A software dedicated to recording audio books

[GettingTooOld]

I have an Ubuntu machine that hasn't been booted in 6 years.
This thread is making me want to dust it off and fire it up

I tried ubuntu again, you're not missing anything. I booted up the latest and greatest they had to offer, saw the usual slap your hands keep your hands off everything toddler buttons android styling and switched off the whole lot. shut down. That will do for the next ten years. Took all of 20 seconds. The time I spent downloading and using disk destroy is time I can't get back, but I guess they did so much for linux 20 years ago that it was worth the gamble.

I think barry's work with puppylinux was pretty good. The original stuff, before the competition and men in black purchased his soul and got him to make a followup abomination. The early stuff is good.

Sometimes to make an electronic controller for some gizmo you've made, you just have no choice but to get a ten year old version of puppy, and the 1.0 version of arduino IDE and write your code.

It's pretty sweet. Not like windoze, you can't say I just want to write a letter for crying out loud, gimme windows 95 and I'll just write it. You can't. ha!

[...] dust it off and fire it up

I'm reminiscing about the past. Like last month when I went and learned a little more, things that I needed, yes, but I guess I had put it off for so long .... Then adding them, I feel a step closer to expert. That's not my goal, I just want to do what I want to, that's all. You get closer and closer to the computer doing what you want it to do, and what mosquito boy wants matters less and less. shudder.

[Lulu04]

https://help.archive.org/help/uploading-a-basic-guide/

Thanks, I keep this options in mind.

I suggest that you can install a distro or puppy with your program, vlc, audacity, GIMP, and everything you can think of and then release that as YOUR distro. It would make it simple because all your software is pre-installed ready to go out of the box. You understand why this is important.

This solution is too far from the one I had in mind. I want the software to be accessible to people regardless of their chosen operating system.

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root# ./giveyourvoice
./giveyourvoice: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.34' not found (required by ./giveyourvoice)

It is possible to remove this dependency for the software itself, this is the simpliest solution to make it compatible with all distro (I think). But I have to check if the two libraries (LibSndFile and OpenAL-Soft) included in the archive, can cause the same issue when the software load them at runtime.
Thank you very much, this is very useful information. I'll keep you informed.

Thank you!
I'll give it a go.

Did you manage to download and install the software?

[Cufarmer]

Not yet, my weekdays are full plus my commute to and from work is over an hour each way.
I plan on doing it Saturday

[Cufarmer]

I have an Ubuntu machine that hasn't been booted in 6 years.
This thread is making me want to dust it off and fire it up

I tried ubuntu again, you're not missing anything. I booted up the latest and greatest they had to offer, saw the usual slap your hands keep your hands off everything toddler buttons android styling and switched off the whole lot. shut down. That will do for the next ten years. Took all of 20 seconds. The time I spent downloading and using disk destroy is time I can't get back, but I guess they did so much for linux 20 years ago that it was worth the gamble.

I think barry's work with puppylinux was pretty good. The original stuff, before the competition and men in black purchased his soul and got him to make a followup abomination. The early stuff is good.

Sometimes to make an electronic controller for some gizmo you've made, you just have no choice but to get a ten year old version of puppy, and the 1.0 version of arduino IDE and write your code.

It's pretty sweet. Not like windoze, you can't say I just want to write a letter for crying out loud, gimme windows 95 and I'll just write it. You can't. ha!

[...] dust it off and fire it up

I'm reminiscing about the past. Like last month when I went and learned a little more, things that I needed, yes, but I guess I had put it off for so long .... Then adding them, I feel a step closer to expert. That's not my goal, I just want to do what I want to, that's all. You get closer and closer to the computer doing what you want it to do, and what mosquito boy wants matters less and less. shudder.

I found Ubuntu to be slow, and the GUI to take too many resources.
But I built it as a media machine to stream movies to my TV.
I wanted to try puppy Lennox a while back, but my hardware would not run out of the box on a basic distro.
And I know just enough about linux to be dangerous, but not effective.
With the introduction of steam for Ubuntu, since I game, I gave it a shot

[GettingTooOld]

I found Ubuntu to be slow, and the GUI to take too many resources.

You need to have a swap partition on a hard drive. Linux is ALWAYS faster than windows, unless you run it from a USB or CD without also making a swap partition on a hard drive. The other option is just to ask it at boot-time to run in RAM. Then you'll be able to evaluate it.

But I built it as a media machine to stream movies to my TV.

A pretty good use for it. I've seen what they sell in shops and call 'media machines' they are absolute SCAMS. How can they sell a 'media player' when IT DOES NOT PLAY MEDIA. serious. I tried them, and every single one of them demanded to go online and would not play any media reliably. AVI's were dodgy, mp4's had no sound, both would go out of sync on the audio, that kind of rubbish, they all demanded to be connected to the internet, out of the box. They're not media machines at all, they're just spyware agents doing extortion. You feel like an idiot spending all the money so maybe it counts on you breaking and hooking it into the internet.

I wanted to try puppy Lennox a while back, but my hardware would not run out of the box on a basic distro.
And I know just enough about linux to be dangerous, but not effective.
With the introduction of steam for Ubuntu, since I game, I gave it a shot

That's not linux, that's just steam. As a side order, it hijacks every single page about games for linux. Steam is not a game on linux, but it dominates all search engine results. Yeah, surprise surprise, eh.

There are thousands of good games to play for free on linux. I have too many favorites to list. I spend too many hours of every day wasting time and calling it 'relaxing' or some such rubbish instead of out there taking over the known world, like I should be.

Yes, getting it to run is opening the floodgate. There always seems to be a trick or two to getting a distro to install and boot. Once you get past that, it's all easy stuff.

But once you can boot, and once you know how to backup a system, zomg, you own linux and you never go back. Ever. ......Well there are some whiny people 'oh i need Xprogram for work' and that program is tied to windows like X-box games only work on X-box.

And I know just enough about linux to be dangerous, but not effective.

The excellent dd program, yes, powerful tool, but in the wrong hands. (............)

I only ever call it disk destroyer, I have no idea it's real name.

[GettingTooOld]

This solution is too far from the one I had in mind. I want the software to be accessible to people regardless of their chosen operating system.

yes, it is not an easy amount of work to do. I was thinking that people could use it on an old machine, turn it into a sound booth recording studio in one easy step. Rather than have windows on an old machine, just use it as a do-everything audio free thingy. As you're going windows, you have to keep up with the changes windows chooses to make over each new version. Linux doesn't have that problem. once an audio studio, always an audio studio until the hard disk dies.

It is possible to remove this dependency for the software itself, this is the simpliest solution to make it compatible with all distro (I think).

Yes, yes, exactly. Seriously just get rid of all dependencies, make binaries and people will have it. If you want to kill any project, use a .makefile and rest assured only programmers will install it. Make a stand alone binary as an option, and people will use it. Sure, there is an argument against bloatware, for certain, however, there are two sides to that coin. If you get both sides you have perfection. If you have to choose a side and it's not aimed at programmers, go binary.

But I have to check if the two libraries (LibSndFile and OpenAL-Soft) included in the archive, can cause the same issue when the software load them at runtime.
Thank you very much, this is very useful information. I'll keep you informed.

Glad to be of assistance. I'll give you error codes from like 5 distributions or so.

[Lulu04]

Glad to be of assistance. I'll give you error codes from like 5 distributions or so.

that's really nice of you, thank you!
I have sent you a PM with a direct link to an new archive to test on the same distro you try the first time.
What is the name of this distro please ?

[Cufarmer]

I found Ubuntu to be slow, and the GUI to take too many resources.

You need to have a swap partition on a hard drive. Linux is ALWAYS faster than windows, unless you run it from a USB or CD without also making a swap partition on a hard drive. The other option is just to ask it at boot-time to run in RAM. Then you'll be able to evaluate it.

But I built it as a media machine to stream movies to my TV.

A pretty good use for it. I've seen what they sell in shops and call 'media machines' they are absolute SCAMS. How can they sell a 'media player' when IT DOES NOT PLAY MEDIA. serious. I tried them, and every single one of them demanded to go online and would not play any media reliably. AVI's were dodgy, mp4's had no sound, both would go out of sync on the audio, that kind of rubbish, they all demanded to be connected to the internet, out of the box. They're not media machines at all, they're just spyware agents doing extortion. You feel like an idiot spending all the money so maybe it counts on you breaking and hooking it into the internet.

I wanted to try puppy Lennox a while back, but my hardware would not run out of the box on a basic distro.
And I know just enough about linux to be dangerous, but not effective.
With the introduction of steam for Ubuntu, since I game, I gave it a shot

That's not linux, that's just steam. As a side order, it hijacks every single page about games for linux. Steam is not a game on linux, but it dominates all search engine results. Yeah, surprise surprise, eh.

There are thousands of good games to play for free on linux. I have too many favorites to list. I spend too many hours of every day wasting time and calling it 'relaxing' or some such rubbish instead of out there taking over the known world, like I should be.

Yes, getting it to run is opening the floodgate. There always seems to be a trick or two to getting a distro to install and boot. Once you get past that, it's all easy stuff.

But once you can boot, and once you know how to backup a system, zomg, you own linux and you never go back. Ever. ......Well there are some whiny people 'oh i need Xprogram for work' and that program is tied to windows like X-box games only work on X-box.

And I know just enough about linux to be dangerous, but not effective.

The excellent dd program, yes, powerful tool, but in the wrong hands. (............)

I only ever call it disk destroyer, I have no idea it's real name.

The first distro I tried was Red Hat in the early 2000s. Fedora after that.
I will always be a fan.

[GettingTooOld]

Glad to be of assistance. I'll give you error codes from like 5 distributions or so.

that's really nice of you, thank you!
I have sent you a PM with a direct link to an new archive to test on the same distro you try the first time.
What is the name of this distro please ?

I think it was a cz version of puppylinux, can't recall exactly which one I tried it on first, but the new version works on Fossapup, at least to the point of starting up. The other 5 operating systems I tried it on don't work yet, still trying to find a place I can upload pictures to so they can remain in the thread and so on, for collaboration and comment, but I don't have email, so can't upload most places, and where I can, you get perhaps a week or two or it just doesn't work. Currently, it doesn't work.

discussion about that is here viewtopic.php?t=99049

[GettingTooOld]

The first distro I tried was Red Hat in the early 2000s. Fedora after that.

I never got into those two, not really. I think I dabbled with red hat, perhaps I installed Fedora and forgot about it. Aren't they, if not commercial, at least aimed at commercial clients ?

I will always be a fan.

Upgrade from being a fan. Be a user once again !

It reminds me of TRON legacy, all the time. In Flynns' arcade, downstairs, sam finds a computer system pretty much as old as he is. Like all serious computer systems, it's linux. I watched what he typed, which is 'retro' 80's linux commands. I try them on my system, and they all work (except for the laser digitiser thingy, which I don't have).

Same 30 years+ ago, same today from the movie are:

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whoami
uname -a
login -n root
bin/history
cd /opt/LLL/controller/laser
vi LLLSDLaserControl.c
make
make install
./sanity_check
./configure -o test.cfg
vi test.cfg
vi ~/last_will_and_testament.txt
cat /proc/meminfo
ps -a -x -u
kill -9 2207
kill 2208
ps -a -x -u
touch /opt/LLL/run/ok

All of those commands work today, and most likely always will. Your knowledge is not lost or obsolete, it is still useful and relevant today, as ever it was. step up !

[GettingTooOld]

that's really nice of you, thank you!
I have sent you a PM with a direct link to an new archive to test on the same distro you try the first time.
What is the name of this distro please ?

Here is information from two ubuntu-based distros. one is not too old, the other is older and a custom job.

On the newer version called fossapup, it runs. It sends messages to the std console and the err console too. For open and close the program,

Distro: fossapup64 9.5 Glibc: 2.31 sends to std console

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root# ./giveyourvoice
AL lib: (EE) UpdateDeviceParams: Failed to set 44100hz, got 48000hz instead

To the err console it also gives the following messages a total of 30 times

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TAnchorSide.CheckSidePosition invalid anchor control, Panel3:TPanel akRight
TAnchorSide.CheckSidePosition invalid anchor control, Panel3:TPanel akRight
TAnchorSide.CheckSidePosition invalid anchor control, Panel3:TPanel akRight
TAnchorSide.CheckSidePosition invalid anchor control, Panel3:TPanel akRight
TAnchorSide.CheckSidePosition invalid anchor control, Panel3:TPanel akRight

The older version is Precise Puppy 5.5 based, but heavily customized.

It doesn't run.

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# ls
changelog                    giveyourvoice_1.0.2_linux64_gtk2_no_install.tar.gz  
Data                    giveyourvoice.desktop                               version
giveyourvoice.png           x86_64-linux                                          readme
giveyourvoice              LICENSE                                              languages
# giveyourvoice.desktop
bash: giveyourvoice.desktop: command not found
# giveyourvoice
bash: giveyourvoice: command not found
# ./giveyourvoice
bash: ./giveyourvoice: cannot execute binary file
# ./giveyourvoice.desktop
./giveyourvoice.desktop: line 1: [Desktop: command not found
./giveyourvoice.desktop: line 8: Your: command not found
./giveyourvoice.desktop: line 9: IDE: command not found
./giveyourvoice.desktop: line 10: Audio: command not found
./giveyourvoice.desktop: line 11: recording: command not found
./giveyourvoice.desktop: line 11: editor: command not found
./giveyourvoice.desktop: line 11: book: command not found
# 

The other four operating systems give somewhat similar results to Precise Puppy. I'll save details till you have the lib sorted.

[Lulu04]

About starting the software: as you did, the right command to start GiveYourVoice from a terminal is:

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./giveyourvoice

Don't use "giveyourvoice.desktop" directly, it's a file to create a shortcut on your desktop: see "readme" file.

About fossapup64 9.5 Glibc: 2.31: I've read on the net that fossapup64 9.5 don't have gtk2 installed natively. Instead it have JWM (Joe’s Window Manager) that it's not supported by GiveYourVoice. gtk2 is used by it to display things on screen. It is necessary. In a terminal, you can check if gtk2 is installed on your system with:

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dpkg -l | grep gtk2

If the command return nothing, that's mean gtk2 is not present.

About Precise Puppy 5.5: GiveYourVoice is only for 64b platform. Could you confirm that your computer where Precise Puppy 5.5 is installed have an 64b processor? You can check the processor with:

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dpkg --print-architecture

Precise Puppy 5.5 may not have gtk2 natively installed?

Given the difficulties, I think I'll use Ubuntu 20.04 to release GiveYourVoice for Linux, at least for now. I will spend more time later because there still a solution to remove the dependency to gtk2, but it involve to rewrite a lot of code...
Cheers

[GettingTooOld]

About starting the software: as you did, the right command to start GiveYourVoice from a terminal is:

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./giveyourvoice

Don't use "giveyourvoice.desktop" directly, it's a file to create a shortcut on your desktop: see "readme" file.

I know roughly what it is really, I manipulate them before a little bit here and there, I go fish them out for various games and things. In this context though, "giveyourvoice.desktop" is a stick. It's one of the more popular sticks to beat new applications with to get some kind of response from them. First is usually just it's name, then you try to ./execute_it then go poke it in the .desktop file. Usual things for usual customers. I'm trying to act a little bit neanderthal, and a little bit lazy me, to get a good idea of what a regular Joe just downloaded it may do. I'm the Gorilla at the post office jumping up and down on your package when doing product testing. You can turn the Gorilla jumps up and down like a volume control. But it gives you something to think about, like I often wonder why not pop in a file called README that says to a newbie how to poke at the package, and what a make file is for, and that kind of thing. I know what they are, but some people probably could use the help.

About fossapup64 9.5 Glibc: 2.31: I've read on the net that fossapup64 9.5 don't have gtk2 installed natively. Instead it have JWM (Joe’s Window Manager) that it's not supported by GiveYourVoice. gtk2 is used by it to display things on screen. It is necessary. In a terminal, you can check if gtk2 is installed on your system with:

Code: Select all

dpkg -l | grep gtk2

If the command return nothing, that's mean gtk2 is not present.

lol!

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root# dpkg -l | grep gtk2
dpkg-query: error: failed to open package info file '/var/lib/dpkg/status' for reading: No such file or directory

different package manager I think.

For Gtk, I think I may have installed manually, to get VLC up and running. I cannot stand deadbeef. VLC won't without GTK AFAIK, and it's pretty much the same across most of the operating systems I have. I goto an external hard drive for pets which include various videolan and gtk.

Fossa does appear to have GTK3 installed. There are about two pages of gtk related packages showing in the manager. I cannot copy them all out or do images. Oh my god. viewtopic.php?t=99049 Basically, lots of info on all sorts of gtk related items, too many to list. The ones I think you might be interested in would be, at a guess, libgtkmm-3.0-1v5_3.24.2 wrappers for shared libraries, and libgtk2.0-0_2.24.32 which is the old version of the gfx interface lib, along with various 3-0 parts the gui lib again in 3.0 and 3-common_3.24.20.

But I'm pretty sure that a lot of that is non-standard. I have to pop gtk in everytime I install a new puppy. Perhaps you can copy the code you need into your package, perhaps...

About Precise Puppy 5.5: GiveYourVoice is only for 64b platform. Could you confirm that your computer where Precise Puppy 5.5 is installed have an 64b processor? You can check the processor with:

Code: Select all

dpkg --print-architecture

amd64, I also have a few similar laptops and at least one old desktop here. I'm sure I can find a '32

Precise Puppy 5.5 may not have gtk2 natively installed?

I think a lot of them do not.

Given the difficulties, I think I'll use Ubuntu 20.04 to release GiveYourVoice for Linux, at least for now. I will spend more time later because there still a solution to remove the dependency to gtk2, but it involve to rewrite a lot of code...
Cheers

Good idea. You might also include an OLDCOMPUTERS.txt which explains it, if it's just a megabyte or two, could include it in the archive, or a separate archive as it is literally just one file. (the .pet file that is) I think there is an easier solution than rewriting the code, if it is well-explained to the end user in a way they won't overlook. cheers for now

oh, p.s. I can rename the save file for any operating system that has it, which means I can test it on a blank system with no extra installs like gtk, to let you know what is installed by default. I forgot how trivial that is to do.

[Cufarmer]

Thank you!
I'll give it a go.

Did you manage to download and install the software?

I did install the software this weekend.
Windows had a fit at first, refusing to allow installation or even to run the installer.
I unblocked the installer in properties and was able to run it.
During the setup/first run, It had some graphical errors, probably associated with scaling on the insane screen resolution of the Surface Pro combined with text setting to 150% native.
Microphone and speaker selection was not available (empty field from drop-down) probably a permission issue.
I'll play with it more when I'm not being pulled in ten directions at once from family, pets, etc.
Also, starting the application after install, it gave me two access violations which I allowed to move forward. I didn't get a log.
I'll check it all after a reboot.

[Lulu04]

Hi Cufarmer, thank you to use some of your time testing the software! I also don't have much free time at the moment, so I apologize for my late reply.

I did install the software this weekend.
Windows had a fit at first, refusing to allow installation or even to run the installer.
I unblocked the installer in properties and was able to run it.

This message appears because for now I don't pay the certificat to Microsoft to be registered in their database as a certified developper.

During the setup/first run, It had some graphical errors, probably associated with scaling on the insane screen resolution of the Surface Pro combined with text setting to 150% native.

I wrote the software with a 1280x1024 screen and haven't yet tested support for higher resolutions. There's still work to be done

Microphone and speaker selection was not available (empty field from drop-down) probably a permission issue.

Yes, I think it's permission issue: to enable the permission you can see HERE

Also, starting the application after install, it gave me two access violations which I allowed to move forward. I didn't get a log.

I think this is because there was no audio device found due to the permission issue. I've modified the program to avoid having these access violations. I hope it will be enough.
On Windows, the software generates a log file located in the project directory: MyDocuments\GiveYourVoice\GiveYourVoice.log

You can download and install the new version (1.0.3) that include a few improvements and bugs fixes HERE based on your feedback.
Thank you Cufarmer, have a good time with your family!