Puppy for a VIA EPIA Multi-Media Linux Machine?
Puppy for a VIA EPIA Multi-Media Linux Machine?
I am very interested in one of the fan-less VIA EPIA Series http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/ (or similar brand) mini-motherboards. I aim for it to be used for internet activities and as a DVD player.
I was wondering if puppy runs on these types of MMB and whether Puppy or other live distros made use of some of the MPEG acceleration features some of them come with?
Other distro considerations would be GeeBox and KnoppMyth (any other recommendations?).
The one thing that worried me was DVD playback. I noticed my encrypted DVD movies played a bit choppy in puppy, but non-encrypted played ok. I havent messed with any settings yet though so maybe I can sort that out.
Any advice for a noob is much appreciated.
Thanks.
I was wondering if puppy runs on these types of MMB and whether Puppy or other live distros made use of some of the MPEG acceleration features some of them come with?
Other distro considerations would be GeeBox and KnoppMyth (any other recommendations?).
The one thing that worried me was DVD playback. I noticed my encrypted DVD movies played a bit choppy in puppy, but non-encrypted played ok. I havent messed with any settings yet though so maybe I can sort that out.
Any advice for a noob is much appreciated.
Thanks.
Re: Puppy for a VIA EPIA Multi-Media Linux Machine?
r3bol, you might try Minipup2.02R from this site: http://bexa.org/
It uses MPlayer instead of Gxine and works quite well with multimedia.
Paul
It uses MPlayer instead of Gxine and works quite well with multimedia.
Paul
Methinks Raspberry Pi were ideal for runnin' Puppy Linux
Thanks, just asked VIA about linux support. I'll try that other puppy version too.
I have been googling and found that checking DMA is 'on' could help with DVD playback. How do I check this in puppy? A forum search came back zero.
I thought this was interesting: GNU/Linux DVD Player Review
I have been googling and found that checking DMA is 'on' could help with DVD playback. How do I check this in puppy? A forum search came back zero.
I thought this was interesting: GNU/Linux DVD Player Review
Last edited by r3bol on Mon 02 Apr 2007, 19:24, edited 2 times in total.
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Most EPIA's are equipped with the VIA Unichrome graphics chip, which features hardware-assisted MPEG2 decoding ... with the right drivers.
First you need the 3D Unichrome graphics driver installed and working - use MU's 3D Control Centre to install -
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=14463
Then you need a video playback application which supports the "XvMC" hardware-assisted feature -
MPlayer 1.0rc1 + XvMC http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=13216
Several forum members have Puppy installed on their Epia's with XvMC working.
Examples of full hardware decoding cards are the DXR2 and DXR3 products.
First you need the 3D Unichrome graphics driver installed and working - use MU's 3D Control Centre to install -
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=14463
Then you need a video playback application which supports the "XvMC" hardware-assisted feature -
MPlayer 1.0rc1 + XvMC http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=13216
Several forum members have Puppy installed on their Epia's with XvMC working.
No, the Unichrome's XvMC feature is not full hardware decoding, just hardware-assisted decoding.Flash wrote:I think the VIA Epia has a hardware DVD decoder onboard
Examples of full hardware decoding cards are the DXR2 and DXR3 products.
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dvw86 wrote a nice wiki page about Puppy + Epia ML8000 - http://puppylinux.org/wikka/MiniITX
And Minipup, which Paul mentioned, is currently being upgraded. It will include the latest MPlayer version with Openchrome-XvMC support.
And Minipup, which Paul mentioned, is currently being upgraded. It will include the latest MPlayer version with Openchrome-XvMC support.
sh-3.00# dmesg | grep -i dma
VP_IDE: VIA vt8235 (rev 00) IDE UDMA133 controller on pci0000:00:11.1
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xfc00-0xfc07, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xfc08-0xfc0f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:pio
hda: 78242976 sectors (40060 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=65535/16/63, UDMA(100)
hdc: ATAPI 40X DVD-ROM DVD-R CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache, UDMA(33)
Is everything I get back.
VP_IDE: VIA vt8235 (rev 00) IDE UDMA133 controller on pci0000:00:11.1
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xfc00-0xfc07, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xfc08-0xfc0f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:pio
hda: 78242976 sectors (40060 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=65535/16/63, UDMA(100)
hdc: ATAPI 40X DVD-ROM DVD-R CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache, UDMA(33)
Is everything I get back.
Thanks for the link. I've seen that before, but completely forgot about it!
If anyone else is interested, here is my reply from VIA...
Dear Leo, Thanks for your mail. Our EPIA mainboards include a MPEG2 accelerator. In addition the EPIA SP, EX, NX, N and NL are including a MPEG4 accelerator as well. To use these features you have to use special versions of the Xine or mplayer. These can be downloaded for free at VIAArena.com. Since our drivers are precompiled for Fedora we also suggest using this distribution.
Best Regards,
VIA Technologies, Inc.
www.viaembedded.com
Should you have any query please email to embedded@via.com.tw
Hi,tempestuous wrote:...And Minipup, which Paul mentioned, is currently being upgraded. It will include the latest MPlayer version with Openchrome-XvMC support.
Will this upgraded Mplayer still works on all others motherboards ? Or is it specially dedicated to a special brand motherboards ?
And which PET-PUP package are you using to do this (as i am also working on Mplayer problems on my side and need to upgrade a few things) ?
Best regards,
Laurent.
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Minipup will have ALMOST the same version of MPlayer that is already available as a dotpup here -
http://puppyfiles.org/dotpupsde/dotpups ... er-1.0rc1/
The only difference is GTK2 compatibility, because Puppy's version of GTK2 changed from Puppy-2.10 onwards.
What does this mean ... don't install this dotpup on versions of Puppy earlier than 2.10. Or the gui will fail to launch.
Read the full explanation here - http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=13216
http://puppyfiles.org/dotpupsde/dotpups ... er-1.0rc1/
The only difference is GTK2 compatibility, because Puppy's version of GTK2 changed from Puppy-2.10 onwards.
What does this mean ... don't install this dotpup on versions of Puppy earlier than 2.10. Or the gui will fail to launch.
Yes, this MPlayer package has some specially enabled features, but remains compatible with all hardware regardless of whether that hardware supports any of these features.lvds wrote:Will this upgraded Mplayer still works on all others motherboards ? Or is it specially dedicated to a special brand motherboards ?
Read the full explanation here - http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=13216
I have two, an EPIA-V & an EPIA-ML.
Both work with Puppy except the EPIA-V has only one IDE slot and you have to have the the HDD & CD/DVD on the same cable. I find that you can only read one CD with this arrangement, to read another you have to reboot At least that's the case with Puppy 2.12
On the plus side for the EPIA-V it has S-Video out which would be nice for a DVD player. There are a lot of models and you need to check which ones have the features/plugs that you want.
One other thing, again with Puppy 2.12, I find when you use Xorg any scrolling or screen updates makes the sound jump. It doesn't happen with Xvesa.
DB
Both work with Puppy except the EPIA-V has only one IDE slot and you have to have the the HDD & CD/DVD on the same cable. I find that you can only read one CD with this arrangement, to read another you have to reboot At least that's the case with Puppy 2.12
On the plus side for the EPIA-V it has S-Video out which would be nice for a DVD player. There are a lot of models and you need to check which ones have the features/plugs that you want.
One other thing, again with Puppy 2.12, I find when you use Xorg any scrolling or screen updates makes the sound jump. It doesn't happen with Xvesa.
DB
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ok thanks but which pack do i have to install: nvidia or unichrome ? ...i use a video on my motherboard and others computers have i945 onboard video chipsets (or is it 845... anyway it is the ones intel put on every motherboard )tempestuous wrote:It's true that Xorg consumes more system resources than Xvesa, but when it comes to media applications this overhead is worthwhile.
For media playback Xorg is vastly superior to Xvesa, especially when the correct "xv" video output option is selected in MPlayer.
Best regards,
Laurent
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Hi,
thanks, i now have mplayer running fine BUT i still complains at reading DVD. I use mplayer 1.0rc1, using Xorg with mplayer setup on xv mode. It detects the DVD fine and even display the chapters. But it does not play the dvd and the console contains an error saying it cannot use/find libdvdread.
Are there additional packages i need to install after mplayer so to be able to read DVD or is it a problem with my dvd/cd drive ? It works well with windows, but perhaps puppy needs other libraries to run the dvd drive ?
Best regards,
Laurent.
thanks, i now have mplayer running fine BUT i still complains at reading DVD. I use mplayer 1.0rc1, using Xorg with mplayer setup on xv mode. It detects the DVD fine and even display the chapters. But it does not play the dvd and the console contains an error saying it cannot use/find libdvdread.
Are there additional packages i need to install after mplayer so to be able to read DVD or is it a problem with my dvd/cd drive ? It works well with windows, but perhaps puppy needs other libraries to run the dvd drive ?
Best regards,
Laurent.
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Which version of Puppy are you using? Perhaps a customised version?lvds wrote:the console contains an error saying it cannot use/find libdvdread.
libdvdread is contained in all "standard" versions of Puppy.
The MPlayer-1.0rc1 dotpup was compiled under Puppy 2.12. It should be compatible with all Puppy versions since Puppy v2.10, which is when most libraries were updated.
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