Or; Keeping Revolution Radio.Online at the forefront of internet radio rock!
Long time followers of RRO will know that one of the biggest headaches we have always had is keeping both the autoplay stream active, and the live shows problem free, due to Microsoft Windows constantly changing drivers, hijacking devices, or doing an update, without warning and with scant regard to whatever else we humans may be doing on that computer at that precise moment in time.
Like hosting a live show for example.
We've had sound drivers changed, network cards turned off, updates rebooting computers, ads pushed, Microcrap apps/applets launched (e.g. Groove), all during a show and not at our request.
The situation was made so much worse when Microsoft decided that, with a President of the USA only interested in big US business success, it could go back to the anti-competitive excesses of the mid 90s, and effectively make W10 support everything Microsoft, and make sure competitive products didn't perform as well. Update after update followed, weekly, sometime 3 times daily, all designed to open internal windows for Microsoft, and add internal mazes for third party competing products to navigate through.
With scant regard for the user* these attacks on competitive tech from within the OS were, in fact, becoming a full time job to defend, and indeed were driving us mad. Combined with the disregard for users by L2mr on the radio hosting side (we're the biggest and you can't easily change us now kind of attitude) the "tech" we need to run our station was in danger of killing off our ability to run said station effectively.
This post will be a running commentary on our new strategy to defeat the enemies at the gate, sometimes factual, sometimes acerbic, often rant filled opinion, but hopefully entertaining none the less.
We'll begin tomorrow :)
* Apple are just as bad
WE CAME, WE SAW, WE GOT FRUSTRATED! Oct 28th 2019
We had a plan. We knew what we had to do and when to do it. Now here's what actually happened. Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty....
Nothing was as planned lol. I logged on to the server at 540pm and noticed that W10 Mixxx had crashed and therefore our autoplay was off. This only happens when W10 does something naughty to prep for some installation shenanigans so it was something we needed to deal with urgently. Nick therefore started his autoplay at 545pm. I had remembered that we needed to do a disk optimisation before doing a dual boot install, but this took only 15 minutes. So despite the initial setback, we were back in business at 6pm.
Then we encountered a second frustration. We needed to enter BIOS so we could change the boot up sequence, so I could install Ubuntu. Unfortunately, the previous owner of our server had put a BIOS password on the system. He'd also locked the BOOT UP sequence (you can enter this on most systems without going into the full BIOS Menu) into the BIOS settings, so I couldn't even go that root. It looked like we would be scuppered before I even started. (W10 does not allow you to uninstall Windows from a normal boot up. Good eh!).
Luckily, after about 20mins of trying passwords we could think of, the Rev came to the rescue with a bolt of inspiration and we got the password and were in!
So I set Ubuntu off to install. We were only 20mins behind schedule, so I heaved a sigh of relief, left the install running and went and got a glass of wine. (Well, actually, Miss Bonnie brought me a glass of wine).
And it was as smooth as you like. The install I mean, not the wine- although that was pretty nice too. But as it was installing I noticed the music Nick was playing was buffering. Gradually that buffering got worse and worse until there was no music at all.
Now I know what you're thinking. I was installing Ubuntu on our server and that was causing the issue, right? Nope. You see one of the things that make RRO unique is that we use a distributed music platform, meaning that all our DJs can broadcast from their own locations, rather than come to a traditional bricks and mortar studio. So the issue was external to what I was doing.
However, instead of being able to concentrate on the Ubuntu install, I spent the next hour frantically testing different things with Nick. Have you noticed major technical issues always seem to happen on a Sunday evening??? Not just for RRO, but for everyone?
Anyway, eventually we were forced to admit defeat- I raised a ticket with shoutcast, and Nick had to abandon his show :(
Turns out it was a major outage at Centova, beyond both our and shoutcast's control. Anyway, I then returned to Ubuntu, which had done all the heavy lifting itself and everything- including the dual boot menu on bootup- was working without changes.
So I then installed the necessary tools for our Dee Play needs, and finally, Mixxx Ubuntu itself.
And then came our third issue.
The server uses the Intel HLA sound system, the one system that Ubuntu has issues with. So whilst the play works fine, the Mic still has serious hiss issues. Okay thought I, I know what extra applets to download to fix this. Sadly, the same settings that work on my HP desktop in Studio A do not work on the DELL Server in Studio B.
So, we have a fully working Ubuntu Dee Play server, but one that is currently unable to perform a live show. And because I will be doing my 12 hour Halloween Fest on Wednesday from Studio B, this could have caused a major issue. By now it was getting late, I was still noting the external server warnings and sending them over to shoutcast, and I needed to take a break. Even worse, I couldn't do a connection test with Ubuntu Mixxx cos of the Centova outage.
So I sat back, finished by wine and thought about it.
Luckily I left the Windows 10 setup on there, so until I fix the Ubuntu mic issue, we can let the more stable Ubuntu install run the autoplay, and switch to Windows for the live shows when I (or Miss B- oh yes, she's getting the bug!) do them from here. Furthermore, Ubuntu 19 is out soon, and hopefully they have taken note on the complaints on their sound management system and made it more core to the OS. We will see.
Anyhow, overnight Centova has restarted their servers, and I have been able to connect Dee Play and broadcast. I am now doing a Ubuntu Mixxx/Centova broadcast test, and after one hour there hasn't been a single drop.
So, to quote Bon Jovi... wooooooooohoooooooooooooooooohhh, we're halfway there! (hence the Bon Jovi gif lol).
Will do some more fiddling this week to fix the Mic issue, but otherwise, all now looking good, and internal autoplay issues will be dramatically reduced!!
Saturday 26th October. Nearing DM Day! (aka DESTROY MICROSOFT DAY)
Well, all the music and relevant files on the DeePlay Server are now backed up in preparation for the installation of Ubuntu on the DeePlay server. That whole process took about 3 hours of on and off work since last night (copying files off the server onto the back up external drives etc). We also had to take note of the Microsoft assigned computer ID number and W10 licence number (did you know MS now tag YOUR computer to YOUR Win10 licence, making is even more difficult to move licence from one machine to another?- don't let your computer drive die without having a note of both numbers folks)- which you can't copy and paste or export either, you have to manually write it down or take a pic snapshot.
Now we're hoping to initially have a dual boot system- Microsoft and Ubuntu, as we've never tested Ubuntu MIxxx for more than 3 days continuous use. But MS, aware that more and more people are doing this to test drive Ubuntu (or any other Linux desktop) and then deleting MS later when they realise how much better Ubuntu is, did a sneaky trick a couple of updates ago and moved Windows essential code into the middle of your hard drive and locked it in, making dual installs a lot more difficult. (the gif represents Windows nightmares lol)
Note, nothing in the two moves I have described above is about making life easy for the user.
If there is any difficulty in setting up a dual install, I'll just go for a full install of Ubuntu and delete the entire Windows partition from the off (hence why I backed up all the music).
Anyway, here's the plan for Sunday.
6pm Nick takes over the autoplay from his machine in readiness for his DiVerse 80s electro pop show at 7pm.
I immediately reboot the server and interrupt the boot up sequence to drop into bios and change the boot up order, so that the USB ports are first.
I put the Ubuntu Image USB into the server and reboot.
I choose "Test Drive Ubuntu" from the options screen, which allows me to install a virtual system to test Ubuntu drivers on the all the things we need. I can even download and test the apps I want to use, although none of them will will remain after I instruct the system, from within the virtual system- I don't have to restart or anything- to now do a full install.
(btw, in Test Drive, I can also access the resize partition applet to do any sorting in readiness for the full install- it is during this bit I can work out whether or not W10 is gonna be problematic)
Around 7pm I'll instruct Ubuntu to do the full install, either for dual boot or for a complete wipe out of Windows.
A full install, including getting updates AND 3rd party driver updates for the computer you are installing on, takes between 30 to 45 minutes (how long does Windows take???). This includes the free LibreOffice which quite frankly blows MS Office out of the water for about a 10th of the disk and RAM space).
Now let's say there's a few little tweaks necessary and be generous and say at 8pm I start downloading Mixxx and everythin