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Posts posted by banjo
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When you are flying a real airplane there is lots of
feedback on the controls and on your body. When
flying a flight simulator, all of that is gone except
for the visual. It is actually quite disorienting.
A 3D vision system on the flight simulator would
help a lot.
Banjo
(_)=='=~
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I installed FlightGear on my Mandy 9.1 and it runs.
The problem I had was that the controls, in particular
the throttle, would not work. No matter what I did, it
alway went back to idle. The throttle wheel on the joystick
had very little effect, and the keyboard throttle controls
did nothing.
The documentation on the program is minimal, and I
could not figure out how to make it work, so I gave
up.
I am former USAF from the early '70's. Flew C-130.
I can't fly those !@#$% simulators worth a darn anyway.
Banjo
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You mean, why the vertical format?
I just got tired of having the wimpy forms
on mailers like Yahoo etc. breaking my
lines in ugly places....yuk.
So, I go ahead and type a nice looking
line
and the mailer form breaks it at stupid
places
and makes it look like this paragraph.
And
then sometimes I go ahead and enter the
text
with no returns and the stupid mailers will
not break the line at all and I have to
read
the line using the scrollbar at the bottom.
So, I just got into the habit it typing teensy
weensy little short lines that fit inside of
the form. Maybe this form is a bit more
friendly.
call me crazy.
Back on topic.... part of the reason that I am pursuing
this is to figure out how all of this hangs together
so that I understand why I fall so often into Dependency
Hell and how to get out of it once there.
I tried to build Audacity 1.2.2 last night and I didn't
even get through ./config before it choked. Seems
I need a wx_config or something that it could not
find. Probably a development kit piece that I don't
have. That is what precipitated my descent into
source code and the wxWindows and GTK+ recursion.
Banjo
(_)=='=~
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In an effort to understand what is going on with my
Audacity, I downloaded the source code for 1.1.1-3
and took a look at it.
It appears that the preferences are being written out
by the write() method of a wxConfig class. So it is
probably crashing in there somewhere... (null pointer?)
Here is where it gets interesting. The program is using
classes from wxWindows, which is a set of platform
independent C++ classes used to build GUI apps........
which is built on top of GTK+, which is a set of platform
independent classes used to build GUI apps........
which......
So, the application itself seems to be several portability
layers removed from where the actual work is done, and
finding where the problem actually occurs could be a bit dicey.
Anyway, as a backup app. I downloaded GramoFile, which
is based on curses (remember that? .... yee haw)
and I compiled it and ran it and it runs. It's ugly, but
it runs. I was able to record from my microphone directly
into a .wav file.
Where there is a will, there is a way.
Is nobody else using Audacity? Pity. Seems like a nice app.
if I can get it to stop crashing.
I seem to be talking to myself on this topic so
if anybody wants me to just shut up, let me know and
I will take it offline. I'm just sitting here playing with my
mental blocks.
Linux rocks!
Thanks
Banjo
(_)=='=~
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I continue to slog along trying to make Audacity behave.
I went back in tonight and blew away the .Audacity config
file and then ran the program again.
Audacity came up, and reinitialized itself and
I could display the preferences dialog, set my
preferences, and close it fine. I displayed the
dialog box several times and it was working as expected.
Then, I shut down the program and started it up again.
Now, every time I display the preferences dialog and
click on OK the program crashes. If I click on Cancel it
keeps running, so something is going wrong trying to
write to that file.
I am very confused.
I forge onward.
Banjo
(_)=='=~
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Well, here I am answering my own question again.
D'oh
Since Audacity was crashing while setting its preferences,
I found the .Audacity file and opened it in vi and made
the changes manually. Then, when I ran Audacity again
it came up with the settings I wanted.
I managaged to record from line-in using stereo and
life is good. The program works fine for that.
I would still like to get properties working, but for now
it is set up the way I need it. Maybe tomorrow I will go
in and blow away the .Audacity file to see if it can fix
itself and create a new one. But for tonight, my brain
is fried.
Linux rocks!
Banjo
(_)=='=~
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Well, I almost got there with my recording project.
I am trying to record from line-in into Audacity so that I
can capture some recordings that I have made.
I can record OK if I just run Audacity and then start
recording, but the preferences default to monaural.
When I set the preferences to stereo, and then click
on OK, Audacity crashes with a Segmentation Fault.
In fact, any time I display the Preferences dialog and then
click on OK, without even touching anything in the
dialog, Audacity crashes with a Segmentation Fault.
I uninstalled Audacity and then reinstalled it with no
effect.
Anybody have a clue why this might be happening?
Or, if not, is there a recording application out there that
actually works? This is really getting frustrating.
Thanks in advance
Banjo
(_)=='=~
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The most common banjo tuning is an open G chord.
DGbd with the little fifth string tuned to a g.
This is the way a slide guitar is often tuned.
Mandatory Avatar Content!
I just thought that it would be neat if Tux played a
banjo too, so I made that my avatar.
I wish I were better with The GIMP, but I have
very little time to use it.
Banjo
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Um.............. because I play the banjo..............?
Really.
It's a chick magnet.
Well......... maybe that's a bit of a stretch.
It does get me my own bench when I sit in the park.
Banjo
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<--- Tux plays the banjo too!
This was done in The GIMP.
I didn't start from totally original images, but the arrangement
and editing are my work.
Banjo
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Wow! Thanks!
That is exactly the information I was looking for.
I have placed it in my "linuxinfo" directory for future
reference.
Loading up urpmi with a bunch of web sources was
not practical for me in the past because I was on dialup
and I could retire before it got done doing what it
wants to do. However, just recently I switched over to
DSL, so now it might make more sense.
So, I built LAME from source.
When I built LAME it behaved very well and put itself
into /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/lib as you suggest.
My problem with Audacity 1.1.1 is that it crashes
with a Segmentation Fault when I attempt to point
it at the libmp3lame.so. From the CLI, lame works fine.
It is most certainly not worth a huge amount of time
to upgrade Audacity to fix this problem. I would
probably burn my CD's from .wav files anyway and
only translate to mp3 if I want to put something out
on the web. CLI is fine for that.
I am not one to chase the latest and greatest update,
which is why I am still running my Mandy 9.1. My old
Linux is a rock, and I like stability. I switched over to
Linux from Win98 a year and a half ago when I saw
WinXP coming like a runaway train full of SPAM. I do
not regret the decision, since day in and day out I
see my colleages being leveled by automatic Gatesian
XP upgrades and general system trashing. Ick!
I think that I might take on a source upgrade to
Audacity just as a challenge. As long as it does not
trash my installed Mandrake it would be interesting to
try it. We shall see.
Thanks again for the help.
Banjo
(_)=='=~
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Ok, well color me stupid............ :blush:
I could have sworn that I tried that and there was no
place to edit the subject line. I must have clicked
a different button or something.
That is what I get for staying up too late doing this
stuff. Thanks for pointing out the obvious to me.
Sometimes my brain goes out to lunch without me.
Banjo
(_)=='=~
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Thanks for the pointers.
I built lame from source because I could not find a
package anywhere. Obviously I am not looking in the
right places.
I have never had anything but bad luck with urpmi unless
I was running it through the Control Center and the package
is on the original CD's. I suppose that I am misusing that
as well. But then, where is the document describing what
this is all about? I have found lots of tutorials crammed with
details, command line args etc., but nothing with an overview
of how it is supposed to work or what it is supposed to do.
What are, in fact, the rules of engagement?
It seems to be fairly well impossible to upgrade apps in
Linux because of the Dependency Hell issue. I have read
nightmare stories about people trying to upgrade Mozilla
and trashing their systems. I have been trying to upgrade
my Audacity to 1.2.2 and finding myself in a labarynth of
twisty passages with green snakes. It is very difficult to
tell which required package name full of alphabet soup
is going to be incompatible with something and render my
system useless.
So, I live with the old stuff.
I hate to think of upgrading Mandy just to get a newer
version of Audacity running.
I do not know what ld.so.conf or ldconfig do, but I will go
search for man pages to see if that will help.
Thanks again for the overview information.
It helps a lot.
Banjo
(_)=='=~
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I feel better now.
Thanks for the kind words.
Just as an update, I have been fooling around with
Audacity and figuring out how to use it. I have now
recorded a few very brief tracks from the microphone
and converted them into the following formats:
ogg
wav
mp3
In order to do the mp3, I downloaded lame in a tarball
and built it locally. That worked out fairly well.
Unfortunately, when I pointed audacity at the
local libmp3lame.so audacity simply crashed.
Hmmmm.
So, I used a CLI to do the deed, to wit:
lame test.wav test.mp3
and that seemed to work.
Whatever works! Being an old Unix hack for years,
I ain't afraid of the CLI......... I just have to steer clear
of that hardware stuff.... :woops:
I am still using the Aucacity 1.1.1. I downloaded an
rpm of 1.2.2 and tried to install it and it dropped me
directly into Dependency Hell, so I backed off.
Banjo
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Well, I fixed it.
I don't know exactly what I did, but I got it to work.
This is one of those cases where I don't know how it
works, but by creating the project using different
parameters, it works.
Here is what I did.
I created the project again with the New Project wizard.
There is a crucial step in there that I passed over
the first time I created this project. On one of
the pages, a couple of menus are presented that allow
you to specify the types of files that are to be
created. The two items are:
Default DTD:
Create new files as:
They both default to "WML 1.2"
To make it work the way it used to, I changed both
of them to
"HTML 4.01 Transitional"
Then, I went past the "Add files" page, preferring
to do that manually later, and finished the creation
of the project.
Then, I went into Project=>Insert Files...
and selected all the files I needed. Then I went
into Project=>Insert Directory and inserted the image
directory.
Now, my project comes up just fine with my Standard
toolbar, and the toolbar sticks around when I edit my
files. I get the proper dialog box with my Img tag
as well. Life is good.
Sorry for the false alarm.
I would still like to hear from anybody who knows
how all this hangs together, but for now, I am back
on track. Once again I love my Quanta :woops: and
I love my Linux :woops:
Linux rocks!
Banjo
(_)=='=~
P.S. How the heck do I edit the subject line so that
I can append [sOLVED] to it?
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I am using Quanta 3.1.1 on my Mandy 9.1
For the most part, this is a fine tool, but sometimes it
goes nuts.
In this instance, I have started a new project, added
files to it, and loaded the Standard toolbar to get
access to paragraph tags and image tags etc.
When I invoke the Img tag editor from the Standard
toolbar immediately after opening the project and
showing only the default Untitled1.html file, I get a
dialog box that will load an image and fetch the
size of it etc. Kewl. This works fine. This is the
dialog I have been using all along. It works great.
However, as soon as I click on one of the other
files to edit it, all my loaded toobars disappear.
Quanta reverts to the set of default toolbars.
So, I reload the Standard global toolbar. But
from then on the Img tag editor pops up a different
dialog box which does not seem to be able to
fetch the image size.
If I reload the project and start over, I get the
same behavior......... once I edit a file, all the
toolbars are gone and I am starting over again.
Anybody out there ever use Quanta? Any clue
as to what is causing this strange behavior?
How do these toolbars really work? Without
the toolbars the editor is fairly useless.
I have been using Quanta for over a year now
to do my web pages and I have not seen this
particular pattern before. But this is driving me
nuts, and I am about to give up on it and go
back to vi. This random behavior is maddening.
I have dug deep enough to go through most of
their xml files where the dialogs and actions are
defined, but I cannot figure out what the heck tells
it which dialog to pop up or which toolbar to load
or where it gets the toolbars from the project file
or personal .rc file or whatever it does........
Thanks in advance
Banjo
(_)=='=~
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Well, this is a hard one to write...............
:blush:
I finally got Audacity to record from the mic.
:blush:
Um............. how do I 'fess up to this?
:blush:
You know that microphone jack thingy............ that
plugs into the sound card thingy...??? well it was
in the hole ok............
:blush:
and it was even in the right hole....
:blush:
... but you do have to push it all the way in until it clicks.......
... if you want it to work.........
So, after I did that, and I almost blew out my speakers
and my eardrums from the feedback..... it seems to work.
It was late last night............ !!
I think I love my Linux again :woops:
Thanks to all of the very patient people who helped
me out on this problem. I learned a lot about how
the sound works on my Linux, so it wasn't wasted
time. And I found loads of new tools to try out.
Linux rocks!
Banjo
(_)=='=~
(I am sooooo embarrassed!)
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That's why you get the big bucks!
You are makin' music, and I'm still standing here with
the mic in my hand saying "Test. Test. Can anybody hear me?"
Banjo
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Kewl
I will go grab it and see if I can get it to run on my
old Mandy 9.1.
Banjo
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I could not find an rpm of Audacity 1.2.2.
The most recent I could find was 1.2.0 out on pbone.
Did you build from source?
Banjo
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You must have a later version of Audacity than I do.
I have 1.1.1 from the Mandrake 9.1 CD's. When I tried
to install 1.2.0 I ended up with a half dozen dependencies
that I did not want to hunt down. It was late.
The 1.1.1 version had a setup in preferences only for
/dev/dsp and /dev/dsp1.
Or maybe I was using it incorrectly. It was late.
Maybe I will try again to install the newer version
again this weekend.
Banjo
(_)=='=~
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Thanks for the great info. I wish I were sitting at my
Linux now so that I could try this stuff.
To clarify the situation, my ultimate goal is to
transfer music that I record myself using other equipment,
probably a minidisc recorder, to the computer for burning onto
CD's etcetera. I cannot record the music directly onto
the computer because this will involve a grand piano, and
moving it from the church to the house, and then moving it
upstairs next to the computer would be a challenge that is
probably more difficult than getting Audacity to work.
Since I do not have the recording equipment yet, I thought
that I would set up my tools to do the transfer and just
speak into the microphone as a proof of concept.
I am learning a lot about how the sound works, and I will
report back whatever seems pertinent if anyone is interested.
I have found out so far that /dev/dsp is, indeed, the device that
is read for mic input and written for speaker output. The
actual source and sink for the data are set up by the
mixer controls. So I am on the right track there.
/dev/dsp1 is a device that is used if a particular sound
card has a second sampling device for simultaneous
processing of multiple channels. I suspect that Audacity
crashed because my sound card does not support /dev/dsp1.
The search goes on.
Linux rocks.
Thanks again to all for the help.
Banjo
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I believe that I am running ALSA, but I am not sitting
at my Linux box right now so I cannot check it.
Thanks for the pointer. If I can just get some visibility
into what is going on in the system I should be able
to trouble shoot this. I will give alsamixer a try next time
I am on the Linux box.
Do you know of any tutorials about how Linux handles
sound? I think I would be better off if I understood how
it is supposed to work. I am willing to do the studying if
I can find a place to start.
Thanks again
Banjo
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OK, here is what I want to do:
1). Start Audacity or some other recording program
2). Record something from the mic
This seems to me to be a rather simple task. It
is not rocket science. I have done this dozens of
times on my Dell running fnWindows.
I have heard good things about Audacity so I decided to
try that.
I have installed Audacity 1.1.1 from the Mandrake 9.1
CD's and it seems to run OK. Audacity 1.2.0 from the
net dropped me into Dependency Hell.
So, I plugged my microphone into the mic input on my
Sound Blaster Live! SB0220 card and tried to record
something.
Nada. I know this card works.
Time for some trouble-shooting.
I brought up KMix and unmuted the mic (I think....
does red mean "unmute"?) I cannot make head nor tails
of how KMix works. What do all the little icons mean?
What do the red buttons at the bottom mean and the green
buttons at the top? How do I turn on the speakers?
How do I make this tool actually do something?
What are all the little pictures of phone jacks?
They all look alike. Hunh?
Anyway, I cannot make the mic speak through anything
and I cannot figure out how KMix works.
So, I killed KMix and brought up Aumix. At least there
are some words on this one. So I unmute the mic (once
again, does red mean "unmute"?) and crank up the volume.
Then I crank up the volume for the speakers. There
appears to be no way to mute, unmute the speakers.
Nothing.
Maybe the mic won't go straight to the speakers?
So I fire up Audacity and select Preferences=>Audio I/O
Recording Device. There are two selections:
/dev/dsp
/dev/dsp1
Nothing about a mic or a line-in.
If I select /dev/dsp1, Audacity just disappears when I
click OK. Must be a bug, or perhaps /dev/dsp1 is the
wrong kind of device?
So, I guess the only choice is /dev/dsp
OK fine.
So now I *think* that I have the mic unmuted, and I *think*
that I have selected my sound card as input, so I try
to record something.
Flatline.
Is there some place that I can go to find out how all of this
sound stuff hangs together on Linux? What am I doing
wrong? Why is this hard?
Sorry for my little rant, but at this point I am so
frustrated with this stuff that I am almost ready
to go back to the dark side where you plug in the mic
and select it and it works. I think that this is why
people keep running back to fnWindows.
If I can figure this out, I will gladly write up
a tutorial on what-all pieces of software you must
run and what-all magical clicking of icons and
sliding of sliders and all that stuff that it takes
to do this simple task... but until then, I am
stuck.
My ultimate goal is to record from line-in, but I
don't have the equipment to hook up yet, so
I am using the mic for initial testing. Bad choice?
There must be somebody here that has managed to get a
Linux app to record from a microphone.... it can't
really be this hard, can it?
Please?
Thanx in advance
Banjo
(_)=='=~
Audacity crashes
in Software
Posted
adamw,
Thanks for the hint. I will go take a look next time
I get a minute to give it another try.
Banjo
(_)=='=~