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Crimson Chain Productions, a Maryland based film & video production company, brings you CHAINSAWLINUX - a Linux distribution designed solely for video editing, CGI, & 3D animation.
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Q. WHERE DID YOU GET THE NAME CHAINSAWLINUX?
A. CHAINSAWLINUX, may be related to our production company name: Crimson
Chain Productions, but any more information than that is highly classified and we could be punished by law if we reveal that juicy little secret...
Q. HOW CAN FILM & VIDEO PRODUCTION COMPANIES BENEFIT?
A. For starters, the film & video production companies don't have to pay so much money up front to buy copies of such programs as Final Cut Pro, Avid, or even the low priced Pinnacle Editing Software. Secondly, as their business model grows, they don't have to buy dozens of licenses to keep their businesses going - they can use the same copy of CHAINSAWLINUX for multiple computers! This means video production companies can start making money off of their video production services a whole lot faster, since they're using a professional video editing suite to do video post production. They can create what their customers need, be it a corporate video or an entire dvd production.
Q. WHY CHAINSAWLINUX INSTEAD OF *INSERT ANY OTHER NON-LINEAR EDITING SYSTEM HERE*?
A. CHAINSAWLINUX is based on open source software and the Linux kernel. You can use it and get things accomplished and not have hundreds and/or thousands of dollars wrapped up in software that may or may not be all that great for your needs. Some corporate programs are still buggy when they are released to the public, the companies don't always support their product as you'd expect, and the time wasted on crashes, hangups, & tech-support issues can be critical to your company (and it's work flow).
With CHAINSAWLINUX, if your company has a critical job but needs to implement "x" special feature to the project, you can - since the project is open source, you have access to the code to add that feature!
Q. WHAT HARDWARE DO I NEED?
A. Although the Linux kernel is known to run on many different architectures, CHAINSAWLINUX is only supported on 32-bit and 64-bit x86 compatible hardware at this time. Hopefully in some future release it will have a wider base, but there's no guarantee. But if you get it running on something else in the meantime, please let us know!
Q. CAN ALL OF THE EDITING PROGRAMS "TALK" TO EACH OTHER?
A. Short and simple? Yes and no. Most can "talk" easily between each other, but sometimes not as well as you would like, since the programs are made by many different developers and there is no real standard for the way everything communicates. Besides, some programs work with files that are better streamlined to what they are designed for (for instance, Ogg Vorbis files are for sound, but
can not do video). But, don't let this make you think anything less of CHAINSAWLINUX. All platforms and all NLE's (Pinnacle video editing software, Final Cut Pro for Macs, Avid Xpress Pro, and even Adobe Premiere) have these issues! It's part of the great world of software, but with access to the source code, if you need an application to read a file that it currently doesn't, you can program it in yourself. What more could you ask for?
Q. WHAT CAN I EXPECT IN FUTURE RELEASES?
A. See our
changes page - this page includes current changes made to CHAINSAWLINUX as well as future changes, what people would like to see added into CHAINSAWLINUX, as well as other things. This is an interactive page, so it will be a little different than the normal part of this website...
Q. WHAT YEAR IS THIS?
A. It's ...
TECHNICAL QUESTIONS
Q. WHAT KERNEL DOES CHAINSAWLINUX RUN?
A. Version 0.0.1 runs the latest
stable kernel, which is the latest in the 2.6 series.
Q. SPEAKING OF KERNELS, I HEARD CHAINSAWLINUX RAN UNSTABLE KERNELS. (OR, HOW DID CHAINSAWLINUX COME TO BE?)
A. Running unstable kernels was just a myth... It's all in your mind... There we go... back to sleep with you... nice and easy...
Hmm, you're not buying it are you? Okay, the real scoop:
Yes, CHAINSAWLINUX was originally intended to run unstable kernels, but there was too much time involved to stay on top of things and before the project really got off its feet (in other words, before it was ever released), development took a MAJOR side step with CHAINSAWLINUX: Editing Edition. Of course, the secondary project became the main project and the unstable kernel project was given up completely. Then
everything was pushed to the side (since producing movies can be very time consuming). But after dealing with all of the headaches and nightmares from certain well known software companies, their buggy software, and their horribly expensive and yet still bad support, we realized that there was more of a need for CHAINSAWLINUX than we had ever imagined. So we brought CHAINSAWLINUX back to the forefront.
btw: Since the modern kernels (2.4 & 2.6) have so much more support for hardware in them, the unstable kernels just aren't that "juicy" to use anymore.
Q. WHY DON'T I HAVE APACHE (OR SENDMAIL, OR SOME OTHER PROGRAM THAT'S USUALLY PACKAGED WITH OTHER LINUX DISTROS?)
A. Ahh, we were waiting for that question. It's all about what CHAINSAWLINUX is designed for:
editing movies. It was not designed with hosting websites, serving mail, or being the company firewall in mind. No, it's much simpler than that. It's designed as a desktop/powerhouse. All those other apps just drain the juice that you need to keep things flowing. (Besides, why would someone want to run X on a webserver/firewall anyway?). If you need all of those other things, then CHAINSAWLINUX may not be right for you.
Don't fret though! We want you to add your favorite program if it is not already packaged. Specific program(s) can always be downloaded and installed. It's very simple to do, especially with slapt-get. Even more importantly, the program you want (if it is movie related) may get put into CHAINSAWLINUX on a following version release. You can always go to our discussion board (coming soon) to state the case for adding software to the CHAINSAWLINUX package.
Q. WHY KDE INSTEAD OF GNOME, XFCE, CDE, WHATEVER
A. The other big question - why not a different Desktop Environment? There are a few reasons:
1) The desktop needed to be stable - some desktop environments, unfortunately, aren't always reliable. We needed something that could run for weeks on end if necessary and we wanted the most stable of all systems. KDE fit that bill.
2) The desktop needed to be easy to use with the programs in CHAINSAWLINUX - It's amazing how some of the Window Managers, as beautiful as they may be, can get in your way. With CHAINSAWLINUX, we realized early on that your desktop needed to be uncluttered to be useable. Many Desktop Environments/Window Managers just aren't designed for real-estate hogging applications.
3) The desktop needed to be compatible with a good many programs as well as other Window Managers and Desktop Environments.
4) The desktop needed to be open source, free to modify, and aggressively worked upon. KDE is released under the GPL and is actively worked on by hundreds of programmers.
5) We wanted something that was widely accepted - KDE is one the most used desktops.
6) You can always add your own desktop of choice if you want it (via slapt-get). Then edit your init scripts - rc.4 and xinitrc.
Q. I'M NEW TO LINUX/UNIX AND OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE - WHAT DO I DO?
A. Read as much documentation as possible. Buy a book. Hit the websites (especially
linux.org). Join a Linux User Group. Check out the
Free Software Foundation or check out the CHAINSAWLINUX discussion board (coming soon).
We've tried hard to make using CHAINSAWLINUX as user friendly as possible, but if you're new to Linux, every little thing helps (just as if you were new to Windows or Mac OS X). So, if you have ever used Windows and/or any Mac OS, then getting into the pool with CHAINSAWLINUX should be easy. It's all the same really - you use a mouse to click, and a keyboard to type, and that's not hard, is it?
As for Open Source Software - this is the best part! CHAINSAWLINUX is based on freedom. Freedom to distribute, freedom to copy, freedom to work on the software, etc - as long as you follow the licenses attached with each of the programs. For instance, Cinelerra is released under the
GNU General Public License, while another program,
POVRay, is released under two different licenses - a
user's license and a
distributor's license. And still, there are more - like
elvis (a
vi clone, is released under the terms of the Perl `Clarified Artistic License'. These are only a few of the many different licenses of the many great programs inside CHAINSAWLINUX. Please make sure you understand each of these licenses and that all of the programs are copyrighted and/or copylefted softwares and that you must follow the guidelines set forth. We don't want to scare anyone away from these programs - so understand this: The programs are free for you to use and copy - have a ball!
Q. WHO IS THIS GUY ROOT?
root is the almighty user of Unix, BSD, and Linux (in Windows, they call this user "Administrator") - root is the system administrator, the one that gives other users the right to exist on the Operating System. Respect root, because he/she can destroy the entire system with the touch of a button. Many feel the reponsibilites of root shouldn't be taken lightly. We concur. Being root has many risks - mistyping can lead to total destruction, loss of work, and the end of your system as you know it. So be careful!
So, how do you get around root? Easy. Create a new user, log out of root, then log back in as the new user.
Q. IS CHAINSAWLINUX BASED ON ANY OTHER DISTRIBUTION?
A. We have to admit, we are purists - we really like the BSD style initialization, so we based CHAINSAWLINUX on
Slackware. But hold on, for those that have heard bad things about Slackware, don't let this scare you. Read on and become enlightened.
We decided not to go with RedHat and other RPM based distributions, because the RPM system of upgrading applications is horrible - it's been horrible for years, and it hasn't gotten much better. It's very brute-force and clumsey. It doesn't tell you much of anything and the system may need dependencies that take forever to find and install.
Debian would have been a better choice, since its installers are much more subtle and delicate, but Debian's development pace is extremely conservative and releases are few and far between. It's stable branch is too far behind where we needed to be on our development line.
Slackware is easy to use - the BSD style initialization scripts are all in one place and can be easily dealt with. Slackware is very straightforward, it makes no beef about it. If you want to install a Slackware package, just download it to your chosen directory, then type:
installpkg packagename.tgz and off you go. Slackware is simple, because it isn't as GUI oriented as everyone else is. That's another reason we chose it as a basis for CHAINSAWLINUX, we didn't want users changing things around that they didn't know what they did or how to fix. We decided that the Operating System can handle itself easily and that the users should be able to concentrate on what they installed CHAINSAWLINUX for - to
make movies!
As a side note: We aren't going to follow Slackware releases with CHAINSAWLINUX releases or anything along those lines (as Mandrake used to do when they would release a KDE version of RedHat many many moons ago). CHAINSAWLINUX has a bright future ahead and may feel the need to stray from its roots...
Q. WHERE DO I GO TO DISCUSS CHAINSAWLINUX, REPORT PROBLEMS, APPLY PATCHES, ETC?
A. To our discussion board (coming soon)
That's all for now...
