OLD: mpdPup - Simplified MPD Music Server/Jukebox - v0.9.2

For talk and support relating specifically to Puppy derivatives
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outis
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue 27 Mar 2012, 17:10

#76 Post by outis »

Hm,

1. setterm -blank 0
2. setterm -powersave off
3. setterm -powerdown 0
4. setvesablank -b off

no chance...

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#77 Post by ldolse »

Are you saying you got setterm installed in some other way? Messing with terminal font sizes isn't something I have any experience with. Have you tried setfont?

I don't think you want to try enabling the framebuffer if you've already got VGA - framebuffer always seems to choose a higher resolution (XGA?) resulting in a smaller font, although it's possible it may allow more font size tweaking.


An alternate way (though not free) to solve this would be to go with an LCD/VFD display. These iMon based options should work out of the box:
http://www.soundgraph.com/vfd-feature-en/
http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=39
http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?id=NzExJjE2

Though for full disclosure i've only tested the OEM version in a Silverstone ML02 case. The lcdproc drivers for other LCDs are built-in as well, so any lcdproc compatible LCD should theoretically work, there are cheaper options out there than iMon if you go this route.

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#78 Post by ldolse »

outis wrote:Hm,

1. setterm -blank 0
2. setterm -powersave off
3. setterm -powerdown 0
4. setvesablank -b off

no chance...
Did you try

Code: Select all

setterm -powersave off -blank 0
Edit: looks like you can add a kernel boot flag to set the screen saver to zero as well:
http://superuser.com/questions/152347/c ... g-behavior

outis
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue 27 Mar 2012, 17:10

#79 Post by outis »

THX a lot, I'll try that.

Yes, I installed setterm/setvesablank: You can extract the original squeeze-deb with dbkg-deb -x, then cp the programm e.g. setterm in it's original directory e.g. /usr/sbin. Or extract the whole stuff dbkg-pkg -x your.deb /

outis
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue 27 Mar 2012, 17:10

#80 Post by outis »

no luck with: setterm -powersave off -blank 0

Where can I configure the kernel flags in mpdPup?

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#81 Post by ldolse »

Cool, using the .deb should theoretically work.

I believe you can set the kernel flags in /mnt/home/syslinux.cfg (isolinux.cfg if that doesn't work). I'm pretty sure there is a key you can press during the boot to manually enter it as well.

My system is headless, I'll go ahead and attach a monitor and see if I can get anything working on my side.

outis
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue 27 Mar 2012, 17:10

#82 Post by outis »

BTW: On my HD-installation I use X + icewm + apache

Image

So I can read informations in a distance of a few feet. That would be a nice feature for mpdPup. ;)
Because I wish to use the mpd-box without HD.

Edit: s/icewm/iceweasel
Last edited by outis on Sat 07 Apr 2012, 12:56, edited 1 time in total.

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#83 Post by ldolse »

outis wrote:BTW: On my HD-installation I use X + icewm + apache

Image

So I can read informations in a distance of a few feet. That would be a nice feature for mpdPup. ;)
Because I wish to use the mpd-box without HD.
Which client is generating that view in X? Having an X based client for people who prefer a monitor/TV is actually pretty high on my to-do list, higher than trying to figure out how to change the terminal fonts :). GMPC is the client I was leaning toward, but it has a lot of dependencies I need to sort out - that screenshot looks like something different, and a small client with minimal dependencies would probably get in sooner.

outis
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue 27 Mar 2012, 17:10

#84 Post by outis »

That's a little modified neompc, modified for 800x600
http://pixelhum.com/portfolio/neompc/

My neompc is startpage of Firefox/iceweasel, who is starting in fullscreen-mode.

BTW: I tried to install iceweasel on mpdPup, but the squeeze-libs are obviously non compatible.

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#85 Post by ldolse »

php is also high on my list along with some web client options, unfortunately php has a lot more dependencies than gmpc.

Firefox isn't built into the main iso because it takes up a fair chunk of space, but if you load up the .devx file and enable it in the boot manager you'll find it there, so the browser piece is at least solved that way.

Funkmaster
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon 16 Apr 2012, 14:57

#86 Post by Funkmaster »

I downloaded the mpdpyp 0.9.2 and it worked great running live from a USB-stick on a HP thin client (t5520, 128 mb) with the music on a local attached harddrive. So I then did a frugal install from the live desktop to a separate partition on the harddrive and installed the grub4dos bootloader and it works great, so now it is running headless with only the client and the attached ide harddrive. :)
What I'm after now is some way to make mpd support playback of the part of my collection that is wma-files - sad reminders of past times spent in W**s.. It seems I should enable or install either ffmpeg och mplayer, but I don't find any understandable information on how to do that in puppy linux..?
Also, if I wanted to try to install pulseaudio to be able to stream audio playback from my laptop to the mpdpup box, would that be possible? Maybe the limited cpu power puts some constraints here..?
Thanks a lot for a great work so far!

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#87 Post by ldolse »

Glad to hear it's working for you with the frugal install option - been meaning to test and document that better.

Regarding wma files - ffmpeg is already installed and wma should theoretically work (note I don't have any to test). You can type "mpd --version" --no quotes-- at the CLI to confirm this yourself, it shows ffmpeg support is built in with wma in the supported filetypes list. It's possible you're having more issues with the metadata not showing up correctly to find the files, but many mpd clients will let you browse to the files themselves.

Regarding PulseAudio, that's not something I'm particularly inclined to include with mpdPup, just because it tends to break functionality that audiophiles want in lieu of ease of use. That said I should think it would be possible to do what you want using http/shoutcast streaming - can you describe in a bit more detail what you're trying to accomplish there?

gcmartin

#88 Post by gcmartin »

Not having used any LInux for multimedia streaming, I'm going out on a limb to ask:
ShoutCast seems to be a subsystem for setting up an Internet broadcast tool such that a browser can connect and se/hear podcast/braoadcast/Live?stuff.

But, there are some Linux tools which present multimedia on the local LAN when some client (albeit Microsoft/Apple/Linux apps can "play" the offering s that are available from the media streamer.

Is this correct?

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#89 Post by ldolse »

gcmartin wrote:Not having used any LInux for multimedia streaming, I'm going out on a limb to ask:
ShoutCast seems to be a subsystem for setting up an Internet broadcast tool such that a browser can connect and se/hear podcast/braoadcast/Live?stuff.

But, there are some Linux tools which present multimedia on the local LAN when some client (albeit Microsoft/Apple/Linux apps can "play" the offering s that are available from the media streamer.

Is this correct?
Correct - since Funkmaster was asking to stream from his laptop to his mpd machine I figured something along these lines should be doable - I'm pretty sure Winamp can generate Shoutcast streams as an example.

MPD itself can handle your second case - instead of playing out to a soundcard it can play to a stream.

Funkmaster
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon 16 Apr 2012, 14:57

#90 Post by Funkmaster »

Hi again.. well, yes, since there is no pulseaudio (which I btw don't have any experience in setting up, I just thought it shouldn't be too difficult) I instead started to fiddle around with generating a mp3/ogg stream of the sound output from my computer so that mpd could catch and play that stream. Definitely easier said than done, and I have only gotten it to work on an erratic basis using gstreamer and icecast.
So, what I still would like to do is to send the audio output from my laptop to the mpdpup box, irrespective of what program happens to be generating that audio on the laptop - exaile or spotify or youtube or whatever..

For the wma issue, mpd --version states that mpd supports wma playback through ffmpeg. BUT it still doesn't work, mpd doesn't find/list any wma files, and from what I can figure out this is since ffmpeg doesn't read tag information which is why mpd can't add the wma files to the library? Somebody in some forum reported that these 'missing' wma files would show up under some 'Untagged' category, but I can't find anything like that in the library.. I also stumbled upon some patch that somebody made for an old version of mpd to enable libraring (?! librarying) of wma's and that reportedly worked, but now google can't find it for me again, I am not competent in applying patches anyway.

Would be really nice if these things could be made to work, but I'm afraid I can't really solve it myself. The wma playback should, I imagine, not be a too difficult fix for somebody who knows how to do it, whereas I understand the point of excluding pulseaudio (or jack, or whatever good option there is for direct streaming of audio output) from the distro for space reasons.

All the best from Sweden, and again thanks for all the work!

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#91 Post by ldolse »

What OS are you running from the laptop that you want to stream to mpd? It sounds like it might be Linux. Another option for streaming is to have another mpd instance on your laptop which can stream over to the mpdPup machine. Still don't understand what exactly you're trying to do, if it's just to play the odd file off your laptop or if you're try to redirect your whole audio stack.

My main objection to Pulse/Jack is the really complexity they add to the whole audio stack, it's less about the size added to the iso. On other computer audio boards users trying more popular Linux distributions run into endless trouble trying to get MPD to work around them.

Regarding WMA - you might want to try QuodLibet. Apparently it's able to tag asf/wma files in a way that ffmpeg can understand, which will in turn allow mpd to add it to the library. This is based on one of the comments in this page.

I just did some testing and see that you're right that mpd needs to get acquire some metadata in order to add a file to the database - I didn't realize this was the case, something to ping the mpd team on I guess, since theoretically as long as mpd can identify that it's a supported audio format it should be able to add it to the db with a lot of 'unknown' in the standard metadata fields.

Funkmaster
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon 16 Apr 2012, 14:57

#92 Post by Funkmaster »

Hi, my laptop is running Ubuntu 10.04 and there's another Ubuntu 10.04 laptop in use around here, and a Mac Air running OS X of unknown version.. And then and now the odd W-s computer for a visit, but that's not important in this case. Yes, what I want to do is redirect the audio stack, preferably from any of these computers, over the network to the box running mpdpup that is connected to the speaker system. So it's really only about not having to run a cable from the laptop to connect it to the speakers, but it would be really neat to let the mpdpup thin client box handle all computer audio output, regardless of the source of it.
Does pulseaudio cause issues with mpdpup because of resource use, or because it manipulates the sound in some way? I had mpd play fine on my laptop with pa, only it didn't support wma..

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#93 Post by ldolse »

Pulse screws up the audio stack in a way that's not audiophile friendly - I've seen numerous discussions on people trying to get various Linux systems (often Ubuntu) working with bit-perfectly with MPD, and Pulse is usually the cause of their problems. I'm not fully versed on what it does, but I think one problem is it re-samples all audio to a single sample rate, it also seems to break MPD's ability to address the sound hardware directly/exclusively using ALSA.

All that said, I don't think Pulse Audio is exactly what you want on mpdPup, as both Pulse and MPD would be competing for access to the sound device. I think the Icecast/Shoutcast route as discussed before is still probably the best choice.

Check out these URLs for how to install Icecast and configure it to work with Pulse.
http://www.adriancoroian.com/technical- ... ntu-10-10/
http://www.damonkohler.com/2009/01/stre ... -with.html
http://tormod.landet.net/2009/06/19/str ... queezebox/

Basically once you have it setup per the above instructions on the mpd machine you just need to type:
mpc clear
mpc add http://<server_ip>:8000/stream.ogg
mpc play

Several clients will let you then save that as a playlist then for easy loading in the future.


Regarding WMA, I'm working on the next build, and I've re-compiled ffmpeg with some different compile time options - not yet sure if that's part of the problem but I'll keep you posted.

pcm7985
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu 17 May 2012, 10:00

Client175, Remuco, Share...

#94 Post by pcm7985 »

Great work, thanks a lot for this package!!!

I have set up mpdPup on a 500GB USB drive, plugged this and a USB sound card (with TOSlink!) into a small box and am glad to have bit-perfect audio without juggling CDs!

I added client175 as a frontend, which was very easy.

Now I'd like to add some more functions. And here's my problem: I need to install python modules, remuco (to use an old smart phone as remote control. Btw: is there a .pet?), samba-TNG. But I just can't install thru a ssh session, and remote desktop to my Ubuntu machine does not work (don't know why).

What am I missing? Any help is appreciated!

ldolse
Posts: 367
Joined: Fri 23 Oct 2009, 16:33

#95 Post by ldolse »

Hi pcm7985, glad it's working well for you thus far. Regarding your Python question, at the moment Python isn't built into the livecd, the two python apps that are bundled in were created using pyinstaller to avoid the overhead of a full Python install.

That said, I'm working on the next version of this LiveCD, which will probably be available in the next week or two. I'm bundling a full Python install in that version, maintaining pyinstaller based builds had too few benefits and too many drawbacks - so the simplest solution would be to wait.

If you don't want to wait that long, the next easiest thing to do would probably be to simply build Python on the system - you can do this by loading up the devx file in the first post, which will give you a full development environment.

On a related note, I hadn't heard about remuco, I may bundle that into the new build as well, need to dig into it a bit more.

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