Unlike my previous guide, I've opted to use checkinstall so you can uninstall packages as easy as dpkg -r plt-scheme fluxus

I've decided to put everything Fluxus related in a Fluxus folder in my home directory. This is completely optional.

mkdir ~/Fluxus
cd ~/Fluxus

Downloads

Here are all the downloads you're going to need to do. I'm not 100% sure I've got all of the Fluxus dependencies as I think I had some pre-installed from another build. If you find I have missed some, Your best bet is installing the -dev package with the highest number.

# Basic dependencies
sudo apt-get install build-essential git-core checkinstall
 
# Scheme Dependencies
sudo apt-get install libxaw7-dev
 
# Fluxus Dependencies.
sudo apt-get install scons libtiff4-dev libode-dev libfftw3-dev libsndfile1-dev liblo0-dev libglew1.5-dev libfreetype6-dev libasound2-dev libglut3-dev libopenal-dev libjack-dev libpng12-dev qjackctl
 
# Fluxus-video dependencies.
sudo apt-get install libgstreamer0.10-dev libgstreamer0.10-dev libunicap2-dev libavformat-dev libswscale-dev 
 
# Scheme Source. Note: 4.2.5 segfaults when compiling
wget http://download.plt-scheme.org/bundles/4.2.2/plt/plt-4.2.2-src-unix.tgz
 
# Fluxus Source
git clone git://git.savannah.nongnu.org/fluxus.git

Building PLT Scheme

Building plt-scheme is pretty brainless. Expect to wait a while as make-install takes an age and a half.

tar xzf plt-4.2.2-src-unix.tgz
cd ~/Fluxus/plt-4.2.2/src
./configure --prefix=/usr/local --enable-shared
make
sudo checkinstall
 
# I entered the following:
# 0 -  Maintainer: [ xin@sync-signal.com ]
# 1 -  Summary: [ PLT scheme compiled with shared libraries ]
# 2 -  Name:    [ plt-scheme ]
# 3 -  Version: [ 4.2.2 ]
# 4 -  Release: [ 1 ]
# 5 -  License: [ GPL ]
# 6 -  Group:   [ checkinstall ]
# 7 -  Architecture: [ amd64 ]
# 8 -  Source location: [ src ]
# 9 -  Alternate source location: [  ]
# 10 - Requires: [ libxaw7 ]
# 11 - Provides: [ mzscheme ]

Building Fluxus

cd ~/Fluxus/fluxus
scons
sudo checkinstall scons install # Don't forget to set a version.

Configuring JACK

See my guide on Configuring JACK and PulseAudio on Ubuntu 9.10.

Final Test

To test Fluxus type the following into the REPL:

(start-audio "system:capture_1" 512 44100)
(gh 0)

If the result is anything other than zero you're set. If not, you may have to play with the input source in JACK, or as the case was with me, plug the microphone into the right port.

Unfortunately half way through development my feed changed and now I've got nothing to watch, so I've been unable to test it fully. But it should work...

More info over on bitbucket. TVSlurp on Bitbucket

[edit] Moved the code to bitbucket

Firstly you're going to want to setup udev to give your account access to the programmer. The original instructions can be found here. Start by creating a group 'microchip' and then give your account access to that group.

sudo addgroup microchip
sudo addgroup <username> microchip

Then create the file '/etc/udev/rules.d/026_microchip.rules' and add the following contents to it. Don't forget to prefix your editor with 'sudo' e.g. 'sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/026_microchip.rules'.

#PICKit
SYSFS{idVendor}=="04d8", SYSFS{idProduct}=="0032", MODE="0660", GROUP="microchip"
#PICKit2
SYSFS{idVendor}=="04d8", SYSFS{idProduct}=="0033", MODE="0660", GROUP="microchip"
#ICD2
SYSFS{idVendor}=="04d8", SYSFS{idProduct}=="8000", MODE="0660", GROUP="microchip"
#ICD21
SYSFS{idVendor}=="04d8", SYSFS{idProduct}=="8001", MODE="0660", GROUP="microchip"

Now restart.

pk2cmd

pk2cmd is the program that you're going to use to flash the PIC chip. It's available here, Scroll down to 'Downloads' and grab the 'Mac OS X Source Code with Makefile'.

Now extract and compile like so.

tar xzf pk2cmdv1.20LinuxMacSource.tar.gz
cd pk2cmdv1.20LinuxMacSource
make linux

If you get an error 'make: command not found' you'll need to install Ubuntu's build-essential package.

sudo apt-get install build-essential

To install pk2cmd you need to place it and PK2DeviceFile.dat somewhere on your path. The easiest way is to copy it to '/usr/bin'

sudo cp pk2cmd /usr/bin/
chmod -x PK2DeviceFile.dat
sudo cp PK2DeviceFile.dat /usr/bin

Testing it out

Now you've got everything setup you can start talking to your PICkit2. To make sure everything works plug in your PICkit2 and the demo board and run these two commands.

pk2cmd -?V
pk2cmd -P

You should see some output like this:

$ pk2cmd -?V

Executable Version:    1.20.00
Device File Version:   1.55.00
OS Firmware Version:   2.32.00

Operation Succeeded

$ pk2cmd -P
Auto-Detect: Found part PIC16F690.

Running some Code

On the PICkit CD there are 12 lessons, they can be found in 'Install/Lessons/Low Pin Count Demo Board'. They contain example code, an assembled HEX program, and an MPLab IDE project.

Here's the command to write, verify and run a HEX program. In this case, Lesson 03.

pk2cmd -P -M -FRotate.HEX -Y -T

To break it down:

• -P - The chip type you're writing to. Omitting it will make PICkit2 attempt to detect the type. If it fails with 'No known part found' try specifying the chip type like -PPIC16F690 for the PIC16F690
• -M - The region of memory to write to. As there is no region specified it'll write to the entire of the chip.
• -FRotate.HEX - The HEX file you wish to write. In this case 'Rotate.HEX'.
• -Y - Verify after writing. Like -M, you can indicate the region you wish to verify.
• -T - Power the circuit after completion. This will provide your circuit with the chips Vdd allowing your program to run.

There are a lot more flags to pk2cmd, to see them all and get a description of what they do, run pk2cmd with no arguments.

Prep

Firstly you're going to want to install ffmpeg.

sudo apt-get install ffmpeg

If your workflow is anything like mine you more than likely have an MP3 you want to visualize. Unfortunately Fluxus can't process MP3s so you'll need to convert it to a WAV like so.

ffmpeg -i source.mp3 source.wav

Dumping the Frames

Now, in ~/.fluxus.scm you're going to want to comment out your start-audio call, and append this to the bottom of the file. What does this do you ask? Well, firstly you call start-audio and set up your buffer size for the desired FPS, to calculate it you want to use the formula <sample_rate>/<desired_fps>. In this example I've gone with 25fps, 44100/25 = 1764. Then you tell Fluxus where the WAV file you wish to process is located. Finally get Fluxus to dump each frame to a JPEG.

(start-audio "system:capture_1" 1764 44100) ; 44100/25 FPS = 1764
(process "/home/xin/Fluxus/Recordings/09-12-27/source.wav")
(start-framedump "frame" "jpg")

Now launch Fluxus and wait until everything stops moving. Here I've told Fluxus to open up in 720p and to execute and hide 'sketch.scm'.

fluxus -x sketch.scm -geom 1280x720

Convert to Video

Finally, convert the JPEGs and WAV to an AVI. Specify the two input sources (audio and video), the framerate and the output file.

ffmpeg -r 25 -i frame%05d.jpg -i source.wav output.avi

Here you may want to play around with additional ffmpeg arguments to improve the video quality or cut any dead space from the start/end.

Update: While this works it only works sometimes. I've found it to be incredibly unreliable and crash all the time.

Pre-Setup

A little bit of work is needed to get JACK working in Ubuntu. These commands were taken from here.

sudo addgroup <username> audio
sudo su -c 'echo @audio - rtprio 99 >> /etc/security/limits.conf'
sudo su -c 'echo @audio - nice -10 >> /etc/security/limits.conf'
sudo su -c 'echo @audio - memlock unlimited >> /etc/security/limits.conf'

Downloads

First you're going to need to set up a custom apt repository that provides the pulseaudio JACK module. The launchpad page is here.

From your system menu navigate to the Software Sources tool (System -> Administration -> Software Sources) and switch to the "Other Software" tab. Click "Add" and enter "ppa:motin/until-jack-is-included-in-main". Close the window and you're done.

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio-module-jack qjackctl

PulseAudio Configuration

First, copy your systems default pulse config into your home directory.

cp /etc/pulse/default.pa ~/.pulse/pulsejack.pa

Now, in your favourite text editor, you want to make the following lines:

### Load audio drivers statically (it is probably better to not load
### these drivers manually, but instead use module-hal-detect --
### see below -- for doing this automatically)
#load-module module-alsa-sink
#load-module module-alsa-source device=hw:1,0
#load-module module-oss device="/dev/dsp" sink_name=output source_name=input
#load-module module-oss-mmap device="/dev/dsp" sink_name=output source_name=input
#load-module module-null-sink
#load-module module-pipe-sink
 
### Automatically load driver modules depending on the hardware available
.ifexists module-hal-detect.so
load-module module-hal-detect
.else
### Alternatively use the static hardware detection module (for systems that
### lack HAL support)
load-module module-detect
.endif

Look like this:

### Load audio drivers statically (it is probably better to not load
### these drivers manually, but instead use module-hal-detect --
### see below -- for doing this automatically)
#load-module module-alsa-sink
#load-module module-alsa-source device=hw:1,0
#load-module module-oss device="/dev/dsp" sink_name=output source_name=input
#load-module module-oss-mmap device="/dev/dsp" sink_name=output source_name=input
#load-module module-null-sink
#load-module module-pipe-sink
load-module module-jack-source
load-module module-jack-sink
 
### Automatically load driver modules depending on the hardware available
#.ifexists module-hal-detect.so
#load-module module-hal-detect
#.else
### Alternatively use the static hardware detection module (for systems that
### lack HAL support)
#load-module module-detect
#.endif

To stop PulseAudio from launching every time you try and kill it, you need to tell it to not autospawn.

echo "autospawn = no" > ~/.pulse/client.conf
pkill pulseaudio

JACK Configuration

Configuring JACK is easy. Launch qjackctl and under 'Setup -> Options'  make the four fields under 'scripting' it look like this:

JACK Settings

Now, quit qjackctl and relaunch it. You should be able to see "PulseAudio JACK Sink" and "PulseAudio JACK Source" in qjackctl's Connect pane. Now all of your applications that use PulseAudio are being routed through JACK.

http://bitbucket.org/xlevus/stagfs/

e.g. Take a flat list of files like this

- Loaded (2008)
- Lolita (1997)
- Lords of Dogtown (2005)
- Young Frankenstein (1974)

Into a useful, browse able tree of folders like this

+ cast
+ director
    - Adrian Lyne
    - Alan Pao
    - Catherine Hardwicke
    - Mel Brooks
+ genre
    + Action
        - Loaded (2008)
    - Biography
    - Comedy
    - Crime
    + Drama
        - Loaded (2008)
        - Lolita (1997)
        - Lords of Dogtown (2005)
    + Music
        - Young Frankenstein (1974)
    - Romance
    + Sci-Fi
        - Young Frankenstein (1974)
    - Sport
    - Thriller
- keywords
- title
- writer
- year

And that's not to say it's limited to movies. You can tag any types of files into nearly any structure you want. TV shows, photos, documents.

For an example of how it works you can run:

mkdir some_mountpoint
./stagfs.py --source-dir=test some_mountpoint
ls some_mountpoint/movie

For an example structure of a StagFS data file, check the movie.stag files inside the test directories.

I've decided to put everything Fluxus related in a Fluxus folder in my home directory. This is completely optional.

mkdir ~/Fluxus
cd ~/Fluxus

Downloads

Here are all the downloads you're going to need to do. I'm not 100% sure I've got all of the Fluxus dependencies as I think I had some pre-installed from another build. If you find I have missed some, Your best bet is installing the
-dev package with the highest number.

# Basic dependencies
sudo apt-get install build-essential git-core
 
# Scheme Dependencies
sudo apt-get install libxaw7-dev
 
# Fluxus Dependencies.
sudo apt-get install scons libtiff4-dev libode-dev libfftw3-dev libsndfile1-dev liblo0-dev libglew1.5-dev libfreetype6-dev libasound2-dev libglut3-dev libopenal-dev libjack-dev libpng12-dev qjackctl
 
# Fluxus-video dependencies.
sudo apt-get install libgstreamer0.10-dev libgstreamer0.10-dev libunicap2-dev libavformat-dev libswscale-dev 
 
# Scheme Source
wget http://download.plt-scheme.org/bundles/4.2.2/plt/plt-4.2.2-src-unix.tgz
 
# Fluxus Source
git clone git://git.savannah.nongnu.org/fluxus.git

Building PLT Scheme

Building plt-scheme is pretty brainless. Expect to wait a while as make-install takes an age and a half. I've decided to put plt-scheme in its own folder in /opt . This should make clean up easy should you want to remove it and avoid any conflicts with apt.

tar xzf plt-4.2.2-src-unix.tgz
cd ~/Fluxus/plt-4.2.2/src
./configure --prefix=/opt/plt-scheme --enable-shared
make
sudo make install
 
# Setup library paths for ldconfig
sudo echo "/opt/plt-scheme/lib" > /etc/ld.so.conf.d/plt-scheme.conf
sudo ldconfig

Building Fluxus

cd ~/Fluxus/fluxus
PATH=$PATH:/opt/plt-scheme/bin scons Prefix=/opt/fluxus PLTPrefix=/opt/plt-scheme
sudo PATH=$PATH:/opt/plt-scheme/bin scons install Prefix=/opt/fluxus PLTPrefix=/opt/plt-scheme
/opt/fluxus/bin/fluxus

Configuring JACK

See my guide on Configuring JACK and PulseAudio on Ubuntu 9.10.

Final Test

To test Fluxus type the following into the REPL:

(start-audio "system:capture_1" 512 44100)
(gh 0)

If the result is anything other than zero you're set. If not, you may have to play with the input source in JACK, or as the case was with me, plug the microphone into the right port.

After a bit of digging I found an IC to do the heavy lifting for me. The B3812L from Rohm. Using the reference circuit from the data sheet I sketched up a circuit diagram in Eagle, which turned out to be a waste of time as I ended up referring to the data sheet more than anything.

After buying all the parts, I got to work getting the parts laid out on vero board. It took a couple of tries, but I eventually worked out a pattern to make the most efficient use of the space. I did run into one issue, The IC has a ZIP type pin layout which made getting it into the vero board a little difficult. So I got some wire-wrap component sockets to stand the IC off the board and bent one row of legs to get it in line with the holes on the vero board.

Surprisingly, after soldering everything up and plugging it into my ATX-PSU bench-top power supply the thing worked pretty much perfectly. There was a bit of noise when you flexed the board from what I assumed was a dry solder but when twiddling the dials you could audibly hear different sound bands fade in/out. By this time it was pretty late so I unplugged everything and went to bed.

The next day I ripped back into the project. I removed the audio and power leads from the PCB and cut up some new shorter leads for inside the enclosure. Then I remembered I needed to fix the crackling. So I soldered everything back up to try and fix it. But things weren't working at all. There was audio, but it was very quiet and very noisy. And to make matters worse, I had soldered the capacitor bridging the power lines back to front. So that decided to blow up on me. With no replacement I packed it up and called it a night.

Currently the nearly-finished EQ is still sitting in my vice. I got a replacement capacitor but the audio is still muted and noisy, something I suspect is due to the repeated soldering and de-soldering of the audio and power leads. I've decided I'm going to get some headers to connect the audio and power leads to the PCB for easy removal. But taking a 2 hour, $4 trip to Jaycar for $1 of parts isn't high on my priorities. So I'm currently trying to decide what my next project will be, and what parts I need to get.

HD Video from the performance on the 25th July 2009.

For more see www.undrawing.org