I installed xoscope and it seems to work sort of. I have a couple of questions for anyone who has actually got it to work.

Is there any difference between using the mic or line inputs?

If I make a probe, is the right audio channel and left the same as channel 1 and 2 on the scope display? The shield should be the ground, right?

I also read that an external audio program needs to be used to interface between the sound card and xoscope. Is this for turning on and setting the volume for the mic or line inputs? Or Something else? I tried using Kmix.

I only really need one maybe two channels, is there away to turn off the other six so the display isn't so cluttered?

I tried to make a probe and use it on a small oscillator circuit. But I don't get any response on the scope. So I have a malfunction somewhere.

Also any tweaks would be cool too...

I'm using Mandriva 2006, onboard sound, AMD-768 audio and the driver is i810-audio [OSS]

Thanks

I made a little progress....
I started first with using the line in jack. I made a probe with a 1 meg resistor inline. The tip of the stereo plug is the left channel or channel 1 on Xoscope display. So the ring is the right channel or ch. 2 on the display. I only used one channel to start with. I used the Sleve as ground. I found the line jack seems work a lot better "cleaner" than the mic input.
With xoscope running, trigger off, I opened Kmix and selected the red button under "line" and went over and selected the green button above "IGAIN" and set the gain mid way and it started to work. This was after much knob dicking and fiddling around without a clue.
I seemed to have bleed over from the other channel, but I think its just the setting of the scale I used 1/5 and the noise dropped way down. I think being familure with how it works will make it easier to use.
I think its possible to make a 555 timer oscillator maybe with some clipping diodes to create a voltage reference?

Anyone...........

Ok, I figured out how to make xoscope startup with your own parameters in stead of the goofy default ones. The info is in the help page but its not easy for noobs, kind of like me. I get lost real easy. Also in the manual you can change settings with the keyboard once running. When I made my Icon to start xoscope I used this cd /home/dad/Install/xoscope-1.12 ; xoscope -D Soundcard -o rate=44100 -o dma=4 -a 2 -s1/20 -t -136:0:0 -l 1:1:0 -c 4 -m 0 -p 2 -g 2 -1 80:1/5 -2 -80:1/5 but use your own path. All of the info above is contain in the oscope.dat file, but list line by line.
I think this is a cool program. I searched for help and only found post asking for help. So I hope this helps any electronic experimenters out there.
I still have noise on channel 1 not sure why.

To go with the xoscope I found the GTK 31 band spectrum analyzer is cool too. You'll need to install fft from your Mandriva cd. I used the same Kmix setup from the xoscope for this. Its pretty simple to use. Happy experimenting....

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ok, one more time, I changed my sound card from an onboard mystery to a Sound Blaster Live card and what a difference. The noise on channel one is gone and the wave forms are more stable and cleaner. So the freq readout isn't jumping around either. There are a whole lot more options under Kmix now. I selected "capture" under input and I have all 3 outputs selected, probably only need one? dad

Hi,

Thanks dad for posting your notes. They were helpful in getting Xoscope working under Ubuntu 10.10 for me.

Ubuntu 10.10 does not ship with OSS. This means there is no /dev/dsp as required by Xoscope. To get OSS working, I installed a recompiled kernel from http://vanvalkinburgh.org/blog/3153

There are compiled kernels available at that page, for 64-bit AMD and for 32-Bit i386 type processors. To compile the kernel yourself, the page notes:

I elected to try one of the precompiled kernels. In Ubuntu 10.10, if you download the kernel and then double click it, it will launch the Ubuntu Software Center. Click 'Install' and authenticate.

You also need GNOME ALSA Mixer. Other packages may work but that is what I have used successfully. I actually installed GNOME ALSA Mixer first, because I was trying to use various 'wrappers' or 'interpreters' (padsp and aoss) without having to resort to an altered kernel. It should be fine to install it while installing the new kernel.

After the kernel has been installed, you will need to reboot. On my system, the GRUB menu came up with the new kernel selected by default. If your system does not boot from the new kernel, you can use this menu to select the default kernel, and then you can remove the non-working kernel and try compiling your own.

Once the system has restarted, open GNOME ALSA Mixer. On my system it always displays an error when launched, but everything seems to work ok. Scroll over all the way to the right and select the box that says 'Rec' under the 'Capture' option. You may also need to select 'Rec' or 'Mute' options under the 'Line' or 'Mic' controls. In my current setup, 'Line' is set so that 'Mute' is not selected, and 'Rec' is selected.

Open a Terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) and type 'sudo modprobe snd-pcm-oss'. You need to authenticate the sudo request, the system will process for a moment, and the process should exit without any further display. If you get a 'no module found' notification, it means the current kernel does not have OSS. Try verifying your kernel compile settings if you are compiling your own kernel.

Now you can launch Xoscope. Try feeding a standard audio signal before attempting to read any DC voltages. Make sure that Soundcard is the selected source input. You should see a waveform displayed. Huzzah!

There are probably other ways to accomplish this but these methods worked for me. If you have problems, or find other solutions, please post your results so that others may assist (or find assistance from) your efforts.

Thanks to 'dad', LinuxQuestions.org, 'vanvalkinburgh.org, Xoscope authors, and all Linux contributors! There is some additional useful information here: http://code.rancidbacon.com/LearningAboutXoscope

Hi All -
thanks for all the tips - they helped quite a bit. Maybe
this suggestion I found on the ubuntu forums can contribute as well.


sudo apt-get install alsa-oss
aoss xoscope


That worked for me under Maverick... added a launcher to my "Science" menu, now I"m off and running, without needing a custom kernel.

- R.Diggity

Hi all, I just discovered this program and it seems to work but uses /dev/dsp directly which is not provided by pulseaudio directly. However, I found this worked for me and I figured I'd share it here:

New to Linux, etc. But thought it might help someone (or act as a reference for myself in the future!) to know I installed xoscope on an older Dell Latitude S500GT running Crunchbang. After getting the ESS maestro3 soundcard to work properly (see http://wiki.debian.org/snd-maestro3), the post above by RetainYerDiggity was the final piece of the puzzle! Thanks...

I test successfuly xoscope on i686 Fedora 14, 16 and 17, and did xoscope RPM packages too.
Source and i386 (i have no x86_64 or other system yet) for these distros is possible download from;

http://www.hanzlici.cz/fedoralinux/ALL/xoscope/

In doc contrib directory is also short description for use xoscope on Fedora distro and some screenshots from a measurements on childern's electrical kit 'Boffin'

I am a bit lost using it for the first time (I know my way around oscilloscopes), its the xoscope hardware part.

I got it installed, now, if I want to use my mic jack, is this the layout for its usage?:

Thats it?

for two channels:


Should I make any circuit for protection? (I use mainly arduinos)

Thanks!!

alek66, it is as if You connect external audio source (microphone, radio etc.) - what are their signal pins will be signal pins in Your xoscope probe, outer massive jack corpus is ground.
When You work with logical levels 0-5V (which IMO will be levels at arduino circuits), then protection circuits should not be needed, for line nor mic input. Regards sensitivity - perhaps line input (which has a much smaller sensitivity) should
be sufficient for signal amplitudes ~ 1-5V (as line inputs expect signal level 1.5 V, You might have to do some voltage ratio box for higher signal levels).