We're a college radio station who has been using Rivendell and Linux for
over 5 years now. We're always happy to talk to others about
our reasons for using Rivendell (and do on a regular basis), but Alan hits
on many of the reasons above. Also, we've found it's actually far more
usable by novice radio hosts than many of the "commercial" systems.
If anyone wants an in depth college radio + Rivendell use case
and ethnography, have them get in touch with us.
Cheers,
Andy Sayler
WMFO Medford
Tufts University
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 7:45 AM, Alan Peterson <apeter...@radioamerica.org>wrote:
> Hello all; I'm just back from a stimulating weekend in New York City,
> addressing college radio students at the annual conference for the
> Intercollegiate Broadcasting System (IBS). One of my workshops - "Run Your
> Entire Station on Free Software" - was accompanied by a weekend-long
> running demo of Rivendell (the RRABUNTU version) on a refurbed HP dual-core
> computer I picked up for $135. The machine was propped up on a table in the
> common area, a short 12-minute looping music & promo log was loaded up (as
> were a dozen or so goofy sound effects and popular movie soundbites on the
> Panel), and a sign beckoned students and advisors alike to click away at
> anything they wanted to.
>
> There were some objections, of course ("No one knows anything about
> Linux", "The IT people wouldn't let us connect this up", "We're happy with
> Simian", etc) but needless to say, folks were interested. Watch for a spurt
> of downloads over the next couple of weeks to addresses ending in "edu".
>
> There are a number of positives to be considered when using Rivendell in
> an academic setting -- not the least of which is that today's youngsters
> are used to free software and apps: First, there's always going to be an
> enthusiastic penguin-head somewhere on campus who can be tapped as a tech
> guru (give him his own copy of RD and a pizza, then watch the fun begin);
> Second, student radio stations cannot always swing thou$andS to buy a
> commercial system and so end up using WinAmp or the iTunes player as their
> audio management system. Knowing that an Open Source pro-level system is
> available, they will be interested; and Third, colleges everywhere have
> pallets full of retired computers from other departments (considered "too
> slow to run Windows"), piled up and waiting for surplus sale or recycling.
> Ask the department in charge if they'd send three of the old junkers over
> to the station for free -- preferably dual-core or better. All that remains
> is the sweat portion: load RD and
> music, hook into the LAN and go.
>
> Since I am invited to this conference every year, RD will now be making
> the trip along with me every time. And I encourage any users who read and
> post to this discussion to make a case for it at an educational venue near
> you.
>
> -AP
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>
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