First recording with my new setup

Posted on February 11, 2012, 4:29 pm, by Alan and received No Comments ».

Finally got some time last night to do a little recording on my Lubuntu/ardour setup.  I wasn’t doing anything serious, just wanted to lay down some sounds to experiment with software, workflow, and getting a good sound out of my new cajon.

The result is here.  No sequencing or drum programming going on (obviously), just laid down one track at a time into Ardour and mixed down with a handful of plugins.  The lead synth is nekobee running through a parametric eq and rotary speaker sim, recorded live into Ardour.

I’m pretty happy with what it can do, though I still feel like the workflow with Jack/Ardour is a little cumbersome.  My hardware is kind of flaky too, sadly.  Still, there’s something that inspires me more about working with duct-tape and baling wire than with some shiny turnkey system.

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Comments fixed

Posted on February 6, 2012, 10:45 am, by Alan and received No Comments ».

Apparently due to my failure to read directions, comments have been broken on this site for a looooooooooooooooong time.  So now they are fixed, I expect everyone to bless me with their profound wisdom.

 

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Recovering data from a PC: a guide for “not computer people”

Posted on February 3, 2012, 12:43 pm, by Alan and received No Comments ».

It’s a little unfortunate how much we rely on something as unreliable as a computer.  There you are, working along, happily doing your thing, and suddenly Windows (or OSX, or Linux, or BEOS, or whatever it is that sits between your hardware and your web browser) pukes up some error and refuses to boot, work, or be otherwise useful.

Fixing the computer itself is just a matter of time and money; getting back those pictures, documents, emails, and other files that you always meant to back-up is another issue.   So in this article I’m going to show you a simple way to recover documents from a system that won’t boot.

Continue reading this post »

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Reviving my home studio, this time the free software way

Posted on January 11, 2012, 4:27 pm, by Alan and received 1 Comment ».

Long ago, before I ever knew a lick of BASH or even what an OS kernel was, my passion was not technology but music, music, and more music.  Roughly the first half of my adult life was devoted to the writing, playing, and recording of music, and by around 2002 I’d built for myself a tidy little home recording & mixing setup centered on Cakewalk Sonar, Jeskola Buzz, and Windows XP.  Alas, the years were not kind to my career or gear, and up until recently my music computer was busy being a game & education machine for the kids.

Thanks to a hard drive crash and the purchase of new machines for the kids, I got my old music machine back, albeit lacking a functioning operating system and software.  So, I decided now was a good time to rebuild it.  This time, though, I decided the time was right to kick XP and Cakewalk to the curb and go it Free Software style.

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Reason #423 to hate Oracle

Posted on January 3, 2012, 4:15 pm, by Alan and received No Comments ».

Error received while attempting to make Oracle talk to php5 on Debian:

Unpacking oracle-xe-client (from .../oracle-xe-client_10.2.0.1-1.2_i386.deb) ...
This system does not meet the minimum requirements for swap space.  Based on
the amount of physical memory available on the system, Oracle Client 10g
Express Edition requires 1024 MB of swap space. This system has 542 MB
of swap space.  Configure more swap space on the system and retry the installation.

That’s 1024 MB of swap space to install the client. Why???? Who knows!! Never mind that I have plenty of RAM, enough to operate the entire 32bit address space without any swap at all, but ORACLE MUST HAVE MOAR SWAP.

So I’ll just totally go do a bunch of low-level disk-monkeying on my web servers to accommodate this need, I guess…

How to install Debian offline

Posted on December 29, 2011, 9:49 am, by Alan and received No Comments ».

When tinkering with old computers, there is little about an operating system quite as endearing as flexibility at install time.  The “Universal Operating System” is no slouch in this regard; the Debian installer will work quite happily from CD, DVD, USB drive,  PXE boot (my personal fav), and even a Windows executable.

But what if none of those is an option?  Suppose you’re stuck with a system with no optical media, no USB boot, no PXE boot, and no OS?  Can we get Debian on such a machine?

You bet we can!   Continue reading this post »

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HP Decides to Open Source WebOS

Posted on December 9, 2011, 1:18 pm, by Alan and received No Comments ».

Well this looks like interesting news:  HP has decided to open its failed WebOS platform to developers.  If they do it right and actually help found a project, this could be really cool.  WebOS might become the free software option for mobile & tablets for all us I-must-replace-the-factory-OS-on-every-device-I-own folks.

Then again, they could just mess it up and WebOS will fade into obscurity.

It’ll be fun to watch, either way.

 

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Creating a kiosk with Linux and X11: 2011 edition

Posted on November 5, 2011, 12:43 pm, by Alan and received No Comments ».

Back around 2006 our public library was in need of a cheap way for patrons to browse its web-based INNOPAC catalog. Thin clients running Windows CE had been purchased for this purpose, but they turned out to be buggy and limited. I was tasked with finding a solution to the problem “on the cheap”, and being a fairly new Linux fanatic at the time, I figured I’d see what I could do using free software. This led to my first kiosk project.

Since then, I’ve refined my approach time and again, deploying kiosks throughout my organization just about anywhere a web-browser kiosk can be put to use. The original library system has been completely rebuilt with newer hardware and software, but is fundamentally the same system I set up five years ago.

I often see people asking about how to set up a kiosk system with Linux, and like me they usually start out going about it the wrong way; so I thought I’d write this tutorial based on my years of experience to help those getting started.

Continue reading this post »

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Robin

Posted on October 26, 2011, 11:37 pm, by Alan and received No Comments ».

In my blog links below, you’ll see a link to “Robins Rants and Raves”, a blog that (until recently) was written by a bright young man who many of us in various Linux circles knew better as “DixieDancer”.

A few days ago, Robin went to be with our Lord and Savior, brought down at the age of 18 by a genetic condition beyond medical help.  I recommend anyone to read through the last month or so of his posts, to hear the voice of a young man facing his pending death with the confidence that he will be entering the new life.

We have lost something down here, but he has gained everything now.   Rest in Joy, brother.

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RIP Dennis Ritchie

Posted on October 13, 2011, 3:56 pm, by Alan and received No Comments ».

Was sad to see that Dennis Ritchie died this week.  Between creating Unix and C, Dennis’s influences on modern computing are probably second to nobody.  Here’s a pretty good writeup on him:  Remembering Dennis Ritchie, Creator of the C Programming Language and UNIX Co-Creator.

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