Getting Line 6 POD Studio UX2 to work on Linux

I was blessed to have a friend who lent me their recording gear. Here's what I did with it =P

Seek and you shall find

Luckily, someone (Markus Grabner) wrote a driver for Line 6 devices on Linux here:
http://line6.com/supportarchivenew/thread/4031
Their website is here: http://www.tanzband-scream.at/line6/
Note the link to the source code on that webpage is old - the latest should be v0.9.1beta not v0.8.1

Getting the latest version

Using svn to checkout the repo and make didn't work (I got a bunch of errors, possibly due to using svn to clone the repo causing the make command to create a bad revision.h file. I also got errors from driver.c

To get around the errors, I tried downloading the zip from sourceforge here:
http://sourceforge.net/p/line6linux/code/HEAD/tree/
(Click "Download Snapshot"). 

After that, just unzip, go to the "drivers" folder, "trunk" branch then $make and #make install inside that directory. Btw, for dependences, you need gcc, make, your kernel's headers (e.g. linux-headers-generic), and alsamixergui + pavucontrol (for later).

Here's a nice article about ./configure, make and #make install. http://www.codecoffee.com/tipsforlinux/articles/27.html

Plugging it in

Now for the harder part, thanks to bkmfs2 on the line6.com forums in the 1st link of this post we have:

#Then you have to find your soundcard with:
cat /proc/asound/cards
#This tells you how your Line 6 device viewed by the computer ('hw:' number).
#Replace 'hw:1' with whatever shows up for your sound card when you type:
alsamixergui -D hw:1
#You HAVE TO turn the 'monitor' slider all the way down or things will crash (unless the 'svn' site has a newer version that fixes this).
#Just so you know, the thing is a little volitile but I was able to use my Line 6 UX2 with jack-audio with (so far) dependable success.
#Just F.Y.I., I bought a M-Audio MobilePre the other day and it works right out of the box.

I didn't have to get alsamixergui to select the device to control - I use Audacity and it allows you to switch between devices.
My favourite audio setup/control tool on linux has to be pavucontrol although I couldn't use it for audio in and I could use Audacity to select the hw2:0 device for recording, letting me record.

By using the monitor turned up to 100% in the alsamixergui, I was able to hear the input from my mic, albeit quite distorted. It obviously was more clipped when I turned up the "phones" dial and/or turned up the monitor signal from aslamixergui. This is mentioned in 4.3.5 of the driver doc manual PDF (from Markus Grabner's Tanzband-scream.net website), but I haven't been able to fix it yet. The PCM audio works phone though, using the computer to play to the phones without clipping.

I decided to get the full experience dual-booting into Windows and using POD farm (didn't want to set up WINE/VM as I was short on time and didn't want to troubleshoot any errors that would come up). However, I didn't have time to do that either (only effectively had one afternoon) so I just stuck with recording in Audacity on Linux.

Yes, this means you might get to see some art/annihilation related projects released soon showcasing the results.

Space & Tech newsdump

Busy with uni work and yes, projects! =P
[need to finish an Android app in two 1-week sprints that allows year 10 students to learn functional programming by doing it!]
So as pointed out already, I'll abandon the idea of posting news items as blog articles regularly. This doesn't mean I'll stop posting all news type articles though!

Because I don't want to spend the time regurgitating news articles in nice English, here's a link dump of noteworthy articles in the past few weeks: (it also serves as a personal favourite/bookmarker =P) =D

http://www.sciencealert.com/australian-researchers-have-converted-sunlight-into-electricity-with-more-than-40-efficiency

http://garethhayes.net/hackrf-blue/

http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/2014/11/22/private-cubesat-start-ups-join-the-space-race/14165748001263

www.space.com/27588-nasa-asteroid-capture-mission-mars.html

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/factory-upgrade

Why CSIRO is important:
http://csironewsblog.com/2014/11/20/megans-seven-reasons/

gmailblog.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/going-under-hood-of-inbox.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/01/penniless_and_desperate_wikipedia_sits_on_60m_cash/

http://lunar.xprize.org/news/blog/lunar-mission-one-takes-crowd-funded-route-moon

www.space.com/27936-nasa-orion-spaceship-survives-test-flight.html

http://www.space.com/27833-nasa-orion-capsule-first-test-flight-infographic.html

https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/wiki/faq

www.space.com/27944-nasa-orion-spaceship-textbook-spaceflight.html

http://www.csoonline.com/article/2853027/malware-cybercrime/report-hacker-group-fin4-stealing-insider-info-to-exploit-significant-changes-in-stock-prices.html

http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2014/09/when-adding-bike-lanes-actually-reduces-traffic-delays/379623/

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2014/12/08/jaxa-testing-deep-space-microsat-with-asteroid-flyby/

http://www.livescience.com/49028-farthest-quantum-teleportation.html

www.space.com/27955-spacex-rocket-ocean-landing-platform.html

http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-plugs-into-australia-20141209-story.html
Tesla finally updates their website to show superchargers on the Hume Hwy in 2015! YESS!! Can't wait to drive a Tesla from MEL-CBR! =)

The return of the ISEE 3

http://spacecraftforall.com/home


Great website with cool interactive documentary-like experience! Check it out! Also, it'll be live-streaming the fly-by of the moon in a few hours (Sunday, August 10th 10:30am PT - 12:00pm PT) , but I'll be asleep. Also includes live data anytime! =)

This whole project was crowdfunded and they (the hackers/makers) work in a hackerspace/mission-control in an old Maccas building! Lol! And with NASA's blessing =) Them talking about *SCIENCE* so much reminds me of stuff like Portal, xkcd, KSP (get them science points!) haha.

Also, great post about SoftwareDefinedRadio; been meaning to get my HAM radio callsign sometime soon ...

Also, the initial swing-bys to get to the 1st comet flown through by man is so cool and complicated, it reminded me of an epic version of this:

I mean, orbiting in one plane is hard enough to learn (in a fun way) in KSP. Add in polar plane and crazy manoeuvres and orbits like Quasi-Zenith and I have to spend more time wrapping my head around more simulations, models and reading.
P.S. My short-term goal is to build and launch a (nano)sat in one of them Quasi-Zenith orbits servicing Australia =P Hopefully I'll get to crowdfunding when I've actually done work on it xP.

Ubunchu ch.08 and PSA: Sudo powers

Here's a double release of art projects geared towards new(ish?) users/discoverers of Linux and the Ubuntu distribution.

Ubunchu chapter 8 typeset by me took a year (lol, I had no schedule and it was very on-off, next time I'll schedule it properly so I don't forget what I was doing). It's my first official type-setting/translation manga release, hope you like it. =) I was going to try and perfect it but because the project dragged on so long I thought I should just try and quickly push it out and release/ship it.
Ubunchu is about a school club in a Japanese high school which is tinkering with Ubuntu.
Read the whole series (and a better synopsis) here: ubunchu.net
My latest release (ch8): on google drive - zip of PNGs (click File -> Download),

        Shared folder here - DL in PDF (recommend you DL the zip of PNGs instead and use MComix to read get MComix1.00), 

        and on the ubunchu website (when it gets uploaded there someday).

Getting to work on an open sourced manga/project like this one is pretty nice. Especially without having to clean 'scans' using levelling, and other more sophisticated techniques. xP All of it was done in GIMP which is open source and is also available on windows due to GTK magic (but it feels nicer on my Kubuntu). I've never used photoshop properly (to a certain extent) but I can say GIMP is competitively advanced and has nice plugins too. Mostly used Blambot's fonts - free for non-commercial use.

Also would be nice to get a Wacom tablet/ergonomic mouse/SteamController (check out this demo vid!), I get RSI with at least my index finger when using conventional mice. Currently use a trackball for everyday use, but gets annoying since it doesn't have a scroll wheel. Steam controller definitely looks promising since my HKD20 PS-like controller definitely has bad resolution, and I don't imagine my PS controllers or the XBox ones will be much better. Although having fond memories of my Saitek joystick (which is so old it used a serial or parallel connection), I might use that for Star Citizen, although I'll have to test the Steam Controller first, like how I tested the OR. Which reminds me, Oculus Rift post coming soon =)

[Linux is complete with gaming rant]
With Valve's SteamOS, Steam on Linux and Source, Unity, Unreal game Engines being native on Linux as well as CryEngine soon, games seem to be moving en-masse to the Linux OS. This is welcome news, since gaming, and atm, only one particular game (Star Citizen, which has gained 4mil in crowdfunding since I last blogged about last month - 1.5mil of which was from the last 4 days) is the only thing holding me back from never booting Windows on my laptop. It's on CryEngine 3, so can't wait for that to build natively for Linux.
We've got Dota 2, KSP, Guns of Icarus Online, L4D2, TF2, X-series and an increasing amount of games, indie and big-publisher alike natively on Linux already or coming. I find if I'm looking at a game purchase/Humble Bundle, availability is a deciding factor. These next few years will be very interesting for Linux =)

[/rant]

Here's the PSA (it's related to Ubunchu ch.8), sad to say I learnt this the hard way one too many times:




_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Came across an interesting blenderguru post about why and how Blender's UI is broken and the principles of making good UI, how Blender can be fixed. The folks who made Unity should have a look =P [Sincerely, KDE/XFCE user]

UPDATE: Blenderguru made a video with suggestions, here it is!


=)

Australian Space Agency - why

Came across a good article here about why Australia needs a space agency, and how we can create our own solutions instead of piggybacking off others and be able to build a new industry which benefits us.


The ACSER seems pretty cool.
I wonder if the GPS module could be used for other Australian spacecraft ...

Also, if you read my Mt Stromlo (AIAA tour) post back in early August when AIAA Sydney Section toured Canberra, here are some projects that the AITC are looking at at the moment. Hope I get to participate soon =)

KSP update 0.22

Kerbal Space Program is one of the funnest games ever, superseding The Sims and will probably take 2nd place in my all-time favourite game list, after Tribes 1. That is, until Star Citizen comes out and dominates the list. I love the open and mod-able, community driven aspects of this game. =)

This most recent update finally gives the option of inserting sub-assemblies to new designs, so you can finally import 2 assemblies/designs from different saved designs without having to build from scratch! Kind of like importing parts into a CAD assembly. I have no more excuse to not play this game (it's on Linux! via Unity =D) ... although uni study beckons Dx



Also, an abridged list of stupid things that I have done (a full list would be way too long). These are rookie mistakes which experience, if not proper systems engineering would (hopefully) have mitigated.

• Not realising you forgot to put parachutes on your spaceship until you've re-entered the atmosphere
• Using all your fuel to achieve a high orbit and realising your Kerbonauts are now stranded ... hope they're not hungry
• Forgetting to activate solar panels once in orbit so your spacecraft (a planned addition to a collection of spaceships docked together forming a "space station") runs out of electrical charge. It's also unmanned so can no longer be controlled. Recovery mission is being planned (yes, one is also being planned for my stranded Kerbonauts, though admittedly with much lower priority xD)

And there we have our top 3 "oh crap, I'm so stupid" moments so far =)
The game has also prompted learning of orbital mechanics and stuff and is a great companion to: The Basics of Spaceflight - brought to you by JPL, "we do everything cool".

OpenShot video editor v 2

So I realise I've been blogging about games (most on Linux) lately, especially with my yearning for Star Citizen to hurry up and get made.
This post, I won't use the 'games' tag. =)

So I was casually browsing kickstarter as you do, and found THIS. Evoking memories of trying hard to find a proper video editing software, finding the most feature filled one on Linux being a readily crashable OpenShot video editor ;P It also kind of reminds me of getting blender and being completely stumped at how to use it. (Along with Maya).
This was back in 2010, and we were able to put together a simple video:


Now, I'm happy to see more work being done, OpenShot getting a new framework, fixing apparently 99% of previous bugs, and cross-platform support.
Oh, and they're switching to Qt from GTK. I liked GTK back on Ubuntu10.04 with GNOME, because Qt would usually look ugly or fail, but now that I'm on Kubuntu12.04, both work pretty well from an end-user point of view. Here's a funny port GIMP to Qt thread that descends into mini-flamewar from the middle till near the end.
Anyway, obligatory iframe of latest blog post (which includes a restrained comment on Operating Systems for devs which I can understand/agree upon):


P.S. Yes, I'm running out of holidays to finish two arty projects in the works, one which was intended to be released a while ago =S; Also, may be starting a eng/tech project (finally!)

Open source projects being funded!

Title is as self explanatory as Kim Jong Un looking at things.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/arcbotics/sparki-the-easy-robot-for-everyone
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1923745690/open-source-nimh-battery-charger-analyzer
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kytelabs/bleduino-bluetooth-40-ble-made-easy-arduino-compat
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/495099991/ember-and-torch-apps-meet-arduino?ref=live

It makes me happy to see people backing projects which are open source =) The last project still needs funds to be funded!
Ah, BLE 4.0, when you come on Android, all those things I could do with you -fantasizing-.

IP, law, patents

This is why I think the USPTO is ridiculous, especially in light of Apple vs. Everyone they can extort  =P (eg, Samsung, HTC, Google, etc.) ;P
http://blog.joshuafox.com/2012/10/the-evil-engineers-guide-to-patents.html

That said, this is on my do to list just to see the whole process and whether or not I should do it for something in the future just to protect my/our work (so people like Apple can't just patent something you made but didn't bother patenting). And then I could open source/give out ALL the licences for it. =D

IllumiRoom

Great idea, and looks pretty cool. So it's apparently being integrated in Xbox 720, but will probably make it to the PC/Linux platform via hackers/makers.
(wii was pretty good, and also hacked to work on PC/Linux =P - yes, an upcoming project - I've got it to connect and work, but need to make an IR light setup on my laptop for the pointer to work properly =D That said, I should blog more on my projects instead of reblogging cool stuff >_> )

Public Laboratory Spectrometer

for those who've missed the Kickstarter for Public Lab's spectrometer, here it is (the paper version):
http://publiclaboratory.org/notes/mathew/11-30-2012/final-fold-mini-spectrometer-print-files-and-instructions

Can't wait for my aluminium desktop USB one, although the first thing I want to test is HK water (and why it tastes funny, and requires boiling/filtration) and I got them to send it to Australia ...


Also on Kickstarter, Star Citizen raised 6.2mil in total for the campaign, with >$2mil from Kickstarter. Since, they've raised a bajillion dollars and are now at almost $7mil. (You can still 'pledge' and buy ships till what I'm assuming is alpha (they say "12 months from now"). However, there are less benefits than the campaign pledges like no life-time insurance on ships.) Totally can't wait for this! Especially if Oculus Rift fairs well with Star Citizen, will defs try this euphoric combo.

News post #11?

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/506466/given-tablets-but-no-teachers-ethiopian-children-teach-themselves/
Woot, u go, hacker children!!
Personally, I think humans are naturally hackers and makers, curious about things, tinkering with them, and wanting to make/create things. This bit of news kind of supports my thought =P
Also, good to see OLPC is doing stuff, their $100 XO-1 is pretty neat too, I've seen it in action before at ASSC, one of the guys from Lunar Numbat brought it along =)
Speaking of which, haven't heard much news from LN and White Label Space, but Canberra UAV had a pretty good year, and they presented at CLUG too! =D

Yep, lots of group dropping there =P Don't forget the hackerspaces I follow: MHV and HackJamHK@Dimsumlabs(-their FB page is pretty well updated) =D
Being a Melbourne boy, it's kinda sad I dont' follow these guys (CCHS) nearly as much (due to me not being around Melbourne -my fav city- as much as the other two places these days! ><") though some of them are LN and they've had some pretty cool projects. Their computer-in-car is especially cool =P and is part of the inspiration for Project Sheila (now much easier with mobile computing and Li batteries =D) which first requires a car and license (lol) xD Anyone get the project name reference? (Hint, my AI will be called Sheila).

----------------------------------------------------------------------

In other cool news:
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/october/carbon-solar-cell-103112.html
First whole carbon solar cell including electrodes (apparently some researchers as engadget points out, has made the energy transducer part before)
Pretty cool.

Ohloh - track Open Source projects!

Ohloh - Wow, stumbled upon this through Linux Mint's tumblr. 

Contains really cool stats, go to a project page, and click the stuff under "In a Nutshell ..."
Especially under /factoids/, there's number of comments as a %!!! xD documentation ftw =P

=) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =)

Also, what happens when closed-source stuff has nothing more to offer (both entertaining and informative!):
http://www.businessinsider.com/dear-apple-im-leaving-you-2012-11
 Includes the (only) apple ad I actually liked on youtube!



---------

P.S. I'm thinking I'll be able to push my lil Ubunchu project release out at the end of next week. =D

Project Anihilation - Red Vs Blue Intro Cover 01

I'm surprised the first product of Project Annihilation was from India (Instrumental) sub-section. I was planning some Alpha ones.
First time ever I've done this. Made with audacity and windows movie maker. I'm looking into some better video editting software - windows movie maker is just too limited.
I used a classical guitar so I didn't have as much re-verb and I wanted to keep the audio as untouched/unedited as possible.

Oh well, enjoy!

Project ACDC

Co-axial RC helicopter, eSky's  'Lama V4'

You can see the servo, motor, flying adjustments and wiring.

 Probe idea from Predator UAVs - install a camera on a RC aerial vehicle.

If not able to install a live feed camera, I thought I could attach something like a phone with a video recorder. 

Researched and found many people were already doing that, and selling set-ups online.

For example:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xebWJ84JC84

Video camera transmitting was too expensive ($200+ for the transmitter alone) and may be too heavy.

 I wanted to make the set-up myself.

The mobile phone weighs approximately 110g, the helicopter 200-250g. With the phone, it couldn't lift off, although hovered on the ground. Also, it seems that this small helicopter is only good for indoors as strong winds would blow the helicopter in a particular direction even if the helicopter is strafing/moving against it.

Also, hit a tree and after a few more times of flying, the helicopter could only turn it's bottom rotor blades and not the top ones. Will have to work out why and fix it.

In the future: build a more powerful helicopter suited for outdoors. I wonder if I could just replace the motors and rotor blades and add an extra battery ...

More photos/videos to come.

'Dragster'

Name: Birdie (note the front shape)

Birth: 2005

Rear wheel drive, driven by a small DC electric motor and two gears.

Power: 2 AA Batteries

Various Prepackaged Circuits

Ah, the joys of soldering.
Too bad these circuits come pre-etched and most of the complex workings are hidden inside those ICs.

This first one is supposed to be a radio bug. There's a mic and it transmits on FM - the coil of black wire is the antenna and you can change frequency manually and in analogue by screwing that green component.

Below is a dice thrower. It just works by changing LEDs very fast (i.e. 1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,6, ...) and when you press the switch it stops. Then when the switch is pressed again the LEDs start flashing again. It needs to flash really fast (so fast that all of them look like they are on at the same time, albeit dimmer) so you can't cheat. Also, one of the ICs count in base 10 so it needed to be converted to base 6, or loop from 6 to 1 and not 7.

Have yet to uncover my hand drawn circuit from year 8. I had to use a marker and place it in the electrolytic tank. The copper was oxidised to become soluble in the solution and only the copper under the marked areas were left. Hurray for old-school stuff. =P

eTux

Meet eTux, 5 Years old.
I made him in year 7, when we first learnt how to use sewing machines @ GWSC. He is complete with 2 red LED eyes and a green LED beak with an internal buzzer. The design was modified from a sewing book and the internal circuitry is just a normal wire circuit without a circuit board. The wings have home-made press switches, which activate the LEDs and buzzer. They're just 3 cardboard pieces, two with foil and the middle with a large hole in it so when you press the cardboard together the foil contacts each other. He is powered by love and a 9V battery attached and hidden by velcro-lock opening.

Definitely visiting this sign the next time I'm in Canberra:

And if a geohash ever lands there ... ;P