I have been searching around the idea of a dedicated jukebox. Quite simply, I want one!
Now, I have never touch linux before and going through the forums gives me the impression that gjukebox is a feat to install. What are my chances of success in such a venture?
I got two (three) other questions..
I like the idea of the group playlists. I would certainly make use of it. But I also like having my good old regular predefined playlists. Can I do so? Can I also play such a playlist randomly?
About the album art view... Are the albums alphabetically using alblum names or are they seperated by artist? I would much prefer having all my "What Ever Named Band" albums together under "W" than spread out all over the place...
I realise that the project seems pretty much dead, but it is by far, the most interesting one I have come across. I would really like this venture to pan out.
Theytonn
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There are two main difficulties installing GJukebox:
* It's on Linux, and Linux is daunting
Linux (especially if you're not using a GUI) is notorious for being hard to use/install. But it's a reputation that's not really deserved, and if you get stuck, you can get help with it everywhere around the net. If you're familiar with the Windows command prompt, you should have few problems with Linux. If you're familiar with the OS X command prompt, you'll hardly notice the difference. If you've no real experience with command-lines or programming languages, but aren't unhappy to learn, you should also be fine.
* The last release of GJukebox was several years ago, and modern Linux distributions have changed a bit in the interim
This is the biggest problem people are seeing nowadays. There are two really big changes that have been known to cause problems: the first is that over the years since GJukebox's was written, PHP has gone through two major versions, and introduced a lot of security measures that weren't there before (that's not to say that GJukebox is insecure, merely that it'll need some major alterations before it will work on an out-of-the-box PHP5, or at all on PHP6). The other big change is that icecast was replaced with a new (incompatible) rewrite, that for some baffling reason has the same name and API (so you can install it fine, but then it won't work when you come to use it). While a lot of other programs GJukebox needs have also had new versions, they seem to be backwards-compatible.
In short: as long as you use Icecast 1 and PHP 4, and make sure you've installed the rest of the things the readme asks for, you should have a painless install.
The best and simplest solution is not to use a cutting-edge Linux distribution. While you could use an out-of-date version of a modern one, it's better to use a distribution that's still supported by security updates. In addition, you'll have better luck getting questions you have answered if you're using a current distribution. I recommend Debian's stable distribution (Etch, it's called): I've got GJukebox running on it without having to install my own versions of anything, and Debian is famous for the quality of its packaging and security updates.
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And now features:
As I understand the question you're asking about regular playlists, because it's a database, you can add the same song to as many albums as you like, without taking up any extra disk space. So to get the equivalent of a .m3u, you'd just create a new album, and put whatever songs you wanted in it. To my knowledge, it can only play these in order (because playing an album adds it to the jukebox queue in order), but it would be trivial to add an option to make it add them randomly.
Albums in the album view are grouped by artist; as you say, it would be a pain if they were all mixed together.
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A final note: yes, the project does look pretty dead, and it's certainly the case that there's no active development going on. But the code still works, it's easy to hack to your exact requirements, and there are still quite a lot of people subscribed to these forums. Chances are if anyone knows the answer, your question will get answered.
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I am the same way. I'm in the process of putting together a video jukebox also. I have my touch screen system, and have found a very nice Windoze program. First, I'd have go to ebay and buy an XP COA off of some old piece of computer hardware. Easy enough, and like $40. Then I'd buy the jukebox software, which is ANOTHER $70. The hardware I've dropped $160 on. All and all, not THAT much for a touchscreen jukebox, but if I could do it for $110 less, that's fantastic!
The bad part of everything is, I'm new to Linux. I was weened on the Commodore 64, went to the AMIGA computer, and from there on it was my TANDY 1000EX and DOS/WINDOWS ever since.
After going through and trying to find a decent distro of Linux, and have installed PCLinuxOS. Came here to download the software because it sounds excellent, but have been stalled by trying to find all of the OTHER software needed even before I get to the gjukebox.
Speaking as someone new to the OS, the fact I have to compile 75% of the software is more than most are interested in doing.
Windoze has a lot of bad things going for it, but at least the programs are ready for use. I would love to see this software in action, but fear it may take weeks to get all the software needed setup on my machine and then HOPE it works with my Linux distro. ) = Is there a binary already made for this software? I thought there was (downloaded jukebox-4.1-bin-pre4 which I thought was the binary) and extracted it, but see nothing except for analyse and playcd and they don't do anything once I double click on 'em).
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> Windoze has a lot of bad things going for it, but at least the programs are ready for use. I would love to see this
> software in action, but fear it may take weeks to get all the software needed setup on my machine and then HOPE it
> works with my Linux distro. )
Okay, not to bash gjukebox... I have been using it for years and really like it. But what you are saying here really is not true of most linux applications. There are THOUSANDS of packages and applications out there that are all ready-made. I know nothing about your distro (PCLinuxOS) but in the 3 or 4 distro's I've become used to there are tools that not only find the application you are looking for, but find all the dependencies as well.
I would love to see the gjukebox move forward and get an RPM or DEB (or both) package distributed -- though I gotta admit I am too lazy to make it happen myself. (And, to be honest, I have hacked my installed version over the years such that I'd probably have to start over from scratch).
My point here is that if this package isn't for you: it's not necessarily indicative of the entire sum of linux. It's just sat for a while with none of us bringing it up to date.
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A couple of good guides to install this have been written (by me and others) for Ubuntu/Debian in the help forums.
There are a lot of patches that need to be applied to the cvs source to make it work.
My full guide is on my site: http://danwood.org.uk/gjuke.php
PCLinux OS looks to be a Debian derivative (although the site says nothing of the sort) the same as Ubuntu so my guide should work pretty well for you if the packages are available from their software repositories.
Otherwise I would say use Ubuntu.
I'm in the process of adding my php/perl patches into the installer and will eventually upload it to my site. I'm also updating my guide for the latest version of Ubuntu.
When comparing gjukebox to the windows equivalents I ended up using gjukebox not only due to it being free but it is 100% stable, its been running in my parents bar for nearly 2 years with no failures.
When I ran a windows jukebox on the same hardware windows crashed within the first day and ended up needing to be restarted every 5 - 10 hours.
This jukebox is great and is a great project (although slightly out of date) though i've not used it for video playback only music.
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I certainly don't mean to bash Linux. Far from it. However, following the links to some of the software needed for just this program, it seems like very little is ready to run out of the box. Not a complaint, just frustration on my part. Certainly not here to start a flame war, if that term is even still used.
The Windoze program I was leaning towards is eJukebox, which comes in 3 flavors, basic, and then the other two have like web features and CD Rippers. It's supposed to be able to be able to play videos, but the .mp4 I threw at it failed, even with the proper codec's installed.
Anywho, I may just try to download one of the versions of Linux mentioned in the how-to's and go from there with the install. Since the jukebox and OS are going to be the only software installed on the computer, I really don't care about what apps are included in the distro.
Out of curiosity though, I was wondering what the system requirements are for gjukebox. I don't recall seeing them. I plan on running it on a P3 500mhz machine with 128megs of RAM. I'm using an Intel CA810E motherboard, and it's limits are I believe a 650mhz chip and up to 512megs of RAM.
Of course, if I can't find drivers for the touchscreen, I'll have to stick with Windoze anyhow since I have the native drivers for that OS.
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Actually you do care what's in the distro... A big distro, if you are missing a bit, you can just type "apt-get install foo" and you suddenly have foo (and anything it requires) installed. That is the glue that is missing in gjukebox: packaging. The other cool thing you get is updates... so that "apt-get dist-upgrade" and poof -- all updates are magically in place. But that is really not what you were asking. If I had to recommend one, I'd go with ubuntu. Its popular and has a really big base of "stuff". And if you grab the LTS version, then you get patches for 5 years. (Many of the other distros last 6 months before they are obsolete.)
My original installation of gjukebox was on a 166Mhz system. Ripping/encoding was out of the question, but really wasn't something I needed. This was many years ago and was the same time I was converting everything I owned to MP3. So I had 4 computers going pretty much non-stop doing the rip/encode, then imported everything. In fact, I ended up with some hacks and wrappers that made it such that I still import everything instead of ripping in place. Old habits die hard.
I eventually moved to a 366Mhz... then to a 1.5Ghz (which is still a crippled 6 year old system). Basically the server in my house kept getting more and more functions that required more horsepower -- but it was never due to the jukebox. Just running the web front end and the streaming back end really doesn't use much cpu.
In general, my theory of platform is "which one are you more comfortable with"? While I think unix is generally better than windows, I have seen really good winweenies run systems really well because they knew what they were doing and new the limits and benefits of their platform. (Of course, if you are looking to learn a new platform, a project like this is a good jumping off place.)
As for touchscreen... I've never gone that route. My home hardware has always been a pile of old crippled junk... waiting for someone else's junk castoffs to replace it.
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Not to get off topic, but what the heck. ( = My first DOS machine was a Tandy 1000EX which looked alot like the C=64 (keyboard and CPU housed in the same unit). I blew that up by adding, or trying to add, an ISA card into what I later found out wasn't an ISA slot. I upgraded to another Tandy 1000 SL, I believe, an XT machine that ran an 8088, MAYBE at 8mhz. Been so long I don't recall. From there I went to an AMD 386/40 w/4 megs of RAM and a 102meg HD. Less than a year ago, I actually went full force and bought an AMD QuadCore. It's running XP Pro, and can chug along fine with what I throw at it, which isn't all that much. It's actually my first top of the line computer. The 386/40 was close at the time, but Intel had come out with the 486 DX (and SX for those who remember) and I think their speed was around maybe 75mhz. I bought a P90 when the 233's came out.
Anyway, back to the jukebox and Linux. I don't really need any upgrades to the OS as long as I can get the jukebox software working. The hardware is going to be put in it's own cabinet if my plans work out, so the keyboard will be hidden away just so the system doesn't beep at boot telling me no keyboard is found.
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hey, there's probably even a firmware patch to not need the keyboard. I remember having to do that with one of my older boat anchors.
In general, I never have monitors/keyboards on my servers. (In a previous life where I actually got paid to run computers, I had racks and racks of unix boxes with nice serial consoles that could be securely accessed remotely.)
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hmmm... I hate to follow up my own post. It just hit me that you were wanting to do video (not just audio). At that point you can pretty much throw out anything I said about CPU. Depending on the resolution, you will probably need either a pretty decent CPU and/or specialized video hardware. In other words, if you are planning on decoding HD video, 500Mhz probably won't cut it.
You might also want to look at MythTV. Again, not trying to knock Gjukebox. But MythTV probably has at least spec'ed out the hardware expectations you might need. Also, it is a nice package. It is intended as a TiVo knockoff, but I think it can function as an audio/video jukebox as well. (It's been a while since I looked at it.) Also, there is a ubuntu mythtv distribution that should be pretty close to plug and play. (I haven't tried it, so don't sue me if I am lying.)
Total side note: Tivo is also a linux app. My box is seriously old and runs on a 72mhz processor... but they have dedicated hardware that does the video codecs:
bash-2.02# cat cpuinfo
processor : 0
cpu : IBM 403GCX
clock : 72MHz
revision : 20.1
bogomips : 71.88
machine : Teleworld Customer Device
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Not looking to do a video jukebox at all. Strictly MP3s. The software I was testing on the other OS said it had video playback. I tried the MP4 just to see if it worked.
I do have a CPU ( P3 / 800mhz dual processor ) running Windows Media Center 2005 and a LinkSYS MCE. Can also use the XBOX 360 as an MCE.
I did a quick check online, and it seems both the Mandrake 8.1 and RedHat 7.1 workstations are, well, were, commercial releases. I'll have to do more homework to see if any other distros are based on either of these cores.
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Personally I would go with Ubuntu.
In my guide I spent ages finding where all the dependencies were in the software repositories.
I just installed gjukebox on Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) with my guide for Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon).
There is one package that has moved places which wont install which is DBI::Shell which can be installed through CPAN instead (its a perl module).
If you can wait a few days I'm rebuilding the default installer today for Ubuntu with some extra helpers to ease the install.
I might even make a .deb (an installer) to make life even easier for you, that is if I can work out how to incorporate most of this extra stuff.
This will be available of my site once its complete!
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oops. Sorry. Not sure how I got that. If just MP3, almost any hardware can handle it. Like I said: worked fine on 166mhz as long as you don't want to rip.
All Redhat is commercial. The non-commercial arm of redhat is fedora. I.e: fedora is the "testbed" for future redhat releases.
If you are looking for releases that are "commercial worthy" -- ubuntu LTS releases fall into that. I have also used some versions of fedora in real life commercial settings, though there have been some arguably flakey releases. My old place of business still has many fedora systems live on the internet. (And this is a very large 100k+ employee company).
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-=-=-=-=-=-
If you can wait a few days I'm rebuilding the default installer today for Ubuntu with some extra helpers to ease the install.
I might even make a .deb (an installer) to make life even easier for you, that is if I can work out how to incorporate most of this extra stuff.
This will be available of my site once its complete!
-=-=-=-=-=-
That would be fantastic. I saw on ebay someone selling Redhat 7.1 work station for $20 including shipping. Still might buy it just n case.
Does anyone have any screen shots of gjukebox working?
Danny, I'll look forward to your release. ( =
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I have nearly finished the installer, just got to test it.
Download Ubuntu 8.10 and install it if you want to start, the installer will be available probably on sunday when I get a chance.
I will post back here when its up!
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-=-=-=-=-=-
If you can wait a few days I'm rebuilding the default installer today for Ubuntu with some extra helpers to ease the install.
I might even make a .deb (an installer) to make life even easier for you, that is if I can work out how to incorporate most of this extra stuff.
This will be available of my site once its complete!
-=-=-=-=-=-
That would be fantastic. I saw on ebay someone selling Redhat 7.1 work station for $20 including shipping. Still might buy it just n case.
Does anyone have any screen shots of gjukebox working?
Danny, I'll look forward to your release. ( =
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-=-=-=-=-=-
If you can wait a few days I'm rebuilding the default installer today for Ubuntu with some extra helpers to ease the install.
I might even make a .deb (an installer) to make life even easier for you, that is if I can work out how to incorporate most of this extra stuff.
This will be available of my site once its complete!
-=-=-=-=-=-
That would be fantastic. I saw on ebay someone selling Redhat 7.1 work station for $20 including shipping. Still might buy it just n case.
Does anyone have any screen shots of gjukebox working?
Danny, I'll look forward to your release. ( =
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Sorry the same message was posted so many times. Not sure why, only hit the Post Comment button once.
Anywho, as much as I wanted to use gJukebox and Linux, I was unable to find drivers for the touchscreen, so I ended up with a Windows program, eJukebox. Very nice software, but a bit pricey for me. It is what it is though.
I've bought music from both Amazon, and had a subscription to eMusic for many years. As I've found out, Amazon does a MUCH better job with ID3 tags. Will include album art on almost everything I've bought from them. eMusic barely adds the tags (most songs from them came up blank due to the software reading the ID3 tags) let alone art work.
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I have been searching around the idea of a dedicated jukebox. Quite simply, I want one!
Now, I have never touch linux before and going through the forums gives me the impression that gjukebox is a feat to install. What are my chances of success in such a venture?
I got two (three) other questions..
I like the idea of the group playlists. I would certainly make use of it. But I also like having my good old regular predefined playlists. Can I do so? Can I also play such a playlist randomly?
About the album art view... Are the albums alphabetically using alblum names or are they seperated by artist? I would much prefer having all my "What Ever Named Band" albums together under "W" than spread out all over the place...
I realise that the project seems pretty much dead, but it is by far, the most interesting one I have come across. I would really like this venture to pan out.
Theytonn
There are two main difficulties installing GJukebox:
* It's on Linux, and Linux is daunting
Linux (especially if you're not using a GUI) is notorious for being hard to use/install. But it's a reputation that's not really deserved, and if you get stuck, you can get help with it everywhere around the net. If you're familiar with the Windows command prompt, you should have few problems with Linux. If you're familiar with the OS X command prompt, you'll hardly notice the difference. If you've no real experience with command-lines or programming languages, but aren't unhappy to learn, you should also be fine.
* The last release of GJukebox was several years ago, and modern Linux distributions have changed a bit in the interim
This is the biggest problem people are seeing nowadays. There are two really big changes that have been known to cause problems: the first is that over the years since GJukebox's was written, PHP has gone through two major versions, and introduced a lot of security measures that weren't there before (that's not to say that GJukebox is insecure, merely that it'll need some major alterations before it will work on an out-of-the-box PHP5, or at all on PHP6). The other big change is that icecast was replaced with a new (incompatible) rewrite, that for some baffling reason has the same name and API (so you can install it fine, but then it won't work when you come to use it). While a lot of other programs GJukebox needs have also had new versions, they seem to be backwards-compatible.
In short: as long as you use Icecast 1 and PHP 4, and make sure you've installed the rest of the things the readme asks for, you should have a painless install.
The best and simplest solution is not to use a cutting-edge Linux distribution. While you could use an out-of-date version of a modern one, it's better to use a distribution that's still supported by security updates. In addition, you'll have better luck getting questions you have answered if you're using a current distribution. I recommend Debian's stable distribution (Etch, it's called): I've got GJukebox running on it without having to install my own versions of anything, and Debian is famous for the quality of its packaging and security updates.
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And now features:
As I understand the question you're asking about regular playlists, because it's a database, you can add the same song to as many albums as you like, without taking up any extra disk space. So to get the equivalent of a .m3u, you'd just create a new album, and put whatever songs you wanted in it. To my knowledge, it can only play these in order (because playing an album adds it to the jukebox queue in order), but it would be trivial to add an option to make it add them randomly.
Albums in the album view are grouped by artist; as you say, it would be a pain if they were all mixed together.
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A final note: yes, the project does look pretty dead, and it's certainly the case that there's no active development going on. But the code still works, it's easy to hack to your exact requirements, and there are still quite a lot of people subscribed to these forums. Chances are if anyone knows the answer, your question will get answered.
I am the same way. I'm in the process of putting together a video jukebox also. I have my touch screen system, and have found a very nice Windoze program. First, I'd have go to ebay and buy an XP COA off of some old piece of computer hardware. Easy enough, and like $40. Then I'd buy the jukebox software, which is ANOTHER $70. The hardware I've dropped $160 on. All and all, not THAT much for a touchscreen jukebox, but if I could do it for $110 less, that's fantastic!
The bad part of everything is, I'm new to Linux. I was weened on the Commodore 64, went to the AMIGA computer, and from there on it was my TANDY 1000EX and DOS/WINDOWS ever since.
After going through and trying to find a decent distro of Linux, and have installed PCLinuxOS. Came here to download the software because it sounds excellent, but have been stalled by trying to find all of the OTHER software needed even before I get to the gjukebox.
Speaking as someone new to the OS, the fact I have to compile 75% of the software is more than most are interested in doing.
Windoze has a lot of bad things going for it, but at least the programs are ready for use. I would love to see this software in action, but fear it may take weeks to get all the software needed setup on my machine and then HOPE it works with my Linux distro. ) = Is there a binary already made for this software? I thought there was (downloaded jukebox-4.1-bin-pre4 which I thought was the binary) and extracted it, but see nothing except for analyse and playcd and they don't do anything once I double click on 'em).
> Windoze has a lot of bad things going for it, but at least the programs are ready for use. I would love to see this
> software in action, but fear it may take weeks to get all the software needed setup on my machine and then HOPE it
> works with my Linux distro. )
Okay, not to bash gjukebox... I have been using it for years and really like it. But what you are saying here really is not true of most linux applications. There are THOUSANDS of packages and applications out there that are all ready-made. I know nothing about your distro (PCLinuxOS) but in the 3 or 4 distro's I've become used to there are tools that not only find the application you are looking for, but find all the dependencies as well.
I would love to see the gjukebox move forward and get an RPM or DEB (or both) package distributed -- though I gotta admit I am too lazy to make it happen myself. (And, to be honest, I have hacked my installed version over the years such that I'd probably have to start over from scratch).
My point here is that if this package isn't for you: it's not necessarily indicative of the entire sum of linux. It's just sat for a while with none of us bringing it up to date.
Hi There,
A couple of good guides to install this have been written (by me and others) for Ubuntu/Debian in the help forums.
There are a lot of patches that need to be applied to the cvs source to make it work.
My full guide is on my site:
http://danwood.org.uk/gjuke.php
PCLinux OS looks to be a Debian derivative (although the site says nothing of the sort) the same as Ubuntu so my guide should work pretty well for you if the packages are available from their software repositories.
Otherwise I would say use Ubuntu.
I'm in the process of adding my php/perl patches into the installer and will eventually upload it to my site. I'm also updating my guide for the latest version of Ubuntu.
When comparing gjukebox to the windows equivalents I ended up using gjukebox not only due to it being free but it is 100% stable, its been running in my parents bar for nearly 2 years with no failures.
When I ran a windows jukebox on the same hardware windows crashed within the first day and ended up needing to be restarted every 5 - 10 hours.
This jukebox is great and is a great project (although slightly out of date) though i've not used it for video playback only music.
I certainly don't mean to bash Linux. Far from it. However, following the links to some of the software needed for just this program, it seems like very little is ready to run out of the box. Not a complaint, just frustration on my part. Certainly not here to start a flame war, if that term is even still used.
The Windoze program I was leaning towards is eJukebox, which comes in 3 flavors, basic, and then the other two have like web features and CD Rippers. It's supposed to be able to be able to play videos, but the .mp4 I threw at it failed, even with the proper codec's installed.
Anywho, I may just try to download one of the versions of Linux mentioned in the how-to's and go from there with the install. Since the jukebox and OS are going to be the only software installed on the computer, I really don't care about what apps are included in the distro.
Out of curiosity though, I was wondering what the system requirements are for gjukebox. I don't recall seeing them. I plan on running it on a P3 500mhz machine with 128megs of RAM. I'm using an Intel CA810E motherboard, and it's limits are I believe a 650mhz chip and up to 512megs of RAM.
Of course, if I can't find drivers for the touchscreen, I'll have to stick with Windoze anyhow since I have the native drivers for that OS.
Actually you do care what's in the distro... A big distro, if you are missing a bit, you can just type "apt-get install foo" and you suddenly have foo (and anything it requires) installed. That is the glue that is missing in gjukebox: packaging. The other cool thing you get is updates... so that "apt-get dist-upgrade" and poof -- all updates are magically in place. But that is really not what you were asking. If I had to recommend one, I'd go with ubuntu. Its popular and has a really big base of "stuff". And if you grab the LTS version, then you get patches for 5 years. (Many of the other distros last 6 months before they are obsolete.)
My original installation of gjukebox was on a 166Mhz system. Ripping/encoding was out of the question, but really wasn't something I needed. This was many years ago and was the same time I was converting everything I owned to MP3. So I had 4 computers going pretty much non-stop doing the rip/encode, then imported everything. In fact, I ended up with some hacks and wrappers that made it such that I still import everything instead of ripping in place. Old habits die hard.
I eventually moved to a 366Mhz... then to a 1.5Ghz (which is still a crippled 6 year old system). Basically the server in my house kept getting more and more functions that required more horsepower -- but it was never due to the jukebox. Just running the web front end and the streaming back end really doesn't use much cpu.
In general, my theory of platform is "which one are you more comfortable with"? While I think unix is generally better than windows, I have seen really good winweenies run systems really well because they knew what they were doing and new the limits and benefits of their platform. (Of course, if you are looking to learn a new platform, a project like this is a good jumping off place.)
As for touchscreen... I've never gone that route. My home hardware has always been a pile of old crippled junk... waiting for someone else's junk castoffs to replace it.
Not to get off topic, but what the heck. ( = My first DOS machine was a Tandy 1000EX which looked alot like the C=64 (keyboard and CPU housed in the same unit). I blew that up by adding, or trying to add, an ISA card into what I later found out wasn't an ISA slot. I upgraded to another Tandy 1000 SL, I believe, an XT machine that ran an 8088, MAYBE at 8mhz. Been so long I don't recall. From there I went to an AMD 386/40 w/4 megs of RAM and a 102meg HD. Less than a year ago, I actually went full force and bought an AMD QuadCore. It's running XP Pro, and can chug along fine with what I throw at it, which isn't all that much. It's actually my first top of the line computer. The 386/40 was close at the time, but Intel had come out with the 486 DX (and SX for those who remember) and I think their speed was around maybe 75mhz. I bought a P90 when the 233's came out.
Anyway, back to the jukebox and Linux. I don't really need any upgrades to the OS as long as I can get the jukebox software working. The hardware is going to be put in it's own cabinet if my plans work out, so the keyboard will be hidden away just so the system doesn't beep at boot telling me no keyboard is found.
hey, there's probably even a firmware patch to not need the keyboard. I remember having to do that with one of my older boat anchors.
In general, I never have monitors/keyboards on my servers. (In a previous life where I actually got paid to run computers, I had racks and racks of unix boxes with nice serial consoles that could be securely accessed remotely.)
hmmm... I hate to follow up my own post. It just hit me that you were wanting to do video (not just audio). At that point you can pretty much throw out anything I said about CPU. Depending on the resolution, you will probably need either a pretty decent CPU and/or specialized video hardware. In other words, if you are planning on decoding HD video, 500Mhz probably won't cut it.
You might also want to look at MythTV. Again, not trying to knock Gjukebox. But MythTV probably has at least spec'ed out the hardware expectations you might need. Also, it is a nice package. It is intended as a TiVo knockoff, but I think it can function as an audio/video jukebox as well. (It's been a while since I looked at it.) Also, there is a ubuntu mythtv distribution that should be pretty close to plug and play. (I haven't tried it, so don't sue me if I am lying.)
Total side note: Tivo is also a linux app. My box is seriously old and runs on a 72mhz processor... but they have dedicated hardware that does the video codecs:
bash-2.02# cat cpuinfo
processor : 0
cpu : IBM 403GCX
clock : 72MHz
revision : 20.1
bogomips : 71.88
machine : Teleworld Customer Device
Not looking to do a video jukebox at all. Strictly MP3s. The software I was testing on the other OS said it had video playback. I tried the MP4 just to see if it worked.
I do have a CPU ( P3 / 800mhz dual processor ) running Windows Media Center 2005 and a LinkSYS MCE. Can also use the XBOX 360 as an MCE.
I did a quick check online, and it seems both the Mandrake 8.1 and RedHat 7.1 workstations are, well, were, commercial releases. I'll have to do more homework to see if any other distros are based on either of these cores.
Personally I would go with Ubuntu.
In my guide I spent ages finding where all the dependencies were in the software repositories.
I just installed gjukebox on Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) with my guide for Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon).
There is one package that has moved places which wont install which is DBI::Shell which can be installed through CPAN instead (its a perl module).
If you can wait a few days I'm rebuilding the default installer today for Ubuntu with some extra helpers to ease the install.
I might even make a .deb (an installer) to make life even easier for you, that is if I can work out how to incorporate most of this extra stuff.
This will be available of my site once its complete!
oops. Sorry. Not sure how I got that. If just MP3, almost any hardware can handle it. Like I said: worked fine on 166mhz as long as you don't want to rip.
All Redhat is commercial. The non-commercial arm of redhat is fedora. I.e: fedora is the "testbed" for future redhat releases.
If you are looking for releases that are "commercial worthy" -- ubuntu LTS releases fall into that. I have also used some versions of fedora in real life commercial settings, though there have been some arguably flakey releases. My old place of business still has many fedora systems live on the internet. (And this is a very large 100k+ employee company).
-=-=-=-=-=-
If you can wait a few days I'm rebuilding the default installer today for Ubuntu with some extra helpers to ease the install.
I might even make a .deb (an installer) to make life even easier for you, that is if I can work out how to incorporate most of this extra stuff.
This will be available of my site once its complete!
-=-=-=-=-=-
That would be fantastic. I saw on ebay someone selling Redhat 7.1 work station for $20 including shipping. Still might buy it just n case.
Does anyone have any screen shots of gjukebox working?
Danny, I'll look forward to your release. ( =
The bottom of this page has a shot of the metal theme:
http://www.danwood.org.uk/gjuke.php
I have nearly finished the installer, just got to test it.
Download Ubuntu 8.10 and install it if you want to start, the installer will be available probably on sunday when I get a chance.
I will post back here when its up!
-=-=-=-=-=-
If you can wait a few days I'm rebuilding the default installer today for Ubuntu with some extra helpers to ease the install.
I might even make a .deb (an installer) to make life even easier for you, that is if I can work out how to incorporate most of this extra stuff.
This will be available of my site once its complete!
-=-=-=-=-=-
That would be fantastic. I saw on ebay someone selling Redhat 7.1 work station for $20 including shipping. Still might buy it just n case.
Does anyone have any screen shots of gjukebox working?
Danny, I'll look forward to your release. ( =
-=-=-=-=-=-
If you can wait a few days I'm rebuilding the default installer today for Ubuntu with some extra helpers to ease the install.
I might even make a .deb (an installer) to make life even easier for you, that is if I can work out how to incorporate most of this extra stuff.
This will be available of my site once its complete!
-=-=-=-=-=-
That would be fantastic. I saw on ebay someone selling Redhat 7.1 work station for $20 including shipping. Still might buy it just n case.
Does anyone have any screen shots of gjukebox working?
Danny, I'll look forward to your release. ( =
I'm in the process of building a dedicated mini-itx based touchscreen jukebox and wanted to run Linux on it. I will be using your guide, Danny.
Thank you for taking the time fix this stuff up.
Sean
Sorry the same message was posted so many times. Not sure why, only hit the Post Comment button once.
Anywho, as much as I wanted to use gJukebox and Linux, I was unable to find drivers for the touchscreen, so I ended up with a Windows program, eJukebox. Very nice software, but a bit pricey for me. It is what it is though.
I've bought music from both Amazon, and had a subscription to eMusic for many years. As I've found out, Amazon does a MUCH better job with ID3 tags. Will include album art on almost everything I've bought from them. eMusic barely adds the tags (most songs from them came up blank due to the software reading the ID3 tags) let alone art work.