[Nettime-bold] Free Radio Linux - audio distribition of Linux - launching03.02.02

[r a d i o q u a l i a <honor@va.com.au>]

Hi there,

Just wanted to let you know about a new project, Free Radio Linux - a
net.radio distribution of the Linux Kernal.
You can read about it below, or at Linux Today: http://www.linuxtoday.com/



best

Honor Harger



FREE RADIO LINUX ON:

r   a   d   i   o   q   u   a   l   i   a

                  ((o))


http://www.radioqualia.net/freeradiolinux


03.02.02 -> 2003
0000  [ GMT ]
0100  [ Central European Time ]
1900  [ US Eastern Standard Time - 02.02.02 ]
0530  [ Indian Standard Time ]
1100  [ Australian Eastern Summer Time ]
1300  [ New Zealand Time ]


The time is GMT 00:30, 03.02.02.

It's February 3, the fourth anniversary of the day the Open Source
Initiative <http://www.opensource.org/> coined the term 'open source' as a
label for freely published source code
<http://www.opensource.org/docs/history.html>.
To mark this occasion, r a d i o q u a l i a are launching the first
net.radio distribution of the world's most popular open source software -
the operating system, Linux.

Free Radio Linux is an online and on-air radio station. The sound
transmission is a computerised reading of the entire source code used to
create the Linux Kernel, the basis of all distributions of Linux.

Each line of code is read by an automated computer voice - a speech.bot
utility built by r a d i o q u a l i a.  The speech.bot's output is encoded
into an audio stream, using the open source codec, Ogg Vorbis
<http://www.vorbis.com>, and sent out live on the internet.  FM, AM and
Shortwave radio stations from around the world will also relay the audio
stream on various occasions.

The Linux kernel contains 4,141,432 millions lines of code.  Reading the
entire kernel will take an estimated 14253.43 hours, or 593.89 days.
Listeners can track the progress of Free Radio Linux by listening to the
audio stream, or checking the text-based progress field in the ./listen
section of the website <http://www.radioqualia.net/freeradiolinux>


./ BACKGROUND : LINUX AND OPEN SOURCE

Since Finnish programmer Linus Torvalds
<http://www.cs.Helsinki.FI/u/torvalds/> started development of the
operating system, Linux in 1991, the collaborative model of software
development has reached profound new heights.  Consisting of millions of
lines of source code, Linux has been mutated, improved and sent spiraling
off into new directions by literally thousands of programmers from all
around the world. This is because Torvalds promoted a simple approach to
the development of Linux: he made the code available for users of the
operating system to read, view and alter. Sharing their ideas on the
software and potential improvements was a core part of Torvalds' ethic.
Due to the extraordinary success of Linux, the ethic of code sharing has
reached new heights of popularity. Code sharing is no longer a process
specific to computer science, rather it has become an ideology embraced by
business, the computer using public, and a multitude of cultural, artistic
and academic sectors. When Linux won one of electronic art's most
prestigious prizes, the Prix Ars Electronica
<http://prixars.aec.at/history/net/1999/E99net_01.htm> for .net excellence
in 1999, Open Source completed its journey from a prosaic functional
process to a phenomenon verging on art.


./ FREE RADIO MEETS FREE SOFTWARE

In the hierarchy of media, radio reigns. There are more computers than
modems, more phones than computers, and more radios than phones. Radio is
the closest we have to an egalitarian method of information distribution.
Free Radio Linux advocates that radio is the best method for distributing
the world's most popular free software.

Free Radio Linux is therefore be a networked broadcast system, transmitting
on ether-net via open source audio codec, Ogg Vorbis and relayed on AM,
Shortwave and FM frequencies, by a collection of ham radio amateurs and
radio professionals.

Free Radio Linux also continues the tradition of FM 'code stations' of the
early-mid eighties. These stations were pirate broadcasters who distributed
bootleg software programmes via radio transmitters, allowing early hackers
with home computers, such as Sinclair ZX80-81s, Commodore 64s, and Acorns,
to demodulate the signal through a modem and run the code. The modern day
equivalent, Free Radio Linux, similarly enables anyone with notepad to
transcribe the code and utilise it at his or her convenience.


./ TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

To listen to Free Radio Linux online, users must have:
- a computer
- an internet connection
- an MP3 Player
- the Ogg Vorbis codec

MP3 players and the Ogg Vorbis codec can be downloaded from the ./listen
section of the Free Radio Linux website:
<http://www.radioqualia.net/freeradiolinux>
Ogg Vorbis is compatible with Linux, Windows and Max OSX operating systems.

-------------->  Ogg Vorbis + Icecast
Free Radio Linux utilises Ogg Vorbis because it is one of the only open
source streaming audio codecs available.  Whereas, MP3 is a patented
technology (owned by Fraunhofer IIS-A <http://www.iis.fhg.de/>, Thomson,
and others ) Ogg Vorbis is a free, open, and unpatented.

Encoding is enabled using the free Oddsock DSP plugin for Winamp. This
encoder converts the live audio input from the speech.bot into a streaming
Ogg Vorbis file. This file is then sent as a 'continuous stream' to the
server.
Free Radio Linux is served via a Icecast2 <http://www.icecast.org/> server
for Unix, located at Montevideo <http://www.montevideo.nl/> in Amsterdam.
This server is part of the Open Source Streaming Alliance
<http://www.location1.org/ossa/ossa.html>.


--------------> Speech.bot
Free Radio Linux is enabled by a speech.bot, which opens each individual
page of the Linux kernel and converts the text to speech. Punctuation and
special characters are read as Latin Unicode . For example '=' is read as
'equals sign'.


./ CREDITS

Free Radio Linux is commissioned by Gallery 9/Walker Art Center
<http://www.walkerart.org> with the support of the Jerome Foundation, USA.

- Streaming server provided by Montevideo Time Based Arts, Netherlands.
- website design by Vedran Gulin, mi2lab, Croatia.
- r a d i o q u a l i a would also like to thank :
Robert Geus, Virtual Artists, Elizabeth Zimmerman/Kunstradio, Oliver
Thuns/radiostudio.org, oddsock.org, Rene Leithof, Michael Jordan/Linux.org,
Matthew Leonard/Radio NZ, XS4ALL, Dave Mandl/WMFU, Micz Flor, Ted Byfield,
Susan Kennard/Radio 90, Georgie Knight, Chris Barker, Nik Gaffney, Mr.Snow,
Brian Proffitt/Linux Today, Jenny Marketou, and Steve Dietz.


./ INFO

email: radioqualia@va.com.au
ph: +44 20 76841859
URL: http://www.radioqualia.net/freeradiolinux




__________________________________________

r   a   d   i   o   q   u   a   l   i   a


                   ((o))

f  r e q u e n c y  s h i f t i n g  p a r a d i g m s
i n  s t r e a m i n g  a u d i o


radioqualia@va.com.au
http://www.radioqualia.va.com.au/


supported by virtual artists (VA)
http://www.va.com.au


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