Audacity
Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds, which works on the OLPC using build 650.
Possible uses
A simplified (simpler interface, slimmed down, stabilized) Audacity activity would make an excellent tool for...
- citizen journalism... As a radio journalist, all you would need is an OLPC, with Audacity and an FTP client installed (or integrated), to create radio packages.
- song creation... almost all commercial songs use some sort of multi-track editor for creation -- so many songs have been created using Audacity!
- sound effect creation ("Foley artistry")... recording and performing various filters on short sounds with Audacity are how many sound effects for some XO games (Kuku, Spray Play, Bounce) were made at the Boston Game Jam 2007)
Installation
To install Audacity, go to the Terminal activity, and type
su -
to become root user. Enter the root password if asked to, then type
yum install audacity
- Answer y to any installation questions. The installation typically requires about 7MB space.
- Type
exit
To stop being root user, then type
audacity
to launch Audacity. You will be asked to choose a language, then the application will run.
Enabling mp3 support
It should be possible to install LAME lib files for mp3 support within Audacity, but I haven't managed it yet.
External Links
- [http://audacity.sourceforge.net/] Main Audacity website.
- [http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=801.0] Thread on the olpcnews forum about installing Audacity on the olpc.
