling them not to bother, I’m sure they won’t. I sure hope this isn’t going to turn into a slashdotting of these guys. It might be commerical software, but not all commerial software sucks. And Nero Burning Rom is at the top of the game when it comes to a CD burning application.
GJ
This is great do not knock it. Finally a company and a great one at that willing to provide software for Linux.
I only hope others will follow thier lead.
<<K3B > NeroLinux>>
Have you ever tried Nero? It is far superior and feature rich compared to K3B. Also no KDElib dependency is a big plus for me and many others.
<<KPDF > Adobe Acrobat>>
KPDF is still not 100% PDF1.5 compatable. Also rendering is much faster on Acro Reader 7 (closed BETA).
<<Mplayer/Xine + Kaffeine > Real Player>>
The most obvious would be legal status. Sorry to burst your bubble but Win32codecs are illegal. They are not licensed. Atleast with Real 10, distros can legally install and ship it.
Isn’t GTK 1.x too modern? They should have used Motif instead… ;-)))
I’m still waiting for Photoshop, Cubase, the Macromedia tools, and so on.”
Well…if you are waiting for then you SHOULD be thrilled about NeroLinux. Someone needs to get the ball rolling.
Yeah don’t forget that Nero can be bought with a whole bunch of legal codecs too – so you can pretty much wipe out quite a few legal issues by buying it.
This is literally one of the biggest players in the game (in CD burning terms) comming to the Linux platform. You guys should be over the moon.
Q
Some folks have mentioned the superior alternatives already available. As I understand it, most (all?) of these programs are all merely graphical frontends for the commandline cdrecord program (and possibly the dvd equivalent). It would seem that the Nero folks have created a whole new low-level burning program for Linux. Sounds interesting, anyway.
Pity about ye olde crappy GTK+1. ; )
Definetly a great step, even if you use k3b, graveman or whatever. We do need comercial applications, and even if I don’t use it or don’t intend to use anything on .nrg format I’ll buy it.
If they support linux, I have to support them. If you prefer open source applications, well that’s fine, Ussually I do too. But we need the commercial ones as well and this is one of the best commercial applications out there.
Sad to say, another example of the unfortunate tendency to view Windows software as the standard for all else. Who needs a front end anyway? You’re always wasting time learning the intricacies of the user interface and they’re all different. Enough, already! Isn’t it sufficient to run cdrecord from a command prompt. It’s certainly quick, clean and unbelievably simple. Most important, it’s not Windows.
jlowell
yes this is indeed a good thing
The screenshots looks really good – even for a gtk1 app!
Of course, now everyone begins bashing nero – with arguments like “blabla, other apps are opensource and are much better” . But the point is that it is a nice thing, that Nero ports their burning app under linux – it show us that linux matters.
I thing if they can make enought money with it, soon they would port it under gtk2.
And, by the way, NeroBurningRom under windows is a really nice application. I wish them a lot of luck with NeroLinux, and hope they will be able to made some money with it – I also hope it will be bundled with some linux distribution like Suse, Mandrake …
I probably won’t use it (may buy it), but it’s always good to see comercial interest in Linux.
Have you ever tried Nero? It is far superior and feature rich compared to K3B. Also no KDElib dependency is a big plus for me and many others.
In what way? What does Nero do that k3b doesn’t, other than cost money?
Fair enough with the kdelibs dependency, but you could say the same thing about NeroLinux and GTK. It’s much less common I’m sure, but hey…
KPDF is still not 100% PDF1.5 compatable. Also rendering is much faster on Acro Reader 7 (closed BETA).
KPDF seems to render pretty much everything I throw at it – I’m just disappointed I can’t use it in Windows. I’ve still got a copy of Acrobat Reader 4 installed there, because Adobe haven’t come up with any remotely interesting reason to upgrade for the last three versions, and each one takes an order of magnitude longer to load.
I hear 7’s a lot better than 6, but frankly I’m not going to bother finding out when I have a perfectly good and free alternative.
The most obvious would be legal status. Sorry to burst your bubble but Win32codecs are illegal. They are not licensed. Atleast with Real 10, distros can legally install and ship it.
That’s great, but I seem to recall Real being the pioneers of spyware – I think I shall prefer not to use any software of theirs.
What if I’ve got a valid Windows install on this machine anyway? One might well assume that makes my using their video codecs legal…
“Sad to say, another example of the unfortunate tendency to view Windows software as the standard for all else. Who needs a front end anyway? You’re always wasting time learning the intricacies of the user interface and they’re all different. Enough, already! Isn’t it sufficient to run cdrecord from a command prompt. It’s certainly quick, clean and unbelievably simple. Most important, it’s not Windows.
jlowell”
And neither is Nero now. Welcome to the 21st centuary my friend. Ye old command promt has it’s uses – but for the vast majority of users out there the GUI is now King.
I despise this kind of sniping. You guys complain endlessly that there are not enough commerial companies supporting Linux – and then when one of the major ones does, you give them nothing but grief over it.
And I don’t care if you don’t like Windows – there is no way after using Nero that you couldn’t admit that it just rocks. It’s hard to count the number of ways in which Nero rocks, but rock it undoubtedly does.
The fact is most people would just think you were just plumb weird saying that they should use a command promt to burn complex muti session cd projects.
If you want to use a coomand promt that’s up to you, but don’t be a nazi and demand that everyone else should be made to use it aswell.
GJ
At least it would be faster than using GTK 2.x, but just not as pretty.
I checked out the site It says get Nerolinux for free if you purchase Nero6 reloaded. Does this mean I need to buy a Windows app to get a free Linux app? I would love to use Nero on linux I would be able to shed all the KDE libs that I need to run k3b on my GNOME desktop. I dont burn many DVD’s or music cd’s but this would be a nice app to have. You can burn iso images and data cd’s in Nautilus very easily.
this is great if you ask me! but…
why isnt gtk 1.x backwards compatible with 2.x? I thought it was… thats just plain stupid if you ask me! other than that; rock on!
Okay, I realize they say they won’t support NeroLinux at this time, but a manual would be nice.
I’m trying to create an audio CD from mp3s and it gives me a dependency database error saying that “the filter program for the suffix mp3 could not be found on your system” and tells me to make sure my filetype registry is set up properly. Anybody know what it’s talking about?
I was a while since my last k3b experience (which failed btw) but from what I know about k3b, it can’t be even compared to Nero. That is, the Windows Nero, I don’t know if Nero Linux has the same functionality. I’m talking about the all ISO/filesystem options in Nero I can’t live without (9660). As I said, it was a while since I tried k3b but back then it was doing some serious catching-up with Nero.
“Does this mean I need to buy a Windows app to get a free Linux app?”
Wasn’t it the same for some Windows games which were ported to *nix like DOOM3, UTsomething-or-other? Regardless, it’s nice to see a big name like Nero swing like this. I hope other big name companies in the Windows world do the same.
Most windows users use nero so having the same interface on linux is good since you don’t have to learn other interface coming to linux from windows. Easier migration I think. Plus, I use nero that came with my burner so either way nero will make money in oem channel as well no matter if they go linux or not.
I agree it is nice to see a big name bringing a great app to Linux, I hope this is the start of a new era for Linux, However I would gladly just pay for the Linux app. As for doom 3 I don’t know I use a PS2 for gaming needs.
Of course, now everyone begins bashing nero – with arguments like “blabla, other apps are opensource and are much better” . But the point is that it is a nice thing, that Nero ports their burning app under linux – it show us that linux matters.
That is the whole essence of (vast mijority from my experience) OSS followers & “Linux on the desktop” zealots. Once the real thing starts happening they start bashing it. Nero is the world’s standard in CD/DCD recording industry, there probably isn’t a recorder shipping without it and you guys dare to say it’s useless, because _you_ have k3b.
I can imagine the comments I’d be reading if there’d be Photoshop or MS Office for Linux. They both have open source rivals and “Linux on the desktop” doesn’t need them. Right?
>Can you name many QT commercial products avaliable on Linux?
Don’t know if he can, but it’s rather simple: Skype, Mindawn, MainActor.
Or I could bother to mention the applications from Synopsys, which by itself probably eclipses most of the commercial GTK apps added together in both size and complexity.
Do those NeroLinux screenshots look familiar?
http://gnometoaster.rulez.org/gtfsedit.jpg
<<In what way? What does Nero do that k3b doesn’t, other than cost money?>>
Just take a look at:
http://ww2.nero.com/us/Nero_6_Ultra_Edition_Update.html
I have Nero 6.5.X installed on my dualbooting Ubuntu/WinXP machine and always miss it while in Ubuntu.
Gnome does have some really impressive intergrated CD/DVD burning capabilities though, like Places -> CD/DVD Creator drag/drop/burn and right-click -> Burn iso/bin. I love those!
<<I hear 7’s a lot better than 6, but frankly I’m not going to bother finding out when I have a perfectly good and free alternative.>>
Acro Reader 7 is a HUGE step forward, also there is no Acro Reader 6 for Linux, only 5.
<<That’s great, but I seem to recall Real being the pioneers of spyware>>
Yup back when they were at the top, now their trying to clean up their image. Real 10 is spyware free and obviously (if you’ve seen screenies or have used it) much less bloated than the Win32 client.
<<What if I’ve got a valid Windows install on this machine anyway? One might well assume that makes my using their video codecs legal…>>
Er…I don’t follow.
>Does this mean I need to buy a Windows app to get a free Linux app?
Perhaps you shold see it as getting a free Windows appp when you buy a Linux app:-)
k3b is just a, very good IMHO, shell around the command-line program cdrecord.
But if you really wanted you could already run nero in wine.
About Mplayer being better than Real, duh.
Rubbing to sticks was better and Real
Acro Reader 7 is a HUGE step forward, also there is no Acro Reader 6 for Linux, only 5.
Yes, that’s right, 110 mb just for a READER, that’s what I call a HUGE step forward!
“Does this mean I need to buy a Windows app to get a free Linux app?”
Wasn’t it the same for some Windows games which were ported to *nix like DOOM3, UTsomething-or-other?
Well sort of – UT2003/4 came with both installers on the CD’s so you were buying a game which ran on either platform.
With Doom the binaries were free, but the game content wasn’t; certainly feels a bit off since you’re buying the game which explicitly says it doesn’t work on Linux, and hoping it’ll work okay once the binaries are available. Of course it did work out, but still…
The Nero thing seems a little worse again, I guess what they’re aiming for is that you buy Nero and get versions for both platforms, it just doesn’t sound like it.
I can imagine the comments I’d be reading if there’d be Photoshop or MS Office for Linux. They both have open source rivals and “Linux on the desktop” doesn’t need them. Right?
Linux on this desktop doesn’t need them, unless they’re free – which I doubt Microsoft or Adobe are about to do.
Seriously, why should I line Microsoft’s pockets with hundreds of dollars when OOo does most of what I need? Sure, it’s not perfect, but I can think of a LOT of things to spend that sort of cash on.
Same for Photoshop, I’m simply not knowledgable enough about it to get any serious benefit over the GIMP.
It might be nice to have Photoshop on Linux though, just so it doesn’t get brought up as an example every single time…
“It might be nice to have Photoshop on Linux though, just so it doesn’t get brought up as an example every single time…”
So if tomorrow Photoshop was available for Linux for free if only you purchased the Windows version, would we see tons of people crying, “Fsck that! The GIMP is free!”
“I guess what they’re aiming for is that you buy Nero and get versions for both platforms, it just doesn’t sound like it.”
It sounds like it to me, read the bottom of the NeroLINUX page. This happens everytime a commercial Windows app is ported to *nix. Tomorrow Duke Nukem Forever could be available for *nix and you’d have a dozen people saying “Why do we need DNF? We have Nethack!”
Using the deb made for Warty on my Hoary Hedgehog version of Ubuntu.
I find it to be very nice.
Finally a fullblown linux burning application. What Nero has is the largest database of CD and DVD writers out there and support for ALL the features of those drives. While k3b is ok for cheap drives that have no exotic features it is not ok for drives with such features because companies do not release specidfications about their drivers to OSS projects. I have a Yamaha F1 burner which is the fastest writer when it comes to CDRWs. Anyway it supports CD engraving and and audio mastering mode and both of them work only in windows because Yamaha is never going to give up their golden egg. Would you blame them? Anyway now with Nero working in linux my drive is fully functional. K3B also works slower than nero does. But then again linux is great for main stream hardware and has problems running anything above that. Remember software modems and 802.11g cards and videocards and some tv tuners and I really don’t have to continue the list. You can’t change the way the computer industry thinks over night and more over you can’t change anything by simply ignoring it and that’s exactly what most OSS projects do. Sorry guys but right now OSS is going nowhere. Too bad cause I really like the idea of using an oss system and especially a unix derived one.
I did think of that it didn’t help. I have no problem putting money into Linux One of my first distros was a paid version of Suse. I have also puchased the driverloader from Linuxant for my wireless card. Once again I think this is a great step forward for Linux. but I would like to support Linux without having to aide MS any product purchased for wth MS OS is support of them. I would rather just spend the money on the Linux app and show Nero that I am willing to spend money on it
Just take a look at:
http://ww2.nero.com/us/Nero_6_Ultra_Edition_Update.html
Audio: k3b does that (funnily enough)
Video: Not sure, although I will admit k3b may well not be up with a lot of that.
As a quick aside, does anyone else think “fit an entire DVD onto a CD without loss of quality” sounds REALLY dodgy? I’ve seen DVDs dumped to CDs before and they never seem that good by comparison – and that’s a normalish movie over multiple CD’s. I dread to think how something like Lord of the Rings would end up on one CD…
Data: Yep, k3b does that too
Nero Media Home: What on earth? Is it some sort of media player too??
Labeling: Dunno if k3b does that – I never bother, but okay…
Analyze and Configure: k3b seemed to detect the speeds of my drive and discs okay.
You’re right in that there probably are a couple of features I’d overlooked. However it is US$99+postage, or $69 for just the serial – that’s quite a bit of money for a few features…
Gnome does have some really impressive intergrated CD/DVD burning capabilities though
Fair enough, they compare pretty favourably to Windows’ one – the one time I tried to use that to add a few songs to a CD for playing in my car it mutilated it to the point the head deck wouldn’t read it at all…
Yup back when they were at the top, now their trying to clean up their image
I wasn’t aware they were ever at the top? 🙂
Er…I don’t follow.
I was replying to the comment that the win32codecs which Xine etc use are illegal; my thought was that if I have a legal Windows license on the same machine, it should be legal to use those codecs since you’re allowed to use them on that machine anyway.
Unless there’s some deadly thing buried in the EULA that will prevent it, which wouldn’t totally surprise me!
“As a quick aside, does anyone else think “fit an entire DVD onto a CD without loss of quality” sounds REALLY dodgy? I’ve seen DVDs dumped to CDs before and they never seem that good by comparison – and that’s a normalish movie over multiple CD’s. I dread to think how something like Lord of the Rings would end up on one CD…”
Nerovision uses a proprietary H.264 based codec, this should give significant improvement in image quality compared to XVID.
So if tomorrow Photoshop was available for Linux for free if only you purchased the Windows version, would we see tons of people crying, “Fsck that! The GIMP is free!”
Well effectively that’s little different than having a version of Photoshop for Linux which you have to pay for (ignoring dual-booting for a moment…), so probably yes…
Of course Paint is free for Windows 😛
Tomorrow Duke Nukem Forever could be available for *nix and you’d have a dozen people saying “Why do we need DNF? We have Nethack!”
Hang on champ, nothing about DNF is available tomorrow, ever; it’s always “Real Soon Now”.
Whoops, my last point, I forget to say the opposite is true aswell. That makes more sense.
Nerovision uses a proprietary H.264 based codec, this should give significant improvement in image quality compared to XVID.
Enough to allow video compression by a factor of 13 (or so) from an already lossy codec? Seems a little optimistic to me…
Assuming it does work, what will it play back on?
This is great news and the kind of incrementatl evidence that points toward Linux gaining desktop momentum. The issue is not a comparison of K3b verus NeroLinux folks!
I forgot to mention, now that NeroLINUX is out, it’s one less application to have to diddle around with in WINE or whatever WINEX is now called to emulate. Funny that some people will bicker about commercial Windows software being ported to *nix if it costs somehow, but will gladly emulate it (and sometimes even pay for the emulation software [even monthly] if required) when that’s usually never a 100% bug free solution.
I for one welcome our NeroLINUX overlords.
Commercially KDE is dead.
Red Hat – Gnome
Sun – Gnome
Novell – [Soon to be] Gnome
Mandrake – KDE
Xandros – KDE
Linspire (errgh, but it’s commercial…) – KDE
Seems it’s not quite dead in that sense…
VS.NET 2005 Express edition is free….and it rocks!
Didn’t know about that! Last time I looked the options seemed to be from about a thousand up to several thousand for VS Standard, Professional or Enterprise or something like that…
Didn’t really matter since we didn’t wind up needing a license of it anyway.
<< that’s quite a bit of money for a few features…>>
You really have to try it to appreciate everything that is possible with Nero. Someone else also mentioned it, make sure you have the addons installed aswell, makes a big difference.
<<the one time I tried to use that to add a few songs to a CD for playing in my car it mutilated it to the point the head deck wouldn’t read it at all… >>
Yeah I just went and shelled out for an MP3 player. Just too much hassle, especially considering my car (97′ Intrepid) dosent even have a CD player! I had to use the old CD player – Cassette adaptor.
Did I mention how much I love Gnome-Volume-Manager. Just plugin that USB cable and it automounts/places an entry on my Desktop. Awesome!
<<I was replying to the comment that the win32codecs which Xine etc use are illegal; my thought was that if I have a legal Windows license on the same machine, it should be legal to use those codecs since you’re allowed to use them on that machine anyway. >>
Hmmm…yeah it depends on the wording of the license agreement, I guess.
That would be pretty intresting.
Linux on this desktop doesn’t need them, unless they’re free – which I doubt Microsoft or Adobe are about to do.
Then Linux still has a long way to reach the desktop if all of it’s users think like that.
Seriously, why should I line Microsoft’s pockets with hundreds of dollars when OOo does most of what I need? Sure, it’s not perfect, but I can think of a LOT of things to spend that sort of cash on.
Reaching the desktop market generally involves 2 things; (a) games and (b) a powerfull office suite. Both of which lack on Linux. Yes, I know OOo is great I tried it just a few days ago. If I wouldn’t already own MS Office I would go after OOo simply because I don’t need 80% of the functionality MS Office gives ne. But most buisnesses do.
Same for Photoshop, I’m simply not knowledgable enough about it to get any serious benefit over the GIMP.
I don’t use Photoshop professionally but I can get around it well. And I tried Gimp several times and it just let me down. One thing is their ignorance of not listening to its users when they ask for a Phostohop-like GUI. Almost every image application I use (and know of) has a PS-ripoff GUI. Simply because it is almost perfect for its job. But of course, the Gimp developers know better.
From a funtionality standpoint I would compare The Gimp to Paint .NET rather than Photoshop. I don’t have the time to write down everthing Photoshop outperforms The Gimp, you will just have to take my word that it’s not in the same league as Gimp. Or you can go visit some design forums and ask there.
It might be nice to have Photoshop on Linux though, just so it doesn’t get brought up as an example every single time…
There’s probably a reason it gets mentioned everytime. Just as Nero is de facto standard when it comes to recording, Photoshop is to image manipulation.
Assuming it does work, what will it play back on?
Read this http://www.apple.com/mpeg4/h264faq.html.
Yes, that’s right, 110 mb just for a READER, that’s what I call a HUGE step forward!
Again, someone _saw_ an app running on his friend’s machine and thinks it’s crap compared to <insert OSS alternative>. Maybe you should try using it before you make a judgment or talk about it in public because it does neither you good, or the Linux/OSS community. And just for the record, Adobe Reader takes up exactly 60.3 MB while Adobe Acrobat Professional takes 137 MB.
Quote: “Sorry to burst your bubble but Win32codecs are illegal.”
I hate to burst your bubble but the bullshit dmca/drm laws that your lovely US of A loves to peddle to protect its own business interests (ie. a country monopoly) are bullshit and I will never recognise them. Throw in patents as well as being pure utter bullshit designed to create and keep monopolies (and therefore give more control to the government – ie. fewer competitors to regulate) and we’re talking.
Dave
I thought I’d add the following news since it may be related:
“Plextor PVRs Now Support Linux
First Hardware-Based PVRs to Deliver MPEG-4
Video Capture and Compression on Linux Platform”
http://www.plextor.com/english/news/press/LinuxPVR_pr.htm
Thanks to Alkivar in #wikipedia on irc.freenode.net for this info. He said the following when giving the above URL in discussion of this OSnews story: “i’ll almost bet Plextor is part of the reasoning… since their a major customer for Nero”
*cough* Im Canadian.
Without a doubt this is a huge step for Linux. To be recognized by a large corporation and targetted is a great start. As I have a copy of Nero I registered and took a look.
It is a pity that Nero only offers a .deb or .rpm rather than a .run installer as nVidia has gone to. Hopefully more companies will both target Linux and learn from other’s mistakes. ATI is still a prime example of this. Instead of following nVidia’s lead they only release rpms. Until this situation is resolved a large portion (but not majority?) will be left out.
Nero, I salute you, good start. Hopefully this will evolve into a leading product.
Nero has taken a bold step in creating a Linux product. Sure it’s not open source but it’s still better than them not having a Linux version at all. If this product is successful and Nero actually makes some money off it, other companies will start to show more interest in Linux. No company is going to realease a commerical product on a platform unless they believe it’s profitable.
So if you can afford to, go ahead and buy this product. I don’t think there’s anything “wrong” in having an non FOSS software. In fact, it would be awesome if we could have the best of both worlds: a good mix and match of FOSS and commerical ware. It could happen if the companies feel the dollars are there.
QT is the most expensive framework in the world! $1500(USD) minimum. It has no future on Linux. Sadly, this and the license problem essentially kills KDE aswell.
Sorry but,$1500 is quite resoanble. A good developer could cost two or three times that much only in monthly salery. On top that he needs hardware, office space, probably an internet connection, telephone lines, and that is only to get the application built. You also need to add marketing costs to get the your program sold. This means that you will give him the best tools available. QT is one such tool. Unless your project is extremely small you will save money using QT, as your project will be ready for the market faster. This means two things you save money on salary and you have less risk of having a competitor destroy your market with some similar product. To make it even better QT is an excellent tool for cross platform development. It works well on MacOS, Unix, and Windows.
The price of QT is really only an issue if you run your business at very small scale or as some kind of semiprofessional pastime. Then gtk may be better.
The reason KDE have such a slim chance of success compared to Gnome have nothing to do with QT, but all to do with business focus.
The KDE folks doesn’t seam to be able to decide who they are developing their system for. Is it the newbie or the advanced user. This leads to usability problems.
Red Hat – Gnome
Sun – Gnome
Novell – [Soon to be] Gnome
Mandrake – KDE
Xandros – KDE
Linspire (errgh, but it’s commercial…) – KDE
It seems as though the enterprise distros are more Gnome friendly and the Desktop/Newbie distros use KDE more often. Where did you see Novell was switching to Gnome? They’ve recently said that SUSE will continue to use KDE in the future due to customer demand.
Imagine the day
apt-get install nero
emerge photoshop
“Isn’t it sufficient to run cdrecord from a command prompt.”
The majority of people cannot run much of anything from a command prompt, so I’d say no. If Linux is to grow even more popular, it’s not going to be with CLI only apps, that’s for sure, not in today’s world. If you love them, great, I do too, but the majority of people do not and cannot.
There are a lot of old and bitter elitists still clutching to their old Apple II, C64, etc. systems believe it or not, and most of them who reject modern OS feel that people should love the way they can do things with their old machines.
Eccentricity is not in the blood of your average human.
First of all, I applaud Nero for this. It’s good to see commercial products coming to Linux. But I’m disappointed in the fact that they’ve chosen to use the old GTK 1.x toolkit. It doesn’t surprise me, though, because of its LGPL license and the fact that it is installed on virtually every desktop-style Linux distro out there (correct me if I’m wrong).
IMHO they should have used GTK2 or even better (but more expensive): QT. After all, it’s a GUI app, so this matters. Look at Adobe’s Acrobat Reader for Linux (v5 series): great PDF features/rendering, but a horrible GUI-toolkit (Motif), which in total makes it just OK.
Why is is that some Linux fanboys go on about “Linux being ready for the desktop” but as soon as a commercial app like Nero comes around they do nothing but badmouth it and go on about an open-source solution that isn’t as full-featured or intuitive as the commercial app. You can’t have it both ways, you can’t say Linux is ready for the desktop and then bitch when a commercial app comes along. Sometimes paying money for something isn’t a bad thing.
A commandline allows easier inclussion of new features and it allows automation. Something which is especially usefull for a cdrecord program.
“A commandline allows easier inclussion of new features and it allows automation. Something which is especially usefull for a cdrecord program.”
When you can convince the majority of computer users in the world to fall in love with the command line vs. GUI apps, then you’ll have my appreciation. Until then, arguing gui vs. cli is a waste of time IMO when it comes to mass adoption of an OS by the masses. That’s my point. I love CLI programs and often prefer them to GUI programs.
No one is saying you have to use NeroLINUX or any other GUI based program and no CLI programs for CD Burning. Until they are, that logic is just a straw man argument which serves to throw this discussion off-topic for the purpose of trolling IMO.
“I despise this kind of sniping. You guys complain endlessly that there are not enough commerial companies supporting Linux – and then when one of the major ones does, you give them nothing but grief over it.”
You guys? What guys? I, for one, couldn’t care less if commercial organizations supported Linux and most of the Linux users with whom I’m familiar couldn’t either. It’s just that kind of poison we’re trying to avoid, the commercialization. And except for the RedDrakes and the ManHats, we’ve succeeded. But they’re really not part of the community anyway. And neither is Nero.
“And I don’t care if you don’t like Windows – there is no way after using Nero that you couldn’t admit that it just rocks.”
Try this on for size: Nero sucks. It sucks in Windows – there are far simpler CD burning Windows applications – and it’ll suck just that much more in Linux. Adults don’t require cutsie icons that look as though they’d be more at home in a day care center than on a monitor’s screen. Adults don’t even use file managers or full scale desktops for that matter. Adults get to learn how their operating system really works. And they leave the children behind with Nero.
“The fact is most people would just think you were just plumb weird saying that they should use a command promt to burn complex muti session cd projects”
If you haven’t yet noticed, what “most people” might think carries about as much weight with me as what you might think, comprendere? Why I or any other adult computer user should be interested in “complex multi session cd projects”, has not quite dawned on me. But then again, “complex multi session cd projects” just might be more meaningful to adolescents that listen to things that “rock”, eh? Cartoonish icons, adolescent interests? Yeah, it fits.
“If you want to use a coomand promt that’s up to you, but don’t be a nazi and demand that everyone else should be made to use it aswell.”
Sorry to offend your delicate sensibilities, junior. I’m just a philistine.
jlowell
OK I’ll give you that one. A toolkit/framework can be complete garbage and look fantastic.
Yeah, it’s so much garbage than a QT application equivalent to a GTK one can be developed with many less developers…
GTK is used because of the LGPL, not for technical merit.
YEAH, this is GREAT. I will neither buy nor use it but it is still great.
Why won’t I use it? Because gnomebaker fits my needs. Why is it still great? Because there can never be enough quality apps for Linux or at least the Linux/x86 platform, even if they are commercial ones, because having the choice is always desirable.
Think about device drivers. There was a lack of quality device drivers some time ago. Some manufacturer began releasing ones and then another manufacturer followed and then yet another one did the same and so on. Today, we have enough ones.
Nero is now available for Linux/x86. Next year, a quality commercial CAD app might be available. Some months later, a quality commercial desktop publishing app might be available and so on. Some day, it will no longer be true that there is a lack of choice regarding quality apps for non-trivial tasks at least on the Linux/x86 platform.
Nero is the market leader in CD/DVD recording, its availability for Linux indicates that the day when Linux can no longer be ignored even by market leaders will come sooner or later. It will come rather later than sooner, but it will come. Maybe around 2007?
Hi…
I think this is a good move too, to see a commercial software company take notice and make something for Linux.
I just downloaded NeroLinux and it works fine. It needs refinement, and sure, K3B is OK too, but Nero is an old friend of mine, and I miss it as I don’t use Windows hardly at all anymore.
And K3B choked on making an image of a mixed CD I had and Nero made an image without problems. Only thing is it makes an .nrg image…but with nrg2iso command-line converter, that’s a piece of cake to change.
Anyway, I think this is a good thing. Also, I’m sure that the’ll update the program using GTK 2 sometime soon. Easytag just did a few months ago…so it will come and be pretty as well!
As for the KDE/Gnome thing, well…I just don’t see the big issue. I like KDE and use it, but install all of the gnome libraries and compile and run gnome programs all the time in KDE without problems….what’s the big deal. We have choice and that’s what Linux is all about, right?
Thanks
<<GTK is used because of the LGPL, not for technical merit.>>
Exactly!
At last commercial software is coming to Linux to raise the bar. Little by little Linux will become usable for regular users, because burning a CDROM from the terminal command line isn’t for Joe User
Too sad nerolinux isn’t available on eDonkey 2000 yet
Wow, I said “Gnome” a lot. Sorry, its pretty late here.
>> Too sad nerolinux isn’t available on eDonkey 2000 yet
Good, do it. Rip it off. Steal it. WareZ it.
But don’t you ever dare to complain when they stop releasing the software for the Linux platform because noone is buying it.
There’s no reason for you to leech it, there’s enough choice. Like said: K3B and GnomeBaker are excellent if you can’t pay for commercial software.
There are more, but these being the most user visble. Can you name many QT commerical products avaliable on Linux?
I can list a company that has products for Mac, Windows and Linux that are ALL written in QT…
http://thekompany.com/products/
good to see commercial backing…. hope adobe follows suite
go linux go!
It doesn’t seem to do any of the video encoding and VCD authoring stuff. That’s too bad. I was really hoping for those features so that I can stop wrestling with mencoder which doesn’t work for me at all.
<<Where did you see Novell was switching to Gnome?>>
<<…
<<…
<<…
So in other words, your guessing. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but you don’t have a shred of hard evidence there. Just your opinion of what will happen.
<<They also said that SUSE will be community oriented. <<Novell makes very little money on SUSE Pro sales, they <<only care about NLD/SLES.
I agree, but I think they’ll continue to support KDE/GNOME equally. They’d be going to an awful lot of trouble to get SUSE working correctly to then just abandon that work. Remember, SUSE is sort of being used as a testing ground (like Fedora) and they aren’t going to see much profit if they don’t move that work over into NLD/SLES. Eventually, they may move to one or the other, but I don’t see that happening any time soon.
Isn’t it sufficient to run cdrecord from a command prompt. It’s certainly quick, clean and unbelievably simple. Most important, it’s not Windows.
You sir, are a troll.
Again, this logic doesn’t pan out. I ask you, are: Adobe, Real, Nero and EMC “very small scale” and their Linux products “semiprofessional pastime[s]”? I don’t think so. Why arent theses companies using QT?
Looks like you can’t do even the simplest of research
http://www.trolltech.com/company/customers.html?cid=32
Christ they are the first on the list. It was mentioned that Adobe uses QT for their Photoshop ALbum product
“This is even more evidence that GTK is supreme in commerical development on Linux and will continue to be in the future.
Nero
Acrobat Reader
Real player
VMware”
You really chose some bad examples there – Acrobat’s GUI is a joke, looks more like Motif to me anyway, and VMWare are only just shifting to GTK2 in v5.
This NeroLINUX looks like a GnomeToaster rip-off to me, the GUI is identical (icons changed to look more Windows!)
And guys, you don’t need KDE installed to run k3b, just the libs.
You got me there, buddy.
This “The kompany”, they specialize in all QT products? I’ve never heard of them before.
Where ya been?
Not my fault, but you asked about commercial applications, I gave you a company that has 20-30 applications written in Qt and they are profitable.
Now, what was that about not many QT applications in the commercial world? I named one company, but go here:
http://www.trolltech.com/company/customers.html?cid=32
many are in company custom apps, but they are there. In face, why not use QT if you’re writing in house custom linux apps? It’s free, open source and it’s a hell of a lot better of a toolkit than GTK for development
Gmencoder is a nice little gui that’s easy to use. Of course, that only helps you if your problem was finding the right options to pass mencoder.
<<So in other words, your guessing.
[…]
you don’t have a shred of hard evidence there.>>
If it looks like ketchup, tastes like ketchup, smells like ketchup, its probably is ketchup.
Really, Novell is kinda all over the place. Remember when they made the claim that they will combine KDE/Gnome into one DE? Never happened.
<<They’d be going to an awful lot of trouble to get SUSE working correctly to then just abandon that work.>>
Thats true but is it less trouble than being forced to support 2 DEs?
2 Groupware clients (Evo/Kontact)
2 IMs clients (Gaim/Kopete)
etc…
<<Remember, SUSE is sort of being used as a testing ground (like Fedora)>>
Wasent most of the work down in Fedora lowlevel and not distro specific? SeLinux comes to mind.
Then where is the Linux client? There is none.
I even said:
“…and their Linux products…”
What do license costs have to do with anything for the distros? As long as they GPL the application, QT costs nothing. Nada. Zilch. License costs don’t even factor in to it, so why would this deter them from KDE? Besides, SUSE already has a QT license for YAST. The only time license costs factor in to the equation is with closed source proprietary applications that are sold. You can develop in house QT applications and never have to buy a license so long as you don’t release the application to the public. I don’t understand your comment about SLES/NLD. Are you insinuating that SLES/NLD are more GNOME oriented or will be in the future? I have seen no indication of that, NLD has no preference of desktop and SLES is to to SUSE Pro what RHEL is to Fedora (kinda) – basically SLES is SUSE Pro that is more heavily tested and tweaked, with more enterprise applications and tools (overhauled YAST) that requires a subscription for updates and support. SLES 9 still prefered KDE (just like SUSE 9 Pro it included the latest KDE and an older GNOME that wasn’t as polished) and SUSE still revolves around YAST – a QT program.
SUSE also employs KDE developers, so that is a moot point.
I think based on technical merit, KDE is better suited for the enterprise (KIOSK, KIO slaves, etc…) but they need to market these things to businesses. I also think they need to work on some better defaults and some slight UI cleanup. Also, someone needs to come up with a KDE theme that is more enterprise suited. Something clean, something somewhat boring, kinda drab — unubtrusive. KDE themes tend to have a lot of bright colors whereas GNOME themes tend to have a lot of earth tones or darker colors. That’s what is most appealing to me about GNOME.
Personally I use KDE, but as long as both can interoperate (FD.org standards) I don’t care what anyone uses.
Who said anything about quality?
“…supreme in commerical development on Linux…”
*sigh* So late. I’ll post tomorrow.
For those that are wondering why this app comes in GTK 1.2 form, I’d say it’s because they want it to run on “minimum requirement” computers as well.
The appearence barely matters, what matters is usability, stability and performance, and considering that it’s GTK 1.2, it should perform really well on most computers.
<sarcasm>Yeap, almost nobody uses QT</sarcasm>
http://www.trolltech.com/newsroom/announcements/00000197.html
http://www.trolltech.com/company/customers.html?cid=32
It’s really amazing how many complete and total morons there are here. Most of you seem to have no idea what you’re talking about, and you’re making claims based on half truths, misunderstandings, or complete lies.
First off, any commercial software being released for Linux is a good thing. Aside from showing that commercial software developers really can / do pay attention to Linux, and that Linux (even using ancient tools like GTK) is perfectly capable of running something like Nero, it will also show some other companies that commercial software can indeed work in Linux. You or I may not need it, but some people might prefer it. Fine. But bear in mind that they have to compete with us, especially now that they’re on our turf. Competition is always a good thing, y’know.
Second, I don’t see how anyone can claim this as a “win” for Gnome or GTK. It uses GTK 1 for crying out loud. It’s like saying that a app released for MacOS X that needs to be run in Classic mode is acceptable. It’s just stupid. Nobody uses GTK 1 seriously anymore, and for good reason. It’s crap. GTK 2 and Qt both blow it away on any modern system.
On that note, does anyone have any idea why they used GTK 1? I’m guessing that if there was any reason at all, it’s probably technical, not due to licensing, or political reasons or any of that. Probably something like ensuring that it’ll run on older systems with old Linux distributions. I really don’t think it has anything to do with licensing (a couple of Qt licenses would be nothing to these people), and has everything to do with GTK 1 being faster on ancient machines, and GTK 1 being available on virtually all distributions that are even worth running, where Qt 3 and GTK 2 might not be available at all on really old distros.
On Qt not being suitable for commercial software, how do you think Trolltech manage to keep going? I’ll give you a clue – it’s not because of the revenue they get from the GPL versions of Qt. It’s because Qt is used on commercial projects. On quite a lot of commercial projects, in fact. Not many of them are on Linux, I will admit, but there are quite a lot on Windows, and even commercial Unixes where the standard toolkit might still be something like Motif. The most obvious commercial Qt-using app I can think of for Linux is Opera. Opera Software are hardly a large company, but they can easily afford Qt. An even larger company like Adobe wouldn’t have any trouble (and they have used both GTK and Qt in the past).
And back to Nero… If you compare Nero’s core functionality to the stuff available in other Linux burning programs, there’s not really anything that Nero can do that OSS tools can’t. Despite what some people claim, cdrecord does in fact support 99.99% of modern drives, and the days of proprietary CD writer interfaces are long gone. Oh, it also supports almost every single proprietary interface, except for the odd four or five with uncooperative manufacturers. Even some proprietary features, such as Yamaha’s Audio Mastering and Disc tattoo features are supported by cdrecord, because Yamaha actually gave Joerg Schilling a drive and the appropriate documentation.
One of cdrecord, cdrdao, cdrecord-ProDVD, dvdrecord or growisofs supports just about every drive available, and burning feature that Nero has (except Nero images, naturally), and most decent GUIs will select the appropriate one for what you need. Mkisofs has far more features for creating disc images than Nero does. There is a grand total of one thing that Nero can do that mkisofs can’t – create a pure UDF filesystem. mkisofs can only create hybrid ISO9660/UDF filesystems. But mkisofs can do a lot of stuff that Nero can’t. For that matter, so can cdrecord. Ever tried burning a bootable CD for something other than a PC in Nero? Can’t be done unless you’re using an image file. Even then, it might not work.
Now, had you guys said that most GUIs don’t support all of these features, you might be right. None of them support all of the features of mkisofs certainly, and most of them don’t support most of the features of cdrecord either. Nero probably does have a few more obscure burning options than K3b, for example. If you need those obscure options, or support for things like Yamaha’s Audio Master mode, why the hell are you just bitching about it on OSNews. The developers probably don’t read here, and they’ll never know. Chances are they don’t even know that the feature exists. So, talk to the developers, and tell them what you’d want. Even better, tell them how the feature can be done (like, what cdrecord options to use for Audio Mastering mode). They aren’t psychic, you know, and they’re aren’t omniscient either.
None of the Linux CD burning GUIs support all of the additional stuff that Nero does either. The video and audio encoding stuff especially. That’s mostly because there are better programs available to do those things. They aren’t all integrated into the one app, but do they really need to be?
You’re right, most of the posts in this thread are complete crap, mostly not even correct or true, and almost all are off-topic (we should be discussing Nero, not GUI toolkits or licenses).
For a start, they used GTK1 because they’re using GnomeToaster’s GUI, they’ve already admitted that in their splashscreen.
Second, I don’t think Ahead are expecting to make any money out of this – not many will buy Nero for Windows, just to get the “free” Linux version. They don’t want to pay to license Qt or even bother writing their own GUI.
Personally I suspect that this is not even a Nero product (it’s unsupported for a start!) more likely someone used the Nero API to replace the cdrecord backend to GnomeToaster’s frontend, and Nero liked the idea.
“You sir, are a troll.”
What am to say, smarting as I do from such a hurtful zinger, Martin, something like “keep that dress, it might come back in style”? How will it be that I’ll ever recover my self-esteem?
jlowell
Can I drag and drop files from konqueror onto Nero?
Have they replaced the unfriendly GTK file dialogs?
If the answers are no, Nero will have a hard time replacing K3b on my desktop.
Also, for a KDE user K3b integrates so well with the desktop in a number of ways. Small things like being able to right-click an ISO-file and burn the image.
“for a KDE user K3b integrates so well with the desktop in a number of ways. Small things like being able to right-click an ISO-file and burn the image.”
And if you scroll up and read the previous comments you’ll see that people who DON’T use KDE would probably benefit from using NeroLINUX because they don’t have to load KDE and/or the KDE libs in order to use it.
“Can I drag and drop files from konqueror onto Nero?”
I don’t know, has anyone here used it yet? I know on the following forum thread offsite someone has and posted a screenshot, maybe ask him/her: http://www.suseforums.net/index.php?&showtopic=12634
“Have they replaced the unfriendly GTK file dialogs?”
Again, see above.
“If the answers are no, Nero will have a hard time replacing K3b on my desktop.”
Give it a chance, did K3b do everything wonderful that it does now (and look as good visually) when it was first released?
off topic but has adobe released a download link for adobe acrobat reader beta 7 for linux?
cant find one??
For people using gnome and not only (without KDE installed), maybe Nerolinux will be a great solution (time will tell), one of the reasons being that they wont depend anymore on kdelibs. But will the kdelibs dependency be powerful enough for them to put their hand in the pocket??
Commercial software on Linux? Why not? If some people want it and there is enough of them to make it profitable for the companies then why not? If people use it and it has a market then why not? It will “advertise” Linux to other people: “didn’t know a Nero version (or some other software) for Linux existed. Maybe now I’ll give Linux a try…”. If successful i am sure other companies will follow bringing us software not yet available in Linux.
Linux is about freedom of choice, we all know that, that is what is so wonderful about it. Each of us can use whichever program they wish and/or suites them best. Heck, have even all of them and use whichever one you want depending on your “appetite” today
. If u want to use command line then use it. Use whatever u want and respect other people’s choices.
However this freedom is achieved thanks to GNU software and not commercial software which is closed-source and usually comes with a price tag.
The price tag is what is most important for most people out there. Example is the nvidia and ati drivers. Most people now use the drivers provided by Nvidia and ATI (though ati drivers are a nightmare to get working at the moment) which are closed source. Maybe if the open source drivers were just as good then people would use those instead.
Personally K3B works fine for me. I believe that there are more important commercial software out there that would be nice to have in Linux (instead of Nero) cause of the lack or “primitive state “ of their open-source counterparts.
So as far as I can remember, linux now has Real Player, Power DVD, Nero, Maya, thats all I can remember. That said, I don’t really need any of these softwares, but I am delighted that they are available. It makes the transition easier for seasoned windows users to move to a Open OS. Now all we really need, is Adobe Premier, Photoshop, Flash Tools, and Dreamweaver. Plus better hardware support and there is no reason to keep using Windows for anything but games. But if these tools are all available on Linux, Im sure game developers will support Linux more readily.
Im tired, long shift so I am not editing my reply to make it look pretty
–Ashley
I will probably never have any need for it but I am glad to see them doing this. Also as much as it pains me to see them using GTK1 this does mean that it is trivial for them to port it to GTK2 so with any luck there next release will fit in with modern desktops.
A note on GTK1:
although it is a nimble and light toolkit in contrast to GTK2 it poses a number of problem for modern desktops.
1) does not properly support UTF-8 encodings. this means bugs when dealing with filenames containing strange encodings.
2) no drap and drop and ne easy way to tie into existing MIME type system
3) god awful old-school fonts-I have not had to use any app using the old fonts for a long, long time-had thought we had finally gotten past that
4) being based on GTK1 it will be confusing to new Linux users because it is so different from the rest of the desktop-and new Linux users are the ones who will probably be willing to shell out cash for such -current Linux users already have their prefered tools for burning.
So I am happy to see Nero recognizing Linux. I wish they had used GTK2. I wish even more so that they would free the code they used to write it and make such available to other Linux applications. One of these days commercial vendors will realize that if they produce really kick ass libraries, which are superior to the existing ones, people will use their librairies to create new and better software. Paradoxically I would be more inclined to pay for the product if I knew that in purchasing it I was also getting the code. No necessary contradiction between paying for software and having the code. But I won’t damn them for not opening up the code-this is there first step in direction of Linux-perhaps with time they will see the light;)
>> <<KPDF > Adobe Acrobat>>
>> KPDF is still not 100% PDF1.5 compatable.
Sure, but take a look at things like that:
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-cvs&m=111061626100242&w=2
Plus, if you’re able to find a pdf something broken by this ‘lack of 1.5 specs support’, please send it to developers and they’ll fix that for you. They seem so nice 🙂 (and hansome too!)