User:DancesWithCars/XOMusic

From OLPC
Jump to: navigation, search

At August 2009 OLPCLearningClub.org, Kim presented XO Music in the Cloud computing environment with several issues, imo: (Note: Prezi.com site was kewl with zooming capability for visually impaired, but said not to run on the XO Mozilla browser, iirc.)

  • Restricted, Adobe Flash dependency,
  • open source gnash browser plugin has issues with certain websites,
  • online dependency of web browsing
  • mp3 format Restricted Formats even for an open source jamemco? music library site?
  • caching and bandwidth issues (browser up on a XO-1 + media playing)

So as an alternative, to install MP3 movie and audio playing capability, some streamtuning [1] package (captured a LUG Linux on Kojo NPR talk, a very long time ago from a desktop machine with high speed wired connection), and other text browsing that might eventually become a text format alternative to the presentation

Either with a browser download the freshrpms package [2]

Note: close the browser as yum is memory intensive and may %pre %post error causing conflicts
that require a clean reinstall

start the Terminal Activity
su root # or become root icon top right
wget http://ftp.freshrpms.net/pub/freshrpms/fedora/linux/9/freshrpms-release/freshrpms-release-1.1-1.fc.noarch.rpm
rpm -ihv freshrpms-release-1.1-1.fc.noarch.rpm  
yum install mplayer streamtuner mpg321 lynx yumex
  1. yum may load package definitions, if you've never used yum on that machine, or getting current data
  2. answer some questions, Yes install, if enough space and OK with restricted formats, etc
  3. import gpg keys for repos, if OK with you to go off the yellow brick road, so to speak...

Note: The Yum (Yellow dog Linux Update Manager - written in Python for Apple Mac Linux distro at Duke, iirc) handles dependencies, but some Fedora Core 9 repos are currently timing out over the 6 month release cycle?) so gave many HTTP 404 Not Found errors, and Fedora 11 presto deltarpms will reduce bandwidth and other goodies, but will need a back ported F11 for XO-1 release...

  • Yumex is the windowed but not sugarized? yum gui, and may hang the machine, requiring hard power button off and on to reboot...
  • Lynx is a text based browser occasionally useful for quick connection low overhead/bandwidth stuff
  • Others present liked RealPlayer for streaming media from NPR,

but that is non free as well,

still run into codecs (code decode file format reading/ writing) of audio and/or video files on content offered from websites

    • and that's without DRM (Digital Rights Management, a copy protection scheme), etc

So, will see if I can do that full alternative solution...

Seems like a simple protocol like

  • HTTP, NFS/ Samba or FTP protocol
    • local or remote file service caching files
  • to your thin client like XO,
  • somehow select which files to play, maybe
  • randomplay (a perl script that randomly jumps around a directory of files) might do the trick, or at least amongst your personal collection
  • Grip will encode on a desktop with a CDRom/CDR/DVD drive).
    • Ogg is a good free format, MP3 has royalty/ restricted format issues.
  • Ogg Convert with a GUI interface on Fedora your collection to convert .mp3 to .ogg encoded formats.

And grab new interesting audio files from the web as able, save to USB or on a desktop machine, then transfer to XO or file server, or leave on USB/SD storage...

Also, I find a cheap MP3 player with USB connection,

  • (or GeeXboX a Sandisk Sansa, iPod or even a 1 Gig Colby as USB storage)
  • occasionally add external speakers like

[3] OLPC Learning Club RAFFLE WINNER! :-) for presentations, though recycled plastic instead of paper may be longer living for packing & repacking the speakers, and stronger packing material might help the rugged ways I end up carrying gear on a bike and other ways...

Or Headphones! Especially good for kids insisting on playing with Speak Activity before they know how to read/ write/ type/ not deliberately annoy grouchy old adults such as UncleCrazy...