Linux Audio the way to go!?

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You mean puppy linux has even more overhead than Ubuntu?

no less. I realise not very clearly stated. I am using less cpu and memory where the desktop (if used) is very light and many services normally included by default are available as loadable options instead or at least replaced with less resource hoggin alternatives - of course if you use the ram for the complete filesystem and fill it with files you could potentially use more ram than other OS's. A flash drive also lowers power requirements, which is probably more important for low power fanless psus than for higher spec. units.
 
yep.. thats me.. 2 years ago... now have more moustache... : | )

ohh... that poor penguin .. cut off both hands and fitted with two hanging RCA jacks...! pierced off the eye balls and put two tweeters instead...!! and a big woofer into its belly... OHHH... please adopt a vented design... to avoid the scatter... :bigeyes:

:)

if u resample right... u'll hear a lot more cleaner sound... anyone can hear a difference... it is moreover... in other words... actually.. sensibly good..! easy recognisable... from a blind A-B test... (ehh? my English?)

cheers... :)
drink dark rum...
 
Clients:
I really like Minion. You can run it from any PC with Firefox in the house. No frills.
And you just install it from the Firefox Plugin db.

BTW:

I just finshed below script. It generates mpd readable m3u-playlists from all your .wav files in your "music_directory" as defined in /etc/mpd.conf . I think it is easily convertable
to other file-formats which are supported by mpd.

But I guess it'll have problems with arbitrary characters and spaces in the file-name.
(I don't have them! Somebody else has to check it out)


@phofman: Do you have an idea how to structure below script to cover cddb based arbitrary filenames and directories?

HowTo:
Just save everything between ------ to file. Make it executable chmod 777 <your_file> and
run it ./<your_file>

--------------------------------------------------------
#!/bin/bash
# written by soundcheck
# This script generates playlists for mpd from a directory strucure based on the setup in
# /etc/mpd.conf
# Current limitations: .wav files only and no arbitrary filenames
# Rev1. 10-06-2008


musicdir=`cat /etc/mpd.conf | grep music_directory | cut -f2 -d'"'`
playlistdir=`cat /etc/mpd.conf | grep playlist_directory | cut -f2 -d'"'`

cd $musicdir
echo "working..."
for i in `find . -type d -print|mawk ' { gsub("./","") ; print } ' ` ; do
playlistfile="${i}.m3u"
find $i -name \*.wav -print > $playlistfile
mv $playlistfile $playlistdir
done

ls "$playlistdir"
echo "Done..."
exit 0
--------------------------------

Have fun.

\Klaus
 
MPD was identified as rather power hungry, waiting in timed loops, waking thus the CPU hundred times a second. The SVN version logs suggest it has been already fixed (plus http://www.lesswatts.org/projects/powertop/known.php#mpd ). If you are using MPD, please try the last SVN version if it works fine and powertop does not complain too much. It would help a lot, especially on [note|net]books. Thanks
 
To soundcheck:

If you are worried about spaces in names, you can enclose the variables containing the names in quotes. Also the "for in do" loop does not work, you can use "while read do" instead e.g. http://codesnippets.joyent.com/posts/show/1105

If you mean filenames with quotation marks etc., perhaps rewriting to perl or python would make the script robust with less effort. Bash is often pretty picky.
 
phofman said:
To soundcheck:

If you are worried about spaces in names, you can enclose the variables containing the names in quotes. Also the "for in do" loop does not work, you can use "while read do" instead e.g. http://codesnippets.joyent.com/posts/show/1105

If you mean filenames with quotation marks etc., perhaps rewriting to perl or python would make the script robust with less effort. Bash is often pretty picky.

Hi phofman.

I am not worried about any messy filenames. I don't have them. ;) I clean them up with a script beforehand. But perhaps others will appreciate this.

Anyhow, THX for showing directions:

Below command works with spaces in filenames and directories/links.

find . -type d -o -type l | mawk ' { gsub("./","") ; print } ' | while read i ; do

Folks who'd like to try it just swap following line of earlier post #627.

for i in `find . -type d -print|mawk ' { gsub("./","") ; print } ' ` ; do

Now the next challenge would be to find out what all these -'"?_$() found in the cddb do to the script result.

Cheers
Klaus
 
I am becoming MPD fan (for daily use). ;)

I am fiddling around with shoutcast streams:

Something like below works fine, though you need to figure out your favourite streams with
streamtuner or similar:

$ mpc clear && echo "http://64.62.252.130:7800" | mpc add

Anybody ran into a bit more sophisticated approach?

Hint:
You can download the latest Minion (1.99.8 a 2.0 Beta) here:
http://code.google.com/p/musicpm/
Remove your old minion (FF/Tools/addons) player first. Download the new .xpi file.
With Firefox you open this .xpi file and you're set.

Cheers
 
rossco_50 said:
Hi Klaus,

Is the shoutcast support in minion not OK? Sounds like it is very simple to drag and drop links into the playlist - will check this out myself tonight.

I noticed the MPD wiki talks of 'fifo output', could brutefir read from the fifo buffer?

http://mpd.wikia.com/wiki/Configuration#FIFO_Output

Cheers,

Ross

Ross.

Drag and Drop links?!? How? I need to check it out. ( As said: I am running 1.99.8 - Beta 2.0)

brutefir should be able to read from a fifo. I also need to check it out by myself.

Klaus
 
I haven't tried it, but the google code page states that it can play .pls files from webpages and the changelog seems to suggest that minion adds a right click option for firefox to 'play link with mpd' for .pls and m3u files. Don't know if this has been removed in later versions.

http://www.musicpd.org/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=1082f60ee7cb6f8ed95a15e57e7bf96b&topic=1569.msg6294

Also under the tuning section of the MPD wiki there is a suggestion to set mmap = yes in the alsa output for a reduction in cpu usage. I would have thought Alsa would set this up for any soundcard that supports this by default, but might be worth it try.
 
Doh! All this talk about MPD makes me curious. I'll have to give it a try! :)

Question: I will then have to advise a MacOS client to the lady I share the access to the media-PC with. Any suggestions for an elegant MacOS interface? Or are the browser (minion?) interfaces superior anyway?
 
rossco_50 said:
I haven't tried it, but the google code page states that it can play .pls files from webpages and the changelog seems to suggest that minion adds a right click option for firefox to 'play link with mpd' for .pls and m3u files. Don't know if this has been removed in later versions.

http://www.musicpd.org/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=1082f60ee7cb6f8ed95a15e57e7bf96b&topic=1569.msg6294

Also under the tuning section of the MPD wiki there is a suggestion to set mmap = yes in the alsa output for a reduction in cpu usage. I would have thought Alsa would set this up for any soundcard that supports this by default, but might be worth it try.


I just checked the Alsa usage issue, which was discussed by some people over there at MPD. There is none. If you run plain PCM to e.g. plughw, you won't realize any obvious performance problems. (Guess why it sounds better then most of the other players around. )
Only if libsamplerate SRC kicks in CPU consumption will raise.

I'll drop a trouble ticket at Minion, related to .pls support.

Cheers
 
.: ZMN :. said:
Doh! All this talk about MPD makes me curious. I'll have to give it a try! :)

Question: I will then have to advise a MacOS client to the lady I share the access to the media-PC with. Any suggestions for an elegant MacOS interface? Or are the browser (minion?) interfaces superior anyway?

That's the nice thing about Minion. If Firefox is available it'll work on any platform.
(If your network setup allows remote access)
You just enter hostname and IP address of your music-machine and you're set.

Cheers
 
MPD is going to stay. It offers me the same as Amarok... but then from all the PCs in the house! Oh, and I use the sonata client.

MPD sents audio to pulseaudio, which forwards it to the "combined" device of two audio devices in my media PC. One thing I have to figure out is the volume regulation. If I adjust volume in MPD only one of the devices changes volume. I wonder if this means setting things for pulseaudio or MPD. Any thoughts?
 
Which mixer_type are you using? If it is the type alsa, mpd does not regulate the stream directly, but is manipulating a volume control named mixer_control of alsa card mixer_device

http://pwet.fr/man/linux/commandes/mpd

It is obviously regulating just one card. If you are combining cards via pulseaudio, perhaps setting the mixer_type to software will manipulate the stream directly before outputing to pulseaudio. Most sound cards control volume in the digital domain which is equivalent to regulating at any place along the audio route (provided you are running at 24+ bits resolution).
 
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