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Working a lot with embedded linux devices these days and really appreciating the usefulness of nmap. I’m always wondering why this isn’t recommended more often.

When working on something like a Raspberry Pi that connects to wifi automatically, typically you would write some sort of script that emails you the IP address of the device. This obviously has one big dependency in that you must have Internet access which can be hard to fulfill for most art installations or performances.

nmap provides a nice solution when you are connected to the same network as the embedded device. It basically scans and pings all IPs on the network and reports back.

You can run nmap like this in a terminal to scan all IPs on the network:

nmap -sn 192.168.1.*

Usually, I’ll install a little mini wifi router near the embedded devices so I can access them easily when I come into the router’s range (I’m also noticing a lot of people thinking that a wifi router implies Internet connectivity which is very wrong. Wifi routers just connect computers together with or without Internet in case you aren't sure).

nmap will report back all the active IP addresses on the network giving you each device's IP. Easy!

Of course you have to put in the right network mask. For instance if your IP address is 10.0.0.143 you would run this:

nmap -sn 10.0.0.*

Still confused by the output? To be absolutely sure, run nmap once before turning on your devices, then once after a minute of all devices being turned on. Look for the new IP addesses.

If you are wondering what the -sn means, it simply means scan without a portscan or rather a "ping scan." You might also see it in this form:

nmap -sP 192.168.1.*

which is an older version of the same thing.

Drawbacks

Why Open-Source software?

There are a number of other reasons you should maybe switch to an open-source piece of software.

The best example in my case was that I had a copy of Logic, Final Cut Pro, and Photoshop. All of them were purchased by the school I worked for at the time luckily and I used those for ages. Then my laptop broke and I had to get a new one. Suddenly I had to reinstall these programs and, unfortunately, I had no access to the license anymore since I had recently moved on to another school.  I figured it was time to finally get my own copy and then I had to deal with the app store. Sadly, all that was available was the latest version of Logic and Final Cut Pro, both of which are pretty terrible (it is really odd that Apple decided to move Logic in a more consumer and less pro direction by making it more like Garageband). That is, of course, my opinion but I assume most have had a similar issue with other software in the past.

Ok, so I buy software that I don’t want and I’ll have to buy again when apple forces me to upgrade my operating system OR I just get a program that doesn’t have those sorts of issues.

Some good reasons for going with Open-Source solutions from an artist’s perspective:

You can transfer your software from computer to computer when you upgrade

The cost is usually either free or very low AND your money most likely goes directly to the person who is doing all the work writing the program (Ardour is a great example of that)

You have more control over your software. There are generally no arbitrary or financially-motivated limitations placed on your software’s capabilities (I’m looking at you ProTools).

Politics… OK, there are a lot more political/ethical reasons to empower people with the ability to create independent of whether they come from wealth but that is a much larger subject. I am an educator so it is very apparent to me on a daily basis how much of a difference it makes when someone has access to information and resources to be productive (whatever productive might mean). I’ll leave it at that but chew on it or search around the internet if you are curious.

So in this process I’ve discovered some gems that work well for me. This can be hard, there are too many options out there and one either has to try a whole bunch of them or get some advice from people who have done that. So here is what worked for me:

Sound Editing, Sequencing, Recording, Mixing

Ardour http://ardour.org/

I am still shocked at how amazing Ardour is in comparison to everything else out there. I completely replaced ProTools and Logic Pro with Ardour and am super happy with it. It has all the professional features one might need for professional multi-track mixing, editing, mastering and fixed-media composition. Kudos to Paul Davis for maintaining this software for so long.

The secret to this software is that you should not install it from the Ubuntu Software Center (or via apt-get). That is a very old version. The newest version (with a whole lotta improvements) can be obtained from the above linked main website. While technically this software is not free (it IS open-source) you CAN pay $1 to get it. That being said, the developer(s) could use some cash to keep this going so go ahead and pay a little more if you like it and subscribe if you can. IT IS STILL EXTREMELY CHEAP AND MAYBE THE CHEAPEST AND IS REALLY GREAT.

Audacity http://audacityteam.org/

You might use Audacity already. It is simple and highly effective for basic  editing of sound files. I used to use SoundForge when I was on Windows and I used to use BIAS Peak when I used a Mac. Now I use Audacity and I think most people on Mac found this to be their new alternative for PEAK or SoundForge.

Jack Audio Connection Kit http://jackaudio.org/

Jack allows you to connect one application’s audio output to another and generally route audio and midi around easily. This is invaluable if you are recording a software synth or any other sort of sound generating software and need to get it into your recording software. It can also record the output of your sound card directly to a sound file on your disk.

Sound Design and Electronic Music Tools

Pure Data (PD) http://puredata.info/

Pure-Data (PD) is patching software much like Max/MSP from the original inventor of Max/MSP. One of the coolest things about PD is that it runs on nearly every system (Mac, PC, Linux, Raspberry Pi, Android, iOS. Technically the last two are through some extra programs you download). What is great about that is that if you want to run your patch on someone else’s machine or give it to someone else, you can... without issue. I’ve seen how effective that is on many occasions.

I’ve also seen many students pickup PD before Max/MSP without problems. It really isn’t necessarily “harder” to learn as much as it just has some different ways of doing things. I can’t say ALL good things about PD though. The documentation is not nearly as good as Max/MSP and I think that is really Max’s strong point.

SuperCollider http://supercollider.github.io/

If you code already, then SuperCollider is your best bet. It is actively maintained and has a very large community of users. The language itself is finely tuned for live coding and interactively designing sounds and the compositional tools are quite nice as well.

If you don’t code already, it’s still a good choice but there is a steep learning curve and if you don’t want to do sound design via code then opt for the prior-mentioned Pure Data.

Others

Ultimately there are too many to mention here and it really comes down to what you like to use. For that reason I’ll just point out the two main ones above. This is a case where trying out a variety of different things will benefit you and will come down to personal taste.

Score Making

LilyPond http://lilypond.org/

If you are doing music scores, LilyPond is your best choice for producing professional looking scores. And I mean that. Sibelius and Finale don’t quite pay enough attention to the way the scores look and you can always tell when someone has used one of those programs.

Some people are scared off by the fact that LilyPond works by entering “code” into an editor to produce the scores but if you try it you’ll realize it’s actually much much easier than you think. I can’t tell you how many years I struggled with positioning elements in Sibelius that were rather simple to do in LilyPond. Oh! and PARTS! Cripes... parts are SO MUCH easier in LilyPond than in Sibelius or Finale.

BUT... there are also a lot of helpful GUI frontends to LilyPond.

See here for info on that.

I should also mention the list at the bottom of that link which points to a variety of editors that can also export to LilyPond format. 

MuseScore https://musescore.org/

I got a lot of comments about MuseScore not being on this list so I’ve decided to add it. It seems quite nice and it would seem that a lot of people use it. Definitely worth checking out and it looks well supported and maintained. Also seems to be a solid competitor to more expensive software notation packages.

Scribus http://www.scribus.net/

I used to use Photoshop mixed with graphic exports of score snippets to write text scores. These days I use Scribus to lay out my pages for print, add text, integrate graphics, etc.. If you are writing text scores and still doing it in Microsoft Word then you should really try something like Scribus to lay out your pages in a much more specific and controllable way.

It’s pretty simple to use and works great! All my scores have a pass through Scribus.

Image and Document Editing

GIMP http://www.gimp.org/

Gimp is always mentioned in articles like these and for good reason. It is fantastic. If you are used to Photoshop then you will have some adjustments to make. It IS different and works different and I would say that is because it is not a Photoshop clone. It is meant to standalone and it works very well. But for that reason you can expect to learn some new keyboard shortcuts.

Inkscape https://inkscape.org

A vector graphics program that stands up well against Adobe Illustrator. Again, it stands on its own and is not a clone but when comparisons are made Inkscape certainly has features that Illustrator does not and vice versa. The best choice in open-source vector graphic drawing programs.

Word Processing, Spreadsheets, etc.

LibreOffice https://www.libreoffice.org/

I’ve used LibreOffice for awhile now and it is really fantastic. I actually switched to it way before switching to full open-source programs since it worked in a lot of ways that I preferred over Microsoft’s offering.

Video Editing

If you are a working artist you need to have video documentation of your works (even composers unfortunately) and so we often find ourselves needing to become video editors and throw together something for applications, grants, website, etc. Here are a few choices including the one I use, Blender.

Lightworks http://www.lwks.com/

A professional-grade video editor. I have yet to try it as it just recently came out for Linux in a more stable form but I’m going to try to switch to it briefly for my next project to try it out. I will point out that this is an editor that is used in “the industry” apparently.

OpenShot http://openshot.org/

Seems very intuitive and simple and looks like a good alternative to something like iMovie on the Mac.

Blender http://www.blender.org/

Blender is actually 3D modeling software but it contains a very powerful video editor. It sorta makes sense when you think about it given that animating and sequencing video is a logical other step for 3D modelers.

Admittedly Blender has a pretty steep learning curve but as someone with an interest in doing more 3D modeling for various projects, it makes sense to learn a single tool for both.

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That’s all I really use at this point. These tools have completely replaced everything I had on my Mac and everything that I ever had to purchase from some kind of app store in the past.

If you are moving to more open-source software then these are good choices. They aren’t just “alternatives,” in many cases they are better choices then what you might find for higher prices.

Why Open-Source software?

There are a number of reasons you should maybe switch to open-source software.

The best example in my case was that I had a copy of Logic, Final Cut Pro, and Photoshop. All of them were purchased by the school I worked for at the time luckily and I used those for ages. Then my laptop broke and I had to get a new one. Suddenly I had to reinstall these programs and, unfortunately, I had no access to the license anymore since I had recently moved on to another school.  I figured it was time to get my own copy finally and then I had to deal with the app store. Sadly, all that was available was the latest version of Logic and Final Cut Pro, both of which are pretty terrible (it is really odd that Apple decided to move Logic in a more consumer and less pro direction by making it more like Garageband). Ok, that is just my opinion but I assume you have a similar issue with other software in the past. 

Ok, so I buy software that I don’t want and I’ll have to buy again when apple forces me to upgrade my operating system OR just get a program that doesn’t have those sorts of issues.

Some good reasons for going with Open-Source solutions from an artist’s perspective:

You can transfer your software from computer to computer when you upgrade

The cost is usually either free or very low AND your money most likely goes directly to the person who is doing all the work writing the program (Ardour is a great example of that)

You have more control over your software. There are generally no arbitrarily or financially-motivated limitations placed on your software’s capabilities (I’m looking at you ProTools).

Politics... OK, there are a lot more political/ethical reasons to empower people with the ability to create independent of whether they come from wealth but that is a much larger subject. I’m an educator so it very apparent to me on a daily basis how much of a difference it makes when someone has access to information and resources to be productive (whatever productive might mean). I’ll leave it at that but chew on it or search around the internet if you are curious.

So in this journey, I’ve discovered some tips that work well for me. The post following this one will give some tips on my specific software toolchain as a composer but I wanted to have another section on the OS itself.

OS and Computer

Like most artists of the past few decades, when one had to choose a laptop to purchase there was really only about 1 and half choices. Either buy a Macbook and be happy and broke, or buy a Windows PC and always be searching for Windows alternatives to what most of your peers use (with the satisfaction that you didn’t need to take out a loan to buy it... maybe).

You don’t need to go with Linux. OSX is fine if you like it so keep it. I like it too. If you are into Windows, then stay with that. But if you do go with Linux here are some tips.

Why?!?!?!?!?!

With recent directions with the Apple OS as it moves more and more towards banning software that isn’t registered via their app store and the sudden lack of support for professional audio hardware (they keep changing those damn ports and I kept buying connectors that would cause latency problems), I was getting a little exhausted and felt like I was caught in a trap that I wouldn’t be able to get out of. So I made the decision to save up a little and purchase some Linux compatible hardware and go full on open-source and Linux.

In the past it was always a bit tricky for artists wanting to use Linux as the software available was never quite there and the “user-friendly” window managers were always a bit shaky (make a wrong move and your computer won’t boot until you reinstall everything which is pretty unacceptable). These days, though, I’m happy to say that things are very different.

At first I thought I would dual boot Windows and Linux but when I received my new laptop with Windows 8 on it, I found many things were just broken out of the box. The trackpad barely worked and the whole system was incredibly laggy and slow. Shockingly Ubuntu worked way better out of the box than Windows. So I just wiped the whole thing and installed a copy of Ubuntu on the machine.

I’m not going to go into the installation process of Ubuntu as, honestly, there isn’t much to say as it works as expected. It was quite straightforward and easy and there are many great tutorials out there on that.

Ubuntu is great for compatibility

Ubuntu doesn’t get wrapped up in whether something is fully open source or not (which may be a bad thing in the end for the world but right now you are trying to just get shit done). Ubuntu supports a good deal of hardware with both open-source AND proprietary drivers. All that really means is that Ubuntu will likely have support for newer hardware whether there exists open-sourced drivers for the hardware yet or not. There is also a great community out there for Ubuntu and you will find that most people answering “Linux” questions out on the internet are referring to how they do things in either Ubuntu or a Debian-based system which is what Ubuntu is built upon.

My other choice would be ArchLinux. ArchLinux is great. I just haven’t used it personally much.

Get hardware that is well supported

I bought a Thinkpad Yoga for a few reasons. Thinkpads are great machines (except when Lenovo screwed up the trackpads... Apparently they are putting back the buttons), I wanted the touch screen and the foldability primarily so I could use it as a touch controller, and lastly because it is well-supported.

All of that is to say that I did research and found that a lot of people successfully installed Ubuntu onto this machine. If I had my choice, I might have gone for the the Yoga 3 Pro cause it is super nice, but it was too new to have support for Ubuntu. Don’t get me wrong, it might have worked really well right out of the box but if you are new to Linux and are looking for a machine that you won’t be tinkering with more than using to make stuff, go with the safe bet.

Of course, your best bet might be to get something like what System76 offers or buying a Dell machine that has Linux installed already. In fact, I would highly recommend that.

Linux is not hard... it’s different

The response I often get about this one is that I am a programmer so of course it is not hard. True, I am a programmer... but you don’t need to be a programmer to use Linux. My grandma can use Linux and she never touches computers.

The thing is, the way you interact with Linux is different. Lots of things happen on the command line and there is nothing complex about that. It is usually just like clicking on a program’s settings except instead of seeing a setting and clicking on it, you type the name of the setting. I am oversimplifying it a little but the bottom line is that one should not go into Linux expecting to use it like a Mac or a Windows machine... its different... so what? Change is good and what is wrong with learning anyway?

Community is vital

Linux is based on community. Most answers you’ll get about issues you are having will come from forums, chats, or friends. If you are on Ubuntu then try askUbuntu. It’s likely that you are already getting all of your tech support in this way already but know that with things being slightly less point and clicky you may have to rely on these things a little more.

Community can screw you up

DON’T trust the first thing you see on a forum. What I mean is, don’t just execute code on your machine based on a vague feeling that the answer to the question you found on a forum miiiiiiight be a good solution to your problem. Especially if it is a “kernel patch.” Be careful about those and make sure that the issue you are seeing is the issue you are having. There are subtleties to most problems so there could be a subtle difference between the solution you are seeing and the solution you need. If you are not sure, you could always ask on the forums.

Back up your data

I back up all my files to a cloud sorta thing. You should probably make sure that in your first attempts at Linux you are easily able to reformat and restart (like if you were to do what I warn against in the prior section about community screwing you up).

All this knowledge is transferable

Just know that running Linux also allows you to easily step into working with newer microcontrollers such as Raspberry Pi, Beaglebone Blacks, Intel Galileo’s, etc. Most of them run Linux.

If you ever get into programming you will certainly be confronted with Linux so its a win there (cause dayjobs are certainly an important part of being an artist).

There are some goofy things

It’s not all rosy in Linux. Like any operating system there are some quirks. Sometimes my bluetooth crashes, sometimes my machine locks up. It is very rare though and I would say the same thing about OSX or Windows.

Also, there are lots of design-oriented issues in most Linux window managers that I have seen. This is changing though. Elementary OS looks quite good, Ubuntu’s Unity doesn’t look bad, and more are coming out every week it seems. I use Gnome and am very happy with it but it isn’t as sharp or sleek looking as other window managers. Part of the reason, though, is that the Linux community is very much about the ability to customize so a singular overarching window manager design will never be a thing and at some point one appreciates the ability to tweak it to your own desires.

There are a lot more tips I could/maybe should give but these are a few of the main ones. I’m sure others might find some issues with these choices but what is so great about the open-source community is that it really is about your ability to make your own choices. I’m extremely happy with the transition and have yet to feel that I’m lacking in any way so far.

Experimental music should be something that, through the way it's performed--possibly through the way it's presented in social and concert situations-- presents the possibility of change. All sorts of change. The music becomes a kind of metaphor, if you will, for social situations-- it suggests a way of organizing your thinking, your attitude toward the world, which suggests that the world could be different. You are making a kind of model. And if you are making music, that's basically all you can do.

I’ve been using git for about 18 months now and thought I knew it pretty well. Then we had Scott Chacon from GitHub over to do some training at LVS, a supplier/developer of betting/gaming software (where contracted...

Bash is a great tool. I use it pretty much all day every day. If you use the command line at all you probably also use it. There is a whole world of Bash scripting unto itself but there are also extremely useful things you can do directly from the command line.

Given that I am mostly computing at the terminal these days I thought I'd post a couple of nice things which have been super helpful and most people don't seem to use (I had to figure some of these out so its good to collect them). Also, I thought I'd post this as a short list since so many lists out there don't filter the most used and immediately useful ones (the others are useful too but you have to get used to it first). There is a link at the bottom of this post with a better reference.

These are some commands to run in your terminal:

"!!" - repeat last command you wrote

Helpful if you are doing the same thing over and over again. Run a command like "ls | grep keyword". If you need to continuously do that, just hit "!!" the next time. Of course, it only works if you haven't run a different command beforehand.

Incredibly helpful if you just forgot to add sudo to the beginning of your command. If you wanted to run "sudo apt-get update" and you actually ran "apt-get update" then you can just run "sudo !!" to run the last command as sudo.

"history" with "!500" or "!236" etc.- If you ran a command not so long ago (or a long time ago if you don't use the terminal much) then you can search and run a previously executed command.

I often run some crazy command on the terminal that does something like ssh tunneling into another server or maybe some stupidly long apple command that makes my Dock stop animating or something. It can be hard to remember the format for those commands so instead of looking them up online again, I can just search my command history. Even if it is not hard to remember, but simply lengthy to type I'll do this.

Imagine I had previously ran "ssh -p 1743 [email protected]." I can type "history" to get a list of all previously run commands. I can limit that history and search it by piping to grep like so "history | grep server" which would show only results with the word "server" in it. There will be a number in front of each item, if you see the command you like and the number in front of it is "617," then you can run it with "!617"

Ctrl-R - Search for a previously typed command based on input

Or... instead of history you can just type some of the command you are looking for and then hit Ctrl-R to get an interactive prompt that searches based on what you are typing.

"!?keyword" - This command cuts to the chase and searches for the keyword, then executes the most recently run command (with arguments) that matches that keyword, "!?ssh" would run the most recent ssh command (with arguments) in my history. If I had run "ssh [email protected]" in the past, I could also run that again by typing "!?blah.co"

"!keyword" - if you know the last command you ran but don't want to type all the arguments out, this will run the last run command specified (replace "keyword" here with the command name). This does not search the arguments.

Example: I ran "ssh [email protected]" so I can type "!ssh" and that will run it again, regardless of whether I ran other commands (that were not ssh) in between.

So all of this seems a little dangerous. You could end up running a command that you forgot you executed earlier. For instance, if you had ran "ssh [email protected]" and later deleted a file called blah, you might forget about that delete command and in an effort to ssh into blah.com you could run "!?blah" which would, of course, try to delete the file called blah instead. If you were working on blah then you just deleted it. To get around this danger, use the next command:

"!<command>:p" - print out what will be run and don't run it. Also add it to the most recently used command list in the history.

So if I wanted to run that ssh command to blah.com and not run the command I ran after my ssh command "rm blah" then I could run this "!?blah:p" which would print out the command and not run it. If it is the right command, then I'll just run "!!" now since this also added it as the most recent command. Otherwise, I should use another method (like "history" with grep or some other commands that are listed here and listed elsewhere perhaps)

If I had arguments with my last command then you have to add the ":p" to the command. Example: I ran "ls -a |grep" and forgot to type what I wanted to grep. I could type "!! books" to put books in there and "!!:p books" to see it first ("!!" to then execute it).

Ok, a very useful one that prompted this post:

"!!-<number>" - execute the last command, but only give me the first <number> arguments. Replace <number> with the number of arguments to include.

Lets say I just ran "ls|grep boks" when I meant to write "ls|grep books". easy, I'll run "!!-2 books" which will use the first two arguments of the last run command ("ls" and "grep") and then add "books" to the end. That might seem too short to matter but it is actually much faster. For longer commands it makes a huge difference.

Want to see what the new command looks like? "!!-2:p books" then run by typing "!!" Notice the ":p" is attached to the command, not the argument.

Another: So if I run "git checkout a69432" because I wanted to check an older version of something for instance, I might want to run "git checkout vfg78dr2" to get a different version now. In that case I'll do this "!!-2 vfg78dr2" which will produce "git checkout vfg78dr2"

One of my own use cases: I had to quickly roll back to an older version on a project and this made it super simple to jump around commits to see where a problem was committed into the repo.

There are others but these are some of the basic bread and butter commands for bash efficiency that I use (and short/long term memory).

"Computers have often been used as fictional objects in literature, movies and in other forms of media. Fictional computers tend to be considerably more sophisticated than anything yet devised in the real world.

A fantastic video on the work of Maryanne Amacher (don't worry if you don't speak German, there is plenty of English). A truly amazing person.