Linux Server Build choice recommendations?

[johnfl68]

Hello linux types:

I am working on a project where I need to convert static image sets into small 10 second animations every 5 or 10 minutes, outputting them to MP4 format.

I would love to be able to do this at FQ on a shared server, but I am sure it isn't allowed due to the potential of hogging a lot of processing power, even though 10 second clips are quite small.

I would love to keep this at FQ, but the price of a Managed QuestServer right now is way too steep for a start up project.

So, I am looking at Rackspaces Cloud Server options, where I can start with a small virtual machine server, for around $12 a month, with perl, ImageMagick, ffmpeg, and a few other utilities to do what I need. And it is easily scalable if and when my project grows. It won't be serving web pages, or any other typical web server operations, just getting and building the image sets and converting them to MP4.

There are numerous linux distribution choices available:

• Arch 2011.10
• CentOS 6.2
• CentOS 6.0
• CentOS 5.8
• CentOS 5.6
• Debian 6.0 (Squeeze)
• Debian 5.0 (Lenny)
• Fedora 17 (Beefy Miracle)
• Fedora 16 (Verne)
• Fedora 15 (Lovelock)
• Gentoo 11.0
• openSUSE 12.1
• Red Hat EL 6.1 (significant extra charge)
• Red Hat EL 5.5 (significant extra charge)
• Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin)
• Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot)
• Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal)
• Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx)

Any recommendations would be appreciated, so I can possibly do a demo build at home first on my dev box, before doing the same build in the cloud, so I have a better idea of what I am getting into.

Thanks!

John

[Kevin]

For only 10 frames it probably won't need much CPU time. The problem with doing it on FutureQuest is that we aren't going to have the tools for it installed because if we did someone would probably end up trying to convert DVDs or something.

I am not really a fan of it but Linux Mint will probably get you there the fastest. It generally has things like video codecs installed already.

BTW, mkv is better than mp4

[johnfl68]

Kevin,

Thanks, but unfortunately Linux Mint isn't a build choice for Rackspace's Cloud Servers.

And because the output is going to "network appliances", it has to be in the H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10 format to play properly across all devices.

John

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by johnfl68

Thanks, but unfortunately Linux Mint isn't a build choice for Rackspace's Cloud Servers.

That isn't surprising considering that Mint is a desktop oriented Linux distro. I have never heard of someone using it as a server but of course that is possible.

From your list I would probably pick Ubuntu 12.04 or CentOS 6.2 if you plan to keep it around for a while. If you only want it temporarily then maybe Fedora 17. Of course someone else will say Debian! and someone else will say Arch! and in reality I would actually use Gentoo [version number meaningless] though I wouldn't tell you to.

Originally Posted by johnfl68

And because the output is going to "network appliances", it has to be in the H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10 format to play properly across all devices.

We are talking on different layers. MP4 and MKV are container formats. H.264/x.264/AVC/MPEG4 Part 10 are a video codec which can be contained by either. Take one of your mp4 files and try: "mkvmerge -o file.mkv file.mp4" and you will get an mkv containing whatever streams were in the mp4 file in the same codecs. But the mkv will usually be a little bit smaller and it supports more features. Of course I have no idea what your appliances can handle.