Speaker 1: 0:03

Thank you. Hey there, welcome back to Fully Modulated, the show, where we peel back the layers of broadcast engineering, media tech and sometimes flat-out nerdy stuff you didn't even know you needed out, nerdy stuff you didn't even know you needed. I'm Tyler Woodward and I've spent the last decade bouncing between transmitter sites, studios and server rooms trying to keep the wheels from falling off, usually with an energy drink in one hand and a network cable in the other. Now, today, we're digging into a topic that's near and dear to my heart Free and open source software every tech and broadcast engineer should know about. Look, we all love shiny new gear and enterprise solutions, but sometimes the best solution is the one you can download for free, tweak yourself and actually understand. If you're ready to level up without blowing up your budget, strap in. We're going to get into this one. Alright, first things first. Let's talk about the elephant in the server rack Linux. The little penguin guy. We like to call that little guy Tux. The little penguin guy we like to call that little guy Tux.

Speaker 1: 1:49

Now, if you've ever managed a playout server, a remote IP link or even something as simple as a Raspberry Pi at a transmitter site, chances are you're already in the Linux land, whether you realize it or not. Operating systems like Ubuntu Server, centos, stream, and even tiny builds like Alpine Linux. Let you roll out insanely powerful systems for practically nothing. Need a site-to-site VPN for, let's say, a remote transmitter. Linux is your guy. Need a quick web interface for your STL status? Need a quick web interface for your STL status? Linux again. Need a way to SSH into a misbehaving audio processor at 2am from your kitchen table? You guessed it Linux, still your guy.

Speaker 1: 2:35

And it's not just fringe stuff. According to the Linux Foundation, about 90% of today's cloud infrastructure runs on Linux. Companies like Grass Valley, telos, everts they all either use it under the hood or interact with it in some way or another. It's the duct tape holding the broadcast world together, quietly and hopefully without any drama. I heard Kirk Harnack, you know from this Week in Radio Tech. He once said, quote Linux is the air you breathe in broadcasting. You may not always see it, but without it nothing moves unquote. And if that doesn't hit hard because that is the absolute truth If you're not already a little Linux fluent, there's no shame in that. But now's the time to dive in. Trust me, the future you will thank you. All right next up. Let's talk about monitoring and infrastructure, because if you don't know what's broken, you're probably going to find out the hard way, and it's usually going to be at 3am when the general manager calls screaming about dead air.

Speaker 1: 3:50

You don't need to drop five figures on an enterprise monitoring dashboard to stay ahead. There are some absolutely killer free tools out there, like LibreNMS, grafana and Zabbix, that do everything the big boys do and sometimes a whole lot more. Take LibreNMS it supports SNMP right out of the box, meaning you can monitor your switches, your STL gear, your AOIP nodes, heck, even your coffee machine if it has a network port and SNMP support. Pair it up with a little thing called Grafana and you get these gorgeous dashboards that make it super easy to spot problems before they become disasters. True story I once caught a transmitter site cooling fan failure before the high temp alarm even went off, just because I was watching a Grafana trend line slowly creep up over the last week on. A trend line slowly creep up over the last week Saved the final tube, saved a few grand, and nobody even knew it almost melted down. Chris Tarr, director of engineering at Magna Media, put it best when he said quote monitoring doesn't have to mean paying $50,000 for a dashboard you barely understand. Open source gives you control back, and that's priceless and honestly, having control over your data, that's the real power in the business.

Speaker 1: 5:23

Now let's get into the really fun stuff audio and video tools, because free doesn't mean cheap. Sometimes it means absolutely 100%. Brilliant Audacity, that's the obvious one. It's not flashy, it's not the sexiest doll out there on the market, but if you need a quick multi-track edit, a live recording cleanup or just a way to slice up promos, it gets the job done and it does it pretty, pretty well and pretty fast. I still use it all the time when I'm working in the field. Then there's but no, I'm not making that up it's B U T T, it stands for broadcast. Using this tool, it's a lightweight, bulletproof way to stream live audio to an Icecast or a Shoutcast server. I've never I've even used it to backhaul remote sports events when the fancy equipment failed. And we can't forget about OBS Studio. Look, whether you're doing a live video podcast, a remote newscast or even building a digital signage system even building a digital signage system, obs gives you production-level control with, again, zero licensing costs. Zero licensing cost For you audio nerds. There's also Jack, the Jack Audio Connection Kit for routing low latency audio between programs on Linux Think Dante but open source and local.

Speaker 1: 7:02

Paul Rees-Mondell from College Radio Foundation nailed it when he said, quote, quote Audacity might look simple, but in the right hands it's like handing a master carpenter a basic hammer. It's what you do with it that counts. Unquote. These tools are ready. You just have to pick them up and swing away.

Speaker 1: 7:25

And hey, if you're looking to dive deeper into Linux or open source tools like LibreNMS, zabbix and Grafana, there's a lot of good stuff out there. You might want to check out CompTIA's Linux Plus program if you're thinking about getting certified or even just want to gain a kind of foundation for some Linux skills. It's a solid way to build real foundation. Or if you're more into learn by doing CBT, nuggets has some great hands-on training that'll walk you through real-world setups. And don't forget your local SBE chapter. They're a goldmine of information. A lot of chapters offer workshops, tech talks, and it's just a great way to connect with other engineers who've been there and done that. I'll drop links to everything in the episode description if you want to check those out. All right. So let's land this thing.

Speaker 1: 8:23

Today we hit some of the best free and open source tools every engineer should keep in their back pocket Linux for servers, remote links and everything in between. Librenms, grafana and Zabbix for affordable customized monitoring Audacity, but an OBS studio for top-shelf audio and video workflows without that corporate markup. Free and open-source isn't just a budget move. It's about taking control of your infrastructure, your content and your future. Next time, on fully modulated, we're gonna dive into how cloud services are changing remote broadcast forever. Spoiler it's not all sunshine and rainbows. You're gonna want to be there for that one. Until then, keep your signal clean, your mind open and your config files backed up.