Computer Audio

Post by **Nick** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 7:18 pm

It works!!!

The patch to libavcodec in the previous posting works a treat, I am listening to the freak zone on play it again as I type, and given at the moment its just on the computer speakers and softsqueeze sounds good enough. Bettrer infact than it often is when I just use the player that the BBC site brings up by default.

Next step is to see if I can get a USB WiFi dongle to work, then I can try a real squezebox.

So far I think these Linkstations are great. I may get another to replace the elderly PC thats working as our mail server now.

Annoyingly ebuyer seem to have now stopped selling Linkstations. Typical, never mind, PCWorld have them.

ed · Post by ed » Sat Feb 23, 2008 10:51 pm

I have to mention(embarrasingly) that I was in argos on Friday buying a pressie when I saw the ls pro being offered as a special at a ludicrous price.....which is what alerted me to follow what you were up to.

if its gone that smoothly then I'm gonna update my HS unit...I hope you've documented the hack and are busily emailing it to me...

have to admit to being a bit puffed up now....I was extolling the virtues of LS when I first got it and nobody took a blind bit of notice....go figure...I still maintain they are the best value since forever

Post by **Nick** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 10:58 pm

have to admit to being a bit puffed up now....I was extolling the virtues of LS when I first got it and nobody took a blind bit of notice....go figure...I still maintain they are the best value since forever

Well, you are assuming that anyone is taking any notice now...

david C · Post by **david C** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 11:03 pm

I am taking notice, I just don't understand it

Post by **Nick** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 11:08 pm

I started here

http://buffalo.nas-central.org/index.ph ... tation_Pro

Went via here

http://buffalo.nas-central.org/index.ph ... the_LS_Pro

Though I busked the partition change a bit

Then installed this

http://buffalo.nas-central.org/index.ph ... inkStation

Just for fun

Then this shows how to install MySQL and slimserver

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.cgi?F ... stationPro

That link ahows how to move things about to avoid resizing partitions, but I don't like their solution (copy /usr onto the other partition and create a link, as it means if for some reason the other partition doesn't mount, you might miss some apps you need to fix the problem)

Then insatalled MPlayer source and build that. Then I added th efp patch in the other post, and thats basically where I am now.

ed · Post by ed » Sat Feb 23, 2008 11:10 pm

Nick wrote: Well, you are assuming that anyone is taking any notice now...

I guess it doesn't matter anymore, at least you've discovered them and that in itself proves that I'm not barking

I'll retire from the debate a happy chap....but hurry up and send the transcript for the ls pro hack.....

whoops i see we have posts overlapping.........thanks

Cressy Snr · Post by **Cressy Snr** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 11:27 pm

On a much more prosaic level. I have just spent this afternoon turning a seven year old G3 iMac into a music server. It runs at 600MHz (the same speed as a QNAP TS109)

It is running a minimum install of Mac OS X 10.3 with only the iTunes, Safari and SqueezeCenter applications installed. There's only 3 gb left on its 80gb hard drive so I'm going to have to replace the internal HD with something bigger pretty soon.

It'll only address up to 128gb in its present state as it is too old to have 48bit addressing, therefore does not recognise any HD space beyond 128g. However there is a software hack available to give "big drive" support on G3 ppc machines for $24, so I can stick a big serial ATA100 HD in there and the system will be able to use all the space. Not state of the art HD technology anymore but perfectly adequate for serving up music.

The G3 was not in use so it hasn't really cost me anything to revive it and press it into service as a music server. It works very well and as it is a fanless machine it can be left on constantly and use very little power as it is set up to spin down the HD during the night and through the day when there is no one in.

Best thing now is I can shut down the big G5 iMac when it is not in use, saving a few bob in electricity.

Steve

Andrew · Post by **Andrew** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 2:58 pm

Nick wrote:It works!!!

The patch to libavcodec in the previous posting works a treat, I am listening to the freak zone on play it again as I type, and given at the moment its just on the computer speakers and softsqueeze sounds good enough. Bettrer infact than it often is when I just use the player that the BBC site brings up by default.

Next step is to see if I can get a USB WiFi dongle to work, then I can try a real squezebox.

So far I think these Linkstations are great. I may get another to replace the elderly PC thats working as our mail server now.

Annoyingly ebuyer seem to have now stopped selling Linkstations. Typical, never mind, PCWorld have them.

Great, seems it has a FPU then, good news, I didn't follow Nick's link but I do recall I had to patch the mplayer libs for either a byte boundary or byte sex'ing problem which caused the streams to be garbled after a short time.

I do remember I could make the NSLU2 transcode AlienBBC, just not in real time, which was a shame coz it was so power efficient that it could be left on indefinitely.

Good stuff Nick, bet that was fun.

-- Andrew

Post by **Nick** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 8:56 pm

Great, seems it has a FPU then, good news

No, no FPU, but the patch I installed replace the bits in mplayer that were most FP intensive with a faster implementation of the needed functions.

To avoid reposting the earlier post that was geeted with howls of confusion, this seems to explain the situation with the ARm and FP.

http://linux-7110.sourceforge.net/howto ... /x1114.htm

Dave the bass · Post by **Dave the bass** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 9:27 pm

I was with you up to the first 'No', but you lost me after the second 'No' and everything thereafter .

I think I'm getting there....

DTB

PS. You should get your PIO's tomorrow Nick, they went out 1st class from Lundun Village PO Friday lunchtime.

Post by **Nick** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 9:55 pm

I was going to make some sort of comment along the line of "how do you ride a scate board with your knuckles scraping on the floor?", but given you reminded me that you have send me a couple of caps, I won't.

They arrived yesterday morning, not had a chance to try them in anything yet. Thanks Dave.

Dave the bass · Post by **Dave the bass** » Sun Feb 24, 2008 10:10 pm

Scate board? Blimey more tech talk, I'm not familliar with a scate board. Some new fangled digital thingy or summat?

I'm old skool, I like skateboards

Glad you got the caps OK, that was quick, hope you enjoy the sound.

All the best,

DTB

IslandPink · Post by **IslandPink** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 9:18 pm

There seem to be a lot of caps moving around the country .

MJ

Post by **Nick** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 9:30 pm

Bugger, Sorry Mark, I forgot I was sending you a couple of caps, I will put them in the post tommorow.

Just as well you reminded me

simon · Post by **simon** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 10:11 pm

SteveTheShadow wrote:AlienBBC sound quality is a pile of shite.

Yeah! That's what I meant!

audio-talk

Computer Audio

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