First, Install Packages:

> su -
> yum install perl mplayer ffmpeg ImageMagick
> exit

Log into root and install the necessary packages. The RPM Fusion repository needs to be configured for mplayer, ffmpeg, and ImageMagick.

Copy Perl Script:

> vi thumbs.pl

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use POSIX;

my $dir = getcwd();
my ($width, $height, $length);

opendir(DIR, $dir) or die $!;

while (my $file = readdir(DIR)) {
   next unless ($file =~ m/\.mp4$/);

   my @info = `mplayer -benchmark -nosound -quiet -vo null -frames 1 -identify $file`;

   foreach (@info) {
      if (substr($_, 0, 15) eq "ID_VIDEO_WIDTH=") {
         $width = substr($_, 15);
      }
      elsif (substr($_, 0, 16) eq "ID_VIDEO_HEIGHT=") {
         $height = substr($_, 16);
      }
   elsif (substr($_, 0, 10) eq "ID_LENGTH=") {
         $length = substr($_, 10);
      }
   }

   $width = floor($width / 3);
   $height = floor($height / 3);
   my ($tile_x, $tile_y, $frame) = (6, 4, 1);
   my ($position, $files);

   while ($frame < ($tile_x * $tile_y + 1)) {
      $position = $frame * floor($length / ($tile_x * $tile_y));

      system("ffmpeg -ss $position -i $file -vcodec mjpeg -vframes 1 -s $width"."x"."$height -an -f rawvideo -y __$frame.jpg 2> /dev/null");

      $files = $files . " __$frame.jpg";

      $frame += 1;
   }

   system("montage -title \"$file\" -geometry $width"."x"."$height"."+"."1"."+"."1 -tile $tile_x"."x"."$tile_y$files $file.jpg");

   system("rm __*.jpg");
}

closedir(DIR);

You can also download the thumbs.pl file.

There are a few things you may wish to configure. First is the script only creates montages for mp4 files. Change the regular expression for your needs. Second is the scale of each thumbnail relative to the resolution of the video. I have selected one-third of the original size. Third is the tile layout. I have selected 6 horizontal by 4 vertical tiles. If you are editing the script, note that the -ss option must be before the -i option or else ffmpeg will crawl while creating thumbnails.

Why both mplayer and ffmpeg? mplayer has the ability to do montages but I usually have issues with the -sstep option, and framestep is way too slow. You can certainly pull video data with ffmpeg -i but mplayer -identify is much easier to parse and I was lazy. Sorry.

Run the Perl Script:

> perl thumbs.pl

Place the script into a directory and execute it. You can run it in the background with nohup perl thumbs.pl & instead. The script will find every mp4 file in its directory and make a sequential video thumbnail montage for it.

First, Install TigerVNC:

> su -
> yum install tigervnc-server

Log into root and install the TigerVNC package.

Configure VNC Server:

> echo 'VNCSERVERS="1:mnguyen"' >> /etc/sysconfig/vncservers
> echo 'VNCSERVERARGS[1]="-geometry 1024×768 -depth 16"' >> /etc/sysconfig/vncservers

Edit the vncservers configuration file and set up a user pair. Note the element numeral 1 which refers to a user pair. If you set up a second user, say snguyen, then use echo 'VNCSERVERS="2:snguyen"' >> /etc/sysconfig/vncservers and echo 'VNCSERVERARGS[2]="-geometry 1024×768 -depth 16"' >> /etc/sysconfig/vncservers.

Set VNC Password:

> su – mnguyen
> vncpasswd

Log into each user associated with a VNC server and configure a VNC password.

Finally, Start VNC Server:

> exit
> chkconfig --level 2345 vncserver on
> /etc/init.d/vncserver start

Exit back to root and start the VNC server daemon. Each VNC server has a unique port, 590#, associated with the user pair element defined in the vncservers configuration file. So the VNC server for user mnguyen is on port 5901 and the VNC server for user snguyen is on port 5902.

First, Import the Google Key:

> wget https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub
> rpm --import linux_signing_key.pub

Log into root, download the Google signing key, and import it with RPM.

Set Up the Google Repository:

> vi /etc/yum.repos.d/google64.repo
[google64]
name=Google – x86_64
baseurl=http://dl.google.com/linux/rpm/stable/x86_64
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub

Create a yum repository file for Google and add the 64-bit information above.

Next, Install Google Chrome:

> yum install google-chrome-stable

Install the Adobe Flash Plugin:

> gzip -d libflashplayer-10.0.45.2.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz
> tar -xvf libflashplayer-10.0.45.2.linux-x86_64.so.tar
> mkdir /opt/google/chrome/plugins/
> mv libflashplayer.so /opt/google/chrome/plugins/

Download the 64-bit version of Flash Player for Linux from Adobe’s site here and uncompress it. Create a plugins directory for Google Chrome, and then move the Adobe Flash Player plugin file into the newly created directory.

Install the Sun Java Plugin:

> cd /opt/google/chrome/plugins
> ln -s /usr/lib/java/jre1.6.0_20/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so .

If you have not installed Sun’s Java runtime, follow my CentOS instructions here. These instructions work for Fedora too. Simply link the 64-bit Java plugin file to Google Chrome’s plugin directory. Do not forget the period at the end.

Finally, Check the Installed Plugins:

Launch Google Chrome and type about:plugins into the address bar. You should see both the Adobe Flash Player and Sun Java plugins installed.

First, Install the Dependencies:

> yum update
> shutdown -r now
> yum install gcc make kernel-devel perl

Perform an update to make sure you have the latest kernel, reboot Fedora, and then install the following packages: gcc, make, kernel-devel, and perl. Make sure the kernel and kernel-devel packages are the exact same version. If you are running 32-bit Fedora, install the kernel-PAE-devel package.

Next, Prepare the vmware-tools Installer:

> mkdir /mnt/cdrom
> mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
> cd /tmp
> tar zxpf /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-8.4.2-261058.tar.gz
> umount /dev/cdrom

In the Virtual Machine menu, select Install VMware Tools. VMware Fusion will make an image appear to Fedora. Mount the image, uncompress the installer files to the temporary directory, and then unmount the image.

Finally, Execute the Installer:

> cd vmware-tools-distrib
> ./vmware-install.pl

Change to the vmware-tools-distrib directory and execute the Perl script, and then follow the prompts. As long as the dependencies were installed correctly, and the version of the kernel headers match the currently running kernel, the installer will automatically find all the directories that it needs.

First, Install alacarte:

> su -c ‘yum install alacarte’

I have no idea why all of the sudden this is not installed by default with the Gnome Desktop Environment.

Finally, restart X:

Log out of, and then back into the desktop environment. Now you will see an “Edit Menus” option when you right-click on the menu.

First, List the Filesystems:

> fdisk -l

Use fdisk, the partition table manipulator for Linux, to list all partition tables.

Mount a Partition:

> mkdir /mnt/usbdrive
> mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usbdrive

Create a directory as a mount point and then mount the partition to the directory.

Mount a NTFS Partition:

> mkdir /mnt/usbdrive
> mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usbdrive

You may need to install the ntfs-3g driver (yum install ntfs-3g).

Mount a Samba Share:

> mkdir /mnt/smbshare
> mount //192.168.1.101/data /mnt/smbshare -o username=mnguyen,password=password

Install fuse and wdfs To Mount a WebDAV Folder:

> yum install fuse wdfs

Mount a WebDAV Folder:

> mkdir /mnt/webdav
> wdfs http://webdav.domain.com/ /mnt/webdav -o username=mnguyen,password=password,allow_other

Unmount a Filesystem:

> umount /mnt/usbdrive

If the filesystem is busy, determine what process is using the filesystem (e.g. /dev/sdb1) with “fuser -m /dev/sdb1” and then look up the PID (e.g. 123) with “ps auxw | grep 123“.