Linux – Page 4 – Matt Jones Tech

Introduction to Rclone
What is Rclone?

Rclone is a cross-platform terminal-based application that allows you to manage cloud storage services from virtually any machine, regardless of which OS you’re running. I really like it because it offers a TON of functionality and compatibility with loads of different services from Amazon, Google, Box, Dropbox, and more.

Some may be intimidated by the fact that this program doesn’t have a front end and is only usable inside the terminal or command line. However, if you’re familiar with just the most entry-level basics of how the terminal works, then this program shouldn’t be that difficult for anyone to use. After all, the main purpose of the program is just to move files around to different places. How hard could it be?

The Basics

In my admittedly limited experience with Rclone, I’ve used it pretty much exclusively with Backblaze. Once you download and install Rclone to your machine of choice (I’ve never seen so many operating systems supported!), you can get a brief overview of what Rclone is and how it works just by running this on a Mac or Linux:
```
man rclone
```
That will pull up the manual for the program. Also, I just learned in Windows, you can type the name of any command (in our case, rclone), followed by a forward slash and a question mark to bring up the manual page for that command in the windows command prompt. Like this:
```
rclone /?
```
Configuring Rclone

Next, you’ll want to set up rclone with whatever service you want to use. To do this, you can run:
```
rcone config
```
This will bring up the configuration options for rclone.

In the above example, you can see that I’ve already set up rclone to run with my Backblaze account. Any configured accounts will appear at the top when you run:
```
rclone config
```
At this point, you can run through the prompts to set up a new account by selecting your service from the WIDE list of compatible services, entering your account login credentials, and you’re good to go!

Basic Commands

Once you’ve got rclone configured to use basically any and every service you like, you’re ready to start transferring files! The basic syntax can be found in the manual page either online or in the terminal using commands mentioned above. Here’s how it works:

In the manual page, the syntax is listed like so:
```
[options] subcommand [parameters] [parameters]
```
Kinda clear, but also kinda confusing. Luckily, there are a few examples listed immediately after the generic syntax format:
```
rclone ls remote:path # lists a remote repository
rclone copy /local/path remote:path # copies /local/path to the remote
rclone sync /local/path remote:path # syncs /local/path to the remote
```
It took me a few tries to figure it out, but when you’re configure your storage service (Amazon, Google, etc) it prompts you to give it a name. You can name it Google or anything you want. Just be aware that rclone is case sensitive when it comes to remote names. So if you configure rlcone and name your remote BackBlaze, typing backblaze or Backblaze will not work.

Let’s say you want to copy fluffykitty.jpg to the kitties folder on your Dropbox account. You’ve configured rclone and named your Dropbox configuration boxlyfe. So with that in mind, first you type rclone to call the program. Then you type a subcommand. What do you want to do with rclone? Copy files, so type copy. Copy what? Type the file path to the file or directory you want to copy. Copy to where? Type the name of the remote (boxlyfe), colon, and the directory you want to put it in. So your command will look something like this:
```
rclone copy ~/Desktop/fluffykitty.jpg boxlyfe:kittypix/ --dry-run
```
The –dry-ryn flag at the end will test the command without copying anything. That way you can correct any typos in your command before actually executing it. Once everything looks good, you can replace –dry-run with –verbose to get text output updating your on the progress of your upload.

rclone copy works with individual files as well as directories and all directory copies are recursive by default, meaning rclone will grab EVERYTHING inside that folder, and all subfolders. Also, you can reverse the copy command to download stuff as well. Wanna get that kitty picture back? Just run:
```
rclone copy boxylyfe:kittypix/fluffykitty.jpg ~/Downloads/ --verbose
```
Thats it! Back up your files from anywhere with this fancy CLI tool! Also, the official github page
matt

June 4, 2019

General Computing, Linux
Blender, Linux, and R3D

Convert with FFMPEG?

If you’re wondering how to edit r3d on linux, you’ve come to the right place. This post is inspired by an official, yet very under-the-radar release of something called REDline Linux released back in mid 2018. As a fan of Linux as well as continuing my quest to discover a complete replacement for the Adobe Creative Cloud, I ran into this question: Can Linux handle R3D raw? After just a little bit of research, I discovered that ffmpeg can actually decode an early version of the R3D codec! The downside is, as of the writing of this article, ffmpeg isn’t capable of decoding the latest version of the R3D codec. However, this could change if someone comes along and reverse engineers the new R3D codec.

Yet the question still remains. How can I work with RED footage and use Linux at the same time? Enter Resolve. (Opinion alert!) Blackmagic Design has positioned themselves in a way that could completely dethrone the current king of postproduction software, Adobe. Adobe makes a great suite of programs. One of the biggest advantages they have is that their software can not only ingest and work with project files from other software within the suite, but it also does this seamlessly across Mac and Windows. For example, I can save a Photoshop project on a Mac, and open that same Photoshop file inside of After Effects on Windows (and still have access to all of the Photoshop layers). The biggest disadvantages of Adobe CC is that it’s a fairly expensive monthly subscription model that doesn’t support Linux.

Blackmagic Resolve

Blackmagic Resolve has been the industry standard for color correction for a very long time. Recently, Blackmagic Design revamped Resolve to be able to handle much more than just color correction. In a lot of situations, Resolve can be a sort of one-stop-shop for all you postproduction needs, providing basic edits, basic audio workflow, and some basic VFX. The biggest news is that Resolve is free to download, and upgradable to the full version for a one-time purchase of $300. So after your first 6 months, you’re already saving money over the standard Adobe CC subscription.

Anyway, point being, Resolve is quickly becoming the powerhouse one-stop solution for professional post video. Handling R3D files is as simple as importing them off your RED mini mag, opening up Resolve, and grabbing them from inside the Media Pool tab. Pretty much like using the Media Browser inside Premiere Pro. Except better.

R3D in, TIFF out

From there, you can make the edits you need and export to whatever format you want, even image sequences like TIFF and others. What’s more, is that you don’t have to convert your footage with FFMPEG or something similar before importing. You can just import raw R3D without a hitch. Happy editing and Blendering!

matt

May 21, 2019

Lifestyle, Linux, Video Editing

Blender, compatability, linux, postproduction, r3d, red digital cinema, sequences, vfx
How To Set Up a Raspberry Pi 3 B+
Prerequisites

For this tutorial, I’m going to assume that you’ve got enough hardware to get started. And if you got your Raspberry Pi as part of a kit, then you should be good to go. You should have the following:
- Raspberry Pi board
- Raspberry Pi power supply (micro USB Output 5V DC 2.5A Regulated, Input 100V to 240V AC)
- Raspberry Pi case (not technically required, but I definitely want to protect my pi!)
- Micro SD card (at least a class 10)
- HDMI cable (full size, male to male)
- Monitor or television capable of displaying output from a full HDMI port
- USB-A mouse
- USB-A keyboard
- A computer
- A micro SD card reader
Download your OS

You can run tons of different operating systems on your Raspberry Pi, but for this demo, we’ll go with the OS officially supported by the Raspberry Pi Foundation called Raspian (based on Linux Debian). You can download the operating system here. Once you have the operating system downloaded, you’ll want to head over and download the latest version of Etcher.

Etcher is a great, simple, open source software used to create bootable media. Use Etcher to select your downloaded copy of Raspian. Next, select your micro SD card as the volume to burn to. Then click go! It will take several minutes to write the OS to the micro SD and then validate the burn. Once it’s complete, eject your SD card and you’re ready for the next step.

Boot your new Raspberry Pi

With your freshly burned SD card inserted into your Pi, connect the keyboard, mouse, and monitor, and plug power into your pi. There isn’t a power button on the pi, so as soon as power starts running through the board, it will automatically start the boot process. You should be greeted with a simple setup wizard to help you configure some settings that will be applied every time you boot your pi in the future.

That’s it! Enjoy your new Pi!
matt

April 30, 2019

Lifestyle, Linux, Raspberry Pi

debian, DIY, linux, pi, raspberry pi, raspberry pi 3, raspberry pi 3 b+, raspian, setup
I’m a Purist

Opinion

This idea has been with me since I was a kid learning card tricks. The purist in me never liked some special custom-made gimmick or some thing that essentially made the trick possible. Because suddenly, now I’m relying on that gimmick everywhere I go. Now I can’t perform if I don’t have that gimmick.

The same holds true in my professional life. And instead of gimmicks for magic tricks, it’s plugins for applications. They might seem cool at first and give you some ability you didn’t have with the stock version of the software, or save you a bunch of time in creating a custom look or help you deliver an effect on a tight deadline.

Reasoning

However, in the end, just like with card tricks, now you’re stuck relying on this plugin that now you can’t live without. And even worse, if you’re working on a team and need to hand off a project to another team member, they can’t work on the project unless they have all the same plugins you have.

Just a minor, technical note: for the sake of this article and the naming conventions used by different softwares and companies, I’m using the term ‘addon’ and ‘plugin’ interchangeably. There very well may be a technical difference between the two terms, but Premier and After Effects call them plugins and Blender calls the addons. They’re almost the same thing to me.

Of course there can be exceptions with regard to my ‘purist’ view on the idea of this subject. One is the nature of the plugin, and Blender definitely falls into its own category when it comes to plugins/addons. Especially since it comes with its own addons panel in the preferences menu, addons are an integral part of Blender. Plus you can bake or otherwise export things that you make using addons into a filetype or object that anyone else can import and use. The addons are limiting in that way.

Paid addons for Adobe products on the other hand, have the potential to cause issues. If you’re on a team and need to make some minor changes to a project, but don’t have the addons, now you’re in trouble. Plus you might even run into licensing issues, depending on the plugin.

matt

April 23, 2019

Blender, Linux, Video Editing

addon, Adobe, after effects, b3d, Blender, plugin, premiere pro
Why The Breeze Cursor Theme is The Best
Themes

So basically, there are themes.

Themes can do a lot to change the look and feel of your computing experience. If you’re a Linux user, there’s a good chance you like things customized. Just have a Google for “linux themes” and you’ll see what I mean. You can take this to whatever level you want. You can change the look and feel of literally everything, or you can do a subtle cursor change like me.

Breeze Theme

Lately I’ve been a fan of the Breeze cursor theme. To get that theme and a selection of other themes to choose from later, open a terminal and install the unity tweak tool and a few theme libraries:
```
$ sudo apt install breeze-cursor-theme oxygen-cursor-theme oxygen-cursor-theme-extra unity-tweek-tool
```
Once you install the themes and the unity tweak tool, you can open the tweak tool and head over to Appearance > Cursors. Click through the list until you find one you like. Make note of the name. Once you’ve got one, open your terminal again and type:
```
$ sudo update-alternatives --config x-cursor-theme
```
This will bring up a list of all the themes you’ve installed on your system. Look through the list and find the theme you liked. Type in the number of your selected theme to confirm your changes. To make sure your changes remain changed, simply run:
```
$ compiz --replace
```
and you can either reboot or log out and log back in to make your changes. That’s it! Enjoy your new look!
matt

April 16, 2019

Lifestyle, Linux, Ubuntu

breeze, computing, cursor, linux, pc, theme, ubuntu, windows
How To Build Blender With Mantafow

UPDATE:

Mantaflow was pushed to Blender’s master branch on December 16, 2019. Now you don’t have to do all this stuff. It’s already in Blender by default! Hooray!

Today Mantaflow landed in Blender's master branch! #fluids #b3d #simulation pic.twitter.com/CmVduFgVSN
— Sebastián Barschkis 🌊 (@sebbas) December 16, 2019

How To Build Blender With Mantaflow

Here’s what I know about how to build Blender with Mantaflow. Some software engineers may laugh, but I’ve legit been trying to build Blender with Mantaflow for about a solid month (very off and on mind you, but still). If you don’t know what Mantaflow is or why it’s worth building a new copy of blender for… check out http://mantaflow.com/

The capabilities of this new (in the Blender world, at least) method of calculating fluid and smoke simulations are insane. Unfortunately, it’s not available as a simple plugin, but you can grab it for FREE, if you’re not afraid of a terminal. (Also, I should note, there’s a new way to get FLIP fluids in blender and it IS a plugin, literally called FLIP Fluids, and it’s currently only stable for Windows and will set you back around $76) Regardless, FLIP fluids are highly efficient, and just all-around better than Blender’s default fluid/smoke simulator.

So how to I do this? Step one: open a terminal. Don’t worry, it doesn’t bite.

What You’ll Need

First, you’re gonna need some tools before you can start building Blender with Mantaflow. If you’re on a Mac, there’s quite a bit of installing before you can actually start anything. For more info, check out this build guide for Mac OS Once you have Cmake and XCode development tools installed, you’re good to go. For Linux, you’re basically already good to go. Create a new folder in your home folder called blender-git.

Once you’re inside, clone Blender from the source.

Next is the tricky part. Instead of continuing to follow the directions on wiki.blender.org, you’re gonna want to switch branches by running “git checkout fluid-mantaflow”. You should get a confirmation something like “successfully switched branches, you’re now on the fluid-mantaflow branch”

NOTE: The Blender source code is always changing, so double check developer.blender.org to keep an eye on the latest branch development.

Install Dependencies

Now you need to install/update dependencies for to build Blender with Mantaflow. You can do so by following the step 2 over on wiki.blender.org . All of the tedious installs that you had to do manually, one by one over on Mac can be done with one simple line in the Linux terminal (I’m not biased).

Then there’s a special shell script that takes care of all your dependencies just by executing it. Simply run:

Then you’re nearly ready! One last step! Make sure you can compile the code with Cmake by running:

Then you just need to make sure you’re inside the blender folder that was created when you cloned blender, and just run ‘make’.

if that doesn’t work, or if the build fails… try using the tag that sebbas suggests for compiling on Linux:

And that’s it! Once the build succeeds, navigate to your build directory, cd into the bin folder and run ./blender

Tada! Enjoy the awesome power of FLIP fluids for free!

matt

April 9, 2019

3D Animation, 3D Modeling, Graphic Design, Linux, Motion Graphics
What Is The Golem Network?

What Is The Golem Network?

Simple explanation: Golem is a bunch of connected computers that team up to become a giant rendering Megazord!

This is a really cool project. Recently I have found myself lacking computational power in a professional environment. The client loves this Blender animation, but I’ve got 1/13th of the power I need to render what they want by the time they need it. Traditional render farms are out of the question because on demand render pricing would be enough to just buy a render farm outright. Possible solution? Golem network.

Disclaimer: I have not used Golem in a professional setting. However, that doesn’t mean I’m not very interested in the project. The idea being: you can download a simple client for accessing the network, set up a few ports for your router to forward, and essentially “go online”. There were anywhere between 250-350 computers or “nodes” on the network at any given time (at the time of this writing). You can check this number now at stats.golem.network. It even gives you the collective number of CPU cores, RAM, and disk space available at any given time. Pretty cool!

There are two sides to Golem. First is the side where you can essentially put your computing resources ‘up for rent’. This allows others on the Golem network to use your computer to render projects. The other side is renting computing resources from the network. Got a huge project to render? You can pay to rent resources to finish your project way faster. A huge advantage is that this is much less expensive than using a traditional render farm. Here’s a promotional video that explains it quite well:

My Experience

I ran spent about 2 weeks on the Golem network just renting my unused compute power. Wasn’t sure what to expect. The Golem network is built on the Etherium blockchain and providers are paid in GNT or Golem Network Tokens. If you are buying compute power, you’ll be paying in ETH and also covering any transaction fees. As of now estimating how much you’ll need to render your job is kinda complex. You need to define a specific ‘timeout’ time for your job. So if a weaker node gets your job and takes longer than your ‘timeout’ time, you basically lose your money. In my experience, I rented out my AMD FX 8350 Black Edition and earned about $0.07 worth of GNT. I think it’s because the network is still so new. Even the client to connect to the netowork is still in beta. It could also be that not a lot of people are using the network just because it’s just so new.

Regardless, the Golem Network is an incredibly cool project to keep an eye on. Who knows, it could potentially be the only way we render our complex projects! It is also worth mentioning that Golem is compatable with Blender projects. I have yet to test out the capabilities of the network and discover what is and isn’t possible when rendering Blender projects with certain versions of Blender, different addons, plugins, etc. Will keep you posted! Thanks for reading.

matt

April 2, 2019

3D Animation, Blender, General Computing, Linux

b3d, Blender, computing, decentralization, networking, open source, render, render farm, rendering
Using 3DConnexion Spacemouse with Linux

Uh… 3DConnexion Spacemouse Wireless?

If you’re like me and spend any amount of time in the 3D world, whether it’s for game design, game development, motion graphics, 3D animation, or CAD, you’ve probably felt a bit limited and slow when it comes to navigating the 3D viewport. In some programs, you even have to grab different tools or hold hotkey combos to get the movement you want (zoom, pan, fly, rotate, etc). A company called 3DConnexion has made a fantastic effort to fix all that. For this driver install, I’m using a 3DConnexion Spacemouse Wireless.

If you’re on a Mac or a Windows machine, it’s as easy as heading over to their site and installing one of their official drivers. It even comes with a little training program to help you get the hang of the basics.

Unforuntately, 3Dconnextion dropped linux support some time ago. They technically have a Linux driver available on their official site, but it doesn’t work. However, I found the solution:

Setup

There is an excellent 3rd party driver available online called SpaceNav and it’s the best thing that’s ever happened.

Installation is quick and easy. Just download the zipped file with the extension of your choice, extract it wherever you want, and execute the file named ‘configure’, then run ‘make’, and make ‘make install’, and if you want the changes to be permanent and start the driver everytime you boot, then just run ./setup-init. All these instructions are in a handy file named README! After a reboot, Blender should be up and running with your 3DConnexion Spacemouse.

Inside Blender

Once you’re in Blender, you can hit one of the shoulder buttons (the long, skinny buttons on the side) and it will bring up a settings menu for your 3D mouse. From there, you can tweak everything to your liking, including naviation speed, inverting axes, and include some a navigation guide when you fly around.

That’s it! All done. Enjoy flying around the 3D world with your fancy spacemouse!

Side Note:

This is currently not working with the daily build of Blender 2.8 as of March 25, 2019. It works fine on 2.79, though.

matt

March 26, 2019

3D Animation, 3D Modeling, Linux, Ubuntu

3d animation, 3d modeling, 3dconnexion, b3d, Blender, blender3d, CAD, space mouse
Flowblade Review: Most Capable NLE on Linux?

Flowblade 2.0 Released

Janne Liljeblad and other contributors released Flowblade 2.0 recently and I thought I’d try it out. I edited a quick 1 minute video from about 10 drone clips shot in 4k. The first impressive feature was how easily I was able to render proxies. It was just as easy to replace them with the original media before the render.

As both a Premiere user and a Linux user, I’ve been on a quest to find an NLE that is just as capable and intuitive as Premiere, but on Linux. So far, I’ve used only a few and had just ‘okay’ experiences. My first Linux based NLE that I dove headfirst into was Kdenlive. I was cutting some footage for a client and built out the complete project in Kdenlive for a few reasons. First and foremost, at the time, I no longer had access to Adobe CC through a former employer. And finally, even if I had $53/mo, I could think of 1,000 things I’d do before I got an Adobe CC subscription.

But I digress, this is a post about Flowblade. My experience with Kdenlive was fine, the hotkeys took some getting used to. The alpha channels weren’t automatic either, but it worked. Flowblade, however gave me a much more ‘automatic’ experience. I’m on an older mid-range GTX-970 machine and 4k footage doesn’t playback smoothly. Regardless, it felt like proxies were easier to create in Flowblade than in Premiere. Just a few clicks and it was done. Updated right there in my timeline. And encoding was a breeze. Once I made my edits, which was a pleasure by the way, All I had to do was choose “replace proxies with original media” and I was all set to render.

Intuitive Experience

There were several hotkeys that carried over from Premiere and others that just made sense. The i and o keys set in and out points, the HOME and END key pops your playhead to the beginning and end of your timeline, stuff like that. The alpha transparency and title card system took some getting used to, but it wasn’t that bad. I feel like color correction is slightly easier in Flowblade than in Kdenlive. That’s just my experience, and the clips I happen to be working on.

Overall, I still can’t completely commit to Flowblade, even though it’s a pretty great application for basic edits. If I were a vlogger and just needed something to spit out videos with speed, I’d definitely use Flowblade for everything. And even as a pro editor, I still may use Flowblade for some quick edits here and there, based on the situation. But as long as Resovlve remains an option for Linux users, it no doubt offers the absolute best postproduction experience so far. The grades are otherworldly. I’ve never had so much control over color. Not even in Premiere. Lumetri Color doesn’t even compete with Resolve.

So far, my only issue with resolve is it can’t take Panasonic .MTS files by default, they have to be transcoded first. And that just may be a “free version” limitation, I’m not sure. Either way, I’m just a few freelance jobs away from picking up a full copy of Resolve for my personal Linux machine, so I’ll keep you posted if my experience changes once I get everything up and running. Until next time.

matt

March 19, 2019

Linux, Ubuntu, Video Editing, Vlogging

Adobe, creative cloud, kdenlive, linux, nle, postproduction, premiere, ubuntu, video editing
What is HTML?
What is HTML? Hypertext Markup Language is the standard way to format text for use on web pages. So if you ever find yourself needing to edit a webpage or create one from scratch, this is the most basic way to display anything on a page.

Basic Structure

HTML is broke up into several different elements, noted by tags. You can write anything you want on your web page, but these tags are at the core of HTML and are used to give your text its structure. Tags are noted with angle brackets <> and wrap around the text that it affects. It should be noted that the tags need to go in a specific order, like so:
```
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
     <head>
          <title>Page Title</title>
     </head>
     <body>
          <h1>Heading</h1>
          <p>Paragraph text.</p>
     </body>
</html>
```
Let’s break that down. The first tag is <!DOCTYPE html> and that’s just a one-time declaration to help the computer understand that it’s about to read an HTML document. That way, it knows what to expect. You don’t need to close this tag.

Next, it’s the <html> tag. Everything, the whole page, is contained inside this tag.

The <head> tag is where you keep file path references associated files, like CSS files for styling, Javascript files for functions, and other page metadata like titles. The <head> tag closes with a forward slash and closes out all the page metadata before the <body> tag begins.

Finally, the <body> tag surrounds the main content of your page. Inside this tag, you’ll find lots of tags like <p> (paragraph text), <h1> (largest header text) through <h6> (smallest header text), <ul> (unordered list AKA bullet points), <ol> (ordered list AKA numbered), <a> (anchor tag, used for making clickable links) and <form> for forms. There are several more, but those are some of the most common tags you’ll find.

Why Tags?

These tags server two main purposes. The first and primary purpose is to tell your web browser how to interpret all the text coming from a web page. Is it a title? A paragraph? A list? Table? This provides the overall structure of the page. HTML is often referred to as the “skeleton” of the web page. It’s functional, but not necessarily the most beautiful thing out there.

Additionally, tags provide a great element that CSS files can use to apply style. So instead of applying a style to ALL text in an HTML document, CSS can select just the headings (<h1> tags) and apply styles to just the text inside those element tags.

That’s it for the basics! There are tons of free online courses and videos out on the web to help help get to grips with the basics of web design and development. In this day and age with so much of our lives existing on the internet, it definitely doesn’t hurt to know some of the basics of how the web works.
matt

March 5, 2019

General Computing, Linux, Web Design, Web Development

computing, internet, linux, portfolio, web design, web development, website, wordpress