The mp3po Project

Background

The mp3po project intends to integrate software for the home computer so that a device can be built which better serves the needs of that enviroment. The current state of the PC market does not serve this goal well since the various wiz-bang pieces of software which allow us to use the multimedia features of modern PCs don't offer interfaces which are more appropriate to the home. They are tied to the desktop. This limits the appeal of the PC to a market which could appreciate intgration of familiar services found in electronics components today: CD players, TV's, answering machines, and audio and video recording devices. Unfortunately the modern PC requires people to learn a new interface which is less than appropriate for use in an entertainment system. mp3po is a Stereo, PC, and protocol droid.

Please read the details of the motivations behind this project.

The idea for this page is to start indentifying the various projects in the Linux community which provide the foundations for the anticipated features of mp3po. This site we will also provide information about the software and hardware which will be needed. Other informational resource link will be listed also. In other words,the information you will find here will be typical of any project.:)

Since I only started on this few months ago experience with this, I'm sure there are some good resources I have missed. Please feel free to let me know about them.

Obviously, there is a lot to do! Just because the projects below exists, doesn't mean that it will be simple matter of tying things together. If you are interested in this project let me know. If one of the other projects below suits your fancy, please visit their site and help them as much as you can. They will benifit from your efforts and so will we! That is the way of open source.

We have a site which we hope to have operational soon. This content will move there once the site is up.

News

March 6, 2000:

• Added link to PC Weasel.
• Contemplation on messaging.

February 18, 2000:

• Not much has happened this since my last entry.
• December was consumed with holidays and illness
• January is gone.
• I've got a contract job which is consuming most time.
• Good news it that it should benifit this project in several ways.
• Added link to Eazel.

.

December 17, 1999:

• Having a hard time keeping up site during the holiday season.
• Added some links to hardware reviews at Tom's.
• Realized that hardware purchase will need to wait a few months. I'm going to learn the box I have now and figure out what hardware I need. This will show were the hardware fails (like cd rip speed :( ) and let me concentrate on some long ignored tasks. It will also let me sync up the site with a better interface and some other enhancements over the next few months.

November 26, 1999:

• Cleaned up this site and began the regular maitainence phase.

November 15, 1999:

• Submit the plan to Slashdot as a suggested feature.

November 7, 1999:

• Create the first version of the site out of the bookmark list I had been maintaining.

October 15-18, 1999:

• Attended ALS. Great time! Met lots of people and discussed these ideas.
• Held a BOF that Friday to discuss the future of Linux-based MP3 players. Thanks to all those who attended. I really enjoyed our discussions. Hopefully you'll be interested in adding you're ideas to this project. Thanks again.
• Spent time after ALS developing the plan in hopes that it could be a Slashdot feature.

September 1999:

• Got slash running on a test box. Many thanks to the slash-help list.
• Realized I needed to do more work on other parts of this project before I spent much more time configuring slash.

August 1999:

• Spent month learning about the other projects on the net (those listed here) which are already well underway. Learned a lot about what it would take to build mp3po
• Came up with idea to use Slash as a project management front end.

July 1999:

• Registered the site which will eventually host this project.
• Submitted an attempt at a feature to Slashdot. Recommeded that other projects be mentioned and the work polished some.

June 1999:

• Got the idea for this site and discovered the name.

The Software

Sadly there is no software, yet. I'm currently selecting the hardware I intend to use to build mp3po. My criteria are Linux support (obviously), fitness for the task at hand, ease of assembly (want to avoid building specialized hardware), accessiblity to others (I'd like to make it easy for people who want to purchase the same hardware to use the net-based vendors), and price (the components shouldn't be too high end). I'm not against using available hardware, I simply don't have any. I encourage people to use what they have on hand. If they are like me and don't have any stuff lying around, then they can buy the same hardware I did. This way we can build support for that hardware more quickly. If there are any critizisms of the hardware I'm selecting, please feel free to let me know.

R&D

One of the goals of mp3po is to stand on the shoulders of other pojects to reduce the work we need to do and contribute to their efforts at the same time. These projects represent the work being done in the community which will make mp3po possible. The organization below reflects the subsystems of mp3po which the projects affect.

• Audio Jukebox
  • The Advanced Linux Sound Architecture project is obviously of great intrest. This project is working on defining a device interface and kernel API to allow us to interact with the features provided by sound cards. It seeks to supercede and improve on the API available with the Open Sound System drivers while keeping it all under the GPL.

  • There are several projects which could form the basis of the Jukebox application. XMMS, Cajun, LCDAT. These latter projects also help to address many of the issues which will be faced "embedding" the jukebox.

  • Some links related to CD drives and read/write software. I need to rely on the links provided by this sites until I can orginize them locally based on their relevence to the project.
    • CD Parnoia.
    • Cdrecord project page.
    • Here is some information on configuring SCSI-IDE support. I'm investigating this to see if that is source of my poor performance during ripping.
    • The CD-Writing HOWTO contains a lot of good information about the actual configuration choices for building the kernel with scsi emulation.
    • The toasting of CDR/CDRW discs section also mentions the kernel configuration options needed.
    • Linux CD-Rom Page has a nice collection of bookmarks to some good inform
    • TheCD-Recordable FAQ.
    • The Linux Kernel-HOWTO should help me build the kernel with IDE-SCSI emmulation for the cdrom. I'm trying to determine if ATAPI is the source for poor rip performance or if it's just a crummy drive.
• Electronic Messaging
  • The LinModem project seeks to suport software modems for Linux. There are a lot of features a software modem can provide, many which we hope to incorporate into mp3po. Visit their site, they have some good ideas.
  • IMAP
  • The feature I'm really starting to wonder about is mp3po as home telephone switch. I left it out of the original feature, but having the device use the dial around services to get good phone prices could be useful. This fits in with data syncing apps and messaging and lots of good stuff. I wonder what the charging model for internet connections will be in the future? IP over ATM circuits to the ISP? Does this make sense if it becomes an IP only world. Will it become such a world?
• Power Consumption
  • The ACPI4Linux project is working on supporting the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface under Linux. This is extremely important to mp3po because we will want to be efficient with power use. It will be ideal to be able to configure different power grids. If mp3po is just acting as an answering machine, there's no need to have the rest of the components on.
• Interfaces
  • The LCDProc project enables us to display Linux system status information information on an LCD panel. While it may not be advisable to display processor load, status information regarding the currently selected mode, i.e. CD player, jukebox, AM/FM, etc, is fair game.

  • The LIRC, Linux Infrared Remote Control, project supports one of the most obvious required interfaces: the remote. A remote control provides one of the best interfaces for mp3po because it is familiar, portable, and configurable. Any component for the entertainment center is expected to come with one. Besides, it allows us to avoid the complexity and cost of buttons and dials on the front panel.

  • The Linux Terminal Server Project is working on the hardware and adminstrative tools needed to make a terminal server. Since mp3po is not just an awsome home appliance but also a full-blown PC, people will be able to access their desktop apps using such devices.

  • The Eazel project looks like it might be an interesting choice for a default desktop presented to the user. I think the user needs to be able to realize problems and discover solutions at their own pace. Linux tends to have a solution to every problem. Revealing these solutions before someone realizes the problem can be confusing.
  • The PC Weasel looks like an interesting device to make not having a monitor and keyboard simple. I wonder if this could be "wired" internally to spit stuff out a modem? This probably doesn't make any sense if the modem is software (needs OS to run). Anyway, it's an interesting device and worth a link.

• Remote Interfaces
  • The Linux Terminal Server Project is working on the hardware and adminstrative tools needed to make a terminal server. Since mp3po is not just an awsome home appliance but also a full-blown PC, people will be able to access their desktop apps using such devices.
• Embedded Linux Projects
  • Micro Unices A News services for embedded unix distributions.
  • LEM: An embedded Linux distribution
  • eg3 a resource for embedded devices information.
• Video Projects
  • V4L: Video for Linux
  • V4L2: Video for Linux Two
  • LiVid: Linux DVD and Video Project

System Hardware

The CreativeLabs open source project page

The SoundBlaster Live! Linux page

A SoundBlaster Live! Linux page

Matrox Orbital LCDs

Silent Systems-Thermal Acoustic Products-Section Index

CDDA compatible drives.

Core Software Components

The XFree86 Project

X Concortium

Linux Router Project

NTP: Network Time Protocol

IMAP: Internet Message Access Protocol

DHCP: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol

Sendmail: Internet Message Router

BIND

DHCP

Diald: Network Link Management. The original site is located here. A mini-HOWTO can be found here. The 0.16 version of the software can be found here at the now renamed sunsite: MetaLab. I haven't found the more recent version talked about on the official pages. The new diald site doesn't appear to actually host the software anymore. I'm not sure where it can be found. Update 11/28/1999:I found an archive of the list at Geocrawler. The new version of the software appears to be 0.99. I found it on rpmfind.net.

• There is a good resource at Troutman.org for integrating diald into a RH5.0 setup. I'm investigating how similar this is it RH6.0.
• Here's a nice reference on pppd's demand dial. I wonder if diald or pppd'd demand dial should be used.
• I found the news post detailing similar steps to use pppd's demand dial. Both mention setting up IP masquerade. Is this necessary for local process connecting to the network?
• I was able to get pppd's demand dial to work. After having configured the RedHat 6.0 box for standard dial up usage (one box from home), I replaced the /etc/ppp/options file with this content.

  10.0.0.2:192.168.1.1
  ipcp-accept-local
  ipcp-accept-remote
  lock
  noauth
  defaultroute
  demand
  idle 600       
  	    

Educational Resources

ePanorama: Electronics Information Page

The pages which used to be at the Helsinki Univeristy of Technology www.hut.fi/Misc/Technology)

Tom's hardware: Know it in love it.

A great place to get the skinny on hardware.

• Review of Slot 1 Motherboards with the IntelBX Chipset, May 26, 1998.
• Slot 1 Chipset Comparison, November 5, 1998.
• The Chipset Guide, articles from 1997 to present.

CDPage

A nice resource with lots of information about CDs, CD Audio, and more.

Miscellaneous Resources

Deja.com the popular archive of years of Usenet traffic.

Geocrawler has loads of archives for many linux-related email disscussion lists. A nice compliment to Deja.

RPMFind is a great place to save tome time compiling software packages or get a jump start on creating a custom package.

Internet FAQ Consortium.

Basic Research

• Center for New Music and Audio Technologies at Berkeley researches the integration of technology and music. The SDIF,Sound Description Interchange Format, effort is an interesting area of research.

• The RAW project at MIT is researching "soft wire" programmable chips which allow general purpose chips to be wired for the programming task at hand. A synopsis of this project can be found here. This is just one of the many interesting projects at MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science.