BPM Summer 2016 preview

This page describes an outdated version of the BPM and is for reference only. We recommend you use the BPM Summer 2016 public release.

The Summer 2016 BPM machine image contains many updated packages. The current machine is a *preview* for testing functionality, not for research or instruction.

You can download the 2-preview machine image from Box.

Staying up-to-date with the preview

There are several updates for the 2-preview image:

 sudo bpm-update bpm-update
 sudo bpm-update audiolabel
 sudo bpm-update ultratils
 sudo bpm-update ucblingmisc
 sudo bpm-update ifcformant
 sudo bpm-update klsyn
 sudo bpm-update fix-audio-rate

Some errors in the 1-preview image were corrected in the 2-preview image and no longer require updates. For reference, the errors corrected in that image were installed with:

 cd src
 rm -rf klsyn
 rm -rf ultratils
 rm -rf audiolabel
 sudo bpm-update klsyn
 sudo bpm-update ultratils
 sudo bpm-update audiolabel
 sudo wget --output-document=/usr/local/bin/bpm-update-2016-summer https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rsprouse/bpm-bce/master/scripts/bpm-update-2016-summer
 pip install pygame

Some notable changes from Spring 2015:

Default username

The default user is no longer 'oski'. It has changed to 'ubuntu'. As before, commands that require elevated privileges can be executed via sudo and without a password.

Python

Python 3.5 is now the default Python (from 2.7). The 3.x series has some backwards-incompatible changes, and existing Python 2 scripts might require updating. See major changes introduced by Python 3. The 'print' and 'text vs. data' sections are probably the most important to read and understand.

Python 2.7 is also installed as a conda environment. To activate this version in a terminal session:

 source activate py27

This command will make Python 2.7 the active Python in that terminal window. Other terminal windows remain at 3.5.

Important libraries

The Image library is not available for use in the usual way in Python 3.x. If you have a script that uses Image, you should fix this by changing your import statement ("import Image") to "from PIL import Image".

Jupyter notebooks

The ipython notebook has been replaced with the jupyter notebook, which means you can now create notebooks using Python (3.5 or 2.7) or R. To start:

 jupyter notebook

Opensesame

The version of Opensesame is now 3.1 (formerly 0.27). Inline scripts use Python 3.5, and the expyriment and psychopy backends are not available. Look for it under Applications > Programming or run 'opensesame' at the command line.

PyCharm

For those interested in an IDE for Python, you can try PyCharm.

version.txt

The BPM version is stored as a string in the BPM_VERSION environment variable. The version.txt file on the default user's desktop has been removed from the BPM.

New packages

New install targets for bpm-update include:

 sudo bpm-update phon
 sudo bpm-update autovot
 sudo bpm-update reaper

These packages are not installed in the preview image.

The phon target installs the Phon database for doing phonetics and phonology (https://www.phon.ca/phontrac).

The autovot target installs AutoVOT package for automatic measurements of VOT (https://github.com/mlml/autovot). If you use this software you can find the tutorial experiments in /home/ubuntu/src/autovot. Also, it is not necessary to modify $PATH as described in the AutoVOT instructions.

The reaper target install the reaper command line tool for F0 extraction.

display_acq

The display_acq utility is little-used and has been removed as an installable bpm-update target.

How to enable the IPA keyboard

A keyboard for use with the SIL Charis/Doulos fonts is installed. If you want to use this keyboard, first enable the Keyboard Input Methods:

 Applications > Settings Manager > IBus Preferences (under Other)

Answer 'Yes' to start the Keyboard Input Methods (IBus Daemon). The IBus Prefences setup window will show that an IPA keyboard is available on the Input Methods tab. You can close the preferences window after the daemon has been started.

To switch between keyboards, click on the input method switcher in the top right corner of the desktop, on the menu bar near the clock applet. Select the keyboard you wish to use. US English and IPA are already installed, and you can add others with IBus Preferences.