RE: [misterhouse-users] Low power consumption PC

[Gray, T. <Tim...@ca...>]

I use soundblaster AWE32 soundcards. although soundblaster 16 soundcards
will work too..
 
what do you mean by a host of other programs?  I run it as a server.  No
graphical GUI. text only on the machine.. and it is never ever logged into
unless I am performing maintaince work.. I.E. changing configurations that I
cannot change or dont want to change from a SSH session.  I have 2 zones as
in...  Mister-house voice in zone 1 and mp3 playback in zone 2... this is
simple as compiling into the mp3 playback program what device to use..
/dev/dsp2 in MAD in my example)
 
the key to doing what I am doing is using the high performance software for
linux...  MAD for mp3 playback.. you cant download a ready to run version
you have to copmpile it and install it by hand.  thttpd for my webserver
software (again download+ compile) and run a custom kernel that is smaller
and faster than anything that comes with redhat or slackware.  Also I am
using slackware, a stripped down version that does not have any un-needed
extras.  I dont use the VR for misterhouse, no email, no GUI.... 
 
Yes, in a nut-shell... if you are willing to take the time and really strip
things down and do most of the work by hand...  you can run misterhouse and
a few other server/ small apps.    webcams take up almost ZERO processing
power except for the small 1/5th a second every minute to convert from tiff
to jpg, same as webserving with thttpd. the biggest load is from playing
mp3's and the Text to voice. flite makes it easier to do text to speech on
the computer... and that is what I use.  
 
I hope this helps..  What I am doing is by no way an easy -just-install-
task. it took 2 months of tinkering and compiling to get it the way I want
it.  eventually I am going to get everything installed on a CF card in a IDE
to CF adapter and run out of a ramdisk (mp3 playback via NFS or SMB mount to
the media-server) to further reduce my MH system to become an appliance that
is integrated with my ADICON system. that way reboots will not be a problem,
and I am hoping to get the total power consumption for the MH server to be
less than 20 watts with no fans. I am replacing the ATX power supply with a
12 volt  ATX power supply designed for the ITX formfactor motherboards that
way it can run on battery backup for hours without shutting down.
 
if you have any more specific questions please feel free to ask, but I dont
run the latest MH, I gave up on that cince I cannot resolve the
flite/festival wierdness with it starting to repeat everything it says after
15 minutes of running... so I use an older version. I also do not run perl
version greater than 5.00x.
 
 
 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Larry Roudebush [mailto:lo...@co...]
Sent: Monday, January 06, 2003 12:56 PM
To: mis...@li...
Subject: Re: [misterhouse-users] Low power consumption PC


So in a nut shell if I switched from running windows over to linux,  my
233mhz system wont have any problems running mh and a host of other
programs.  It seems like when I run win2000, the speech pauses soo much.
Linux would not have this issue?  Could you tell me what soud card(s) you
are running to get that 2 sound zones?  Currently my MH runs a dual boot
system with win2000 and redhat 7.2.  
 
Thanks Larry

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Gray, Tim <mailto:Tim...@ca...>  
To: 'mis...@li...'
<mailto:'mis...@li...'>  
Sent: Monday, January 06, 2003 9:00 AM
Subject: RE: [misterhouse-users] Low power consumption PC

I run MH on a Pentium 233MMX machine I have in a 2U rackmount case. I
purchased a 60Watt slimline power supply for it and have it running from a
laptop hard drive.
 
Total power draw is 36watts. with it running happily. with all my webcams on
it and a 8 port Cyclades serial card.
 
If you use MAD for the mp3 playback and the embedded version of Festival for
the speech AND use slackware for the linux install it has plenty of
processing power, does everything I want it to do.
 
you dont need massive computing power for MH unless you are running a
Microsoft Operating system.
 
2 sound zones - playing 2 mp3 playback lists plus processing MH scripts and
serving webpages to the internet with webcams...  works great and uses very
little power.
 
Now, doing what I have done is NOT for the person that is a newbie.  I have
been using linux cince the 1.2x kernel days, and have been a computer
software/hardware professional for over 10 years.  It takes patients and
reading alot on low-power/embedded systems to do this..... but it is very
possible.