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LLA Live Tutorial

This tutorial explains the basics of LLA and documents setting up an install with an Enttec USB Pro. The LLA Live CD is built on Knoppix and runs entirely from the CD, you don't need to install any software on your computer - better still you can use an old machine with no harddrive!. Your machine needs to support booting from a CD though.

Prerequisites

For this tutorial we'll set up lla to receive DMX from a source via the Enttec USB Pro, and send to DMX onto the network via ArtNet. We'll need two PCs, one to run the Live CD on (PC A) , and one to run a web browser and DMX Workshop (PC B). Set up the PCs as below using a switch or crossover cable. Follow Artistic Licence's Application Node to set up networking on PC B. But make sure you use an IP address 10.0.0.1 rather than 2.0.0.1 as mentioned in the guide.

Boot

The following is performed on PC A.

Make sure the machine is configured to boot from the CD drive. Insert the CD and switch it on. You should be presented with a screen like that below:

Hit Enter at the prompt, and wait while the CD boots. When it's finished it should look like this:

Now we need to check that network has been configured correctly, type ifconfig eth0 at the prompt as shown:

root@tty1[/]# ifconfig eth0 eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:11:2F:D6:3C:9D inet addr:10.0.0.9 Bcast:10.255.255.255 Mask:255.0.0.0 UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:1739210 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:1468641 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:447695066 (426.9 MiB) TX bytes:142091418 (135.5 MiB) Interrupt:177 Memory:f7c00000-0

The address 10.0.0.9 above (second line, next to "inet addr") is the IP address of the machine. Now goto PC B, open a web browser and enter http://10.0.0.9 in the location bar. A page like below will be displayed:

This is the web interface for configuring LLA. From here you can see which plugins are loaded, and how the devices and ports are patched. The page above confirms that LLA is running and displays other useful information about the machine. Click on Plugins to continue.

The plugins page above shows the plugins that have been loaded by LLA. You can click a plugin name for more informaion. Click on Devices to continue.

The device page is where the majority of the configuration occurs. Your output may look slightly different from what is displayed here depending on what plugins are loaded. Each plugin can support multiple devices, and each device can contain multiple ports (which either input or output DMX from LLA). In this example we want to receive DMX from the Enttec Pro Widget, and send it via ArtNet.

Patch the first output port for the ArtNet device to universe 1 by entering 1 in the box as shown in the diagram. Now patch the input port of the Enttec Pro device to universe 1 by entering 1 in the corrosponding box. Once the changes have been made click the "Save Changes" button at the bottom of the page.

Finally click the Universes link and give the universe a name. Universe names have no affect on the operation of LLA, they just make it easier to remember where things are going.

Now if all has gone to plan, start DMX Workshop on PC B. The ArtNet node should be detected and you should be able to see the DMX as it is received.