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Topic: Thinking about buying some DSL USB pens.., but first a few questions!

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TL_CLD

Group: Members
Posts: 13
Joined: Oct. 2005

Posted: Oct. 12 2005,17:38

Hey all,

I'm a long time DSL user, but only for one very specific purpose: I use it to install m0n0wall on HD's.

But lately I've been having some problems with my wife, and I'm fairly certain that DSL can help me out. See, I've got an old Win2K box acting as a mediaplayer. It runs 24/7 and does nothing but run iTunes and play all our music on shuffle. I manage it from my Vectorlinux box using RealVNC. It works like a charm, except for one thing: My wife really hates the noise from the harddrive! (yes, she has ultra-sensitive ears..).

So one day while installing yet another m0n0wall it hit me: Why not just install a DSL on a USB stick and then use that for my mediaplayer instead? All my music is placed on a central Linux server, and can be accessed via Samba.

So I guess my questions are these:

1. Can DSL connect to a Samba share without too much hassle?

2. Can DSL be managed via either RealVNC or perhaps from CLI with normal SSH?

3. Seeing as there's no keyboard, mouse or monitor connected to the machine, can it be setup so it just starts playing music on a cold boot? Normally it would run 24/7, but power sometimes fail, and then it needs to just WORK, without me having to attach it to a keyboard, mouse or monitor. I could though live with it if I had to SSH into the machine in order to start the musicplayer or something like that.

4. Can the musicplayer (XMMS?) handle not having a playlist? With iTunes I just add the top folder on my Samba server and then it automagically finds all the music and starts playing in shuffle mode.

I guess that's it. Let me end with a short list of what I need to accomplish:

Install/boot on/from USB stick.
Connection to Samba shares on another Linux server.
Unmanaged boot.
Remote management via VNC/SSH or something similar.
Stable musicplayer that can handle just adding a directory packed with music in subdirectories.

That's basically it. Is DSL the solution I'm looking for? Is DSL the thing that saves my marriage?

Sincerely,
Thomas

mikshaw

Group: Members
Posts: 4856
Joined: July 2004

Posted: Oct. 12 2005,21:27

1) I don't do much networking, but DSL comes with a samba client that should work fine.
2) I think so, but you'll have to hear more about it from someone who knows networking.
3) You can edit startup scripts to automatically start your programs, and backup/restore the script(s). For applications such as daemons and commands that need to be run automatically as root, add your commands to /opt/bootlocal.sh. For non-X apps that load automatically when dsl logs in, use /home/dsl/.bash_profile. For X apps, use /home/dsl/.xinitrc. Any command that continues to run after the script runs will require a "&" at the end of the line so that the script can continue on to the next line.
4) I don't know enough about XMMS to say for sure, but if not you can automatically generate a playlist with a small bash script.

--------------
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/html/index.html

Your Fuzzy God Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 260
Joined: July 2005

Posted: Oct. 12 2005,22:29

1. Sure! Get samba.dsl then add the line "LinNeighboorhood -m {memorized share}" to bootlocal.sh.
2. All you should have to do here is get the vnc4x-1.4.6.dsl. Run vncpasswd to set a password then add the line "vncserver" to your bootlocal.sh file. I have never actually run vnc on startup, but I don't see why this wouldn't work.
3. Add "xmms /path/to/files &" to a blank line right before "fluxbox" in your .xinitrc file.
4. see #3

I know there are other people on the boards who have done similar things. Let us know how it turns out,

--------------
Good Luck

-Fuzzy
www.mainframecomps.com
**Bienvienidos a la revolución**

TL_CLD

Group: Members
Posts: 13
Joined: Oct. 2005

Posted: Oct. 13 2005,06:35

Thank you for the help and suggestions. I'm now confident that DSL is the way to go.

Time to order some of those DSL USB pens!

Thomas

TL_CLD

Group: Members
Posts: 13
Joined: Oct. 2005

Posted: Oct. 13 2005,13:14

Ok, so far I've succeeded in installing the latest ISO on my USB stick, and booting from it works like a charm.

BUT!

It boots with the wrong IP address. Is there a way to make sure it boots with the correct IP address automatically?

I've read somewhere on the forum that it is possible to more or less create your own custom image before writing it to the USB stick. Is there a good explanation on the site somewhere for this, and can this method be used for both programs and the corresponding config files?

So many questions...

All in all I'm confident that DSL is the way to go. I feel there's a lot of learning for me, but hey - learning is good!

Regards,
Thomas

7 replies since Oct. 12 2005,17:38

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Damn Small Linux Board » Damn Small Linux » Other Help Topics » Thinking about buying some DSL USB pens..