===== Laptop Software Setup ===== The following are the steps used in Fall 2008 to set up the HP ze4540ca laptop. ... Not steps, but main features. Set up minimal Debian system, then added KDE components (which??) using apt-get install Included konqueror, and then used the initialization file to use it as a file manager and point to the dances. Clicking on a file loads that file (music or text -- latter for instructions). ?? Did I not want emelfm. Caveats: Use Ctrl-Q or Alt-F4 to close the player and/or text files. Too many open will stop the next one from opening. ====== Dec 2009 Acer Laptop ====== On Dec 5, 2009, JN purchased an Acer model 5534 laptop on behalf of the OECDC. The main virtue of this machine (from Future Shop) was its $370 price. The machine has a single AMD 64 bit TF-20 processor, a 160GB rotating drive, and 2 GB Ram. It has 3 USB 2.0 ports, a card reader slot, a DVD writer and headphone and microphone jacks. The disk turned out to be partitioned with a recovery partition (for Windows 7) of 12 GB, a 100 MB SYSTEM_RESERVED partition, and the rest of the drive (about 140GB) as the C: drive. All were NTFS partition types. I booted the machine with the Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04 i386 desktop CD (a liveCD), opened a terminal (Applications/Accessories/Terminal) and used sudo gparted to shrink the high-end (largest) partition to about 50GB. Then I created and formatted an new ext3 type partition with the recovered space. ====== Nov 2012 Setup of Acer Laptop ====== Because of problems with the KDE Konqueror file manager, other possibilities were tried. It appears that the Thunar file manager is suitable in that it handles USB keys as well as regular directories. To keep the system very lightweight, the Linux version CrunchBang 10 Statler was chosen. **20121127** On dancing machine Acer Aspire 5534 Installed CrunchBang 10 statler to /dev/sda4 with dancing/music = username/pw After install, needed to update-grub using live-USB (meant mounting sda4, on /mnt, also dev, proc and sys; then chroot into this, and then update-grub. (Possibly also grub install outside chroot). This is to get Windows 7 accessible. As root apt-get update apt-get upgrade Install gnome-commander. (sudo apt-get install (name of package) Install mc Copy back 00_dancing (and rename to 00dancing) and mp3 directory. ===== Automatic login ===== In /etc/gdm/gdm.conf add the lines [daemon] AutomaticLoginEnable = true AutomaticLogin = dancing ===== Panel position ===== In main menu (Super+space) choose Settings | tint2 | edit config file Find parameter **panel_position** and change to bottom center horizontal ===== Script to logoff ===== If /home/dancing/bin does not exist then (in a terminal) mkdir /home/dancing/bin Then cat >/home/dancing/bin/myoff chmod 755 myoff Then edit the sudoers file by sudo visodo adding ALL ALL=NOPASSWORD:/sbin/shutdown ===== Autostart in the 00dancing directory ===== can autostart in #! by editing autostart.sh (sleep 5 && (thunar ~/00dancing)) & Also choose Detailed list view (Under View menu) and set this as the default to open all folders in Edit | Preferences for Thunar (the file manager). ===== Install alsaplayer ===== sudo apt-get install alsaplayer In thunar, right click an mp3 and choose **Properties** and set to open with alsaplayer. Note that it may be necessary to right click the speaker icon on the panel and open the mixer to set volume controls. It may also be necessary to click on the panel icon with **gb** in a square. It will become **us** to allow the North American character set to be used. ===== Font sizing ===== Add to, or create if it doesn't exist, the hidden file .gtkrc-2.0 in home directory with the contents: Code: style "fonttweak" { font_name = "Sans 16" } widget_class "*Thunar*View*" style "fonttweak" Change the value of font_name to be whatever font/size combination you want and save the file. Logout and back in again to get the font sizing working. ===== Mouse setting ===== (to overcome touchpad problems) sudo apt-get install lxinput lxinput # and then set the controls sudo apt-get install gpointing-device-settings gpointing-device-settings ## Then set the tapping etc. ===== Special scripts ===== From backups, copy back bin/* files to get cd2mp3 script (see below). This allows the user to convert CD tracks to mp3 form for space saving on the computer. The script uses lame and cdparanoia which may need to be installed. ===== Other setup steps ===== To provide keyboard shortcuts that launch the dance/music list with **Super+d** launch the cd2mp3 track rip code with **Super+c** kill all alsaplayer instances with **Super+k** (This saves memory that is needed to keep sound playing.) shut down the machine with **Super+o** add the following lines to the rc.xml file (Main menu: Settings / OpenBox / Edit rc.xml) true thunar_dancelist thunar /home/dancing/00dancing true kill_alsaplayers killall alsaplayer true Shutdown myoff true RipCD terminator -x cd2mp3 ====== Documenting these keyboard shortcuts ====== On the main menu (Super+Space) choose Settings / Conky / Edit .conkyrc so that the file is # conky configuration # # The list of variables has been removed from this file in favour # of keeping the documentation more maintainable. # Check http://conky.sf.net for an up-to-date-list. # # For ideas about how to modify conky, please see: # http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/59/my-conky-config/ # # For help with conky, please see: # http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/2047/conky-help/ # # Enjoy! :) ############################################## # Settings ############################################## background yes use_xft yes xftfont sans:size=9 xftalpha 1 update_interval 1.0 total_run_times 0 own_window yes own_window_transparent yes own_window_type desktop own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager double_buffer yes minimum_size 200 200 maximum_width 240 draw_shades no draw_outline no draw_borders no draw_graph_borders no default_color d8d8d8 default_shade_color 000000 default_outline_color d9d7d6 alignment top_right gap_x 12 gap_y 24 no_buffers yes uppercase no cpu_avg_samples 2 override_utf8_locale no ############################################## # Output ############################################## TEXT S Y S T E M I N F O ${hr} Host:$alignr$nodename Uptime:$alignr$uptime RAM:$alignr$mem/$memmax Swap usage:$alignr$swap/$swapmax Disk usage:$alignr${fs_used /}/${fs_size /} CPU usage:$alignr${cpu cpu0}% S H O R T C U T K E Y S ${hr} Alt+F2$alignr Run Dialog Alt+F3$alignr Alt Menu Super+Space$alignr Main Menu Super+Tab$alignr Client Menu Super+t$alignr Terminal Super+f$alignr File Manager Super+e$alignr Editor Super+m$alignr Media Player Super+w$alignr Web Browser Super+l$alignr Lock Screen Super+v$alignr Volume Control Super+x$alignr Logout PrtSc$alignr Screenshot Ctrl+Alt+< or >$alignr Switch Desktop DANCING MACHINE KEYS =======$alignr ========== Super+c$alignr Rip CD Track Super+d$alignr Show Dance List Super+k$alignr Kill players Super+o$alignr Shutdown =======$alignr ========== Super key is WINDOWS key ====== Setup 2009-2012 (November) ====== Below are the details of the installation used for approximately 3 years. It was discovered that plugging in a USB key with dances and or instructions forced the interface to Nautilus, which then made it difficult to return to the default behaviour (KDE/Konqueror). This, plus the inevitable change in software over time, led to a different choice in November 2012. ===== OS Installation ===== I then clicked on the Install icon in Ubuntu and answered the questions. The user=music, pw=dancing. I put the boot loader in (hd0) (master boot sector of /dev/sda). ===== USB boot woes ===== Because there was an SD (in fact multi-format) card reader, I tried installing a minimal Debian install to the card reader. However, it would not boot properly afterwards. I later discovered I could not boot from any USB device. The boot sequence would start, then lock up apparently when trying to sort out the USB drivers. Furthermore, the BIOS will not let one exit without saving "changes", even if no changes have been made. I suspect the very low price (about $100 less than comparable machines) is due to a late discovery of these BIOS bugs. They do not markedly affect the machine except for rather special uses like booting from USB. This would be important to me in general, but not for the use as a music controller. As of Dec 6, 2009, there are no BIOS updates posted or reported. Whether they will become available is an open question. ===== Avoiding start of unnecessary applications ===== ==== Hiding applications menu items ==== Right clicking on Applications and selecting Edit Menus allows you to unclick most of the applications. They can be re-activated by putting the tick marks back using the same process. To make things a bit easier, I added a Terminal and a Text Editor item ==== gnome-control-center usage ==== The Startup Applications panel (Applications / Terminal, then type "gnome-control-center" (Enter) and look under Personal/Startup Applications) have been set to NOT start most services in Linux, including network manager. Set ON are * GNOME Login Sound * GNOME Settings Daemon * GNOME Settings Daemon Helper * Indicator Applet * MAIN LIST (this is an ADDED item. Use +Add and provide the Name and the Command (konqueror). * Power Manager All others were deselected (click on tick box to remove the tick). The same process can be reversed to set the network manager to default to on via Applications / Terminal and the gnome-control-center. I changed /etc/network/interfaces to add auto eth0 iface eth0 inet dhcp One can then use Applications / Terminal and type sudo ifup eth0 and [[Enter]] to arrange a wired network connection. (You will need to provide the password 'music'). Of course, you need a CAT5 cable connected to a live internet router to do this. ===== BIG icons ===== Icons in Gnome can be resized. The commands are Right click icon, Select "Stretch Icon" and resize. Icon launchers can be created by right-click anywhere blank on the desktop, Create Launcher, then answer the Name and Command boxes. Comment is optional. For command-line applications, change the Application to Application in terminal. Click on the icon to select another icon. You may want to look for other icons under /usr/share/icons/ (I like the gnome scalable icons.) On the desktop I created 6 big icons (these are repeated on the taskbar, but much smaller, except for volume control, which is a speaker on the taskbar and gives a slightly different display: * A large musical note (MAIN LIST) that launches konqueror (and hence the list of music and instructions) * A large brush icon (CLEANUP) that launches my own command script (in /usr/local/bin/cleanup). This issues the commands 'killall leafpad' and 'killall alsaplayer' to clear any open applications if users have forgotten. * A large CD icon (CD Player) to launch the CD player / extractor. I have given instructions on how to extract tracks below. Experience in January 2010 suggests that CDs sometimes play with clicks or gaps. Note that the CD drawer open button is at the * A large "Volume Control" * A large "HELP" in the form of a question mark to display the dancing music instructions * A large exit icon "CD-OUT" to force eject a CD. Sometimes the drawer button is disabled by software. ===== Desktop setup ===== * Right Click on the task panel (the bar that normally runs along top, bottom or a side of display) and choose "bottom" * Set the number of desktops (Microsoft only every gives you one!) to 1 by right-click on the miniature desktops icon (bottom right) and set preference to 1 desktop * Right-click in the main area of the window (when all applications minimized or none active) * "Change Desktop Background" * Choose one of the backgrounds (preferably a solid colour) * Click on that colour beside the Colours control at the bottom of the panel * Choose an appropriate (light) colour * Click OK * Close panel (click Close) -- colour should have changed ===== File manager ===== Linux has a lot of different file managers, each with different advantages and disadvantages. Some I have looked at follow, with comments on customizing for the dance music laptop. ==== Konqueror ==== Konqueror is the web browser for KDE, but also serves as a file manager. I installed this (in a terminal 'sudo apt-get install konqueror' if one is connected to the Internet). Then I set it up as follows: General --> When Konqueror Starts: Show My Home Page; Home Page: /home/dancing/00_dancing; Settings / File Management / Views / General --> Use common view properties ... Settings / File Management / Views / Icons --> Font: Custom Font, Text width: Huge, Grid Spacing: Large Settings / File Management / Views / Details --> Font: Custom Font, Deja Vu Sans, Regular, 18 (CAUTION: Tries to default to 9 pt). View / Adjust View Properties / View mode: Details; Sorting: Ascending, By Name; View / View mode --> Details ==== Nautilus ==== Nautilus is the default Gnome (and default Ubuntu) file manager. It is important to use some of the Nautilus preference setting when choosing default applications, even if Konqueror is used for the file manager, if Konqueror is installed under Gnome. I ha ==== Emelfm2 ==== On an Asus Eee 701 I found the simple file manager Emelfm worked very well. Due to changes in the underlying graphics libraries, this project has been re-worked (emelfm no longer installs on Ubuntu in recent versions) to Emelfm2. While this COULD be used, ===== Font sizes ===== ==== Gnome/Ubuntu ==== The main font sizes are controlled by the System/Preferences/Appearance menu Fonts tab. You need to set several font sizes (sigh!): Application, Document, Desktop, Window, and Fixed width. I set these to approx. 16 point, except for Fixed point, for which I used 14 point. ==== Konqueror ==== ==== Instructions display window ==== The dance instructions are displayed with Leafpad. I have increased the font here to about 14 pt using the options within Leafpad preferences. There is no ideal size -- too big and the text gets broken across lines (or goes off the screen). Too small and it cannot be read. ===== Music play ===== ==== Need for codecs ==== Files of type mp3 use technology which claims to be patented. (We will not go into reasons why software patents may be invalid in all cases, but the controversy means that the coder / decoders for mp3 files are not free/libre software at this time.) There ==== alsaplayer ==== The current player we are using is Alsaplayer, using the Ubuntu package alsaplayer-alsa. This provides a nice simple interface that nonetheless has speedup/slowdown, some volume control, start, pause, stop (and return to start) all in keystrokes. The keys ??? Note: not well documented v Stop x Play (Some versions seem to quit when x is pressed) c Pause b Next Song z Previous Song (will play current tune if only one is selected) g Seek Forward a Seek Backward f Forward Play s Reverse Play t Speed Up one musical semitone. (handy for changing the key the song is played back in) q Speed Down one musical semitone. h Speed Up one comma. (handy to tune the song instead of the guitar when playing at the same time as listening) i Speed Down one comma. r Volume Up w Volume Down l Loop Note that I avoid using the playlist features of alsaplayer for our dancing application. ==== mpg123 ==== This is a command-line player that has a rich set of keyboard controls. I am considering working on the source code to put the keyboard controls into a file. This would allow for easy changing of the set of controls, which could be very useful for remote In a terminal, issuing mpg123 -C mymusic.mp3 will play the file mymusic.mp3. The -C (or --control) option enables keyboard control. The built-in choices (which I would like variable) are ’s’ to stop, ’p’ to pause, ’f’ to jump forward to the next song, ’b’ to jump back to the beginning of the song, ’,’ to rewind, ’.’ to fast forward, and ’q’ to quit. Type ’h’ for a full list of available controls. To avoid having multiple players open, it is possible to "killall" mpg123 playing, and the script mympg123 is as follows: #!/bin/bash # mympg123 # TUNE="Angels_Unawares-Bnbc8-08.mp3" TUNE=$1 echo "Tune: $TUNE" if [[|-e $TUNE ]]; then echo "OK!" else echo "BAD FILE" exit fi # read TMPSTR killall mpg123 # echo "Still $TUNE" mpg123 -C $TUNE ===== Instructions Display ===== Instructions display is done in Leafpad, which is a text editor. To avoid the possibility that clumsy users delete files, all files in the 00_dancing directory have been given read-only permissions by using the command chmod 755 00_dancing/* from the 'dancing' home directory. ===== CD Track Ripper ===== --[[User:NashJc|NashJc]] 18:03, 19 February 2010 (EST) Over the past couple of months it appears that playing a CD sometimes gives "hiccups" in the sound. This may be due to buffering or possibly vibrations due to the dancers. To overcome this, use RipTrack on the desktop. This is simply an icon launcher for #!/bin/bash ## cd2mp3 -- rip a track from a CD and put in mp3 format # run this in a terminal!! echo "Please enter the track number you wish to capture:" read TNUM echo "" echo "Provide a name for the track. No spaces, dots or special characters:" read TNAME EXTN=".wav" XNAME=$TNAME$EXTN echo "Full name: $XNAME" cdparanoia $TNUM $XNAME echo "Convert to MP3" NEWEX=".mp3" MNAME=$TNAME$NEWEX lame $XNAME $MNAME echo "Move to dancing directory" mv $MNAME ~/00dancing echo "removing wav file" rm $XNAME