Linux Rocks !
Can yell me more about the LCD display, drivers, and UI ?
I'm starting to tear down a box and want to put it to good use.
Thought about keeping notes of what all I was doing, but honestly, it'd be a book by now. But at 1K feet:
The LCD is the 631
http://www.crystalfontz.com/products/631/index.html, but I wouldn't recommend it... it's possessed with "ghosting" and is really weird 'cause it actually looks a lot better at 45 degrees... can hardly read it looking straight on. Playing with the contrast may help with that last part, but I'm probably gonna jerk it out in favor of vacuum fluorescent.
The "heart" of the application is IrMP
3 http://irmp3.sourceforge.net/. This and all it's subcomponents were where most of the "tweaks" were. Had to pull some stuff out of CVS to get what I wanted, and "massaged" the code in other places after that. But it's just what I wanted... drill down thru the directories of tunes using the remote (a cheap universal Sony via LIRC, but you can make damn near anything work)... mash a button to fire up a concert... filename or metadata scrolls across the LCD with the remaining time ticking away on the line above that... works just like a CD player with a CD-TEXT disc spinning and the added bonus of internet radidio (found a moded mpg321 for better function on that). Oh yea, it's also got about 200G of flac that you can stack up without leaving the barkalounger... yea boy. OBTW: flac123 doesn't do 24 bits, but the mod isn't hard. Let me know if you want it.
Hardware... only the short version here... I was real worried about fan noise, so I started with a VIA momboard, hit kernel.org and made my own super stripped down Linux/Busybox distro that was gonna run out of ram... shouldn't say "gonna" 'cause I got it playing tunes... got IrMp
3 firing... got the remote working... pretty much had it all there... but then I just got too damn impatient... that and I made the BIG mistake of going to my favorite electronics store for "just one thing"
Walked out with an ABit microATX, Semparon, memory stick, and an Antec Aria wrapper
http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=15130 along with that "one thing". Just to test out the concept don't ya know
Actually, this works quite well. You can't hear the cpu fan, and the big ass power supply fan is really pretty quiet... probably somewhere around refrigerator loud... even at low volume on the stereo (which rarely happens) it disappears.
Slapped on SuSE 9.3 Prof in no time and recreated the apps I had on the VIA. Used the M-Audio Audiophile 2496 since the price dropped to rock bottom on that sweet thing and Linux loves it. Only other thing hung out the back is the wireless bridge. I'm on the lappy controlling it as I write this, playing a little Two High String Band that I just torrented (is that a word?) on it, while downloading a few more... Ain't life great?
Actually the hardest part is what I first thought would be a no brainer. I really run a 19" stereo rack and trying to find a rackmount chassis to bolt in with what I want (removable RAID, quiet or no fans, screws in either the VIA or ABit, etc.) and still fit the cabinet depth has turned into a hunting trip. But that's gonna have to wait... the ARC preamp came in today... yahoo!!!
Enough of my crap... if you feel the need and got a few midnights, I say go for it guys! There's other solutions if you want to go the kbd, mouse, crt route... just search around. If you want to go with the remote method and get to the point of creating the IR receiver, I can bore ya with a cheap single part solution if you got a spare internal serial port. And if ya got any more questions, fire away.
Peace.