Cool MoviX stuff
Here is another cool project that can bring new functions into an old USB stick, iPod shuffle or even old unused mini-CD - MoviX is a very tiny Linux media-center distribution with 3 subprojects - MoviX = simple and very effective text-mode UI at around 30 MB, MoviX2 = GUI at around 50 MB and a special eMoviX that around 9 MB (but no advanced interface) is intended to be "embedded" on a CD together with a movie and act as a "self-contained movie experience" - with a movie from a MoviX CD if you do not know how to view that movie simply boot from the CD and most often it will start playing automatically !!!
Since the space on my 512k shuffle is already very short (as you might remember I already have DSL there) and since the text UI on the MoviX version is very clear and effective that one is my favorite and now coexists with DSL and GRUB is used to select which one to boot ... as long as a PC can boot from USB :)
Most computers from the last 2-3 years can boot from USB without major problems (but sometimes the boot speed might be very low), but if you get in the region of the P2 or some K6 with less than 64 MB RAM things tend to get tricky - a CD might be the better option in that case but anyway RAM is very important in such configurations (generally most of MoviX will be kept in RAM to free the CD so that you will be able to place inside your own CD/DVD with the movie).
The smallest eMoviX is also worth mentioning - at 9 MB in 99% of the cases you can add it to a typical AVI file on a normal CD with a little "CD overburning" and who knows when it my prove useful and help somebody watch that CD ! The only drawback is the installation - for MoviX and MoviX2 there are decent Windows setup programs but for eMoviX things are more complex outside the Linux world ...
MoviX will also play OK most DVD media, and if you have added libdvdcss-1.2.6-1.i386.rpm (which can not be distributed in some countries, so you have to add it manually) it might probably even work with media from ANY region !!!
And since DSL was mentioned - the latest version is now 2.1b which seems to have improved things on booting from USB !
Since the space on my 512k shuffle is already very short (as you might remember I already have DSL there) and since the text UI on the MoviX version is very clear and effective that one is my favorite and now coexists with DSL and GRUB is used to select which one to boot ... as long as a PC can boot from USB :)
Most computers from the last 2-3 years can boot from USB without major problems (but sometimes the boot speed might be very low), but if you get in the region of the P2 or some K6 with less than 64 MB RAM things tend to get tricky - a CD might be the better option in that case but anyway RAM is very important in such configurations (generally most of MoviX will be kept in RAM to free the CD so that you will be able to place inside your own CD/DVD with the movie).
The smallest eMoviX is also worth mentioning - at 9 MB in 99% of the cases you can add it to a typical AVI file on a normal CD with a little "CD overburning" and who knows when it my prove useful and help somebody watch that CD ! The only drawback is the installation - for MoviX and MoviX2 there are decent Windows setup programs but for eMoviX things are more complex outside the Linux world ...
MoviX will also play OK most DVD media, and if you have added libdvdcss-1.2.6-1.i386.rpm (which can not be distributed in some countries, so you have to add it manually) it might probably even work with media from ANY region !!!
And since DSL was mentioned - the latest version is now 2.1b which seems to have improved things on booting from USB !
posted by cool_stuff_or_not at 01:53
1 Comments:
Movix was cool but is dormaint
geexbox is the new standard to beat geexbox runs on everything short of a toaster and after the ggogle summer of code project it should really be hard to beat with the inclussion of freevo now that will be cool!
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