Here is my first project log on these forums.... I wrote this log during my work, but I decided to start to post it only when I really had something to show you; so I hope you like it and I wait all your comments (positive and negative). Actually the project started on November 2003, when I sold my rather new Athlon PC to a friend of mine; when he payed me, he was so kind to give me his old Pc for free, so I ended with a nice Compaq Presario picking some dust under my desk. The PC was still functional, so I decided to put together a small linux box acting as my home gateway and as a MP3/CD player. The new PC should run with no monitor, no keyboard/mouse and the audio player should be IR controlled... So I dismantled the Compaq and recovered the following parts: MOTHERBOARD It's a mATX motherboard based on the VIA MVP4 chipset; the CPU is an AMD K6-II @ 475MHz, so plenty of power for MP3 playing! It has an integrated 2x AGP Trident video card and integrated ESS Maestro 3 sound chip. POWER SUPPLY A small 145W ATX PSU; plenty of power for my setup. NETWORK CARDS The "Realtek clone" NIC was in the old Compaq; I found another "true Realtek" NIC in my forgotten-hardware-bin with a very reduced size: perfect for this box! And here is the new house for all those parts: an old and blown Philips CD player thrown away by my parents. I took the remote control too... I started opening the player and found a quite "empty" box with a bunch of chips and a lot of plastic nerves to reinforce it. The electronics were assembled with a nice "clip" system and it was very easy to remove everything: As you can see, there's a lot of work to do.... and I don't have a dremel!!!
While I'm waiting to cut all the unneeded plastic, I managed to get some hardware in order to complete the PC configuration: HARD DISK It's a 5.2GB Toshiba laptop drive with the IDE adapter installed; I got it for free when I installed a larger disk on the laptop of my wife's cousin. DVD DRIVE A slim DVD-ROM with the IDE adapter installed. The drive was salvaged from a broken IBM notebook; it's been really hard to find the IDE adapter: I had to purchase it on a UK site because I wasn't able to find it in Italy!!! It cost me a LOT in shipping fee: 12,00 Euros the adapter PLUS 11,00 Euros the shipping!!!! As I wanted to work on the software while modding the case, I thought about a way to keep all the parts together without having to use another case. After some thinking, I ended with these: I use those "brackets" at work for some wall-mounted stuff; they can be screwed together and have a lot of 3mm holes and slots, and motherboard standoffs fit perfectly! So I ended with this nice setup: Very compact and rock solid! With this setup, I was able to start working on the linux system and software. The search for a suitable linux distribution was quite long and tough: I had in mind a highly customized system with the only necessary code compiled into the kernel, no graphical stuff and a text-based MP3 player. I read the Linux From Scratch documentation and approached the Gentoo distribution, but it was too time consuming.... Finally, I found the Core Linux distribution: it comes with precompiled base utilities and developement tools and you have to compile only the kernel. I made a little hack to this distribution: the kernel tree in the distro is the 2.4.18; I replaced it with 2.4.22 and applied the low-latency patch before compiling the customized kernel. I configured and compiled all the necessary modules, compiled and configured iptables, telnetd, ftpd and the ALSA sound driver; when I rebooted the box, the system was ready (login prompt) after less than 10 seconds!!!! And the NATting worked at the first shot: I can use my 2 Mb/s internet connection from any of my home PCs. Actually the system takes about 12 seconds to get ready when you cold-boot it (the POST is very long and boring!) but I'm very satisfied with it.
I like this idea for a mod. 1. Are you going to install another PCI soundcard or use the onboard one? 2. How do you plan on getting rid of all that plastic?
Nice mod! Here is an idea: Like on Zap's Ammo case, I think this would really replicate whatever it was if you had custom connectors rather than the motherboard connectors.
This is quite closely what i taught to do too. An MP3-machine... Tiny one with 43,5cm case. Looks nice anyway!
Yay I have one of those laptop hdd right here an i was wondering how to make one of those adapters. Is it like a normal ide hdd?
so how is it going to work are you going to control it from another computer or is it for sreaming audio
Very cool. Am interested in how exacty you will be using this too. I noticed you have a DVD drive. Do you plan on having this as a part of your entertainment center hooked up to your reciever and TV.
If you are going to use linux to make a mp3 player i would check out this site... http://www.giantdisc.com/index.php
Hey, thank you all for your comments!! I'll try to answer to your questions.. No additional soundcard; the onboard one is enough for nice MP3 playing; as I've said, I have no dremel, so I'll use my little handsaw to get rid of the plastic. The motherboard connectors will be inside the case; the only connectors on the back of the box will be two RCA Audio, two RJ45 plugs and the power socket. Yes, the hdd is a standard IDE drive; the adapter transform the 44-pin connector on the hdd into a standard 40-pin IDE connector plus the molex for the power The PC will be controlled by the Philips remote; I'll use SAMBA to share a folder for MP3 storage; I'm getting information about various jukebox programs and I haven't yet chosen one. Anyway, no streaming. I used the DVD-ROM for two reasons: - it was free - I've stored my MP3 collections on some DVDs, so I can play music directly from them. BadKarma thanks for the hint; I'll take a look at it...
The cutting process will take a longer time, because I can mod only during night hours (from 11:00 pm on) when my two babies and my wife go to bed... Obviously, I cannot saw the plastic box if I don't want to wake everyone, so I'll wait the weekend for the "hard work"!!! In the meantime I worked on this: LCD DISPLAY It's a parallel 20x4 LCD module with blue backlight; I bought it from Modwarehouse last year and originally it was for another PC, but I thought it was perfect for this project... Moreover, it fits perfectly to the front panel of the Philips box. Some cables, a D25 connector and a little soldering work, and I gave life to this beautiful display: Sorry for the protective film, but I will peel it off only when the LCD will be installed into the box. I compiled and configured the LCDproc daemon and run the basic client to take those shots. mpg123 was playing a song and, as you can see, there's a lot of free resources: less than 5 MB of RAM were used for the kernel + all the modules (ALSA, iptables) + all the daemons (dhcpd, kbd, telnetd, ftpd, LCDprocd) + mpg123. I'm also working on the infrared circuitry: I plan to use the original IR sensor (a SHARP device) but I cannot find the datasheet; it's a phased-out device, so I downloaded the new device datasheet and I will see if the pinout is the same.
As you can see from my sig, I'm really addicted to Star Wars saga; this PC is named C3PO for many reasons: - C3PO is a protocol droid; he can handle communications between different people <-> the PC acts as an internet gateway for my home network! - C3PO is handmade by Anakin <-> the PC is hand made by me using recycled parts! - C3PO can speak different languages <-> the PC will play MP3s, OGGs, Audio CDs! That's all! Every PC in my rig takes the name of the most suitable Star Wars character.
papeniglio- This project is way over my head (software-wise)... But it sounds great! It's the type of thing everybody on this forum probably wants to be able to do: use old PC parts (which everyone has laying around) and free, highly customizable software to create a trouble free, easy to use media box. How did you learn Linux? Does it involve something you do for a living? I've been trying to "figure out" Linux on-and-off for about a year (as a hobby really). I would really like to see this project finished. It's the kind of project that I could really get into, and hopefully learn Linux at the same time.
I started using linux on my old 486 DX when I was a student; at that time, Slackware was the only "solid" distribution, but it was very tricky to set it up: no graphical setup, no plug&play and if you were able to run X11 at a high resolution you were at a good point!! I used Linux and its free compilers (GCC and G77) to make a microwave simulation program for my graduation. In my previous job I managed a linux server for our intranet site; anyway, all I know about linux was learned from the wonderful documentation you can find on internet and from some experimenting. Me too hopes to bring this project to a success
Just before I go to sleep, here is a little update.... IR REMOTE As I hoped, the pinout of the old IR sensor was the same of the new one, so I was able to set up the circuit for the receiver: I compiled and configured LIRC and .... TADAAA!! It works!!!! The receiver was too sensitive if placed on the desk and sometimes it got fake keypresses, but when I placed it behind the smoked front panel all the noise disappeared and I was able to configure the daemon to decode all the remote keys. I think linux is the best modder's system: you can really mod it if you have a little programming experience! I'm planning some little mods for the LCDprocd source code in order to display some additional messages on the LCD; as the box will run with no VGA display, I'd like to add these features for two particular system events: - I want the LCD to display a welcome message when the system has finished the boot sequence and before the jukebox application takes the control; - when I issue a shutdown command, the system halts but doesn't power-off the computer; when LCDprocd is halted, it leaves a "Thank you for using LCDproc" on the LCD; I'd like to change this message to something like "Now it's possible to turn off the computer" (Win98ish, isn't it?). For the jukebox application, I'm testing IRMP3: it's a daemon which inputs commands from LIRCd and outputs messages to LCDprocd, it supports mpg123 or other media players and allows the execution of external programs when you press a remote key. [chocolate-egg-mode] That's all for this week: I'm taking a little vacation for Easter time, but I'll be back on next week... [/chocolate-egg-mode]
Would you give us a list with the software you use on your computer? I'm very interested in linux because it starts really fast on old computers (Intel pentium 200Mhz). Is the software free to download and if so where could i download the software? Would like to configure my 200Mhz as an linux computer
