May 2013: 10 Most Popular Posts from Ubuntuland & The Dream Valley.

1.- x2vnc allows the console (keyboard and mouse) on an X terminal to be used to control another console running a VNC server.

x2vnc allows the console (keyboard and mouse) on an X terminal to be used to control another console running a VNC server. It also provides ancillary functions like clipboard sharing.

The software was developed in 1998 by Fredrik Hubinette, based on source code from x2x and VNC.

What it does.

This program will let you use two screens on two different computers as if they were connected to the same computer. Even if one of the computers runs Windows 95/98/NT and the other one runs X-windows. If they are both running Windows, you probably want to use Win2VNC instead.

Personally, I have two computers, both with linux installed, but I often have to run Windows 95 or Windows NT when working, and I just got tired of switching between the two keyboards. Therefore I wrote this program. While running this program I can move the mouse pointer beyond the right edge of my X display, and then the pointer will appear on the screen on the other computer. If you have ever used x2x or a computer with two graphics cards, you know what I am talking about.

 

 

2.- Tango Icon Theme Guidelines.

Introduction.
The Tango icon theme's goal is to make applications not seem alien on any desktop. A user running a multiplatform application should not have the impression that the look is unpolished and inconsistent with what he or she is used to. While this isn't about merging styles of all desktop systems, we do aim to not be drastically different on each platform.
Along with a generic type fallback, having a similar style will help in the transition phase with some legacy icons which may still remain on a user's particular desktop.

Color Palette.
Having a common color palette is required to have a consistent look across all icons. Visual style is heavily influenced by the colors used.
The Tango color palette consists of 27 RGB colors, as shown on the image below. Most desktops allow for 24-bit RGB icons (+8-bit Alpha channel).

 

 

3.- The 5 Best Instant Messenger Client for Ubuntu: Pidgin, aMSN, Galaxium, Emesene and Empathy.

Like other Operating systems, there are some great Instant messengers for Linux.
These IM’s comes with features like any other, including custom emoticons, web-cam support, nudges, themes, plugins, customizations and lots more.
Here’s a list of 5 Best Instant messengers for Linux, I hope it comes in handy.

 

 

4.- Ubuntu 13.04 “Raring Ringtail” Available For Download.

Ubuntu 13.04 has been released today with many enhancements and fixes to Unity as well as some important performance improvements.
Check out the video below to see what's new in Ubuntu 13.04:
(direct video link; for more videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel)

Unity changes in Ubuntu 13.04 “Raring Ringtail”:
Unity has been improved a lot in Ubuntu 13.04 and it's now a LOT faster than in Ubuntu 12.10. A lot of the work on Unity has happened under the hood but there are some user interesting interface changes and new features, such as:

 

 

5.- Plymouth, Burg & Grub Manager With Super Boot Manager.

Grub Manager, Plymouth and Burg are quite handy in tweaking with Ubuntu  boot options.

These include changing the boot screen theme, setting the default operating system for booting, setting screen resolution, timeout and so on.

Super Boot Manger is a master application for boot management which allows managing configurations for Grub, Plymouth and Burg from within a simple GUI based interface. It provides options for the installation and management of  of graphic themes, Grub,  Burg and Plymouth.

You can install Super Boot Manager from the command lines given below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ingalex/super-boot-manager

sudo apt-get update

 

 

6.- VirtualBox: Troubleshooting and Guest shows IDE errors for VDI on slow host file system.

Troubleshooting


This chapter provides answers to commonly asked questions. In order to improve your user experience with VirtualBox, it is recommended to read this section to learn more about common pitfalls and get recommendations on how to use the product.


General


Collecting debugging information


For problem determination, it is often important to collect debugging information which can be analyzed by VirtualBox support. This section contains information about what kind of information can be obtained.


Every time VirtualBox starts up a VM, a log file is created containing some information about the VM configuration and runtime events. The log file is called VBox.log and resides in the VM log file folder. Typically this will be a directory like this:

 

7.- Top 10 Free Video Editors for Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala.

 

AvideMUX

AvideMUX is one of the most widely used Video application for Ubuntu Linux. It allows you to easily cut, filter and encode your tasks. It supports all the major video formats including AVI, DVD compatible MPEGfiles, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs.

 

These tasks can be automated using projects, job queue and powerful scripting capabilities. Avidemux is available for Linux, BSD, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows under the GNU GPL license.

Download Avidemux

CinePaint

CinePaint is an easy to use Ubuntu Video application that has a support for 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit color channels of deep paint. It offers High Dynamic Range that allows images to go brighter than white.

 

 

8.- x2x allows the keyboard and mouse on one ("from") X display to control another ("to") X display.

x2x allows the console (keyboard and mouse) on one X terminal to be used to control another X terminal. It also provides ancillary functions like clipboard sharing.

The software was developed in 1996 by David Chaiken at DEC. It is currently maintained by Mikhail Gusarov.

x2x joins a pair of X displays together, as if they were a single multiheaded display. The pointer can be warped between displays, or, depending on how you start x2x, can slide from one display to the other when it runs off the edge of the screen. Keyboard focus also moves between displays in the way you'd expect, and the X selection propagates around. At least one of the displays involved (specifically, the one being controlled remotely) must support the XTEST extension. (The servers shipped by Debian support this.)

 

 

9.- Top 25 Best and Free Games for Your Android Tablet 2013.

Android tablets have been around for more than a year, but there still aren’t very many games designed to take advantage of a large screen. These games are not only playable on tablets as well as Android phones (at no extra charge, unlike iOS apps), they are all more fun to play on the big screen. Some of these Games were first available on Apple’s iPad, but as the number of Android tablets increases, we are seeing some companies release games for both formats at the same time.

• Real Racing 3 Cheats, tips and tricks iOS, Android



• Candy Crush Saga Cheats, Cheat Codes and Hints for iPhone, iPad, iPod



• Cheats for Gun Bros 2 app game for iPad, iPhone, iPod and Android

Keep in mind that, try as we might to pick the best Android tablet games with broad tablet support, it is possible that any given game on our list might not be compatible with your tablet. If your favorite game hasn’t made our list, please let us know and we will take a look at it.

 

 

10.- Tizen OS: Can Samsung and Intel’s mobile OS compete with Android?

In the wake of Meego’s demise a new open source mobile operating system has emerged. Known as Tizen and backed by Samsung and Intel, the Linux-based OS recently hit the version 1.0 milestone and has even been paired with an official reference hardware platform.


Unlike the alternative OSes that came before it, Tizen does not use the Qt application framework.


Instead, Tizen apps are created using HTML5 and other web standards. It is intended to be used in smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, vehicle entertainment systems, and low-power notebooks.


Tizen is currently being developed by a partnership between Intel, Samsung, the Linux Foundation, and others. The latest partner is Sprint-Nextel, which has announced its intent to join the Tizen Association and to feature Tizen-powered smartphones in its future product lineups. Let’s dive straight into the features of Tizen, and then we’ll look at the applications.

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Ubuntu uses myBalsamiq for community designed mobile apps.

I recently came across a blog post by Jono Bacon of Ubuntu called "Community Driven Ubuntu Phone Core Apps". It describes the Ubuntu for phones project, which, in the spirit of Open Source, invites community contributions from not only software developers, but also designers. For the design of their core apps, they are using myBalsamiq, provided free as part of our free for Open Source projects program.

His article talks about all the various pieces in the Ubuntu for phones project and how they all fit together. The last piece of that puzzle is the designers themselves, whom he is reaching out to in his post.

 

Jono writes:

So, we have a good set of developers assigned for each app, but we would like to invite our community to contribute design ideas for each of these apps. We have already defined a set of user stories and functional requirements, and for each app we have also defined a set of the core screens and functionality that we will need design for. We would like to invite you wonderful designers out there to contribute your design ideas, and these ideas can provide food for thought for the developers.

myBalsamiq works for this project because it provides the ability to contribute designs as well as track feedback and revisions. Ubuntu already has a set of app design guidelines and most of the visual design is provided by the SDK, so what's primarily needed is design at the wireframe level. myBalsamiq makes it easy to flesh out the design concepts before they ever get to code. Ubuntu founder, Mark Shuttleworth, has also been a long-time promoter of Mockups and has several designs done in Balsamiq Mockups on his own blog.

 

This project is the stuff of Champions because it is open and generous, and it allows people of all backgrounds to participate and work together. It also exposes a process that is often hidden from view for the betterment of anyone who's interested. And, just like Open Source code contributions, it breaks down barriers in that it doesn't matter where you live, who you work for, or what your business card says you are (if you even have one). Anyone with ideas is welcome. There are even roles for non-designers. Using comments in myBalsamiq, anyone is invited to give their feedback on the designs that are submitted.

 

The comments reveal the design process as it happens. For example, here's a snippet from the comment thread on the weather app:

 

Mitu replied 4 months ago, re: Sergey's Version 8 from 4 months ago
On the panel with today's weather I would suggest not to use the word "Today".

It would be nicer to place the date on the upper right or under the city name (using a litlle smaller font). And next to the sun image just place a short "Sunny" form.

I would prefer an option to turn off the indicator.

Sergey replied 4 months ago, re: Sergey's Version 8 from 4 months ago
@Mitu, You are right, when i removed word "Today" i got some free space in right region.
I added date under the temperature.
I added option to switch off\on weather indicator: https://ubuntu.mybalsamiq.com/projects/ubuntuphonecoreapps/Weather+App+-+settings

Homero replied 4 months ago, re: Sergey's Version 11 from 4 months ago
Good concept, simple to use and understand. For the top bar indicator, what do you think in putting only the current temperature?

e8hffff replied 4 months ago, re: Sergey's Version 11 from 4 months ago
If the clock, tasks, calendar and alarms, were all brought into a time-line chart, then the weather also could be mapped over the day periods of the time-line chart.

Sergey replied 4 months ago, re: Sergey's Version 11 from 4 months ago
@Homero I think it need option to configure information in indicator, becouse one user want information about temperature, but second user want only information about weather(sun, rain, etc)

This is interesting (to me, at least) because it provides a window into how a lot of software development is done these days - non-co-located people communicating asynchronously, using tools optimized for this way of working. You can actually watch the design improve (and get refined) as more people get involved. It's a victory for ideas over ego in design.

 

And, in the true spirit of community, this project is not only a way for Ubuntu to get awesome designs from a disparate collection of passionate designers. It reciprocates by allowing those designers to work together, practice their skills, and learn from each other.

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Cdlabelgen is a Perl script that generates printouts suitable for use as CD/DVD labels, jewel case inserts.

Cdlabelgen is a Perl script that generates printouts suitable for use as CD/DVD labels, jewel case inserts, or envelopes. Both normal sized cases and slim cases are handled.

 

The project can be used to create table of contents for music CDs, archival CDs, DVDs, etc., with customizable logos or background images, and it generates PostScript files as output.

The package also includes a Perl CGI Web script which accepts JPEG images as logos or backgrounds, and can also create PDF output files.

 

Using the Online CD/DVD Inserts and Envelopes web interface

 

The term "cover" is used to represent the front door of a CD jewel case. The term "tray card" is used to represent the rear tray of the CD jewel case. It is a bit tricky to open the tray card to put an insert in there, but it can be done. Nowadays, there are "slim cd cases" available, these are half-height CD jewel cases. They do not have a removable tray card area, so only the front cover can be used for an insert. There is also the "Create Envelope for CD/DVD" option, which creates a foldable cut-out suitable for using as an envelope for a CD/DVD.

 

Inside inserts for DVDs are created by creating a foldable two-page insert, outside inserts are similar, except they also have a spine. Note that DVD inserts may not fit in Letter or A4 sized paper, a bigger paper size may be required.

The list of items is printed as the table of contents for the CD/DVD. Each item should be in a line by itself, each empty line counts as an item, this produces a line skip in the output. Adding empty lines between items or at the end of the list of items can be used to get the contents to lineup in columns. To indent a particular item, add spaces to the beginning of the line. In addition, each item can be printed using a normal font, a bold font, a italic font, or a bold italic font using code words in the first column of the item - see examples below.

 

Items are printed in a multi-column format, if the item is too big to fit in the column, the item text will be truncated, unless the option "Enable Scaling Down of Items" is selected - in which case, the entire item will be scaled down to fit in the column (note that for very large item texts, this may make the item unreadable!).

 

If you have a large number of items, it may also be useful to select the option to "Omit Title & Subtitle on Tray", which gives more space for the items.

 

This online interface produces Adobe PostScript or Adobe PDF output. The PostScript file can be printed on a PostScript printer, the PDF file on any printer if you have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your PC. This online interface also produces a black and white GIF image which is not suitable for printing, but is good enough for review purposes, so you can keep tweaking your input trying various combinations in the web form until you like the way it looks.

 

All the input text to cdlabelgen is assumed to be in ISO Latin1 format.

Download:

 

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS “Lucid Lynx”:

• [cdlabelgen_4.1.0-2.dsc]
• [cdlabelgen_4.1.0.orig.tar.gz]
• [cdlabelgen_4.1.0-2.diff.gz]

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS “Precise Pangolin”:

• [cdlabelgen_4.1.0-2.dsc]
• [cdlabelgen_4.1.0.orig.tar.gz]
• [cdlabelgen_4.1.0-2.diff.gz]

Ubuntu 12.10 “Quantal Quetzal”:

• [cdlabelgen_4.1.0-2.dsc]
• [cdlabelgen_4.1.0.orig.tar.gz]
• [cdlabelgen_4.1.0-2.diff.gz]

Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail”:

• [cdlabelgen_4.1.0-2.dsc]
• [cdlabelgen_4.1.0.orig.tar.gz]
• [cdlabelgen_4.1.0-2.diff.gz]

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cbrPager a simple comic book pager for Linux.

A no-nonsense, simple to use, small viewer for cbr, cb7 and cbz (comic book archive) files. As it is written in C, the executable is small and fast. It views jpg (or jpeg), gif and png images, and you can zoom in and out.

 

    It's main features are:

    Simple usage: A navigation bar stays on top of the pages.
    It works on any RAR-compressed image archive - normally the extension would be .cbr or .cbz, but other extensions work too.
    Advance/backup pages, and go to the begin and end.
    Zoom in and zoom out (10% steps) and return to 1:1.
    It should manage jpeg (jpg), png and gif images.

    A configuration window permits defining a few slightly more advanced tricks:
    When advancing go to the top of the next page (or bottom or stay where you are.)
    Same possibilities when paging backwards.
    Remember the last directory visited on startup, or always start in a defineable directory.
    Determine the initial size of the pager.
    Define where the navigation bar should be and its orientation.

 

Download

 

cbrPager-Maemo: a simple comic book pager for Maemo.

This is a port of cbrPager to the Maemo platform. The Maemo platform is a lightweight version of Linux that runs on Nokia's Internet Tablet devices (Nokia N800 and N810; see http://web.nseries.com/products/n810/). Using this port, you can read comic book archives on your Internet Tablet. Given the insanely high pixel density of the screen of those devices (225 dpi!), reading comic books or Japanese mangas on them without scrolling too much is possible if you have good eyes.

 

In addition to the porting work, efforts were made to provide a "tablet friendly" interface. You can use the hardware keys for different operations (up/down changes page, zoom in/out and fullscreen work as expected), and you can scroll the page using your pen or finger. Like the built-in PDF reader, while in full-screen mode, clicking to the left or right of the screen will change pages. Finally, for more comfortable reading of "narrow page" material (such as Japanese mangas), you can rotate pages, and there is a selectable preference to tell cbrPager to rotate the page automatically if it's taller than wide.

 

Compared to comic book readers already ported to the tablet (Comix, evince), cbrPager is much more lightweight and barely requires any disk space (barely 100 KB), making it ideal for the Maemo environment.

 

Screenshots. 

 

Shows the Hildon menu

Shows fit to screen, rotated, fullscreen

A better shot of the hildon menu

Shows the go to page feature

Shows the navigation arrows (this is quite familiar to maemo users, the PDF reader has arrows like this)

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Ardour Guide Professional Tool for Working with Audio and MIDI: Using More Than One Audio Device.

Ardour is a full-featured, free and open-source hard disk recorder and digital audio workstation program suitable for professional use. It features unlimited audio tracks and buses, non-destructive, non-linear editing with unlimited undo, and anything-to-anywhere signal routing. It supports standard file formats, such as BWF, WAV, WAV64, AIFF and CAF, and it can use LADSPA, LV2, VST and AudioUnit plugin formats.

 

Ardour runs on Linux and Mac OS X, and uses the Jack Audio Connection Kit (JACK) to interface with the computer's sound card, as well as with other audio applications running on the same system.

 

Using More Than One Audio Device.

Ardour will only use a single interface. If you want to use more than one interface you have two choices:

1. If you want to use Ardour to start JACK (which handles all audio I/O) you will need to create a "fake" audio device on your computer the represents all the multiple devices you wish to use. How to do this is platform dependent and described below.
2. Use a different tool to start JACK and manage all the devices.

Ardour is fundamentally designed to be a component in a pro-audio/music creation environment and standard operating practice for such setups involves using only a single digital sample "clock" (something counting off the time between audio samples). This means that trying to use multiple independent soundcards is problematic, because each soundcard has its own sample clock, running independently from the others.

 

Over time, these different clocks drift out of sync with each other, and cause glitches in the audio. You can't stop this drift, although in some cases the effects may be insignificant enough that some people might not care about them.

 

Thus in an ideal world you should not use multiple independent soundcards but instead use a single device with a single clock and all the inputs, outputs and other features that you need.

Of course, a lot of people don't live in an ideal world, and believe that software should make up for this.

OS X.

Aggregate devices provide a method to use multiple soundcards as a single device. For example, you can "aggregate" 2 different 8-channel devices so that you can record 16 channels into Ardour.

If you are using a single typical 3rd party audio interface (such as those from Apogee, RME, Presonus, and many others), OR you are using JackPilot or a similar application to start JACK, you do not need to worry about this.

You will need to set up an aggregate device ONLY if either of the following conditions are true:

• You want to use two entirely separate devices AND want to start JACK using Ardour.
• You want to use your builtin audio device AND want to start JACK using Ardour.
• You want to use more than two entirely separate devices

In the case of your builtin audio device, you will need to create an aggregate device that combines "Builtin Input" and "Builtin Output" into one device.

 

The precise instructions for creating an "aggregate device" on OS X have varied from one released to another.

 

OS X 10.5

Please read http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1215

 

OS X 10.6 or later

Please read http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3956

 

Linux.

Please see the instructions at http://jackaudio.org/faq

 

This section of the manual collects together the collective wisdom of the user community regarding details of using Ardour on various specific platforms

Ubuntu Linux is the most popular variety of Linux in use on desktop and laptop systems. It has the backing of a for-profit corporation (Canonical Inc.), a defined philosophy and a huge and worldwide user base. As a result, it is a common platform for people who want to use Ardour and other tools for music creation and pro-audio work.

 

High Level Recommendations for Ubuntu Users.

Currently, installing pro audio applications on vanilla Ubuntu requires some configuration, in order for the user to gain realtime privilege (read below). Ubuntu Studio, which is an official flavor of Ubuntu, and thus shares the repositories with Ubuntu, has this already configured. Other distributions, such as KXStudio, and Dreamstudio are largely based on Ubuntu, and like Ubuntu Studio, has these settings preconfigured, while also containing customized versions of Ubuntu packages, which often are more up to date.

 

Installing Ardour.

There may be unintended differences, and even bugs in Ubuntu native packages, as a result of a different building method. For this reason, Ardour developers highly recommend you to install the official ready-to-run version of the program that you can get from ardour.org, as Ubuntu native packages are not supported in official Ardour forums or other support channels.

 

Problems with the interaction between PulseAudio and JACK.

Background Info .

 

Like many distributions, Ubuntu has decide to use PulseAudio as the default audio system. PulseAudio is a rich and capable system that provides excellent services for typical users of Linux on the desktop. However, it is not capable of the type of performance that tools like Ardour require and in particular does not offer the possibility of sending audio between applications that can makes the Linux audio environment a very interesting one.

 

This would not a problem if it were not for the fact that JACK will not run correctly (if at all) if it needs to use the same soundcard/audio interface that PulseAudio is using. And since on Ubuntu, PulseAudio is configured by default to always use the (typically single) audio interface on your computer, this is a bit of a problem.

 

The developers of JACK and PulseAudio got together in 2009 and agreed upon a mechanism by which PulseAudio and JACK could cooperate in their use of a single soundcard. Whether or not PulseAudio is running by default, when JACK starts up it sends out a request to use the soundcard. If PulseAudio is running, it will give up its use of the soundcard to allow JACK to take over (and can optionally be told to route its own audio through JACK). When JACK finishes, it sends out another message, and PulseAudio can once again use the soundcard directly.

What is the problem?

The specific issues known at this time for all flavors of Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.10 are:

• a bug in PulseAudio that causes it not to give up the soundcard when JACK asks (LP: #1163638 (fixed in Ubuntu 13.04).

Symptoms.

• Cannot start JACK (though see the next section for other causes of this)

How to fix

These bugs do not affect the upcoming 13.04 release, and earlier releases (12.04 and 12.10) are in the process of being fixed.

 

Problems with JACK configuration.

What is the problem?

To function as intended, JACK needs to run with access to two operating system facilities called "realtime scheduling" and "memory locking". This means that you, the user who starts JACK, must be allowed access to these facilities. By default, Ubuntu does create a user group that has this permission but ... it does not put new users into this group by default. Read more about why here. Consequently, you will not have permission to run JACK in the way you should.

 

Symptoms .

A message like "Cannot lock down memory" in the output from JACK as it starts up. This output may be "hidden" in the Messages window of QJackctrl (aka JACK Control), so you should check there.

How to fix

 

Make sure the file /etc/security/limits.d/audio.conf exists. If it is named /etc/security/limits.d/audio.conf.disabled, rename it to the former. Run the command sudo usermod -a -G audio YOUR-LOGIN-NAME. Then logout and login again. On Ubuntu Studio the user is a member of audio group by default, but not on other official flavors.

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Ardour Guide Professional Tool for Working with Audio and MIDI: The Mouse and Setting up MIDI.

Ardour is a full-featured, free and open-source hard disk recorder and digital audio workstation program suitable for professional use. It features unlimited audio tracks and buses, non-destructive, non-linear editing with unlimited undo, and anything-to-anywhere signal routing. It supports standard file formats, such as BWF, WAV, WAV64, AIFF and CAF, and it can use LADSPA, LV2, VST and AudioUnit plugin formats.

 

Ardour runs on Linux and Mac OS X, and uses the Jack Audio Connection Kit (JACK) to interface with the computer's sound card, as well as with other audio applications running on the same system.

 

The Mouse.

Ardour is designed to work best with a 3 button mouse equipped with a scroll wheel.

It can be used with a 2 button mouse or touchpad, but at least 2 key operations will not (easily) be available to you:

• time-constrained region copying
• MIDI bindings created by "learning" them from incoming MIDI

You are strongly encouraged to invest in a 3 button mouse. You will find that a good quality mouse (especially one with a weighted, latchable scroll wheel) will make your use of Ardour vastly more efficient. They are cheap, and time is not.

Setting Up MIDI

What Can Ardour Do With MIDI?

MIDI is a way of both describing musical data and controlling musical hardware\software. MIDI doesn't actually create any audio but rather describes the audio in order to control hardware/software. Ardour can import MIDI data, record MIDI data and allow MIDI data to be edited in a variety of ways. Also, MIDI can be used to control various things withing Ardour.

 

This allows for the most flexible work flow with regards to MIDI. What Ardour doesn't have is any built in synthesis to turn the MIDI data into audio. Rather, this is handled through the use of plug-ins and external hardware/software. While this makes MIDI a powerful tool it can also be a stumbling block for first time users who expect MIDI input to result in audio output by default. Please see the section on working with plug-ins for more information on turning MIDI data into audio output with Ardour.

 

MIDI Handling Frameworks

Below is a list of various MIDI Frameworks for getting MIDI data into and out of Ardour in order to work with MIDI aware software/hardware.

CoreMIDI.

CoreMIDI is the standard MIDI framework to comunicate with MIDI hardware on OSX systems. It provides drivers and libraries needed by MIDI clients. These ports do not show up in qjackctl

 

ALSA MIDI.

ALSA MIDI is the standard MIDI framework to comunicate with MIDI hardware on Linux systems. It provides drivers and libraries needed by MIDI clients. These ports show up under the "ALSA" tab in qjackctl

 

JACK MIDI

JACK MIDI is a framework used to comunicate between JACK MIDI software clients. It provides zero jitter and a fixed latency of 1 "period" (the same latency that exists for audio). These ports show up under the "MIDI" tab in qjackctl.

 

Various ways of "bridging" between the native MIDI framework (e.g. CoreMIDI or ALSA) and JACK MIDI, as described in the sections below.

• MIDI on OS X.

In order for CoreMIDI to work with Jack MIDI a version of JACK for OS X that has a working CoreMIDI - JACK MIDI bridge is required. This feature is available on versions equal to or great than version 0.89 of JackOS X.

 

Routing MIDI.

Inside Ardour.

There are multiple locations MIDI ports can show up in Ardour's MIDI connection matrix. CoreMIDI ports that are created by other software clients as well as JACK MIDI ports created by other software clients will show up under the "Other" tab. CoreMIDI hardware ports show up under the "Hardware" tab.

 

External Applications.

There are multiple options for connecting MIDI ports outside of ardour

MIDI Monitor  is a handy tool for doing various things with midi on OS X.

MIDI Patchbay  is a handy tool for connecting MIDI ports.

• MIDI on  Linux

Ensure that a2jmidid is running

a2jmidid is an application that "bridges" between the system MIDI ports and JACK.

First you should be sure that there is no ALSA sequencer support enabled in jack. To do that open qjackctl's

 

Setup window.

In the Settings tab set the MIDI Driver drop down to the none option.

Then go to the Misc tab and uncheck the Enable ALSA Sequencer support option.

Now it's time to restart your jack server before going on.

 

Checking for a2jmidid availability.

First thing is checking if a2jmidid is already installed in your system. To do it first start your jack server and then call

a2jmidid -e

from the command. If a2jmidid is there go on with Checking surface control MIDI ports. Otherwise install the newest a2jmidid available and try again.

Checking surface control MIDI ports.

After starting a2jmidid your control surface MIDI ports should appear in qjackctl's Connections window on the MIDI tab under a2j. If it does go on to the next step: Automatically calling a2jmidid when starting jack. If it doesn't you have to troubleshoot why it didn't. (How to troubleshoot

a2jmidid?)

 

Automatically calling a2jmidid when starting jack.

It's troublesome to have to manually start a2jmidid by hand each time you start jack. Here is one way to do it automatically. This step isn't mandatory, it's just a convenience. If you are not interested you can go on to the next step Enabling Ardour's mackie control ports in qjackctl.

 

Create a script that calls jack if you aren't using one yet. In it change the line that calls jack to have an ampersand at it's end like that:

/usr/bin/qjackctl &

In this case I call qjackctl that starts jack so I include the ampersand in qjackctl's call. If you call jack directly, put the ampersand at the end of it's call line.

 

Now include the following lines after the line that calls jack:

/usr/bin/sleep 5
/bin/bash -c "/usr/bin/a2jmidid -e" &

All you have to do now is use your new script to call jack.

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Cadubi is an application written in Perl that allows you to draw text-based images

Cadubi is an application written in Perl that allows you to draw text-based images that are viewable on typical UNIX-based consoles.

 

Usually the applications that emulate these consoles support various text modes, such as background and foreground colors, bold, and inverse.

 

This text art, commonly called "ASCII art", is used in various places such as online BBSes, email and login prompts. 

Options.

-h --help
    display some documentation
-m--mute
    turn off beeping
-s [W] [H]
--size [W] [H]
    sets the size of the console for use with cadubi, where W is number of columns and H is number of rows.
-v --version
    show cadubi's version

 

Download.

 

Cadubi is available as a package for many operating systems including Ubuntu Linux, Debian GNU/Linux, Gentoo, Linspire, OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, and the Fink package management system for Mac OS X.

 

Cadubi is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

• cadubi-1.3.tar.gz (MD5: e4ba1f6995bfdae8639341446782b859)

 
Configuring.

Beeping and command line options can be also set in /usr/bin/cadubi. 

Keyboard.

i j k l
    Move the cursor around. Holding down shift and typing these keys will move the ursor five spaces instead of one.
space
    Paint the current pen on the screen.
return/enter
    Move the cursor down one line and all the way to the left of the console.
delete or backspace or `
    Delete the character before the cursor.
p
    Prompt for a pen character
f
    Prompt for foreground color (see section colors).
b
    Prompt for background color (see section colors).
g
    Toggle bold mode.
v
    Toggle inverse mode.
shift-w
    Toggle blink (highly annoying).
t
    Enter text mode. This allows you to type like as if you were using a normal text editor, and all the characters drawn onscreen will use the same mode as the pen Pressing Esc will exit text mode.
control-w
    Refresh the entire screen by redrawing each character.
control-r
    Open a file.
control-o
    Save the file.
control-h
    Show the quick help screen.
control-x
    Exit cadubi.

 
Using.
Cadubi has a 'pen' which describes the current mode. Properties of the pen are the painting character, foreground color, background color, bold, inverse, and blink. Whenever you paint or use the text mode, the characters drawn on the screen will have the properties of the pen. The current mode of the pen is shown at the bottom of the console and is what will be drawn on screen when you paint. Typically, foreground text colors are the same as background colors, unless the text is bold. If the text is bold, foreground colors are usually lighter than the background color, making text easier to read when the text has the same foreground and background color. Refer to the Quick Help (control-'h') to see what the colors look like on your console.

 

Text mode is an extremely useful feature. Once in the text mode you can type as if you were using a normal text editor, and all the characters drawn onscreen will use the same mode as the pen. To enter text mode, press the 't' key. To exit, press escape.

 

When cadubi reads a file, it will only read as much that will fit in the workspace (the area of the console minus the bottom row [status bar]). To gain more workspace, see the '-s' operator in section "options".

Cadubi optimizes its output files to display properly and take up as little space as possible. All cadubi output can be viewed with the 'cat' utility.

 
Colors.

The color codes are case-insensitive. The following color codes can be chosen as fore- or background colors:

    0 or N - Normal (standard text)
    1 or W - White
    2 or R - Red
    3 or G - Green
    4 or Y - Yellow
    5 or B - Blue
    6 or M - Magenta
    7 or C - Cyan
    8 or K - Black

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