Tooloop OS
About
Tooloop is a platform for media artists to safely and easily develop and deploy multimedia installations.
Tooloop OS is based on a minimal installation of Ubuntu Server 16.04 LTS and the super lightweight window manager Openbox. Both are customized to fit the needs of live and public multimedia installations.
Many ideas of Tooloop OS are based on this article in the openframeworks book on keeping a linux installation up forever. However Tooloop tries to take the aproach one step further.
There are conventions for apps made for it and a set of standardized, undustrial-grade hardware.
Tooloop OS comes with a set of management and maintenance tools. You can configure and control it over the network and get built-in health and confidence monitoring.
Who should use it?
Tooloop is designed for any kind of public, live system such as museum installations, digital signage, kiosks, etc.
Being an Ubuntu Linux, Tooloop OS can run pretty much any Linux software. However it specifically supports these frameworks:
If you have written an application using one of these, Tooloop might just be what you need to stop worrying about deploying your live system.
Status
The project is in alpha phase.
It is not feature complete and there might be bugs and hickups. The manual and developer docs aren’t complete and might be wrong or out of date.
It is already usable, though. In fact I am using it exclusivly for all my clients projects for a while now and you are warmly invited to give it a go and contribute.
Please check out the project website if you want to learn more.
Get involved
Help is very much welcome! If you want to have a look, install it in a virtual machine. Even better, if you have spare hardware or a project ongoing, use it and share your experience!
Open an issue here if you want to discuss ideas or changes.
Installation
You can get your Tooloop Box up and running in about 30 minutes ;-).
