anyone recommend a good dvd ripper?
we have dvd's that our parent company put together showing specific jobs running on specific machines.
i need to rip the dvd to avi so the sales mgr can put it in a presentation and also on a cd with his presentation.
tried using virtualdub, which did the job but created a 14gb avi from a 400mb vob.
handbrake.  absolutely the best dvd ripper i've tried, and free.
http://handbrake.fr/
are you just trying to copy a dvd? search for a free software called dvdshrink. i think dvd decrypter will also work. i prefer dvdshrink though. you will also need the img burn tool if you get an older version.

lastly, you will have to download the nero burning engine (if you don't have it already). just grab the free version. 

there are forums and web sites that will walk you through it. it is rather simple once you copy a few. good luck. i'm using ubuntu linux on my computer to type this, and i've been a regular linux user for the better part of the last 5 years.

i have to be honest, if by "making dvds" you mean video editing, you're going to be disappointed with what any version of linux has to offer. the tools linux has for the average home user's video editing needs are far, far behind what microsoft and apple give away for free with their systems. 

that aside, linux has excellent tools for the other needs you mentioned, and any major linux version you try is going to have all the major tools available. the key differences between linux versions (commonly called "distros" or "distributions") are generally found in default installed software, how you obtain new software (package management), and maybe hardware detection.

personally, i would recommend ubuntu. there are other excellent choices out there (fedora, suse), but i give ubuntu the nod for its excellent combination of default software, hardware support, and tools for installing new software. plus, it has a great community that will help you get started.

[additional info regarding video editing - 
i'm referring to software accessible to the average home user. i am not referring to professional, hollywood-level software. there is nothing available on linux that compares to apple's imovie or microsoft's windows movie maker, which is what i assume the asker is hoping for. if you know of such a program, i'd be happy to hear about it.] you may try to use nvarguscamerasrc with isp instead of v4l api:

cap = cv2.videocapture('nvarguscamerasrc ! video/x-raw(memory:nvmm), width=3280, height=2464, format=(string)nv12, framerate=(fraction)20/1 ! nvvidconv ! video/x-raw, format=(string)bgrx ! videoconvert ! video/x-raw, format=(string)bg… hi hien and welcome to the community.do you take full image backups of your oracle servers (virtual/physical)? in this case please do not use file 2 tape but create machine to tape jobs to directly copy the image backups.you can then arrange your available tapes in media pools and export one of the media sets you’re using.you can configure how long you want to protect data on the tapes until it gets overwritten.from the gui you can use a media set only for one weekbefore switching to the next one.you can also look into gfs media pools and use weeklies (append data to unfinished).you can use powershell however to automate everything around exporting if you like or do that manually. also you can monitor exported tapes in vaults.hope that makes sense. tape handling can be a bit of a fuss.however, you might want to have a look on the scale-out backup repository and capacity tier where you can copy your backups to an object storage repository with immutability and thus you can avoid the tape handling and you can already get an off-site copy of your daily backups.(e.g. 42 days retention, with copy to object storage from day 1, immutability for 42 days,and move to object storage after day 14 will give you 14 days of local backups for fastest restores and the rest online and immutable on the object storage). thanks for responding so quickly. i figured out my problem and found that i needed to enter the software code that came with my cd-dvd case. that got my software working. Hello,
  
Maybe this trick will help you : 

* [https://ccm.net/faq/137-how-to-cut-a-mp3](/faq/137-how-to-cut-a-mp3)
* <https://ccm.net/faq/12341-cut-your-video-or-audio-files-with-realplayer>


  
Best regards [VNC](http://www.realvnc.com/index.html) is an excellent tool for this purpose. There are other versions out there called UltraVNC, TightVNC. You can also use Remote Desktop if these are Windows machines.


You could also use STRCPYSCN heh wow, pc world doesn't work for me, must be [censored] off my adblocker something fierce, can't go through the slides.

but yeah a pdf reader only lets you read pdfs or fill out pdf forms. a productivity suite is usually only things like word and excel microsoft office.

a pdf editor, i.e. adobe acrobat, lets you actually make pdfs from scratch, and do things like add in typable boxes so you can make forms people can fill out and print or save and send off. (like a job application or a medical waver or something) Yes, there are KVM switches that support multiple monitors. do a search for multi-display KVM.


with regard to send print jobs to the printer, the best approach is probably going to be to buy a wireless printer and hook it up on your local network. This is a chicken and egg problem. No drive, cd/dvd won't work. You either need to get an external drive, or have someone write it to a USB thumb drive that your system can boot from.