DLNA Quirky Werewolf64 Pup V3 – released 23rd March 2016

[greengeek]

Hi ETP - thanks for the info re upnp/dlna clients. I have just looked at a few and most of them (including Kodi) seem extraordinarily obese for my needs. I expect I will stay with your VLC recommendation for now - it works well although a little slow on first scanning the server.

I wondered if you had heard of "djmount"? It looks promising. The idea of a lightweight upnp/dlna client has strong appeal. I will post back if I have any joy getting to grips with it.

some djmount links:

https://codeyarns.com/2015/01/28/how-to ... g-djmount/

http://djmount.sourceforge.net/

https://sourceforge.net/projects/djmount/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-X98UKZWbI

EDIT : At the risk of being annoying - one of those djmount links had a comment from a guy who has developed a "simple dlna browser" as discussed here.

That page links to this github page

It would be great if someone had the skills to make this run on Puppy as a complement to your DLNA server

[ETP]

Hi greengeek,

Your last post provoked a Googling session and vlc does indeed have a reputation for being slow to display the wares
of a DLNA server especially on first launch.

On my XP box I also have Linix Mint and access via kodi in that was instant. I agree that it is fat but it does provide a gui.

With regard to the two cli clients, djmount is old & no longer maintained but I think that both would work in Puppy.
The "simple dlna browser" requires "socat" which is available via QPM/PPM. That IMHO looks the best bet but if it does
work, creating a gui for the 360 line script is well above my pay grade.

[greengeek]

Hi ETP - I have been having a tinker with Javier Lopez's simple-dlna-browser and have made a rudimentary DLNA client which runs on Puppy and allows me to play songs that are sourced from my DLNA server. I haven't tested it with your Quirky Werewolf yet but would be keen to hear if it works for you too.

It's dead simple to use. Just install the pet, turn off firewall, then run mini dlna client from Multimedia menu.
No configuration required at all (thanks to socat)

Here is the detail:
- I have been testing with my Slacko 5.6 derivative without savefile. If anyone tests it I recommend initial testing be done on live CD boot or similar (or else take a savefile backup if you have a frugal boot)
- My version brings up further help info in a readme during the installation of the pet.
- The user needs to manually turn off their firewall or open port 8200
- The "browser" runs in a terminal and prompts the user to enter one or more letters that identifies the song or songs they wish to play. It is possible to request a single song, or a whole bunch of songs, depending how many characters you enter
- eg if you only enter the letter "e" there will be a whole heap of songs with that letter in their title and they will play randomly. If you enter the entire song title eg: Elton_John_Goodbye_Yellow_Brick_Road it will play that one song. (Just depends how each user sets up their song titles)

Sure, it's not a "browser" in the nature of VLC or Rox or XFE, but its really lightweight and it lets me access my dlna server so I'm happy

[ETP]

Hi greengeek,

I have taken a quick look at your pet which as it stands is only likely to work in Slacko 5.6
A lightweight client is a desirable feature and I will PM my findings to you this
evening for consideration. (12.10 pm here now)

[gcmartin]

I know this PUP, "DLNA Quirky Werewolf64 Pup" and couple others are DLNA servers from @ETP which provide the PUP the ability to make multimedia content available to others thruout the LAN from this PUP. As such, it had no reason to be a client for others on the LAN as the server expects that others have the client.

This distro, though, provides a LAN centralized manner that could/would/should be useful to distribute Multimedia content it sees to local home devices, PCs (whether Windows/Macs/Linuxes/ChromeOSs), smartPhones, smartTables, etc.

This distro ALSO contains SAMBA server services, as does all modern PUPs, so that it too, can make content available to LAN users.

Thus, this PUP could sit in a basement or an armchair and provides multimedia/file services for all on the LAN. And, it is a low resource distro with excellent performance. As such, one consideration is grab a cheap x86-64 mini-box and hide it behind a TV where it would serve DLNA content over the LAN. Seems simple enough. I know this is done by many/most every NAS units, but, this PUP is much greater in services that it provides for user use, than any NAS.

I DO, too, see a need for clients and this client that Greengeek and yourself are working on seems a good one for PUP use, albeit a terminal CLI incarnation at this point.

And, maybe, this should be a separate thread ONLY for this reason: There are quite a few DLNA clients in the wild that probably should be listed so community members know them.

Where I think a thread will be useful is to have various posts showing sample screens of the various DLNA clients that are available. Also, the thread should highlight those DLNA clients that are included in "normal" PUPPY Package Manager(s) to make it easy for community to know where and what these client exist.

Every smartTV that is NOT a GoogleTV comes with a DLNA client built-in. A smartTV of this type comes with an OS which strictly, severely LIMITS what a user can do. DLNA is a standard from the audio-video recording industry that TV manufacturers build in.

The GoogleTV OS allows users to use the Play Store to select needs that any user would want. As such, GoogleTV OS gives users a greater amount of choices of what they can use their TVs for, versus the OSes that come on the manufacture's non-GoogleTV smartness.

This is NOT a request. Its merely FYI and food for thought.

[greengeek]

I DO, too, see a need for clients .....
And, maybe, this should be a separate thread ONLY for this reason: There are quite a few DLNA clients in the wild that probably should be listed so community members know them..

Good idea. I don't know much about the big DLNA players but I have started a thread for my lightweight experimental versions here. Won't be everyone's cup of tea but I hope my versions will be handy for 32 bit pups (particularly if running from live CD) or low spec hardware.

[gcmartin]

@Greengeek, +1 and +1 for a Puppy client.

Puppy Linux forum should show this standalone client as a Puppy way to "see/hear" contents from any local DLNA Server serving multimedia on the home LAN. This server feature includes this distro's service to its connected LAN.

@ETP has already devised an approach to take content that this distro sees from smb servers on the LAN and making that available to DLNA clients.

The SSM utility used by the modern PUPs provides a simple screen for setup of simple folder sharing (SAMBA) on the LAN. I think we are reaching a point where a similar user utility is needed to allow content sharing via DLNA (this distro) as well. This would be something similar to the SSM where users can visualize what they are doing to make content available on the network. Thus we end with a visual way of how you stream it (server) and also how you can use your PUP to see it (client).

Thanks to you for the client effort and to @ETP for his contributions via this distro.