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NOTE: this README currently contains only info about the specific MoviX2 features. Since now MoviX2 also fully contains all MoviX features, including the MoviX menu, you must also read the MoviX README to know about these newly imported features!
Index
MoviX2 (i.e. MoviX squared) is a small-sized (~50MB) Linux "live CD" distro containing all the software to boot from any media you like (CD, HD, Net, CompactFlash card, USB pen) and start automagically X-window and within it the GUI version of MPlayer, simply the best multimedia player available on Linux.
Its name is due to the presence of two big Xs in his environment: one is the last letter of Unix and the other is the first letter of X-window :-)
Supported formats are all formats supported by the MPlayer, most noticeably DivX but more in general it can play DVDs, VCDs, AudioCDs and any avi, mpeg, quicktime, wmv, asf, fli and a few others. BTW, I compiled mplayer with mp3 & ogg/vorbis support so you can also use it to play music!
If you are interested, you'll find a copy of the config files for mplayer (together with a patch containing the few changes I made to it) and the linux kernel in the main dir of this package.
If you want/need to modify the MoviX2 scripts, you can find them in the src/movix directory. The most up-to-date versions are available in the MoviX2 CVS tree at
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/movix/MoviX2/
MoviX2 is all made from software already available on the net:
syslinux v2.10 <syslinux.zytor.com> to make the CD bootable; mplayer v0.92 <www.mplayerhq.hu> to play the movies; slackware v8.0 <www.slackware.com> linux kernel v2.4.22 <www.kernel.org> ALSA 1.0.3 <www.alsa-project.org> XFree86 4.4.0 <www.xfree86.org> BusyBox 0.60.5 <www.busybox.net> Lirc 0.6.6 <www.lirc.org>
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.
A few perl/bash scripts are run at the boot in order to configure the hardware and start Xwindows and finally gmplayer, the GUI of mplayer.
Check MoviX2 docs on http://movix.sf.net/ Docs are not my strong side I admit MoviX docs are often out of date, so if you have some free time and want to write something for the project you are welcome! :-)
--> Software:
The only thing you need to use MoviX2 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
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.
Window$ users may be interested in downloading the Win32 MoviX2 setup installer packaged by Clovis Sena (csena2k2@users.sf.net) that allow to build very easily MoviX2 ISO images to be burned later on CD with cdrecord, Nero or similar software
--> Hardware:
CPU
Only x86 compatible are supported, and only >= i586.
RAM
MoviX2-0.3.1rc2 require at least 128 MB of RAM.
==> NOTE: in order to keep MoviX2 working with as few as 128MB a few features may be automatically disabled by the movix script, namely:
If you have a low-RAM PC, you can choose not to load some of the codecs or samba to be sure to load what you want. See the boot parameters to see how to do that.
MICE
Mice support is still beta but all serial, PS2 and USB mice are
supported.
CONTROLLERS
All IDE controllers are supported.
All SCSI controllers supported by kernel 2.4.22 are also supported.
VIDEO CARDS
It is not easy to say on which video cards MoviX2 work with MoviX2.
Based on our tests and users feedback cards made by the following brands
should work with no hassle:
Matrox
Ati
NVidia
Intel
Trident
3Dfx
SiS
CastleRock
S3 Savage
Dxr3
but it is likely that the majority of the other video cards will work fine, especially:
S3
NeoMagic
If your video card works with MoviX2 please let me know so that I can start writing a database of cards known to work.
AUDIO CARDS
MoviX2 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
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].
*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
Starting from v0.3.0 MoviX2 supports remote controllers!!!
Well, to be exact, for the moment it supports only one model: the remote
bundled with the Hauppauge WinTV card (yes, it is the one I have at home ;-)
It works great and I hope this will be only the first of a long series
of supported models, but to do this I need a lot of support from you!
If you are a lirc expert and are willing to help, please send me a note!
USB
All relevant USB devices supported by the 2.4.22 kernel will be automatically
loaded at boot time.
IEEE1934
All relevant IEEE1934 devices supported by the 2.4.22 kernel will be
automatically loaded at boot time.
PCMCIA
Starting from this release, a few PCMCIA cards are supported (e.g., wireless
NIC based on the Prism chipset, like the DWL-650 and many more).
All devices supported will be automatically loaded at boot time.
--> 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**
--> Win32 Setup
Thanks to Clovis Sena and 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.
--> Linux MoviXMaker GUI
Thanks to Pascal Giard there is a simple Perl GTK+/Gnome/GladeXML GUI that allows you to easily produce customized eMoviX/MoviX/MoviX2 ISO images! Unless you are a "command line" lover, go get it 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 me assume your untarred MoviX2 package is in
"/usr/local/movix2-0.3.1rc2";
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 them
the whole archive(s) you chose 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.
Because of the extremely unclear status of the legal matters about DeCSS I
can't even provide a link for those who legitimally can make use of it, but
nevertheless all you should do is going in your favorite search engine,
look for the package named libdvdcss-1.2.6-1.i386.rpm and copy that package
in the src/movix dir.
BTW, if you are a Linux user and have already a copy of libdvdcss.so in
your PC, you can also just copy that file in the src/movix directory and
the rc.movix script will automagically load it in your system :-)
Without the libdvdcss.so you will still be able to play a few uncrypted
(i.e. "zone free") DVDs, like for example some music DVD like Stevie Ray
Vaughan's "Live at the El Mocambo", but won't be able to play most of them.
4. If you want to include extra MPlayer Skins in your MoviX2 CD, get them from
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/Skin/
and put them in the src/mplayer/Skin directory.
You do not need to unpack them, just put the .tar.bz2 pakage in the above
directory.
If you want to change the default MoviX2 skin, edit the src/movix/gui.conf
file and change the line
gui_skin = "movix"
replacing the "movix" Skin with your favorite one.
5. If you want to add a new subtitles font set, add a new directory in the
src/mplayer/mplayer-fonts with the same structure you see in the standard
ones.
If you want to change the default subtitles font, replace the "polish"
fonts line in src/movix/rc.movix with another font set of the
src/mplayer/mplayer-fonts directory.
6. If you know what you are doing, feel free to modify the configuration
files in src/movix :-)
7. 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 (IMPORTANT: if you have no c:\temp
directory you must create it or the .bat file will fail!).
Edit the scripts if you want to change this setting.
8. 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 gmplayer.
--> Boot
Boot your PC from a MoviX2 CD.
You have several option for the boot:
BOOT LABELS
MoviX2 - this is the default label and should be able to select
automatically the best mplayer options for you video card.
NVidia - use this to activate NVidia proprietary X-window drivers.
NVidiaTV - as above but uses TV-out as display an implements TV-out
through the XF86Config file, i.e. using the NVidia
proprietary drivers rather than 'nvtv'.
vesa - this driver should work with most cards around but you get
no acceleration. Use this if you have an Ati card and
you want to use the TV-out.
vesaFB - this driver should work with most cards around but you get
no acceleration.
FB - this uses the Linux FrameBuffer driver specific for your card
(if any).
aa - use this label if you want display the videos with ASCII
characters [but read the AsciiArt section below first!]
TV - use this label if you want to use TV-out
This is a very experimental label and it is likely it won't
work but in a near future it should be able to activate
TV-out for at least Matrox, Ati, CLE266, NVidia and S3Savage cards.
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!
If X does not start with the default label try using one of the others, and if they all fail then asl for help in the MoviX forums.
There are also a few boot parameters you can use:
Boot Args Values Effect
DRIVER <drv> Force the use of a specific mplayer vo driver
(use it only if you read enough of the mplayer DOCS)
OSS y Use OSS audio modules rather than the new ALSA
(use this if your audio card is not detected)
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 using "AUDIO=1" to make it use your second card and
so on. If you do not get any audio, try to boot with the
"AUDIO=n" boot arg and try to load your audio module by
hand and/or contact the movix forums.
MOUNT n Do not let the movix2 script mount all your HD
partitions (by default all partitions are mounted under
/discs/ )
MONITOR std Try this if X refuses to work: it sets "standard"
values for horiz&vert scan freq. for your monitor.
It is the only way to make X start at a reasonable
resolution if your Monitor does not support the DDC
protocol [i.e. gives no info to X-window about its
frequencies]
BE CAREFUL: there is a very remote probability that
this may damage your monitor. It is really unlikely
but please this keep in mind if you decide to try it!
NET y Connect to a LAN: after the boot you'll be asked
for your IP, your GW and your DNS IPs so that you will
be able to use mplayer to listen to radio broadcast
using the "Open URL..." menu entry.
*WARNING*: use this only if you do not have access
to any DHCP since the MoviX2 scripts will try
automatically to access a DHCP server at every boot.
MOUSE <serial,ps2,usb> Mouse is autodetected. Use this if your mouse does
not work to force MoviX2 using the right interface.
Serial mouse must be to be in ttyS0 (COM1).
ACCEL n Use this if you do not want MoviX2 to use sw
acceleration when the vesa driver is on.
HF freq. Set "by hand" your monitor horizontal frequency range.
Try this if X does not start on your PC.
WARNING: _don't_ just invent this range, you could fry
your monitor!!! Get these values from your monitor
manual.
VF freq. Set "by hand" your monitor vertical frequency range.
Try this if X does not start on your PC.
WARNING: _don't_ just invent this range, you could fry
your monitor!!! Get these values from your monitor
manual.
CD 16,24,32 Set "by hand" the default color depth for your monitor.
Possible values are 16 or 24 or 32 (unit of measure is
bpp). By default it is set to 16bpp for all cards.
WARNING: you cannot change depth when booting with the
vesa label.
USB n Do not activate USB support.
IEEE1394 n Do not activate IEEE1394 support.
PCMCIA n Do not activate PCMCIA support.
REGION <region> Either one of NTSC, NTSC-J, PAL, PAL-B,
PAL-M, PAL-NC, PAL-60, PAL-M60 or SECAM.
SCSI <module> Force MoviX2 to load the SCSI module.o module
(e.g. "SCSI=tmscsim")
QT n Do not load the QuickTime codecs
WIN32 n Do not load the Win32 codecs
XANIM n Do not load the Xanim codecs
RP n Do not load the RealPlayer codecs
SAMBA n Do not load Samba (you will not be able to
mount Windows volumes)
acpi off Turn off ACPI support
[try this if your PC dies during the boot]
splash verbose Show kernel boot messages.
Example: use the default label, use a serial mouse and set your monitor
frequencies:
boot: MoviX2 MOUSE=serial HF=31.5-57 VF=50-90
After the boot you can safely remove the MoviX2 CD and use the gmplayer menu to load&play any DVD/VCD/CD you want.
WARNING: I slightly modified the mplayer GUInterface code to make it easier to use (at least this was my intention). So before reporting a bug to the MPlayer ML contact me because they may not be willing to help you for bugs that are not their responsability. My changes are totally trivial and are contained in a pacth available in the src directory.
IMPORTANT: when you use the "Play File" menu my "hacked" version of mplayer
will automatically try to mount your CD-ROM. If you have more than one
CD-ROM, the one used by mplayer will be the "highest one" (the one in
the highest IDE channel, and the master if you have two on the same
channel).
If your also have a DVD-ROM drive, MoviX2 should be able to spot it
and use it. If it fails, drop me a note together with brand and model
of your DVD player.
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.
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 "MOUSE=serial HF=31.5-57 VF=50-90" then you can write the following file:
# <--------- .bootrc sample
MOUSE=serial
HF=31.5-57
VF=50-90
# ---------> end of .bootrc sample
Boot args passed at boot time 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.
Please note that you can use the MPlayer's GUI to set lots of playback
parameters.
In particular you can use it to change subtitles font set or to choose your
favorite DVD device if you have more than one or if MoviX2 fails to detect
your one:
Starting from MoviX2 0.3.1pre4, only TrueType fonts are included. The fonts included are the following OpenSource TrueType fonts:
FreeFonts - http://www.nongnu.org/freefont/
VeraFonts - http://gnome.org/fonts/
Don't even ask about adding the standard Microsoft TrueType fonts such as Arial, Courier and so on: they are free of charge but they are not under any kind of "Open Source" license :-(
Nevertheless, you can add them very easily to your own MoviX2 installation
just copying the ttf files from your c:\windows\fonts\ directory (if any ;-)
to the src/mplayer/mplayer-fonts/ directory or getting the fonts directly
from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/corefonts/
If you want to add chinese characters support, you can either follow the instructions at
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=878378&forum_id=207427
or download the true type chinese fonts at
http://www.arphic.com.tw/free/free.htm
MoviX2 can display Korean subtitles with the baekmuk TrueType Fonts. You can get the package from
ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/1.6/i386/All/baekmuk-ttf-2.0.tgz
Follow the instructions above to include these fonts in a MoviX2 CD.
All available fonts are kept in the /fonts/ directory. To change font just go in the MPlayer Preferences->Font menu and choose your favorite font with the help of the GUI FileBrowser.
All FreeFonts fonts can be used to display many non-latin characters sets. To choose your favorite set, go in the Preferences MPlayer menu and choose the right Enconding under the "Subtitles & OSD" menu.
It is now possible to change subtitles set and audio channel with DVDs and
external text subtitles: just press 'm' during the playback to enter in the
MPlayer 'console' menu and go in the Prefs menu to switch either audio or
subs.
In case of the multiple external text subtitles it is actually enough to
press 'j' to cycle between them.
There are 3 consoles active, you can choose which one to go pressing CTRL-ALT-F<n>, where n can be 2, 3 or 4 [console 1 is the one from which X is run but to access to X you have actually to go in console 4!].
console 4 (default): is the one with X and gmplayer. When/if MPlayer crashes, it is restarted automatically so you don't have anymore to launch the "startx" 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].
If you find the volume too low even when mplayer's volume is at its maximum value, stop the playback and change console with CTRL-ALT-F2, set all volumes with the audio mixer and go back to the gmplayer console with CTRL-ALT-F4.
TV-out support is highly alpha at this stage, do not expect it works!
It may work though with some Ati card, especially Radeon and Rage128.
If you want to give it a try, start MoviX2 with the TV or vesa label
and pray :-)
BTW, it work almost ok with my Radeon but it seems to depend a lot on
your card. Hope somebody will take charge of developing this feature!
If you use this feature pls drop me a line to make me know how it works.
NVidia owners may simply use the NVidiaTV boot label, that uses a special
XF86Config configuration, or they can try using the "nvtv" utility to
initialize their TV-out.
It is automatically run when the "TV" boot label is chosen but I do not
know yet the best settings (if any).
Here are a few working command lines:
nvtv -r 640,480 -s small -t
nvtv -r 640,480 -s normal -t
nvtv -r 640,480 -s huge -t
nvtv -r 800,600 -s small -t
nvtv -r 800,600 -s normal -t
nvtv -r 800,600 -s large -t
nvtv -r 800,600 -s huge -t
further options: -S PAL (default) / -S NTSC
NOTE: You may have to use a capital letter when specifying the mode
(e.g. Small, Large). Some modes don't exist on some cards.
Thanks a lot to Nico Berndt for his help with nvtv! Eventually there will be a menu to help users choosing the best setting for their tv, but ill then please just go in console 3 and run nvtv from there.
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 though watching a movie using the "aa" driver under X-window with mplayer is tricky because for some reason [mplayer bug? error of mine?] the mplayer screen does not go away when the ASCII playback starts and this way you can't see the center of the screen.
Thereofre BEFORE STARTING a movie with the "aa" driver you must remember to move the mplayer screen to the boundary of the screen, for example on the far right, so much that only a thin slice of it still remains on your monitor. At that point you can safely start any video you want ans you'll see it full screen and especially without holes in the middle :-)
As always, check mplayer's library about Ascii Art docs. Here is a list of important keys for playback, directly from mplayer's docs:
1 decrease contrast
2 increase contrast
3 decrease brightness
4 increase brightness
5 switch fast rendering on/off
6 set dithering mode (none, error distribution, Floyd Steinberg)
7 invert image
a toggles between aa and MPlayer control
If you have a Linux box installed on your PC, chances are you use LILO as a
boot loader.
Starting from v0.3.1pre1 MoviX2 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.movix2
All you have to do is copying the content of the 'src' directory of this package in some directory, e.g. under /movix2/, and adjust accordingly the lilo.conf.movix2 '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 movix2 folder and the actual name you chose for the movix2 folder [if you called it /movix2/ you don't even need to modify MF at all].
To boot MoviX2 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:\movix2, copying the extras/hd/windows/wininit.gz file in, say, the c:\movix2\isolinux folder and copying somewhere, say in c:\movix2, the extras/hd/windows/movix2.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:\movix2 folder and run the command
loadlin @movix2.par
WARNING: it is likely that the MoviX2 scripts won't be abel to autodetect your monitor's horizontal and vertical frequencies when booting from windows. The easiest solution to this is getting your monitor's data from your monitor's manual and adding them to a bootrc file as explained above.
It is not clear whether this feature is really useful but I used it to test MoviX2 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 ;-)
Recipe:
0. create the /tftpboot dir and run the tftp server so that it serves files
from there
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)
Starting from this release, a script has been added to let you install MoviX2 on your USB pen or CompactFlash card with no hassles.
Be aware that to install the full MoviX2 distro you'll need at least 64MB. You could also manage to stuff MoviX2 in a 32MB if you renounce to the NVidia propietary drivers and to all possible extras, including all fonts but one and all Skins, but in this case you should follow the guidelines below.
If you have at least 64MB free, then you can install MoviX2 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 MoviX2 files by hand.
Starting from MoviX2 0.3.1pre1 it is possible to install MoviX2 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
It contains the syslinux executables for both Linux and WinXX.
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].
==> Copying the right files in the right place
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 'movix2' directory in /mnt with
mkdir /mnt/movix2
and copy all 'src' files there with
cp -R src/* /mnt/movix2/
5. move a few files in the flash card root:
mv /mnt/movix2/isolinux/kernel/vmlinuz \
/mnt/movix2/isolinux/initrd.gz \
/mnt/movix2/isolinux/*txt \
/mnt/movix2/isolinux/mov* \
/mnt
8. now you can boot from the flash card and enjoy ;-)
To make bootable your card, just run
syslinux.exe X:
where X is the device letter associated to the card.
==> Copying the right files in the right place
X:\movix2\isolinux\kernel\vmlinuz --> X:\
X:\movix2\isolinux\initrd.gz --> X:\
X:\movix2\isolinux\*.txt --> X:\
X:\movix2\isolinux\mov* --> X:\
where X is the drive letter of your flash card
5. now you can boot from the flash card and enjoy ;-)
Starting from version 0.3.1pre2, MoviX2 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 MoviX2 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. Note that in this case no modifications need to be made to the syslinux.cfg.
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 MoviX2 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!
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 and XviD files
around and more in general any AVI, MPG file, QUICKTIME, ASF and WMV should
be ok.
About audio files, all MP3 and OGG/VORBIS files should work.
If you have examples of such files not working with MoviX² please let me know.
If you need to visualize any png/gif/jpg/tiff you can use the utility 'fbi'. It is a console viewer, so you should go in the 3rd console and run something like 'fbi mypict.jpg'.
I added to MoviX2 a script named bugReport.sh that puts in a DOS floppy all info I need from your PC to try fixing your problems. To use the script just put a floppy in the drive and run "bugReport.sh". After it finished reboot your PC and send me the file "bugreport.txt" you'll find in the floppy.
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!