[clue-tech] Low-memory laptop for a jukebox

[Chris]

On Thu, 2006-07-27 at 15:07 -0600, Matt Gushee wrote:
> Chris wrote:
> 
> > I've ripped my CD's to MP3 and have them stored centrally on my main
> > machine here at home.  I can export the directory they are stored on as
> > NFS or SMB, it doesn't matter to me but I would probably use nfs since I
> > don't have any windows machines.
> 
> I think you will have issues with network latency if you try to play the 
> tunes directly from the network drive. I don't have much experience with 
> network file systems, but offhand I think you'll probably want to do 
> something like copy the song to a temp directory on the jukebox before 
> playing it.
> 

Home network is gig-E, so copying a 3-5MB file across from a RAID drive
I can't see as being a problem, but I could be wrong.


> > The machine that I want to use as the jukebox (and that will be
> > connected to my main stereo) is an older laptop that I have.  It's an
> > IBM iSeries, which I believe is an old pentium 266MhZ machine with
> > around 128MB of ram.
> 
> Ouch. And what kind of sound quality are you expecting? Audio is one of 
> the most CPU-intensive things you can do on a computer. You can 
> certainly play MP3s on a 266MhZ machine, but it won't be a perfect 
> listening experience.

I used to listen to MP3's on a similar laptop back in the napster-era
(it was a P-266 as well) and never had issues with choppiness.  Also
remember that the sound card prolly ain't the most pristine state of the
art thing out there, but I'm just looking to do this more of a 'it can
be done, how would I set it up' type of thing and then go upgrade
hardware next year to a full PVR-type of setup.  Right now I'm just
gonna play MP3's off..


> 
> > Any suggestions?  What distro should I throw on here (no need for it to
> > run X),  any suggestions for a jukebox, etc?
> 
> You might try AGNULA/DeMuDi (http://www.agnula.org/). It's a 
> Debian-based distro that is specialized for audio. You probably don't 
> need a lot of the music software that comes with it, but what you really 
> want is the AGNULA kernel, which is configured by serious audio 
> developers who I think know what they're doing--at least, more so than 
> any of us here. I haven't used it myself, because I don't have a 
> dedicated audio box, but it seems to be the main distro used by people 
> who are serious about working with music on Linux. I imagine it includes 
> some kind of jukebox software.
> 


I'll definitely  check that out, the rest of my home systems are
debian-based and it would be nice to keep that from a look - and - feel
perspective.


FYI I did manage to get Mandrake installed on this machine (a little
dated, it's 10.1) but it DOES run much to my surprise.  Maybe I can use
something mainstream at the stripped down level after all.