I started a quick app to try to organize a group of photos, which I intend to turn into a video. The problem is that I have a bunch of videos in the batch as well that I need to review. I thought I could get the video to work inside my app, but long story short, I wasn’t able to figure it out. I don’t think video is supported on the Linux platform. Maybe if I was working on Android, it would be a different story.
Anyway, maybe some of my notes will be helpful if you are trying things similar.
I happened upon an article listing open source projects that mentioned Supabase. They described it as an alternative to Firebase, and that caught my attention. Not too long after, I had a bunch of pictures to organize, so I thought I’d give it a try for that project.
Here are my notes on getting the project started.
OneNote works great for the most part. I use(d) it on Linux through the browser and on Android. But, I just can’t rely on it:
Sometimes, I’ll get this message:
I can refresh the browser page, and it’ll go away, but it seems to just get worse and worse. It’s frustrating. I’ve finally reached the point that it is time to look for something else.
I ran across Joplin. It has an Android app that will synchronize, and it also allows pasting screenshots. Those were my two big feature requests in a note-taking app.
I’ve been wanting to level up my meeting look and sound for a while. I’ve been hearing about how you can output OBS Studio as a virtual camera so that you can use it as your webcam in Microsoft Teams. So, here are my notes on how I set it all up.
First, I Installed the loopback camera module from the Ubuntu repository:
sudo apt install v4l2loopback-dkmsOriginally, I had some issues with the plugin installation, so I might have taken a few extra steps here. But, it works, so I don’t have any complaints.
To make it automatically load on boot, I added this line to the end of /etc/modules:
sudo bash -c 'echo v4l2loopback >> /etc/modules'Then, I added this line to the modprobe conf file:
sudo bash -c 'echo options v4l2loopback video_nr=5 card_label="vcam" > /etc/modprobe.d/v4l2.conf'Finally, to use it the first time (without having to reboot), I ran the modprobe command. I’m not sure if this was necessary.
sudo modprobe v4l2loopbackNow, the OBS plugin makes starting and stopping the stream easier. I downloaded the plugin deb package from the github release page. Then, I installed the deb from the commandline:
sudo apt install ~/Downloads/obs-v4l2sink.debFor some reason, the Deb package apparently places the files in the wrong place. I copied the files into my user plugins directory (which I had to create first).
cd ~/.config/obs-studio
mkdir plugins
cd plugins
cp -r /usr/share/obs/obs-plugins/v4l2sink/ .
mkdir -p $HOME/.config/obs-studio/plugins/v4l2sink/bin/64bit
cp /usr/lib/obs-plugins/v4l2sink.so $HOME/.config/obs-studio/plugins/v4l2sink/bin/64bitAfter that, the plugin shows up in the tools menu.
On my new setup, I have my laptop off to the side. That means that the webcam built into the laptop isn’t in the best position. Instead, I’d like to use the camera on my phone as the camera for the meeting. The best way I found is with the DroidCam app/plugin.
First, I installed the app on my phone. it’s DroidCam on the play store.
I downloaded the plugin from Dev47Apps. I extracted the zip file to $HOME/.config/obs-studio/plugins
After installing, you can add a “DroidCam OBS” source to your scene.
To make it work, I opened two different instances of OBS. The bottom is for the webcam, and the top is for desktop sharing.
On the bottom one, I opened a Windowed projector. I right clicked on the preview, and selected “Windowed Projector”.
Then, in the top window, I was able to add a “Window Capture” source.
Then, I started the virtual camera on the bottom window so that Teams could use that one. You can find it in the menu at Tools > v4l2loopback.
You just have to hit Start and then you can close this window.
Finally, in the Teams device settings, I selected “vcam” as my Camera device. That pulls in the output from OBS:
Lastly, Teams has not given me the option to share a single window. It only allows me to select one of my desktops. So, I can use the top OBS window to control what shows. I just output that OBS on my 3rd screen that I can share on the Teams call. I can do that by right clicking on the preview window and selecting Fullscreen Projector (Preview) > Display 3.
This is my last post for my Ubuntu 20.10 install. Below is my notes for installing all of the programming-related apps and tools that I like to have available.
I installed Youtube-dl on my new Ubuntu 20.10, but I failed to test it. On my first download, it didn’t work. I got this:
$ youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAa088SDn9E
NAa088SDn9E: Downloading webpage
NAa088SDn9E: Downloading embed webpage
ERROR: Unable to extract JS player URL; please report this issue on https://yt-dl.org/bug . Make sure you are using the latest version; see https://yt-dl.org/update on how to update. Be sure to call youtube-dl with the --verbose flag and include its complete output.
This article is part of my notes on installing Ubuntu 20.10. Each new version I reinstall from scratch and try to get the perfect setup.
On my previous article, I walked through the base OS installation. It has screenshots of what I selected as I went through the installer. This article will focus on getting my files back and installing essential applications.
It’s been a while since I’ve included the actual install process itself in my notes. This is what works for me, and I’ll try to explain why at each step.
I try to do a fresh install on my laptop each version of Ubuntu that comes out (every 6 months). This keeps my laptop clean and keeps me on my toes with my backups. This article contains my notes for this install. The following articles will have the steps I take to get everything just right.
