Video Editing System

[armoredcars]

Plan:
Make a virtual computer using ClusterKnoppix and a bunch of old PCs and borrowed laptops. Use Wine to run Adobe Premiere Pro or Encore DVD to compile big projects because my current computer is too slow and a faster one costs more money than I have. I have been looking all over the internet and asking some Computer Science guys (poor college student) but havn't been getting any real help.
I figure I'd start out with running some programs on Knoppix and then move up to the Cluster part.

My questions so far is
A) How do I get Wine to work? I've tried everything I could find (barely anything all) but nothing works. All I have done is get Notepad using "Wine Notepad.exe" through Run Command.
B) I can't find my harddrive
C) Cluster Knoppix is v3.6 So far I have read that writing to your hard disk wiht this version is bad. I have some old expendable computers that I can play with here so I am open to try anything. I was wondering if I could partition a harddrive to work with Knoppix, run Premiere Pro off my primary one, write to the Knoppix-friendly one and then transfer the finished file over.

This may sound far fetched but I am desperate to try anything. I'll spare you the personal story but I am willing to put in a lot of work to get a faster computer for cheap. If you have any other ideas let me know.
Thanks

[Jacky]

This is a tough challenge. Many apps do not work well under Wine. There's some information on how well tested apps work with Wine at the WineHQ site: http://appdb.winehq.org/. I note the the various Premiere versions all have very poor ratings on their ability to work under Wine. Virtualdub however has been reported to work very well under Wine.

Regards.

[armoredcars]

The Premiere thing looks workable on the site. All I'll really be needing it to do would be to compile finished videos if I could just figure out how to start it.

[Jacky]

Okay, I've tried it out and here's how to install Premiere and run it.

To install:
1) first insert the Premiere CD into a free CD drive and mount it. For example, after mounting, the CD drive will be /media/hdc
2) open a root shell and type wine followed by the full path to the setup program, for example: "wine /media/hdc/Premiere/setup"

To run the program:
1) notice that wine has created a fake c_drive. This is found in the /home/knoppix/.wine folder. .wine is a hidden folder so to see it, you need to get Konqueror to show hidden files (check the Konqueror menu option: view -> show hidden files). Inside .wine you will see a folder called drive_c or maybe c. Look inside and you will see the familiar Windows "program files" folder.
2) Using Konqueror, navigate through the program files folder to where the file "premiere.exe" is stored. If you double-click premiere.exe, nothing will happen. Right-click on premiere.exe. Select "open with". A dialog box will show up. Type "wine" into the dialog box and click ok. Premiere should launch.

Take note that my Premiere installed fine, but hung on start-up.

[armoredcars]

So far I havn't had any luck with getting anything to run due to hardware issues. Knoppix does not recognize the harddrives on my laptop and I havn't been having any luck with the network card either. I'm starting to wonder if this is another Alcohol 120% (works on everything but laptops.) On my desktop everything works except for my secondary CD drive so I havn't been able to really test out Premiere Pro yet with no drive to put the disk in.
I might buy another drive since the one I have in now was pulled from a PowerMac G3 and doesn't work half the time with Windows and try that out or install Knoppix on my harddrive. Havn't decided yet since I havn't looked into the latter but will let you guys know if I have any other questions.