The Open Pitt What's cooking in and Open Source in Western Pennsylvania Issue 17 October 2005 www.wplug.org

Linux Radio and Podcasting: Interview with Sean Parsons Pittsburgh's Sean Parsons was host of written format. So this was just ap- you. A tool out there that is only at The Linux Box Show, one of the more plying that to a verbal format. 0.4 status but I think is really great if popular Linux-related audio shows you want a GUI tool is gPodder. It's during its run. He sat down with The What's unique about audio compared written in Python and GTK, so it Open Pitt for an interview about the to weblogs or other written media? blends in really well with your current state of Linux podcasting and GNOME desktop, or Xfce for that his plans for a successor show. It has a couple of factors. I think it's matter. much easier to express feeling I know iPodder has been ported to whenever you're using the spoken Linux, but unless you're already com- How did you get started doing an In- word. It kind of puts a voice to the fortable playing with a GUI with 50 ternet broadcast? community if you don't have a lot of buttons this is one of those things that contact with the community yourself. seems overly intimidating for what I actually became a Linux user myself One of the frequent comments I got should be a very simple job. I don't about four years ago and really be- when I first started was that they now mean that to bash the iPodder project, came interested in the community as- had a voice they associated with the it's just if I had to recommend one to pect of Linux. I started off just con- Open Source movement. There's also my mother, it'd probably be gPodder. tributing some art. One of the major the factor that being in audio format sites I like to contribute to is KDE- makes it portable in a different way How many Linux-related shows are Look. They had limited storage than in a text format because now you there? What do you recommend? space, so I decided to get my own can load it on to your MP3 player and server and start hosting my own stuff. listen to it when you're jogging or go- There are a lot of Linux tech shows Over time, I started writing opinion ing somewhere in your car without it out there right now. Go to pieces and it eventually grew into a being intrusive or all-consuming. , news site called The Linux Box. I had Some people respond better when they do a very good job of providing a some volunteers contributing and then they're trying to learn something new resource for the different tech shows one of the major tech shows that I to have the spoken word than they do that are out there. I think there are used to listen to, The Linux Show, be- with the written word. Different about a dozen that they reference, be- came defunct. I thought there was an people learn different ways. I also cause they don't necessarily include opening to try and introduce Linux to like to include lots of notes with my the ones that only last five or ten people in a similar capacity. shows so people would understand minutes. where my facts were coming from if I See PODCAST, p. 2 Was that your first experience with were doing an informative piece. radio or broadcasting? Coming Events What's the best way to get shows? That was definitely my first foray Nov. 5: General User Meeting/ into it. I had already done some, I These sites that offer podcasts also Election Meeting. 10AM to 3PM, don't know if you'd call it journalism usually offer direct links so you can 1507 Newell-Simon Hall, CMU or not, but I had already done some just directly download it. Easier to Nov. 19: Installfest. 10AM to 5PM, reviews of different distributions and use programs, like bashpodder by 1507 Newell-Simon Hall, CMU products and concepts in the open Linc Fessenden, will automatically Dec. 10: General User Meeting. source community by that point in download your favorite podcasts for 10AM to 2PM, 1507 Newell- Simon Hall, CMU September Roundup (date tentative) Dec. 17: Tutorial, Topic: Intro to Aug. 13 General User Meeting: Nic- booting a non-standard operating sys- Objective C. 10AM to 3PM, tem difficult. Nicolas explained a few olas Baldi demonstrated Linux run- 1507 Newell-Simon Hall, CMU of the hardware and software tricks ning on the XBox. He discussed the (date tentative) XBox architecture and how it makes that can be used to get Linux running. The public is welcome at all events Page 2 The Open Pitt October 2005

PODCAST, from p. 1 out there now. Prior to the podcasting The Open Pitt is published by The GNU/Linux User Show is phenomenon, there were only really the Western Pennsylvania Linux really a newbie show. It's Jon teach- three Linux shows: LUGRadio, The Linux Show, and The Linux Link Users Group ing his wife, who has been a lifelong Windows user, how to use Linux. He Tech show. Now there's a dozen that have considerable length to them, be- sits down in front of a KDE box with Editors: Elwin Green sides all the ones that are more or less the object of teaching her one new Vance Kochenderfer thing and goes over expressly how to five to fifteen minutes of someone's daily ramblings about Linux. What is Linux? do it and asks for her feedback. Linux is a kernel, the core of a computer oper- The Linux Link Tech Show really ating system, created by . It is does a good job of getting at least one What do you need to produce a show? typically packaged as a distribution, which in- to two interviews on every episode cludes the extra programs necessary to make a Basically, get a decent microphone. computer functional and useful. Since 1991, it and interviewing different people has grown from a one-man project which ran from the community. Usually people You can get a good microphone from Radio Shack for about $30 and you'll on one computer to one with thousands of con- that are well known, involved in pro- tributors running on everything from personal jects like or KANOTIX, or get good quality from it. Get a cheap organizers to million-dollar supercomputers. like Marcel Gagne from Linux Journ- mixing board so you have something to amplify your microphone before it What are Open Source and Free Software? al. They also share different news Open Source and Free Software provide you, finds they thought were relevant and goes into your computer. That is around another $30. Other than that, the user, with the opportunity to see the source spend a lot of time trying to make it code of the programs you use. You are free to fun and entertaining by bantering back you just record in Audacity. use it, share it with others, and even make and forth. Audacity, while it's considered non- changes to it if you wish. While the Free Soft- professional software, really is ex- ware and Open Source communities differ in LUGRadio also does a good job of their philosophical approach, in practical terms getting different interviews and gets traordinary. It can do multi-track re- cording, it does great noise filtering, they share nearly identical goals. Learn more some of the most high-profile inter- at views on, overall. They probably you can add all kinds of sound effects. and . spend more time than anyone else be- It can pretty much handle your very beginning recording to creating your This newsletter was produced using Open ing zany, which is what their intention Source and Free Software. is—they're there to have fun and a lot finished product at the end. of people enjoy them for that factor. Copyright 2005 Western Pennsylvania Linux It's not necessarily one you want to What do you plan for the new show? Users Group. Any article in this newsletter play in front of your co-workers or may be reprinted elsewhere in any medium, I really enjoyed doing The Linux Box provided it is not changed and attribution is small children; it's not what I would given to the author and WPLUG. call a family-friendly show. Show, but scripting 45+ minutes of a show every other week for myself to How popular are these shows? monologue is a lot of work. What I'd really like to do with the future show WPLUG Annual Meeting It's very hard to say. I know the most is to get several voices on there and actually look at different opinions. WPLUG's Annual Meeting will take downloads I had from a single show place on November 5. The pro- was in the range of 10,000, but that's They may have found a really inform- ative article that the rest of the com- gram for the General User Meeting not necessarily all-inclusive, either. will consist of a series of five- The Linux Show, when it was still munity should know about. So it would be nice to have multiple people minute lightning talks on any topic around, they were claiming to have of interest. upwards of 75,000 listeners at times to there to give different opinions. I'm probably approximately a After lunch will be the election for a single episode. I don't think anyone the Board of Directors. See else is claiming to have numbers any- month away from releasing the first episode. I've had some people express where close to that but it shows there's for details on the candidates and a definite market there. interest, but no one confirmed that they absolutely want to be involved. the voting process. We'd like to encourage all mem- Has the iPod caused an increase in bers to attend if at all possible. A the number of listeners and shows? How can someone who's reading this get involved with the new show? free lunch will be provided and there will be other giveaways as It's definitely created a major impact well. on both. The whole podcast phe- The best place to get hold of me right now is . So come on out, join the fun, and nomenon has really made people help make WPLUG a strong and listen to a lot more audio off the Inter- active organization! net, so there's just a lot more shows Thank you for your time!