I've recently switched to Ubuntu Linux (8.10 Intrepid Ibex;now 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope) definitely. There was just a small issue with the new operating system: it was hard to find a good video converter. I've tried WinFF which runs natively on Linux Ubuntu, but i found out that this video converter won't convert mkv (matroska) video files correctly (video and audio not synchronised). 

Fortunately I came upon the GEM of the Linux operating systems: Wine. Wine stands for Windows Emulator, shortly Wine. This piece of software enables Linux users to run most of the Windows applications right from Linux, no additional software, no vmware. After installing Wine on my system i discovered that more than 90% of my applications i used to use on Windows worked correctly on Ubuntu too.

I was really well surprised when I discovered that my preferred video converter Format Factory runs smoothly on Ubuntu with the help of Wine. I have successfully converted a mkv video file to avi without any loss of quality or time. Format Factory did the job even faster than WinFF by converting a 1.2GBytes HD mkv video file 47 minutes long in just 25 minutes, WinFF did the same job in 39 minutes.

I am sure i convinced you install this must-have video converter. If you work under Windows you can just go to Format Factory official website, download the latest version and install the application as usual.

If you run under Linux Ubuntu the process is a little bit longer, but not hard. I will explain each step you need to do in order to install Format Factory on your Ubuntu system.

First of all you need to have Wine installed. If you have it, skip this step. To check if you have it, open a new terminal (Applications>Accessories>terminal) window and type:

wine

If it writes that The program 'wine' is currently not installed. , then you probably do not have wine installed. Here is a very good tutorial on how to install wine on Linux Ubuntu: Install WineHQ on Linux Ubuntu.

After you have installed Wine on your system go to the Format Factory official website and download the latest Format Factory application. Save it on your desktop. Then go to your desktop and double click the installation file of Format Factory, install as usual. After the installation has finished delete the file Format Factory.ink from your desktop as it is useless. Start the application. Then you are ready to convert any video to most common video file types. With Format Factory you can convert audio as well.

Just one little issue: by default Format Factory will output the converted files to c:/windows/profiles/~your own profile~/My Documents/FFOutput folder (~your own profile~  is the name of your Wine profile, usually the same as your Ubuntu username). This is not the same directory as within a Windows OS, but just an emulated directory. To browse to this directory you should go to Applications>Wine>Browse C: Drive>Windows>Profiles>~your own profile~>My Documents>FFOutput. You can as well change the output folder by accessing Options>Output folder from within the Format Factory application.