MoviX v0.8.1
Author: Roberto De Leo
March 1st, 2004
What is it?
-----------
MoviX is a mini Linux "live CD" distribution containing all the software
to boot from:
CD/HD partition (either Linux or Winblows)/USB pen/CompactFlash card/Net
and start a console menu from which you can play, thanks to the great
MPlayer package (http://www.mplayerhq.hu/), most of the audio/video files
out there (and, if you are lucky, also internet radios and TV :-)
If you already tried MoviX2, this is basically the same thing but it does not
use X [so it is much smaller!] and the menu is written in Perl [so it is much
easier to develope and customize!].
Moreover, it supports TV-out for [at least!] ATI, Matrox, NVidia, CastleRock,
Savage and Trident cards.
Supported formats are all formats supported by mplayer, most noticeably
DivX and QuickTime but more in general any DVD, VCD, AudioCD, avi, mpeg,
ogm, wmv, asf, fli and a few others.
BTW, MPlayer reads also mp3 & ogg/vorbis files, so you can also use it to
play music!
Thanks to the 'fbi' application is also possible visualize the following
images format: PhotoCD, jpeg, ppm, gif, tiff, xwd, bmp and png.
MPlayer supports playlists so you can also use it to play in the order
you want any number of audio/video files.
If you are interested you'll find a copy of the config files for mplayer
and the linux kernel in the main dir of this package.
All relevant MoviX configuration files and scripts are in the src/movix
folder from where will be automatically loaded in RAM at boot time, so
if you want to make any change to them it is enough to change those
files and make a new CD.
If you make some nice improvement please let me have a patch!
How is it done?
---------------
MoviX is all made from software already available on the net.
Here is a list of the main packages I used:
syslinux v2.08
bootsplash 3.0.7
linux kernel v2.4.22
slackware v8.1
mplayer v0.92
fbi v1.28
Perl 5.8.0
Curses-UI 0.76_01
BusyBox 0.60.5
ALSA 1.0.0rc2
All I did is just put these pieces of software together :-)
From the Slackware CD, that uses SysLinux to boot, I extracted
the ramdisk that I slightly modified getting rid of a lot of
unneeded files and adding all possible audio modules for kernel
v2.4.22 and of course the MPlayer.
The menu has been written all in Perl using the nice Curses::UI
module made by Maurice Makaay (now mantained by Marcus Thiesen).
Want to help?
-------------
There are literally _tons_ of feature that may be added to this menu.
I will never have time to add them all and in the future I will not
have so much time to spend on this projet, so if you like it and want
to help improving it just drop me an email!
Documentation
-------------
I strongly hope the few lines I wrote in the menu will be enough
to make everybody able to use it succesfully.
Hopefully someone eventually will improve the menu adding a help
and the many features that can be introduced.
Requirements
------------
--> Software:
The only thing you need to use MoviX is a software package to
produce the bootable isoimage and one to burn the image on CD.
On both Linux and M$ Window$ you can use mkisofs & cdrecord,
that you can get from
ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/cdrecord/
Working copies of mkisofs.exe and cdrecord.exe are included in the
file MoviX_Win32_Script.zip packaged by Christophe Paris and available
for download in the usual MoviX download page
Window$ users may be interested in downloading the Win32 MoviX setup
installer packaged by Clovis Sena (csena2k2@users.sf.net) that allow
to build very easily MoviX ISO images to be burned later on CD with
cdrecord, Nero or similar software.
There are also different Win32 setup packages recently built by Kangur,
you can get them at
http://www.movixisocreator.prv.pl/
Of course it does not matter with which application you write
the image on the CD, but you cannot make the iso image in the
usual easy way because you want it to become bootable.
--> Hardware:
CPU
Only x86 compatible are supported, and only >= i586.
RAM
MoviX needs at least 64MB but it may work even with as low as
32MB if you have a Linux swap partition with >=32MB on your HDD.
==> NOTE: in order to keep MoviX working with as few as 64MB a few features
may be automatically disabled by the movix script, namely:
1. Win32 codecs support
2. Samba support
3. Multiple MPlayer subtitles character sets
MICE
Thanks to Marcus Thiesen, current mantainer of the Curses::UI
package, finally MoviX supports mice!!!
Mice support is a new thing for MoviX and therefore do not get surprised
if you meet problems with it, but most likely standard USB and PS2 mice
should work fine.
If you have a serial mouse then you most likely will have to use the
boot arg 'MOUSE=serial'.
WARNING: currently there is no way to have at the same time a remote and
a mouse working at the same time.
CONTROLLERS
All IDE and SCSI controllers supported by kernel 2.4.22 are supported.
Be aware that some new IDE controller is known to be unsupported
(e.g. SATA controller on Abit NF7-S MB) and this may cause MoviX to
fail booting.
VIDEO CARDS
It is not easy to say on which video cards MoviX will work.
Cards brand that are generally known to work are:
Matrox
Ati
NVidia
3Dfx
Intel
Sis
S3
Trident
VIA CastleRock
DXR3/H+
but it is likely that the majority of video cards will work fine.
**DXR3/H+ CARDS NEWS**
Thanks to the kind donation of a H+ card by Ulrich Gierschner, I finally
managed to produce working modules fot the DXR3/Hollywood+ cards!
Thanks Ulrich!!!
If your video card is so strange that no video driver works with it, you
can still use the "aa" mplayer driver: ok, it is ASCII visualization but,
what the hell, it works! :-)
If your video card works with MoviX please let me know so that
I can start writing a database of cards known to work.
**KNOWN DXR3/H+ CARDS PROBLEM**
DXR3 modules (http://dxr3.sf.net/) are not yet able to autodetect the
specific chipsets used in the card (apparently there are *many* different
combinations) so it is likely that your card won't work with the standard
settings.
In this case go in the Edit->DXR3 menu and try different combinations of
the parameters until your card is able to visualize anything.
If nothing works drop me a note.
AUDIO CARDS
MoviX makes use of the ALSA sound drivers.
A complete list of all supported cards with detailed info on each of them
is available form the ALSA home page at
http://www.alsa-project.org/
In case your card has problems with ALSA, you can still try the old OSS
modules using the "OSS=y" option at the boot [after a very nice patch
by William Daniau].
If you have more than one card on your PC, you can choose the one you want
with the "AUDIO=n" boot arg, where n=1,2,... [0 is the default value].
Unfortunately there is no way to know which number will be assigned to each
card so you'll have to make experiments :-)
**DIGITAL OUTPUT**
If you don't get any audio from your digital output (SP/DIF),
you can activate it through the mixer unmuting by hand the
digital audio channel (usually called 'IEC958 Output' or
something similar).
Just by pressing the 'm' key to mute/unmute a channel.
You are advised to mute the PCM channel since you may get loud
noises from the analog output while the digital channel is on!
**KNOWN ISA AUDIO CARDS PROBLEM**
If you have an ISA card, it may fail to be automatically detected.
In this case try first of all to use the "DETECT=all" boot argument to
let the system try all possible audio modules available.
If you are brave enough :-) , you can boot with the "AUDIO=n" boot arg
(so that audio is not loaded at all) and try to load by hand the right
driver with "modprobe".
If nothing works, drop me a note and cross your fingers :-)
ETHERNET CARDS
All cards supported by kernel 2.4.22 are supported.
REMOTES
Remotes support has been improved in this version.
Tested working remotes are:
1. Hauppauge remotes bundled with TV cards
2. AST Logitech serial remote
3. Pinnacle PCTV (41 keys)
4. Hauppauge serial remotes
5. Abit - Tecram IR-mate 210
6. Sigma RealMagic
7. Grundig serial remote
8. Kingman serial remote
9. Toshiba remote
To make new remotes work with MoviX, a line must be added to the
src/movix/remotes.data listing the model, the driver name, the device
that lircd uses with it and the kernel modules needed to be loaded.
This is necessary because unfortunately some serial remote uses the
standard Linux serial driver while other serial remotes use the lirc's
own serial driver and so on.
If you have a remote working on your Linux box, please help the
project support new remotes sending directly to me or in the movix
forums all data needed to activate your remote!
USB
All relevant USB devices supported by the 2.4.22 kernel should be
automatically used by the system.
FireWire
All relevant FireWire devices supported by the 2.4.22 kernel should be
automatically used by the system.
Installing MoviX on a CD
------------------------
--> ISO package
Usually a few days after a new version is out I upload a .zip file
containing a ready-to-be-burned bootable MoviX ISO image, so if you are
particularly lazy you can get that and skip the rest of this section
***unless you want to make any change to the standard settings***
It is possible that you may modify the stabdard ISO package with the win32
utility WinISO (www.winiso.com). The application is not open but it is free
to us it to modify small ISOs.
--> Win32 Setup
Thanks to Clovis Sena & Kangur, all *MoviX* distros have now a Win32
installation file, so if you are a WinXX user you may use that file to
create a customized ISO image and skip the rest of this section.
You can get these packages in the usual MoviX download directory and at
http://www.movixisocreator.prv.pl/
--> MoviXMaker
Thanks to Pascal Giard there is now a GNU/Linux Perl GTK+/Gnome/GladeXML
interface to help you create customized ISO images for [e]MoviX[2] in secs!
New MoviXMaker packages are available at
http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/movixmaker/
--> Custom setup for Win & Lin OS
If you are not familiar with the procedures to create a bootable CD,
below you get step-by-step instructions for Linux & M$ Window$.
0. Let's assume your untarred MoviX package is in /usr/local/movix-0.8.1/
1. cd in the "/usr/local/movix-0.8.1/" folder :-)
2. There are a few packages you may want to download (I stopped including
them in this package to make it as small as possible, but they are present
in the ISO package).
To "install" the packages, all you have to do is copying the archives in
the src/mplayer/codecs directory.
Do *not* unpack the files, just copy the whole archive(s) you want to use.
Here is the list:
- Win32 codecs
http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/win32codecs.tar.bz2
- QuickTime6 DLLs
http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/qt6dlls.tar.bz2
- RealPlayer9 codecs
http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/rp9codecs.tar.bz2
- RealPlayer Win32 codecs
http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/rp9win32codecs.tar.bz2
- XAnim DLLs
http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/xanimdlls.tar.bz2
3. If you want to be able to play your DVDs, you probably need to include the
libdvdcss library.
DISCLAIMER: the libdvdcss library makes use of the DeCSS algorithm,
that has been declared *illegal* in some country (e.g. USA and Germany),
so before adding it I suggest you to make sure it is ok to use it
in your country.
I am in no way responsible of what you put in your MoviX version.
If using the libdvdcss is legal in your country you can get a copy from
http://download.videolan.org/pub/libdvdcss/
Just get the latest rpm package and put a copy of it in the src/movix dir.
4. If you speak french, italian or spanish you may replace all txt files
of the src/isolinux directory with the corresponding files of the
boot-messages/fr or boot-messages/it or boot-messages/es directories.
5. If you know what you are doing, feel free to modify the configuration files
in src/movix :-)
6. Create the .iso file running
sh mkmovixiso.sh
or
mkmvxiso.bat
depending on the degree of Micro$oft-ness of your OS :-)
The scripts output the iso image in /tmp/movix.iso or
c:\temp\movix.iso respectively.
Edit the scripts if you want to change this setting.
7. Write the iso image with any package you like.
E.g. with cdrecord you'd write something like:
cdrecord dev=0,0 -v -eject /tmp/movix.iso
If everything went fine, the CD you produced should be a bootable CD
and it will automatically boot and start the MoviX menu.
==> NOTE: if you are a window$ user, you probably want to use
Christofe Paris scripts! Read above about how to get them.
Installing MoviX on a HD partition
----------------------------------
- Linux partitions
If you have a Linux box installed on your PC, chances are you use LILO as a
boot loader.
Starting from v0.8.1pre1 MoviX is able to boot from HD with LILO if you
append to your /etc/lilo.conf file an entry similar to the one you can find
inside the package file extras/hd/linux/lilo.conf.movix
All you have to do is copying the content of the 'src' directory of this
package in some directory, e.g. under /movix/, and adjust accordingly the
lilo.conf.movix 'image=' and 'initrd=' entries.
Moreover, you should modify the variables MD, MP and MF so that they contain
respectively the hd number [0 = 1st disc of the primary IDE channel and so on]
and the partition number corresponding to the partition containing the movix
folder and the actual name you chose for the movix folder [if you called it
/movix/ you don't even need to modify MF at all].
Thanks to Balazs Barany now there is also a grub.conf.movix sample equivalent
of the lilo.conf.movix file for those of you grub-lovers.
- Windows partitions
To boot MoviX from WinXX you need the loadlin package by Hans Lermen
(http://elserv.ffm.fgan.de/~lermen/).
Since the loadlin.exe binary is very small I included it in this package
inside the extras/hd/windows/ folder.
All you have to do is copying the loadlin.exe file in some directory included
in your PATH (e.g. in c:\windows\command), copying the content of the 'src'
directory of this package in some directory, e.g. in c:\movix, moving the
extras/hd/windows/wininit.gz file in the c:\movix folder and copying
somewhere, say in c:\movix, the extras/hd/windows/movix.par file
(give a look to the file to verify that the data inside it correspond
to your setup!).
At this point, boot your PC in DOS mode, open a MS-DOS prompt shell, cd in
the c:\movix folder and run the command
loadlin @movix.par
WARNING: with some video card (e.g. Ati Radeon VE) the video gets totally
messed up when you start MoviX after having booted in windows (e.g. WinXX).
In this case, to run MoviX from your windows partition you *must* press
F8 before windows starts booting and then choose the option
"Start with a MS-DOS promtpt" (don't remember exactly the line but hope
you got the idea) and run loadlin as explained above.
Booting MoviX from the Net
--------------------------
It is not clear whether this feature is really useful but I used it to test
MoviX on a discless EPIA board and so why not to explain how to do it? :-)
Ingredients:
0. a PC with a NIC where to boot MoviX ;-)
1. a dhcp server [look in extras/net for a very simple dhcpd.conf sample]
2. a tftp server [for several reasons it is a good idea using the hpa-tftp
server: ftp://www.kernel.org/pub/software/network/tftp/]
3. a nfs server [you need to export the server movix dir]
4. the pxelinux.0 from the SysLinux distro (included inside extras/net of
this package) if you have a PXE compliant NIC
or
a initrd.nb file (read below how to generate it) if your card is not
PXE compliant
5. a file called 'default' where the boot options will be kept - you will find
a sample copy of it as extras/net/default in the movix tarball
Recipe:
0. create the /tftpboot dir and run the tftp server so that it serves files
from there
**WARNING**: tftp daemons can be run in two ways: in one they *need* an
absolute path of the packages to download; in the other they *need* a
relative path, relative with respect to the base dir specified, e.g.,
in the command line.
THIS MEANS that you *have* to use either an absolute or a relative path
for the 'filename' field in dhcpd.conf according to how your tftpd is
configured!
1. create a /tftpboot/movix directory and copy there the contents of the
'src' dir of this package
2. create a /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg directory and copy there the
extras/net/default file
3. start your daemons, boot your client and cross your fingers ;-)
Creating a initrd.nb image to boot from the net
-----------------------------------------------
You do not need this if you are lucky enough to have a PXE compliant NIC.
If you don't but you have a linux installation then follow this short
instructions:
0. go to the http://www.rom-o-matic.org/ and get a bootable floppy image
for your NIC (you'll find instructions there on how to do that)
1. download & install the latest mknbi package from the
http://etherboot.sf.net/ web site
2. use the included mknbi.sh script to produce an initrd.nb
3. set up everything as explained in the previous section using in the
dhcpd.conf file the line relative to the .nb image rather than the
the pxelinux.0 one
4. boot your client from the rom-o-matic floppy you prepared
Booting MoviX from the Net without a NFS server
-----------------------------------------------
Setting up a NFS is the easiest solution but you may not like it for
security reasons (even though a firewall may fix these problems) or
simply because your server is not Unix.
In this case you can still boot MoviX thanks to a patch by Balazs Barany!
All you have to do is following the instructions above and then:
a. create a tarball with just the dirs movix and mplayer
(e.g. "tar -cvzf mymovix.tgz movix mplayer")
NOTE that the tarball *must* contain the 'movix' and 'mplayer' dirs
in its root.
b. put the tarball somewhere under the /tftpboot directory
(e.g. /tftpboot/movix/mymovix.tgz)
c. add the boot arg 'MD=/tftpboot/movix/mymovix.tgz' to all boot labels
in the 'default' file
WARNING: for the variable 'MD' it holds the same warning made above for
the 'filename' dhcpd field: the path must be either absolute or relative
according to how your tftp server is configured!
At the boot the MoviX scripts should be able to find the tarball, download it
and untar it.
Installing MoviX on USB Pens & CompactFlash cards
-------------------------------------------------
Starting from this release, a script has been added to let you install MoviX
on your USB pen or CompactFlash card with no hassles.
MoviX distro size varies from ~20MB to ~30MB depending on how many codecs you
decide to include in the src/mplayer/codecs directory, so you need for it a
USB pen/CompactFlash card with >=32MB.
You can install MoviX simply going in the 3rd console and running the script
'install.pl'.
If you still prefer to do everything by hand, in next two sections you'll
find the instructions to install the MoviX files by hand.
Installing MoviX on a CompactFlash card
---------------------------------------
Starting from MoviX 0.8.1pre1 it is possible to install MoviX on Compact
Flash cards!
The installation procedure differs slightly according to whether the card is
connected to the PC through an IDE interface or a USB one.
In the last case, follow these instruction and then go ahead and follow also
the ones in the next section ("Booting from a USB pen").
==> Making the card bootable
You need to use SysLinux to make a card bootable.
You can get the SysLinux package from
http://syslinux.zytor.com/
It contains the syslinux executables for both Linux and WinXX.
Linux Instructions:
To make bootable your card, just run
syslinux /dev/XXX
where XXX is the card partition [not the device! For example, if the
card device is /dev/sda then the partition is /dev/sda1].
Windows Instructions:
I don't know for sure, but I think that it should be something like
syslinux X:
where X is the device letter associated to the card.
If you try it out please report!
==> Copying the right files in the right place
1. mount the card with something like:
mount /dev/sda /mnt -t vfat
[don't need to do that in DOS ;-) ]
2. copy the extras/flash/syslinux.cfg file in the flash card
3. edit the card syslinux.cfg and change the MD variable so that it
corresponds to the flash card number as an IDE device [e.g. if you have
two IDE HDs then Linux will see your card as IDE device 2, while if you
have no HD then the flash card IDE device will be 0].
4. create a 'movix' directory in /mnt with
mkdir /mnt/movix
and copy all 'src' files there with
cp -R src/* /mnt/movix/
5. move a few files in the flash card root:
mv /mnt/movix/isolinux/kernel/vmlinuz \
/mnt/movix/isolinux/initrd.gz \
/mnt/movix/isolinux/*txt \
/mnt/movix/isolinux/mov* \
/mnt
8. now you can boot from the flash card and enjoy ;-)
Installing MoviX on a USB pen
-----------------------------
Starting from version 0.8.1pre1, MoviX is finally able to boot from USB pens!
These same instructions are also good [I hope!] for booting a CompactFlash
card from a USB interface.
The instructions to install MoviX on a USB pen are the same as for a
CompactFlash card except for the fact that to boot from a USB pen
(or CompactFlash card with USB interface) you have to use the
extras/usb/syslinux.cfg file rather than the one found on the extras/flash/
folder.
Booting from USB though requires sometimes some extra wizardry.
I myself have been able to boot my EPIA M-10k from my USB stick only after
Pascal Giard sent me this very precious link I suggest you to read carefully:
http://rz-obrian.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de/knoppix-usb/
The main info I extracted from there is that on some MB you have to enable the
USB Keyboard support in your BIOS or no USB will be able to boot, and moreover
that it is better to insert the USB device when the PC in not only turned off
but also *unplugged* or the BIOS may not detect its presence and so it won't
be able to boot.
Following these directions Roberto has been able to boot from EPIA board
(very slowly unfortunately because he has a USB 1.1 pen). But we didn't
succeed with other MBs that, in principle, are supposed to boot from USB
devices (Roberto: Asus A7V-E, Pascal: Asus A7V-X), so do not expect 100%
chance of succeding: evidently USB boot is not very mature yet.
There's an easy way to bypass all this: the next MoviX boot floppy will
be able to look for USB devices and boot from them, so if your BIOS won't
let you boot the good ol' floppy will fix this :-)
Pls report any suggestion or success/failure about USB boot!
Usage
-----
--> Boot
Boot your PC from a MoviX CD.
You have several option for the boot:
BOOT LABELS
MoviX This is the default label and should be able to select
automatically the best mplayer options for you video card.
It makes use of the SuperBesaFB driver and will let you
change resolution "on the fly".
vesaFB640, vesaFB800, vesaFB1024, vesaFB1400
Fixed-resolution vesaFB modes. Try this if the default
label give you a blank screen.
FB This uses the Linux FrameBuffer driver specific for your
card (if any). It is usually faster than the generic fb
above but it works on fewer cards.
vesa This driver should work with most cards around but most
likely the MoviX menu will mess up soon and you'll have
to reboot often.
Use it as a last resource.
TV Using this option, the code needed to activate your card
TV-out is automatically used by the setHardware.pl script.
Supported cards are Ati, Matrox, NVidia, S3 Savage and Trident.
Probably also Voodoo and other cards work but I do not know,
so let me have some feedback!
NVidiaTV This is a label like TV, but it's especially meant for NVidia
cards. Please give us feedback if it doesn't work with your card.
To boot with a label different from the default one, just write the
label at the boot prompt and press ENTER.
There are also two extra labels that can be useful too when you
forget a MoviX CD in your drive:
hd - forget the CD and boot from the HD
floppy - forget the CD and boot from the Floppy
Thanks a lot to Christophe Paris for this nice suggestion,
I use it many times a day!
There are also a few boot parameters you can use:
BootArgs Values Effect
acpi off Turn off ACPI support. ACPI is a PowerManagement software
especially useful on laptops to avoid discharging your
battery in just a few minutes.
HOWEVER ACPI is still buggy and IT IS KNOWN TO HANG the
boot on some machine, so if you can't boot your MoviX
copy try first of all to turn off the ACPI.
MOUNT n Do not let the movix script to mount your HD partitions.
DMA n Do not try to activate DMA on CD drives.
Use this if during the boot process your CD seems to cause
a mess of error messages.
ACCEL hw,sw,no Force MoviX to use hw, sw or no rescaling.
DETECT all Use the old hw detection method, i.e. try all possible
modules until the right ones are found.
Use this if your audio card is not detected by the
default method.
OSS y Use OSS audio modules instead of the new ALSA
(use this if your audio card is not detected even
with DETECT=all)
AUDIO 1,2,.. If you have more than one card and get no audio from
your speakers, then probably MoviX choose the wrong one.
Try "AUDIO=1" to use your second card and so on.
Use "AUDIO=n" to skip audio autodetection if you need
to load audio modules by hand.
USB n Do not activate USB support
IEEE1394 n Do not activate IEEE1394 support
LANGUAGE Set the menu language *and* keyboard layout (unless
explicitly set to something different).
Currently works for: de it pl pt
KB Set keyboard layout to either one of:
de es fr hu it nl no pl pt ru us (default)
REGION Either one of: NTSC, NTSC-J, PAL, PAL-B,
PAL-M, PAL-NC, PAL-60, PAL-M60 or SECAM.
This is needed if you use the "TV" boot
label unless you have an Ati card.
TVCARD 1,2,.. Specify your TV card type if autodetect fails
TVTUNER 1,2,.. Specify your TV tuner type if autodetect fails
Check http://bt848x.sourceforge.net/config.en.html
for a complete list of cards & tuners.
SCSI Force MoviX to load the SCSI module.o module
(e.g. "SCSI=tmscsim")
REMOTE Tell MoviX to initialize your remote.
Models currently supported:
hauppauge - TV card Hauppauge
haupserial - Hauppauge serial
hauppauge2 - Hauppauge serial
logitech - Logitech serial
pctv - Pinnacle serial
abit - Tecram IR-mate 210
realmagic - Sigma RealMagic
grundig_tp720 - Grundig serial
kingman_code_026 - Kingman
toshiba - Toshiba remote
MENU mplayer Start automatically the MPlayer menu
after the boot.
SLOW n Do not try to slow down the CD/DVD speeds in order to
minimize the noise.
TELNET y Turn on the movix telnet daemon at boot time
WARNING: this is a security hazard, usi it only in
within a secure network since everybody will be able
to log as root on your PC!
IP Set your IP number by hand
(pointless if there's a DHCP server in your network)
GW Set your gateway IP number by hand
(pointless if there's a DHCP server in your network)
DNS Set your dns IP number by hand (set to GW if omitted)
(pointless if there's a DHCP server in your network)
MOUSE Set mouse type if autodetection fails.
Known types: serial, ps2, usb
MOUSE_DRV Set explicitly the gpm mouse driver to be used.
MOUSE_DEV Set explicitly the mouse device to be used.
splash verbose Do not hide kernel boot messages.
Example
Boot with the default label, do not rescale the video, use the second audio
card and a Logitech remote:
boot: MoviX ACCEL=no AUDIO=1 REMOTE=logitech
--> Customizing the default boot parameters
- Boot Label
If you want to boot by default with a boot label different from MoviX2
then you should edit the src/isolinux/isolinux.cfg file and modify its
very first line.
- Boot Args
If you use often certain boot arguments, you can avoid having to digit them
at every boot writing a file called 'bootrc' containing all your args one
per line and putting the file in the src/movix/ directory.
E.g. if you use always "ACCEL=no AUDIO=1 REMOTE=logitech KB=it" then you
can use the following file:
# <--------- bootrc sample
ACCEL=no
AUDIO=1
REMOTE=logitech
KB=it
# ---------> end of bootrc sample
Boot args passed at the boot prompt have higher priority than the ones
written in the bootrc files, so in the few cases you don't want your default
options you have a way to override them.
--> Configuration File
Starting from MoviX 0.8.0, it is possible to load/save from/to
floppy a movix configuration file containing all possible parameters
that you can set from the MoviX menu.
The name of this file is 'movixrc'.
Writing it by hand is not trivial and it is highly discouraged.
The best way to generate is using the "Edit->Save config" menu of MoviX:
once you find your favorite configuration, save it on a floppy and
either use the floppy every time to load the config file using the
"Edit->Load config" menu or burn a new MoviX CD after putting the
movixrc in the src/movix/ directory.
This way, the movixrc file will be automatically loaded at boot time
by the movix scripts.
NOTE that if you boot from a 'writable' device, e.g. a USB pen or a
HD partition, then you can save the config files directly there
using the "Edit->Save config" menu.
You can also save audio mixer settings to floppy in the same way you save
movixrc. To load automatically this settings when MoviX start, just put
asound.state from the foppy (or your favorite GNU/Linux distro) in src/movix/
and burn a new MoviX CD.
BEWARE: if you use such a "customized" MoviX CD in a different PC,
remember to remove the movixrc using the "Edit->Remove config" menu
or there will be an inconsistency between MoviX config data and the
actual hw of the PC and therefore much likely MoviX won't be able
to do much.
MoviX Menu
----------
If the menu starts, you can safely remove the MoviX CD and use the console
menu to load&play any DVD/VCD/Audio CD/file you want.
==> DVDs
*** IMPORTANT DVD NEWS ***
Because of the DeCSS legal problems, no MoviX distro can read crypted
DVDs unless *you* add *by your own* the libdvdcss.so library to the distro.
Read above what to do if in your country is legal to use the DeCSS algorithm.
**********************
Starting from v0.8.0, thanks to a very nice patch by Max Weninger,
the DVD menu will automatically look for the movie track among the
[usually many] DVD tracks and will at the same time fill the "DVD tracks"
menu with a list of all tracks available.
All audio and subtitles available languages will be also shown so that
you can choose your favorite ones.
To avoid having to chosse over and over the same audio/subs language you can
set default ones in the "Edit->DVD" menu.
Moreover, the "Play->DVD" selection will automatically play the longest
DVD track, usually the one you want to see :-)
==> VCDs/XCDs/AudioCDs
The same DVD mechanism has been imported to VCDs/XCDs/AudioCDs, so that
now after loading their TOC you can choose which track to play.
==> CDs/HD Partitions
Starting from MoviX 0.8.0, it is possible to play the whole content
of a CD/HD Partition with the "Play->CD" and "Play->Partition" selections.
Using this options, the movix script will automatically search the drive or
partition for audio/video files and will play them all as a playlist.
Once the playlist starts, you can use the MPlayer menu [see below] to
navigate through the audio/video files contained in the drive/partition.
==> SlideShow
Starting from MoviX 0.8.1pre2, this option allows to visualize all images
under some directory chosen by you.
A Dirbrowser menu will let you choose a dir and each picture file under it
will be visualized by the 'fbi' binary with a temporal distance of 5 seconds.
Starting from MoviX 0.8.1rc1, the following checkboxes appear in the
Dirbrowser window:
1. Random: Shuffle the files before playing them
2. No subdirs: Do not play files contained in subdirectories
(by default the system will look recursively in all subirs)
3. Loop: Play all files in an infinite loop
==> SlideShow background music
If you want to have some music in the background, choose the first option
of the Play->SlideShow menu and select any audio-only file.
That file will be automatically played in the background on any SlideShow
until you will select "use no bkgd" from the same dialog window.
==> Playing Files
Starting from MoviX 0.8.0, when you choose a file in a folder containing subs
and no sub file with the same name is found, then an extra file chooser
will automatically appear to let you choose a subtitle [just press
if you don't want any].
==> MPlayer menu
The MPlayer binary contained in MoviX is compiled with support for the new
neat "menu" feature of mplayer: pressing "m" while mplayer is showing any
video you should be able to access mplayer's native menu and navigate mplayer
options directly from inside mplayer!
This menu is also accessible from the MoviX menu presssing 'F4'.
NOTE that MoviX can also boot automatically in 'MPlayer menu' mode if you
use the boot arg 'MENU=mplayer'.
==> Consoles
There are 3 consoles active, you can choose which one to go pressing
ALT-F, where n can be 1, 2 or 3.
console 1 (default): is the one with the MoviX menu. When/if MoviX
menu crashes, it is restarted automatically so you don't have anymore
to launch the "movix" command. If you need a shell go to console 3.
console 2: here you find the alsamixer, in case the mplayer volume
keys do not raise the volume enough or if you want to adjust
bass/treble or other things.
console 3: here you'll find a shell in case you want to run anything
[like nvtv].
==> Audio
If you find the volume too low even when mplayer's volume is at its
maximum value, just change console with ALT-F2, set all volumes
with alsamixer and go back to the original console with ALT-F1.
==> Playlists
You can play video/audio playlists with mplayer opening them through
the Play->File menu.
The mplayer included in this version is able to use playlists with
the following extensions: pls, m3u, asx, txt, list.
==> Net
If you have an ethernet card then MoviX will automatically try to
use its dhcp client (the 'pump' binary) to connect to a dhcp
daemon; in other words, the DHCP boot arg is not needed anymore.
If you are not connected to any DHCP server then you can configure
by hand your card setting the LAN parameters from the
"Edit->MoviX Options" menu
After that you can either enter an URL through the Play->URL menu
or use a playlist you load from a CD or a HD partition through
the Play->File menu.
I included two examples called hardhouse56k.pls and hardtrance56k.pls
[thanks to Richard Didd for these playlists!] in the movix dir of
the MoviX CD.
==> Net volumes
You can also mount remote nfs or samba [e.g. windows partitions]
volumes accessing to the mount menu from the Play->Net menu.
After you mounted the volume, it should automagically appear in
the partition list and that way you can play any audio/video file
from it like if it was on your machine.
==> Internet Radios
Starting from version 0.8.1rc2, under the Play->Net menu you will
find two submenus for SHOUTcast (http://www.shoutcast.com/)
and ICEcast (http://icecast.org/) radios.
After selecting a genre, movix will download all related stations
(up to a maximum of 20) and will start playing the first one by
default.
To access the other stations use either the keys '<' and '>' or
the 'Jump to' function of the MPlayer menu.
==> Subtitles character sets
You can select/change the MPlayer character set and its properties
from the Edit->Subtitles menu.
==> Adding Subtitles character sets
To add a new character set to the MoviX ones, just add a new TrueType file
(lower-cased!) or a MPlayer fonts dir under the src/mplayer/mplayer-fonts dir.
The new set will be automatically added by the movix.pl script to the subs
font list.
If you want to use it as default, just set it as default in the movixrc
configuration file in the way explained above.
==> MoviX Menu fonts size
Starting from this version, you can select/change the MoviX menu font
size from the Edit->MoviX menu.
This is particularly helpful when you use the TV-out, in which case you
want to maximize the font size, or when you want to use the ASCII output,
in which case you want to minimize the fonts size.
==> TV-in
Finally an Edit->TV menu is available and can be used to choose your
country's Chanlist and/or your area's channels.
Up to now the only local channels list available are the ones of my
area, namely the island of Sardinia (Italy).
Just send me your own area's to have them added to the distro!
The format of the local area channels is the xawtv format, and to
generate it it is enough using the 'scantv' utility under Linux
as explained by Balazs in the following forum thread:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=784341&forum_id=207427
I included in MoviX the Balazs script that converts the widely
used (under Unix) xawtv format in the MPlayer's one, so that to add
your own channels it is enough adding a xawtv file in the
src/mplayer/tv_channels/ directory, burning a new CD and select
the new list from the Edit->TV menu.
The program 'scantv' is now available in MoviX. You can use it to
generate your own xawtv channel file going in the 3rd console and
running something like the following:
scantv -o mychannels.xawtv
Once you have the file, you can give it a try copying it under
/tmp/tv_channels/
and restarting (not rebooting!) the MoviX menu and choosing your new file
from the Edit->TV menu.
If the file works fine post it on the MoviX 'help' forum and it will soon
be included in the distro.
==> Radio
If your TV-card also supports radio station tuning, then you can listen
to the radio using the Play->Radio menu.
Piloting the MoviX menu from remote
-----------------------------------
For several reasons it may turn out to be useful to access a 'MoviX PC'
from a second PC.
You can do this booting the 'MoviX PC' using the boot arg 'TELNET=y' and
logging as root (just press RETURN at the password propmpt from the second
PC using any 'telnet' application.
****WARNING**** Doing this is of course **extremely** dangerous if you do it
in some open network since anybody can log on your machine as root and
destroy all your data!!!
Currently it is meant only to be used in closed 1-1 networks; running it
elsewhere you use it at your own (high) risk.
Automatic mount of Net volumes
------------------------------
If you happen to mount the same few net volumes every time you boot
the system with MoviX, you can make MoviX mount them automatically
at the boot just filling up two files and burning a new MoviX CD
with them inside.
The files are found in src/movix/, named nfsVolumes and sambaVolumes,
and contain self-explanatory examples that should be enough for you
to understand how to add your ones.
Customizing the MPlayer menu background image
---------------------------------------------
The background you see while playing music or when you switch to
the MPlayer menu pressing F4 is simply an audioless avi.
In the new 'background' dir you'll find a few possible replacement for
the default movix.music.avi file.
Currently the following ones are included:
1. coresis.avi - The very first bkgd used in MoviX
2. black.avi - A totally black bkgd for discreet people :-)
3. dxr3.avi - An example of bkgd that may be useful for DXR3/H+ users
since it contains a list of relevant MPlayer keys
To use them, simply replace the default movix.music.avi file included
in the src/movix/ dir with your favorite one.
Thanks to Balazs Barany, you can now also produce very easily an avi bkgd
from your favorite picture through his simple Web form at the address
http://tud.at/programm/movix/
If you want to replace it with your own background you have just
to replace the file src/movix/movix.music.avi with your own.
Customizing the MoviX menu background image
-------------------------------------------
You can replace the standard mega-penguin MoviX menu background with
any picture you wish.
Assuming you use MoviX at 800x600 you must do the following:
0. use some app (e.g. gimp) to rescale your pict to 800x600 and
save it in jpg format
1. overwrite the file src/movix/bootsplash/bootsplash-800x600.jpg
with your jpg
2. burn a new MoviX CD :-)
If you want to replace the background at each rez, just repeat this
operation for all rez supported (just give a look to src/movix/bootsplash/).
Of course you can use different picts at each rez if you like!
Piloting the MoviX menu with a remote
-------------------------------------
Starting from v0.8.0rc2 thanks to the blackkane suggestions in the Help Forum
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=882303&forum_id=207428
the MoviX menu can be controlled through a remote!!!
Here's a list of the remote keys currently supported (for hauppauge remote):
VOL+ -> right arrow
VOL- -> left arrow
CH+ -> up arrow
CH- -> down arrow
FULLSCREEN -> ENTER
SOURCE -> Tab
TV -> Escape
The Escape key is particularly useful to bring the menu to its starting status.
TV-out
------
TV-out should work fine on all Ati, Matrox, NVidia and S3 Savage video cards.
EPIA MBs TV-out is also supported but no test has been made yet.
It is likely that it will work also with other cards, like for example with
the Voodoo cards, but I am not 100% sure about that.
If you manage to use the TV-out with other cards please let us know!!!
Ascii Art
---------
MPlayer allows you also to watch a movie encoded in ASCII characters
thanks to the nice AA-lib (http://aa-project.sourceforge.net/aalib/).
Unfortunately watching a movie using the "aa" driver messes up the
screen so after watching a video you have to close the MoviX menu
and restart it launching the "movix" command.
Supported Audio/Video formats
-----------------------------
I am not at all an expert in this so I cannot be very precise about this.
All I know is that you should be able to play most of the DivX files around
and more in general any AVI, MPG file, QUICKTIME, ASF and WMV should be ok.
About video files, all MP3 and OGG/VORBIS files should work.
If you have examples of such files not working with MoviX please let me know!
Activating S/PDIF audio with VIA EPIA MBs
-----------------------------------------
You can get interesting info from the following links:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/howlettfamily/epia/epia_howto.pdf
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=987604&forum_id=207428
The following instructions (thanks a lot to LeeLooB for providing them!)
are specifically for EPIA M6000 boards but most likely they work for most
VIA EPIA MBs:
1.) Install Movix
2.) Jumper the EPIA M6000 board to S/PDIF-out (Manual, page 2-18 / shorten 3-4)
3.) Connect the EPIA compsite-port to your amplifier's / receiver's coax-port
4.) Activated the coax-port in your amplifier / receiver (if necessary)
5.) enable iec958-output in movix:
- go to audio-setup (ALT+F2)
- unmute iec958-output
6.) change the mplayer audio-options:
- MENU: edit -> mplayer-options
- select "alsa9" for the audio-output driver
- write ":iec985" in the ao-box
7.) save your settings
Known Bugs
----------
Here's a short collection of the most frequent problems met with MoviX:
- Missing 'mixer.pl' bug
On some PC MoviX fails to mount the boot device, resulting in a
"Missing 'mixer.pl'" error (if you press F2 to see the log messages).
Most of the times this is due to Linux' lack of support for some of your
IDE drives. Try to turn them off somehow and re-try booting.
- NVidia TV-out not working
This is most likely a problem of nvtv with your TV-out chipset.
Try using by hand 'nvtv' from the 3rd console. Run 'nvtv -h' to
get a long list of the many nvtv options and make tests.
Contact either the MoviX or the nvtv forums about this if everything
fails but especially if it works to let me know the right settings ;-)
- Digital Output of audio card not working
Audio cards seem to have each one its settings for activating digital
audio, so most likely we need your help to get the right settings for
your card if it does not work "out of the box".
The first thing to do is going in the 2nd console and activating the
digital output channels by hand.
You can also get insights on how to activate your card digital output
from the following howto for VIA cards:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/howlettfamily/epia/epia_howto.pdf
Don't forget to post a message on the MoviX forums with your findings!
- When booting from a windows partition, the MoviX menu background is
sometimes still visible when playing a video from the MPlayer menu
when using the 'fbdev:vidix' video output driver
Yes, I know, but there are a few solutions for this:
1. find a fix and send it to me ;-) [my favorite!]
2. do not use 'fbdev:vidix' but rather 'vesa:vidix' or 'sdl' or anything
else
3. use the MoviX menu rather than the MPlayer menu
Acknowledgments
---------------
I want to thank the great guys at www.scriptamanent.it for making the
logo for the MoviX project.
I also want to thanks my friend Andrea Assorgia for all his encouragements
and good advices about making MoviX and for actually having suggested
the name of the project. Special thanks go to my brother Vincenzo that
bought me a very fast CD burner speeding up a lot the development of this
package!
Finally I want to thanks Robos for his interest in the project and for
suggesting me the best way to develop this menu.