(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Hi Guys,

Could you please let me know the recommend hardware, motherboard that are you using with MPD puppy Linux ?

Regards,

Alex.

Hi amolan

requirements are very limited. For myself :
- an asus 1001PX eeePC netkook with Lan (Bluetooth and Wifi disconnected)
- iPad/iPod as a remote control
- the excellent waveIO board for USB to SPDIF conversion and feed my DAC

Sound great !

Hope that helps

Jean-Louis

Edited for clarity

Jean-Louis P wrote:with Lan, Bluetooth and Wifi disconnected - iPad/iPod as a remote control

I apologize for chiming in, but how do you connect your remote control with everything disabled?

No problem, You are right, I edited my post which was misleading : iPad connects to the ADSL Box / Wifi router and goes through LAN to the PC with mpd server. No strange transmission mode

Less devices active is better for SNR (theoritically, did not measure).

I did not mention I have a Windows Server for files hosting, printing, ripping CDs with EAC, managing the tags and the library with mediamonkey and occasionnaly MP3TAG.

BR
Jean-Louis

The most widely used board is the Alix board. If you aren't comfortable with a headless setup (no mouse/keyboard) then you can choose the Alix1d or Alix3d3. A lot of people go with the Alix2d2 though for the most bare bones configuration possible.

However the Alix is very slow - perfectly fine for playing music, but slow to interact with in general, and requires patience at times - particularly after the system is set up and you reboot for the first time. If you want something higher performance any Atom board should work for music playback, but many using Intel graphics won't run XWindows out of the box, so you would need to set up using the CLI only.

I use a Silverstone ML02 case to provide hardware remote control and LCD:
http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=133
I use a harmony remote, which is superior to the stock remote it comes with.

OriginAE also has cases with the same LCD/Remote solution:
http://www.origenae.co.kr/en/index.htm

Idolse,
Interesting cases you got there. I am not familiar on what you can do with a remote attached to an mpdpup server. What are the functions in MPD that you operate with the remote? Skip tracks, play, stop, etc.?

mpdPup has full support for both the LCD and remote for those cases. I use the hardware remote 90% of the time for controlling the server. I queue albums from the remote using albumbler, this is my primary means of choosing albums to play. Of course play/pause, track skip, fast forward, volume, etc are all available. The LCD can be toggled on or off from the remote, I normally leave it off but it's easier to toggle on instead of going to an MPD client when I'm not sure what track is playing.

Playlists can also be assigned to number keys (e.g. favorite radio stations), and there is another smart shuffle utility which works more like party shuffle/iTunes DJ - MPD_sima. This can also be toggled from the remote.

All the above is built in - there are a couple very minor kinks but the good news is I finally figured out the root cause for all of them so I'll be improving support in the next release.

The lack of a hardware remote control was the biggest thing I missed when I jumped from a CD player to computer audio, so I was pretty psyched to get all this working. MPD clients are nice but the hardware remote is still best.

Oooh, this is great news. Cannot wait to try all these features out. Need to get a case with LCD/remote first though ....
thanks for your help

Hi,
I put the mpdPup 0.9.3a.iso on a bootable CD or USB drive and get the same message after clicking OK for the keyboard language:

mpdpup Linux
Linux 2.1.39 i686 arch

Tunes Login: root (automatic Login)
Login i9601 : root login on 'tty1'
#

Then when nothing works I type Ctrl-Alt-Del for reboote and get a request for saving, I try NO and the NO is not selected and then it reboot.

Maybe the caps are not respected in my transcription. I have an AMD system. I am not at ease with the linux console language.

Thanks,
Renas

Hi Renas,

Sounds like it doesn't like something about your graphics hardware. To go straight into the command line version of the wizard, type 'mpdwizard'. If you want to try to use the graphical interface instead type 'xorgwizard', and after selecting the resolution and getting back to the CLI type 'startx'.

Hi,
Thanks for the quick answer.
It seems that my Nvidia gt610 with its HDMI output is difficult to recognize. I tried 1920X1080, 1280X1024, something like 1366X768 and the probed 640X480 with no success. I used VESA in the end.
I reached the sound setup and the optical digital output of my C-Media 8738 did not tested in any of the 3 available detections 0-DAC/ADC, 1- 2nd DAC and 3-PCI iec958. Too bad. It is bitperfect.
My Via onboard optical output was working.

I choosed a folder in my EAC files on my hardrive as default for test. I reached the desktop and got a black screen except for the top line of shortcuts. The left click mouse menu was working. No succes in playing a file. Always a black desktop.
I will use this puppy on another Intel PC.


By the way, does the Windows Cplay with its 64bits volume control in 0.5 db gradations have advantages for those without a physical preamp or volume control? A poweramp plugged directly in a DAC sounds very good if you do not go down in resolution to 14 or 12 bits when you use a software volume control.


Thanks a lot,

Renas.

Yes, it sounds like that hardware isn't well supported by the 2.6.39 kernel. I would guess that's why only VESA worked and the audio wasn't found.

I'm not sure what you mean about the black desktop. It sounds like the wizard did launch because you could select sound devices. After that it expects to map a network share or select a local drive. I'm not sure which option you chose or what exactly occurred before the screen went black. A little more detail will help, but you're right to try different hardware.

Not really sure what to tell you about the cplay volume control. The MPD software volume control isn't anything special, but some sound devices have precision digital volume controls - I use the Audiophilleo's volume control in this way, but more often just use my amp's control and don't really fuss about it.

First, a big thank you to Idolse for his efforts!

Now, a question:

I have a rather specific configuration, mpdPup running from a thin client (256MB RAM, frugal install on an internal CF card....)
After a lot of tweaking, I finally got the system running nicely from the internal CF card (frugal install).

However, I would like to use this machine headless - without keyboard or monitor, AND with music library coming from a USB stick plugged directly into this machine (no NAS, no network library, only plugged USB stick).
Of course, now and then I'd like to change the USB stick...

But, it seems I can't hot-swap the USB stick with music - after removing the USB stick that was plugged in while booting and after inserting a new one, the new one isn't recognized automatically, and mpd basically dies, i.e. I can't do anything from a remote (mobile phone) web client....

Is it possible to hot-swap music library located on a USB flash memory (stick)?

From what I've seen, it looks like the only way to change the plugged USB stick is to reboot the machine when plugging new one...

Any ideas how I could enable "live" hot-plugging, without resorting to reboot every time a USB stick is changed? (keep in mind that the machine is running headless, and is accessed only from a web client...)

THX,

Denis

Supporting live hot-plugging is possible, and something I would like to do someday, but it's relatively low on my priority list unless someone provides me the code to do it.

The first step is the music library root location needs to be moved somewhere else, e.g. /var/music, and then all the various mounted filesystems that contain audio need to be linked there as symlinks. /etc/mpd.conf needs to be configured to follow symlinks in the music directory.

Next you would need udev rules/script that is executed whenever a USB drive is plugged in which automounts the USB stick and then creates a symlink in the music directory mentioned above. Finally the script needs to tell MPD to update the database, or possibly automatically play whatever is on the stick by filename without actually indexing it (something I've been considering for full RAM disk playback). I would recommend only creating symlinks to some sort of canonical directory names, e.g. 'audio', or 'music' to avoid asking mpd to index non-audio data, or directories which only prove to contain audio.

Read about udev scripts here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/US ... _with_udev

That's just the basic mount script, more work would be done to add the additional logic mentioned for mpd above. Google 'udev automount usb' for more info and examples. Some other MPD users have done similar in the past, but unfortunately their code was lost when we lost the MPD forums.

Changing the default location of the music directory is actually something I do plan to do in the next release to support fully self contained USB test sticks.

Edit - Sample script here (note this is symlinking to a RAM disk, could be simplified):
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions ... al-939630/

Hi,
When I said black desktop I meaned a black wallpaper with only a bar of shortcuts popping out on top when the mouse is there. Since I never saw how you puppy look It is hard to say if it is normal. Trying to look into a file makes the window disappear immediately.
I did got before the desktop a sound setting menu, then a network share-is it for NAS hardrives?-then a file question-I choosed the folder where I put my EAC rips.
The volume control: I heard that many digital volumes controls where lowering the resolution below 16 bits when not set at maximum. The output data had a lower bitrate and was not bitperfect anymore. Secondly, bypassing a physical preamp with its contacts does eliminate a possible cause of information loss of the system. A poweramp plugged to a DAC sounded great the last time I heard it.
Thanks,
Renas

Hi Idolse

I am still with former version 0.9.2. without problem.
When approximately do you plan a 0.9.4, if I can spare the effort of two upgrades, I would be glad to

BR
Jean-Louis

Hi Idolse,

Thanks a lot for your exhaustive and informative reply...

I'm sure I'll be able to make something with it.
OTOH, USB sticks aren't going to be swapped every 5 minutes, so even rebooting isn't that horrible...

BTW, where in mpdPup can I set up behaviour of the "power button" on the computer case? I'd like to set it up so that the long press on the power button does a normal "power off" (shut down) instead of just cutting power off.

TIA,
Denis

Renas wrote:When I said black desktop I meaned a black wallpaper with only a bar of shortcuts popping out on top when the mouse is there.

I did got before the desktop a sound setting menu, then a network share-is it for NAS hardrives?-then a file question-I choosed the folder where I put my EAC rips.

The volume control: I heard that many digital volumes controls where lowering the resolution below 16 bits when not set at maximum. The output data had a lower bitrate and was not bitperfect anymore. Secondly, bypassing a physical preamp with its contacts does eliminate a possible cause of information loss of the system. A poweramp plugged to a DAC sounded great the last time I heard it.

Hi Renas, the black desktop is expected in general, but it shouldn't hang there in the middle of running the wizard. Something you've selected has caused the wizard to hang - I still don't quite understand what you did though, I would need to know where your EAC rips are. Network share could be a NAS or a shared folder on another PC. Local storage is for a physically attached hard disk. The local storage support is not comprehensive because there are literally dozens of possible permutations of how local storage could be configured and supporting all of them is non-trivial. However I can't tell by your description which you've chosen and where the EAC rips folder is physically.

Regarding the volume control - that option is there because not all mpdPup users are hardcore audiophiles and just want a volume control that can be used from a MPD client - the software control is sufficient in this case. On the other hand some some audiophiles have high quality digital dithered volume controls with their sound hardware, the hardware volume is recommended for them. Neither volume control should be considered bit perfect, any digital volume adjustments by definition change the bits. If you want to guarantee bit perfect to the DAC then just choose the disabled option.


@Jean-Louis P, unfortunately professional and personal life have been conspiring against me lately, so I can't commit to any dates for the next release - it will come when it comes.

@DenisP, glad the info helped. Regarding the power button - the system is actually designed to be shut down gracelessly because the whole filesystem is mounted in RAM in a read-only mode - you can safely just power it off by holding the power switch or toggling the mains power. Supporting the power switch in the way you ask requires additional daemons and I don't have any interest in adding complexity/extra overhead in that area. THe only time you ever need to shut down gracefully is when you've actually made changes to the system configuration and haven't typed 'save2flash' to commit them, and in that situation you'd already be logged in to to type 'poweroff' or 'reboot'. This will save the configuration changes as it shuts down.

Idolse, thanks for confirming the shutdown issue: this means I'm all set

Many thanks again for your kind help!

Hi Idolse and all, i've tried hard to make lirc working with mpd but i've not found all the needed infos or either i'm to dumb to understand how to send the commands to mpd...(maybe it's too simple and i overlooked it )

I've created (or better i think so) the lircd.conf file for my samsung remote in the /etc/lirc directory, but i'm stuck at the point of telling mpd what to do (eg. skip track, stop, etc..). Info on the web tells to create a .licrc file in the /etc/lirc dir or in the home dir, but what to write in this file? Any advice or file to look at would be welcome.

Thank you.