setup TC to as an mp3 player (newbie questions)

[bongo]

i would like to set up a notebook with TC to be used as an mp3 player, random playing music from a windows network share.
unfortunately, after installing TC, there are a few things that i can't get working 

what i did:
- i downloaded core plus 5.0 and installed it to the harddisk
- i installed a few apps and got them working
- i mounted the windows share, as described in the faq, and the share can be accessed from the shell and from the file manager
- i installed xmms, as this was the only mp3 player i could find with the app browser

what i can't get working:

- soundcard
  - my system is an ibm t21 notebook with a pentium3 cpu.
  - i can't get any sound from this notebook, as there seems to be no audio driver installed.
  - how do i get audio working? what do i have to do?

- mp3 player:
  - i only found xmms with the app browser
  - is this player ok to random play from a network drive which holds lots of mp3 files
  - if not, which player should i use?
  - when using another player, what os version do i have to install (i can nowhere see versions for TC)?

- xmms data access:
  - althoug i can see the mounted windows network drive from a shell or filemanager under /mnt/windows, this storage location is not shown within xmms. under /mnt, it shows "windows" 'as a file' that can't be opened instead of 'as a folder".
  - so what am i doing wrong
  - when copying files from the windows share to my local hd, i still can't get xmms to play the whole folder structure
  - how can i configure xmms to play all files within a folder structure?

- internet access using wired ethernet works fine, but after the problems above, i also tried to get wifi working, using a pcmcia wlan card
  - althoug the led of the wlan card goes on after booting, i see no way to configure wifi
  - i think that this wifi adapter is not supported, and i'll have to buy another one for usb

i know these are many questions to be asked within a single forum entry. should i split this into several forum entries?

please help:
  - getting sound working
  - choosing the right mp3 player for my needs
  - accessing the windows share from the mp3 player

thanx a lot!

[bmarkus]

You can try cmus. It's a nice console music player which can play mp3, ogg, flac and wav audio files.

[bongo]

thanx!

can i find cmus with the app browser within TC?

i think i first need to get the soundcard supported by TC. right?
how will i do this?

[Juanito]

- i installed xmms, as this was the only mp3 player i could find with the app browser

You don't mention which version of tc you are using, but in tc-5.x there is also rhythmbox.

  - i can't get any sound from this notebook, as there seems to be no audio driver installed.
  - how do i get audio working? what do i have to do?

Load the alsa extension - in tc-5.x just doing this may be all that is required.

  - i only found xmms with the app browser
  - is this player ok to random play from a network drive which holds lots of mp3 files

I used to do exactly this with xmms, you just need to create a playlist locally.

  - if not, which player should i use?
  - when using another player, what os version do i have to install (i can nowhere see versions for TC)?

You could also use rhythmbox - this also gives you the possibility of playing music streamed from the windows share in dlna or iTunes format without needing to mount the windows share, etc.

Enter "version" at the command prompt to know which version of tc you're using.

[bmarkus]

can i find cmus with the app browser within TC?

In 5.x x86 yes.

[bongo]

i installed TC 5.0

i added the alsa, but it still told me that it cannot open snd_... (i don't remember the exact name)
according to what i found on the web, the notebook has a Crystal Clear CL 4614 soundchip.

i don't wanna stream, just access the mp3 files, as these are located on a windows server where i don't wanna install some more software to allow streaming.

what's the reason i can't access the mounted windows drive from xmms and is there a workaround?

thanx!

[Juanito]

After loading the alsa extension, did you try this:

Code: [Select]

$ sudo /usr/local/etc/init.d/alsasound start
To mount a windows network share you need to load the cifs-utils extension and do something like this:

Code: [Select]

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/windows_share
$ sudo mount -t cifs //192.168.1.170/windows_share_name /mnt/windows_share -o user=my_name,pass=my_password,nounix,noserverino..substituting the actual ip address of the windows share for 192.168.1.170

[bongo]

i haven't done the
$ sudo /usr/local/etc/init.d/alsasound start
i thought that loading alsa should be enough. so i'll try this...

i mounted the windows drive in the way you describe, but without the "nounix,noserverino" options.
from the shell and the filemanager, i coud access the share, but not from xmms
can i expect that the "nounix,noserverino" will help?

thanx!

[Juanito]

I can access a mounted windows share from xmms, what does this show:

Code: [Select]

$ ls /mnt/windows_share/*.mp3

[bongo]

as i already wrote, access to files on the share work fine from a shell and from the file manager. i'm also able to copy files from the share to the local drive.

$ ls /mnt/windows_share
shows the subfolders on the share

but when trying to access the share from xmms, i can see /mnt as a folder, and windows_share as a filename
it at least looks like this to me, as it's in the right window.

[Juanito]

It's not really the solution to the problem, but does the following generate a playlist that xmms can use:

Code: [Select]

$ find /mnt/windows_share | grep mp3 > ~/playlist.m3u
..i.e. can you open /home/tc/playlist.m3u with xmms

[tinypoodle]

according to what i found on the web, the notebook has a Crystal Clear CL 4614 soundchip.

Doubtful.

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:T21

[Juanito]

It would probably be best to load the pci-utils/usb-utils extensions and use lspci/lsusb to be certain of the sound hardware.

[bongo]

i finally got it working, more or less...
i can get sound out of this retro notebook.

i don't really know what the problem was before, but now it works.
but i still don't know how this will look at the end, because it's not yet satisfying.

mp3 apps i tried:

rhythmbox: it starts loading songs from the network drive to the playlist, but after about 5000 songs, there is still 100% load on the network, but no more songs are added. no idea why...

cmus: couldn't find it on tc 5.0

xmms: still does not see the network drive, but when generating a playlist first with about 50000 songs and then starting xmms, it can play the songs, but it takes several minutes to start xmms. don't know what xmms does during startup to take so much time. within this time, i could even start windows and winamp, but my intension was to build a system with a short startup time,
i also couldn't find command line options to start xmms automatically playing in random mode, and it does not seem to remember the settings from the last time.

so i think i will need some more help to find a solutions.

network connection:

as it seems that the network drive has to be mounted manually again after each boot, where can i write the commands to be executed automatically?

thanx for your help!

btw: you're right, it's a cs4697 audio chip

[curaga]

mplayer seems to work well with huge playlists. It's also not available for 5.x yet, so might be better to base your project on 4.7?