Slashdot Mirror
Lindows Media Computer: Power to Strike Microsoft?
Augustus writes "LinuxHardware.org has just published the first review of the Lindows Media Computer from iDOTpc.com. The review covers the hardware behind the machine but also goes through all of the machine's claimed functionality:
"After looking over all the media hype, I went searching for one of these little machines. Could the Lindows Media Computer really pull off meeting the new Windows machine in a pitched battle? It did boast "Instant on" DVD, CD, MP3, and VCD playback as one of the prime features. And, it was only a fraction of the price for a Windows Media Center system. At the time, only one vendor had them available, iDOTpc.com. After some communication, the folks at iDOTpc.com were kind enough to loan me one of the units to take for a spin." You can find the full review over at LinuxHardware.org."
How did it do DVD? Did it have a propeitary software or hardware decoder?
slashdot too
iDotpc... I could've sworn I read idiot-pc there... I need more coffee...
What spiffy DRM features it brought over to Linux.
Take THAT you old microsoft monopoly!!!
It did boast "Instant on" DVD, CD, MP3, and VCD playback as one of the prime features
I have one of those, it's called a DVD player. RCA made them awhile ago.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
In a word, no, it doesn't. Too bad.
i clicked the link to linuxhardware.org when there were still zero comments on the story and it was already dead! Crazy!
i would like to inform the OSS community that all of these "l" names must stop!
my nephew, who has aspergers... has great trouble pronouncing l's, but no trouble pronouncing any other letter. why "lindows" when it could be.. mindows! or dindows! maybe even findows? this is a great injustice towards all people who have trouble pronouncing that inherently evil letter! down with the l sound in the OSS community!
i used "l" 18 times. hmm.
Damn, record slash dot, 5 posts on the page, and it is gone!
Mirrors? Copy of the article? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Sounds interesting...hopefully it will stand a better chance than that old lindows laptop they tried selling...
Please isn't that illegal ? :-). ) . So why would he bother to switch ?>
I dont care if DMCA or DCMA or whatever is unethical or not, it it a law , which makes watching DVDs on linux illegal (the encrypted ones only).
And 99$ for one year of subscription, man at that price m$ looks like a cheap option. Don't tell me with 99$ you get a lot more than a bare bone OS.Coz a typical lindows user wont need MySQl, PGSQL, Apache, etc etc.
Is it just me, who feels that this whole concept of dumbed-down linux, rediculous ? The average joe doesn't care about GNU, GPL, free sheech/beer (well he does care about the beer
And geeks have better things to do , like build their distro from scratch than be bothered by such dumb distors
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
It'd be nice if everyone started the practice of bolding the link in the submission that's the subject of the post.
Bored with my musical endeavors, I thought it was time to watch some movies. I put in an older DVD movie, Spaceballs. It was all down hill from there. Anyone familiar with the movie will remember the opening sequence where the large spacecraft moves across the screen. The video playback was quite stuttered, though the audio did not seem to suffer. As the movie went on, the stutter wasn't as obvious but was still there. ...
First they release an AOL Computer that can't access AOL, and now they're making a Media Computer that can't play media.
Just because they're pissing off Microsoft doesn't make them a good company.
Lindows would be great if it WASN'T AS BAD AS WINDOWS! If only they would open up the source on that killer version of WINE they have to other distro's.
Not too far back, battle waged. A battle between the big man and the little man. Massive Microsoft against little Lindows. After a lengthy court battle, the little man finally prevailed. Microsoft was not able to stop them from using the Windows-like name. That was in Spring of last year. This year, Lindows decided to give Microsoft another swift kick in the pants.
Perhaps still a little haughty over their win, Lindows decided to take on another of Microsoft's products. In late 2002, Microsoft put into market the Media Center Edition of its popular Windows XP operating system, complete with system requirements dictated to OEM system builders. On January 28, 2003, Lindows released its own Lindows Media Computer as a direct competitor.
After looking over all the media hype, I went searching for one of these little machines. Could the Lindows Media Computer really pull off meeting the new Windows machine in a pitched battle? It did boast ?Instant on? DVD, CD, MP3, and VCD playback as one of the prime features. And, it was only a fraction of the price for a Windows Media Center system. At the time, only one vendor had them available, iDOTpc.com. After some communication, the folks at iDOTpc.com were kind enough to loan me one of the units to take for a spin.
This is it, right out of the box. One word came to my mind after seeing it next to my PogoLinux machine - tiny. I hoped there was some serious power packed in that little box or someone was going to be unhappy. With that in mind, on to the system specifications.
? VIA C3 E-Series 933MHz Processor
? VIA PLE133 + VT8235 Chipset Motherboard
? 128MB RAM PC133 and up to 1GB of PC100/PC133 SDRAM capacity
? 20GB ATA 100 5400RPM hard drive attached to one of 2 Dual-channel enhanced IDE Ports supporting UDMA 66/100/133
? 16X DVD Drive in the single full height 5.25" drive bay
? 4 USB 1.1 Ports (two in front, two in back), 1 Serial Port, 1 Parallel Port , and 1 PCI Slot
? Integrated Trident 2X AGP with 2D/3D Graphics Acceleration
? Integrated VIA AC97 Audio, 3 Audio Jacks: Line-in, Line-out, and Mic-in
? Onboard VIA 10/100 Base-T Fast Ethernet Controller
? Mini-ITX Tower Case with 150W Power Supply
? Dimension: 10.24"(D) x 5.31"(W) x 11.75"(H)
? LindowsOS 3.0 MP3.com Edition with dedicated tech support
? One Year Parts and Labor Warranty
Some of you who are avid readers may recognize this box. It is none other than the FIC Falcon CR51 small form factor PC that was announced last October. However, it has been updated with the ?etDVD? software from Elegent Technologies. The etDVD software is a boot time embedded software set that does all the magic of audio and video playback at boot time.
Brains! I need Brains!
Of course, I couldn't resist cracking the case. While there were some instructions included, I thought it would be more interesting to see how intuitive it would be to go without. Three thumb screws on the back side released the side panel which slid away. Inside, there isn't a whole lot to see. Yes. On the left you can just get a glimpse of the hard drive which is mounted to the floor of the chassis. Dead center is the DVD drive, and to the upper right is the teeny tiny power supply. Again, not too interesting. But, I discovered that one of the thumb screws actually held onto the DVD drive sled. After popping off the front face plate, I found the mate to the thumb screw. Removing this, I was able to get the DVD drive out of the way and have a better look at the rest of the insides.
As expected, I wasn't a good photographer. But let me assure you, everything was clean and small. You can make out the twin SDRAM sockets there at the top, the CPU and fan assembly just below that. Under the green heatsink resides the chipset, and over there on the right you can see the single PCI slot. Not a whole lot of room in there for anything else.
Fire It up!
Once I had it back together, I connected it to my spare monitor, keyboard, and mouse. (At $3
And going off just what I saw in the slash post, there's no mention of it. Since I can't read the article (slashdotted) I can only go on what is availiable to me.
So since time shifting wasn't mentioned about windows media center or linux, I can only assume since the author is trying to compare lindows to media center that it must have time shifting capabilities.
So how is the time shifting on linux? Could someone from linuxhardware.com please either provide another mirror to the article, or just answer my reply? I'm just really curious to know if it's working well in lindows.
Yours Truly
Toq
Come on. Has anyone here ever *used* Lindows?
God. Pitiful... just fucking awful. It's like the worst features of Windows meet the worst features of Linux, and a retard put it all together so other retards could half-use it but no one could fully use it. How anyone could consider it even a serious contender on the desktop, let alone a "MS striker", is beyond the comprehension of an intelligent human.
Lindows will die and Bill Gates won't even giggle. That's how little of a threat they are.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
Their website claims:
/.'ing
first PC Company built for the Web
Still waiting for the first PC Company built to withstand a good
---------
Not too far back, battle waged. A battle between the big man and the little man. Massive Microsoft against little Lindows. After a lengthy court battle, the little man finally prevailed. Microsoft was not able to stop them from using the Windows-like name. That was in Spring of last year. This year, Lindows decided to give Microsoft another swift kick in the pants.
Perhaps still a little haughty over their win, Lindows decided to take on another of Microsoft's products. In late 2002, Microsoft put into market the Media Center Edition of its popular Windows XP operating system, complete with system requirements dictated to OEM system builders. On January 28, 2003, Lindows released its own Lindows Media Computer as a direct competitor.
After looking over all the media hype, I went searching for one of these little machines. Could the Lindows Media Computer really pull off meeting the new Windows machine in a pitched battle? It did boast Instant on DVD, CD, MP3, and VCD playback as one of the prime features. And, it was only a fraction of the price for a Windows Media Center system. At the time, only one vendor had them available, iDOTpc.com. After some communication, the folks at iDOTpc.com were kind enough to loan me one of the units to take for a spin.
This is it, right out of the box. One word came to my mind after seeing it next to my PogoLinux machine - tiny. I hoped there was some serious power packed in that little box or someone was going to be unhappy. With that in mind, on to the system specifications.
VIA C3 E-Series 933MHz Processor
VIA PLE133 + VT8235 Chipset Motherboard
128MB RAM PC133 and up to 1GB of PC100/PC133 SDRAM capacity
20GB ATA 100 5400RPM hard drive attached to one of 2 Dual-channel enhanced IDE Ports supporting UDMA 66/100/133
16X DVD Drive in the single full height 5.25" drive bay
4 USB 1.1 Ports (two in front, two in back), 1 Serial Port, 1 Parallel Port , and 1 PCI Slot
Integrated Trident 2X AGP with 2D/3D Graphics Acceleration
Integrated VIA AC97 Audio, 3 Audio Jacks: Line-in, Line-out, and Mic-in
Onboard VIA 10/100 Base-T Fast Ethernet Controller
Mini-ITX Tower Case with 150W Power Supply
Dimension: 10.24"(D) x 5.31"(W) x 11.75"(H)
LindowsOS 3.0 MP3.com Edition with dedicated tech support
One Year Parts and Labor Warranty
FRONT
BACK
Some of you who are avid readers may recognize this box. It is none other than the FIC Falcon CR51 small form factor PC that was announced last October. However, it has been updated with the etDVD software from Elegent Technologies. The etDVD software is a boot time embedded software set that does all the magic of audio and video playback at boot time.
Brains! I need Brains!
Of course, I couldn't resist cracking the case. While there were some instructions included, I thought it would be more interesting to see how intuitive it would be to go without. Three thumb screws on the back side released the side panel which slid away. Inside, there isn't a whole lot to see. Yes. On the left you can just get a glimpse of the hard drive which is mounted to the floor of the chassis. Dead center is the DVD drive, and to the upper right is the teeny tiny power supply. Again, not too interesting. But, I discovered that one of the thumb screws actually held onto the DVD drive sled. After popping off the front face plate, I found the mate to the thumb screw. Removing this, I was able to get the DVD drive out of the way and have a better look at the rest of the insides.
As expected, I wasn't a good photographer. But let me assure you, everythin
Any spoon would be too big.
Lindows so far has been all hype and no delivery. I wouldn't touch anything backed by Robertson, and I love how Lindows is on its 3rd version in less than a year.
Hey, it sounds like they've at least kept up with Media Center Edition though. That is a piece of crap for a program. The interface is slow, the mp3 player is aparently not compatible with WMP9 (which conveniently comes in a patch of course) so new media cant be loaded into the MCE library, and the remote handler doesnt detect anything but the very commercial remotes (I've got an Ira and it has no idea what to do with it). Bleh. I went back to just programming functions into Girder and using winamp.
--onyx--
This thing sounds like crap. All they keep doing is harping on the port blockers for the kiddies. The Xbox media player does all this and more.
Oh, and someone HAS figured out how to run Linux on an UNMODDED XBOX! I submitted the story yesterday, but...
When I was working for a .com that was trying to choose a name, the marketing folks made some very strong points for why you don't have to choose something that people are familiar with. Given that we were promoting widgets, they recommended we not name ourselves widgets.com, ourwidgets.com, or ewidgets.com. Their argument was that if you have a good product you can create your own name. Does Yahoo! need the word "directory" in their name? Does Ebay need the word "Auctions" in its name? Using something wacky wasn't going to hurt you, and it would allow you to later branch out into other markets.
Software developers really need to look at this lesson. Repeat after me, "The name of your program doesn't have to start with 'Win', 'g', 'k', 'Java', or 'X'".
Somebody replied to a similar rant of mine here on slashdot. They said that if you wrote a program that browsed Ebay auctions, you should be allowed to put ebay in the name. Maybe you should be allowed to, but that might prevent you from also supporting Yahoo or some other auction site in the future. Its not a good idea.
In the case of Lindows, the fact that they are using the name of their competitor cheapens them. I have to wonder why they don't think they can't create their own hype. Is their product not good enough?
Call me spoiled. I watch Alias, The Practice, and even Fraser in HDTV every week. HDNet's sports are outstanding. And the recent Olympic games awe-inspiring. Guests to my home are blown away when I fire up PBS's continually-playing demo loop.
Despite the many many nay-sayers, HDTV is here, now.
Yet I keep seeing product announcements (Lindows Media, Mystro, Dish's 721 etc.) boasting competition to the Tivo, yet not a one is capable of handling HTDV. Tivo can't yet either.
I'm having to build my own digital recorder on an PC running (shudder) Windows XP with a MyHD card. The data rate of HDTV is high, but not unmanageable. MyHD records and displays a live program using less than 10% of the processor (1.8GHz P4, I'll grant).
I'm frankly tired of viewing programs with non-square pixels, incomplete color gamuts, and a mere 480 lines of (interlaced) resolution. Wake me when one of these companies does HDTV.
A few months back when I was looking into building media-centric PC's for the kids. The DVD software, afaik, is proprietary (licenced CSS codes), and embedded within the bootprom.
All in all, it looked like a completely gutless solution, incapable of doing nearly everything I wanted it to do.
It's hardly something to compete with the tivo-like feature set and processing power that the P4/windows based media PC's from big vendors provides.
It's more like a really really expensive, but really really crappy, DVD player. That runs linux.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
...can i get native version of AOE2 or Civilization 3 or Unreal or ...? No? Rats...looks like lilo will be in sittin for a while still on my mbr...
why run from Vincenzo?
Now, we only need to find a +2 Shield of Flame Resitence vs. Trolls and we'll save the princess!
(Jet lag is a horrible thing)
idiotpc.com??? Not a good name, but I know a few people that qualify buying a PC from them.
Slashdot: "Power to Strike Microsoft?"
LinuxHardware.org: "Ask again later."
I want Roberts (Robertson?) to stand up and explain what happened to the Wine intergration he promised. It just seems to have disappeared without trace. I don't think Wine is even installed by default now.
Sounds like some deformed offspring of the marketing departments of Apple and Microsoft.
Are they going to have a server version called iDOTnet?
I probably shouldn't admit this in a forum of people who obviously despise Lindows, but I have tried it and I did like it. I think I have a pretty good handle on OSs having used NetWare, Windows, UNIX, Linux, VMS, etc and I found Lindows very easy to install, very easy to navigate and -- more importantly -- very easy to get working on my Windows network.
Lindows isn't necessarily here for the hard core Linux user. It's for the masses. For similar reasons that hard core Linux/Unix folks hate Windows, they will hate Lindows.
I commend them for trying. Before version 3, I didn't think it would go anywhere, but after actually using it for a while, my opinion has changed.
in the field of AutoGlass installation and repairs.
Or any of tens of thousands of other companies that trademark common words. It's perfectly legal, ethical, and not slimey.
Is it just me, or wouldn't you expect a media computer to be a computer that you can hook up your television and view its content (video files, sound files, pictures) on your television using a remote control? Why all this talk about DVD playing? What is so special about a computer playing a DVD?
I used Lindows just this past Saturday. I installed it on my computer where it lived for roughly 30 minutes while I rushed in a panic to download and burn Slackware 9.0. Lindows is now gone forever, and I'm in Slack Heaven.
In the case of Microsoft, the product names are probably the least slimy aspect. While Microsoft could have done better than to choose common descriptive terms for its products, their competitors shouldn't be afraid to do something bold and different.
Maybe its just the "dows" suffix that makes products blow monkey chunks. Its pronounced just like "Doh!", only its pluralized to indicate a whole mess of 'em.
It may not be likely, but it sure would explain a couple few things...
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
If Lindows Media computer is able to create an interface where the user finds absolutely
nothing lacking in comparison to Windows media Computer & is cheaper - why not ?
The only reason linux is losing out on the desktop is because of the inability to execute applications (without struggling with wine).
With all-in-a-box system like a media computer that wouldnt require specific applications to perform tasks there is a good chance that windows will lose out.
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
Really, you guys are getting way too excited about completely the wrong things.
if the best open source can do is commoditise someone else's innovation, then that's fine, but please don't pretend open source is some kind of great creative movement.
In my trade, we rightly look down on derivative products. And if open source is to match its ambitions, it needs to as well.
Dimension: 10.24"(D) x 5.31"(W) x 11.75"(H)
As far as I understand from the review. It doesn't do what its meant to do (DVD etc) very well and it can't display on a TV. No pardon me if I wrong but I would want something like this to show stuff on my TV. So basically I can spend £250 on this or £99 on a DVD player than can do the same thing? I know where I'm putting my money
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
If you look at the Lindows web site, you'll notice that their focus has changed from running Windows apps to integrating well with current environments by easily open Windows files, etc. Basically, rather than embracing Windows, they're working to get people to migrate and use native tools instead. I think that they realized just how hard the effort would be. That's not a reason to close the doors and call it quits. They're just working under a new strategy now.
Can LindowsOS run software written for Microsoft® Windows? and How can I best "migrate" from using Microsoft® Windows to using LindowsOS?
n/t
Perhaps still a little haughty over their win, Lindows decided to take on another of Microsoft's products. In late 2002, Microsoft put into market the Media Center Edition of its popular Windows XP operating system, complete with system requirements dictated to OEM system builders. On January 28, 2003, Lindows released its own Lindows Media Computer as a direct competitor.
After looking over all the media hype, I went searching for one of these little machines. Could the Lindows Media Computer really pull off meeting the new Windows machine in a pitched battle? It did boast Instant on DVD, CD, MP3, and VCD playback as one of the prime features. And, it was only a fraction of the price for a Windows Media Center system. At the time, only one vendor had them available, iDOTpc.com. After some communication, the folks at iDOTpc.com were kind enough to loan me one of the units to take for a spin.
This is it, right out of the box. One word came to my mind after seeing it next to my PogoLinux machine - tiny. I hoped there was some serious power packed in that little box or someone was going to be unhappy. With that in mind, on to the system specifications.
VIA C3 E-Series 933MHz Processor
VIA PLE133 + VT8235 Chipset Motherboard
128MB RAM PC133 and up to 1GB of PC100/PC133 SDRAM capacity
20GB ATA 100 5400RPM hard drive attached to one of 2 Dual-channel enhanced IDE Ports supporting UDMA 66/100/133
16X DVD Drive in the single full height 5.25" drive bay
4 USB 1.1 Ports (two in front, two in back), 1 Serial Port, 1 Parallel Port , and 1 PCI Slot
Integrated Trident 2X AGP with 2D/3D Graphics Acceleration
Integrated VIA AC97 Audio, 3 Audio Jacks: Line-in, Line-out, and Mic-in
Onboard VIA 10/100 Base-T Fast Ethernet Controller
Mini-ITX Tower Case with 150W Power Supply
Dimension: 10.24"(D) x 5.31"(W) x 11.75"(H)
LindowsOS 3.0 MP3.com Edition with dedicated tech support
One Year Parts and Labor Warranty
FRONT
BACK
Some of you who are avid readers may recognize this box. It is none other than the FIC Falcon CR51 small form factor PC that was announced last October. However, it has been updated with the etDVD software from Elegent Technologies. The etDVD software is a boot time embedded software set that does all the magic of audio and video playback at boot time.
Brains! I need Brains!
Of course, I couldn't resist cracking the case. While there were some instructions included, I thought it would be more interesting to see how intuitive it would be to go without. Three thumb screws on the back side released the side panel which slid away. Inside, there isn't a whole lot to see. Yes. On the left you can just get a glimpse of the hard drive which is mounted to the floor of the chassis. Dead center is the DVD drive, and to the upper right is the teeny tiny power supply. Again, not too interesting. But, I discovered that one of the thumb screws actually held onto the DVD drive sled. After popping off the front face plate, I found the mate to the thumb screw. Removing this, I was able to get the DVD drive out of the way and have a better look at the rest of the insides.
As expected, I wasn't a good photographer. But let me assure you, everything was clean and small. You can make out the twin SDRAM sockets there at the top, the CPU and fan assembly just below that. Under the green heatsink resides the chipset, and over there on the right you can see the single PCI slot. Not a whole lot of room in there for anything else.
Fire It up!
Once I had it back together, I connected it to my spare monitor, keyboard,
Okay, so no-one likes to be called an uncivilized pleb[e]ian, but other than that, he is right.
There is no way in hell this is going to affect Microsoft.
LOL. Sorry. I shall beat the hardware master for not upgrading before posting. :)
"who has aspergers"
They're not bad, but I prefer sweet peas. Yams can be quite good if they're cooked correctly.
But for a kid, he has good taste in vegitables.
---
You could build your own
And who buys these "media PCs" anyway? Does anyone have any info on the size of this market?
Welcome back tot he fold, brother.
Slackware, what else when it must be secure, stable, and easy?
Today the coalition killed more Iraqis than each other.
Just kidding, april fools!
The 933 they are listing isnt anywhere up to the task of DVD playback.
They should of gone with the 933mhz M9000 or the 1Ghz M10000.
Not only do they use faster PC2100 ram, they also have USB2.0.
They really should of either A. Waited a month or two before releasing this or B. Used something other then the Mini-ITX formfactor.
Tom's has an article comparing these diffrent boards right here.
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
So this crappy company who has nothing better to do than try and make mediocre products that use similar Microsoft names to boost their media HYPE makes another piece of crap.
From the article:
"...over time I found it lacking in several areas that were crucial...The poor VIA C3 933MHz CPU isn't even in the same league as those found in the Windows machine...the sound quality was ok but certainly wasn't something to brag about...DVD playback is spotty, VCD is as well. The 3D side of the machine falls woefully short with the Trident offering...I come to the conclusion that it was not a good one."
So what next? Oh I got it Lindows will make a P2P file sharing program called Lindows Lapster and in a few minutes every news site will have an article posted about how "daring and inovative and whatever they are tryign to be" when all they are doing is building hype around crapy products - kind of like infomercials.
Ave Molech Setting
I've never heard of a company 'built for the web'. Do they only exist in the ether?
Or maybe I'm reading it wrong. Did the W3C specifically ask them to start their company?
You know, I am the only web developer in a group of client-server developers. Maybe I was 'built for the web'.
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -- "Step Right Up", Tom Waits
From the picture, this MB looks like VIA EPIA board, which has no MPEG decoder, unlike the EPIA-M. That might be the "next version" plans that they mention.
In any event, both use shared memory. There's no dedicated graphics RAM onboard and that slows down games/video playback, etc horribly.
The next version probably *will* play back DVD(MPEG-2) smoothly, but forget anything near full screen resolution playback with any other codec. That'll have to be done in software, and it just won't work.
FYI, I have an old Dell GX1(tiny case, PIII/450) as a dedicated PVR/DVD machine. It can play back full screen PAL video at 80% CPU load(mplayer -vo dga), and that's only because it has a 4Mb Rage Pro embedded video system. If it used shared memory, it wouldn't even come close.
lh@iamnota.org
Where did they get the damn drivers?
The name Lindows sounds like Linux-windows, but so what? When I hear that, I figure that it is running X-windows, not Microsoft windows. The term 'windows' has been used in a generic sense before Microsoft started using the term.
Eesh.
Ive got ONE WORD: superhypgermegaglobalmedia
The reviewer didn't check to see if the DVD player had DMA enabled. The processor has enough gas to run a DVD, I do
it all the time with my Linux system and my 1GHz processor
needs about 5% to handle everything. The 128MB is a bit
slight though. After adding the second128MB stick all should
have performed well enough.
I really want to know why some people are fixated on watching DVD's on their home computer. 29" TV's can be had for less than the price of a decent new video card, and basic DVD players are dirt cheap.
I don't understand it. Why sit in front of your computer for 2 hours when you can stretch out on the couch?
Oooo - movies in 1024x768 - crystal clear! Of course you have to be within 3 feet of the screen to really enjoy it...
Built from parts:
... you get the idea. Built on the old and the new and it works flawlessly.
G4 450
Desktop-style G3 case painted black w/ silver trim
768 MB RAM
120 + 80 GB drives
32 MB Radeon Dual-Head Graphics (drives a 27" TV and a 14" VGA 800x600 mirrored or separate display at the 'control center' of the couch)
DVD-RW
External CD-RW
Mac OS X (incl. all the goodness of a full install of X)
EyeTV
VLC (for VideoCDs, DivX, etc)
Remote Control via Keyspan
Wacom Tablet
Best freakin' PVR etc in the world. Has 2 stereo audio inputs, 2 S-video out, 2 Composite Video out, 1 VGA, 1 DVI, one Mac DB-15, 2 USB, 3 FireWire, 2x DVD-RW, 1 10BaseT Enet, 1 10/100BaseT Enet, SCSI, 2 serial, ADB, and a partridge in a pear tree.
I can burn a VCD while encoding a DVD to DivX while recording live TV to MPEG-1 while acting as a media server to my LAN while
Indeed the M series of via epia mobos have DVD (eg, mpeg) hardware decoder but it is not supported in Linux.
Ofcourse, as etDVD is not actually "linux", they *might* have changes to get it work but alas, in lindows its just not yet possible..
yush
"I know a genuine Panaphonics when I see one. And there's Magnetbox, and Sorny."
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Why can't I reply to specific comments? The only way I could post anything was to start a new thread. Is there a new "feature" that keeps anonymous cowards from posting normally? Is there a time limit on a story/comment after which anonymous can post/reply? Is there a bug/something wrong with my browser or slash?
Slashdot is just getting ridiculous with this anti-ac crap. For a site that makes so much noise about "free speech", it's sure going out of its way to make it harder to talk. Just get rid of ac's and get it over with.
-j
Microsoft is known for going after bad ideas. Take the Windows
OK so theyre going after a household gadget, maybe something like TiVO. It better have all the major buttons on it; play rewind etc, as well as on its remote. The rest of the system should be made bullet-proof, i.e. the OS shouldnt need input at awkward moments like a bad cd or apps crashing, shouldnt need a keyboard at all.
But if theyre going after a PC-cum-household appliance, its a wild goose chase. Everyone would rather do media on their PCs. Many PCs have things like the ATI all-in-wonder and sound blaster extigy and still dont call themselves media. They tried cheap, well everyones rushing for the ECS motherboards.. 1.4GHz AMD for $90. Beat that.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Actually, given the lack of upgrade options, I would be hard pressed to recommend this system to anyone. It does look good, fits into small spaces, and doesn't take up a whole lot of space. But I don't know anyone who has these items on the absolute top of their priority list.
He does not know my wife, her mom, my mom and what must be greater than 50% of the US market. They want small, out of the way stuff like this like you would not belive. They are buying those dinky Bose bookcase systems. They don't care if the sound is not as good as a real stereo because they mostly listen to crap on the radio anyway.
It's shocking how clueless they are. Last weekend, I brought my old P90 laptop home to play some music for my mom. "You mean your computer can be your stereo?", she asked me. Wow, I was taken back by that one. We plugged it into her little Bose, which my wife loves, and played my wife's Beatles tunes all night long. My mom was particularly impressed by the fact that my wife's entire Beatles collection fit on half a CDROM. They loved it.
I'd never much bothered with music on my computers before. I fooled around with dinky software on a windoze box two years ago and never bothered with it again until a few weeks ago. Here's what worked:
This Lindows box needs to have some better software for organizing music, but I'm sure that people like my mom and my wife would love to have one if it were easy enough to use. No, the M$ box is not easy enough to use either. Easy is stand alone operation, perhaps with TV remote control use.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
The article attributes poor DVD playback to the lack of hardware decoding, but adds that the vendor promised:
The new "M series" would be coming out soon that did include the decoder and took care of the poor playback.
"M Series" refers to the naming convention of the motherboards. The tested model is a VIA EPIA. The "M Series" are the lastest EPIA motherboards, which add several improvements, including DDR RAM and hardware MPEG-2 decoding.
I've been looking at an EPIA M6000, which, with it's low-power VIA Eden processor, requires no CPU cooling fan. I figured it would be an idea mobo to build a fanless home PC around.
It turns out that the hardware MPEG-2 decoder in the onboard graphics adapter does allow it to play DVDs smoothly at 30 fps. It also makes an excellent platform for an MP3 jukebox. However VIA has not provided Linux drivers for the MPEG-2 decoder.
With a little more driver support from VIA, the EPIA-M series of motherboards could have a lot of virtues -- especially in silent and low-power computing applications.
Tom's Hardware has an informative review of three VIA EPIA mobos -- including one of the "M Series" models.
These forums are an excellent starting point to find out more:
VIA Arena Linux Area
LinITX.com Forum
I don't know whether it's due to my incompetence, but in my experience the VIA boards will only do well at DVD playback when they've got a hardware MPEG2 decoder onboard, which AFAIK this board doesn't (you need the M series with the Castle Rock intergrated graphics for that, not the trident).
I couldn't RTFA or get to the VIA site (/.'ed), so I couldn't check this out properly, but to me it sounds like they picked the wrong board. Cheap it may be, but flawless DVD playback it ain't. Even the Toms Hardware article on these boards said they weren't brilliant for this sort of thing.
I'll stick to my 1GHz P3 MythTV box for the time being.
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
Now lets look at the media-center Lindows machine. Horrible DVD playback, only a single-channel audio output, and no video output. To me, this is nothing but a low-end desktop computer. Even the reviewer had to hook up a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to get it to work since it doesn't have a TV-out or a remote control interface. It doesn't have any recording features at all (no CD-R drive or TiVo-like functionality). So how is this a media-PC compared to my "non-media" PC?
Please don't tell me that "media center" will become another buzz-word to describe any computer that has a DVD player attached to it. If it is, then most of us have had media centers for quite a while.
"Oh dear, she's stuck in an infinite loop and he's an idiot" -Prof. Farnsworth (Futurama)
The DVDs are decoded by a special embedded player before the OS boots. The two cannot happen at the same time.
Comparing these to a windows media computer isn't even fair. They are 2 different beasts. A windows media computer is built around high end hardware capable of doing PVR duties. This little box is a dvd player w/ a hard drive, (as is mine). It was silly of them to sell this without a hardware decoder.
But with a hardware decoder it should do fine. (I run mine under windows because I haven't been able to get the drivers for the hardware video decoder working under linux. Also, I want a dvd player that works with my remote control and that I can pop the dvd in and have the menu come up, not something I have to work at the keyboard for. I know these features are available, but I haven't seen a simple package that combines these 3 things without me having to hack things up.) I get almost no cpu utilization under windows. When I do get jumps in the video/audio, it's caused by the isa bus (and I have bus mastering, it just sucks), not by the hardware. The box works well for what I wanted when I bought it: A dvd player that is small and trendy looking, but is updatable with standard pc parts and can take a LOT of storage for my music, (I have ALOT of music. I have ripped my hundred's of CD's to the computer to make them all portable at once).
But a media center? That it is not. The system reviewed should be compared to a set-top box that has a dvd player and can access mp3's, ogg's, and such. I'm thinking about building a new box to work as a media center, but I'll use a bigger case, MUCH stronger hardware so I can use PVR capabilities, and probably a package like the PVR ones that have been discussed here before. Either that or a windows media center computer.
I do security
i cant think of a linux distro that doesnt play more media files than windows out-of-the-box. mplayer beats out WMP on that like theres no tomorrow.
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
If only there was some company that offered a UNIX based operating system running on powerful and elegant hardware that offered powerful built-in audio and video with every system sold, and also offered a drive that can read and write DVDs as well as CD-R/W. Alas, if only this glorious, mythical, magic computer company existed in real life...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
The Xbox can play DVD smoothly. It only has 733 PIII CPU and 64MB of DDR SDRAM shared with video. The kernel only use PIO to talk to DVD and hard drive.
What this tell me is the Lindows routine is poorly coded and not taking full advantage of the video chipset.
My HTPC runs on Linux, uses Ogle for DVD playback, xine for music playback (with JESS for visualization), tvtime for analog video (I wrote an effect for the sound blaster live OSS drivers that delays the sound to compensate for the video delay introduced by tvtime), has an OpenGL user interface I wrote, controls my projector via RS-232, and is all navigatable with the remote control that came with my HDTV tuner card. I'm still writing the driver for the HDTV card, but the remote works great with lirc. From bootup to shutdown, the only thing that looks like difficult is the text that scrolls along the bottom of the screen. To get rid of that I just have to set the text palette to black, since I'm using 8bpp vesafb.
Everyone who sees my "Remote controlled wall" thinks it's pretty cool.
A solution to the problem with music today
Unfortunately I can't sell or give away my open source software to home theater distributors, because of the stupid DVD-CCA and all those other greedy pigs.
A solution to the problem with music today
Here's a mirror
Karma: Excellent (fuck, even in the future moderation doesn't work!)
I'd say anyone with a projector has an 80% chance of also owning an HTPC these days. It's the only way to get smooth scaled video without paying a few thousand dollars for a Faroudja or similar video scaler/line doubler/quadrupler/deinterlacer/3:2 pulldown remover. Tvtime in Linux works well enough for video source (it chokes hard on film though -- if any tvtime guys are reading, it needs 3:2 pulldown removal! Maybe I'll help out with development when I get some time, just get 3:2 pulldown removal!). Dscaler in Windows supports everything from a $15 bt878 capture card to a several hundred dollar SDI interface available from Cellar Cinemas, and if you set up the capture card's video proc amp right, it'll look great with all of them. In Linux, Ogle is excellent for film-source NTSC dvd's (mplayer has serious sync and stutter issues with any mpeg-2 material I've tried in it), mplayer and xine are great for DivX and DV video (gotta watch those home videos from my digital camera you know), xmms is great for CD audio with the LIRC plugin, ...
Basically, in the high end, an HTPC offers a lot of integration, and simplifies the user interface. Instead of having to switch the audio/video inputs on my receiver, video switcher, etc, I can just press a button or two on my remote, and switch modes on the HTPC.
The Lindows Media Center computer is indeed a mistake. It's useless for the high end. It's a good first stab though.
A solution to the problem with music today
They don't. But replacing my VCR, CD player, PC as mp3 player et al with a single smart multifunctional box? I think Joe Sixpack could very well go for it if it came with a simple, user-friendly interface in a nice black/silver box the size of my VCR (not PVR - yet). The problem is the user interface - whatever links you have for freshmeat is *not* what I had in mind. You're right he doesn't want a computer - but nothing beats the flexibility of having a computer *behind* the scenes. Oh and about that "not computer" part, that also involves being as quiet as humanly possible. Passive heatsinks, slow CD/DVD drive (preferably selectable, so you can rip fast but listen "normal" if you want), ultra-quiet hard drive (Barracuda V made to spin at 5400RPM in noise protecting box?) and whatever else to make it feel like an appliance, not a computer.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Ok so you have a box thats being sold knowingly underperforming, well done mr roberts you will really get the people on side with that one. :-)
What needs to happen also is thease things to be always on like tivo's and have similar functionality, Why have this instant on dvd thing when you can have the machine standby-ed or always on . that way it can do tivo stuff (with something like mythtv) Thus you can have a dvd player show recorder web browser kung foo fighting box
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
I thought the whole point of a "Media PC" was that it acted like a PVR and recorded video content. If I want to play DVD's/MP3's/VCD's, I'll just buy a $150 DVD player!
That little box gets my blood pumping! One channel sound, and not a single feature works as advertised! I can't wait to buy into this Lindows craze!
What's the deal with the hatred from some about KDE as the front end? It looks much nicer than any other version of KDE or Gnome that I've seen. And things are much easier to find.
Have you hugged your penguin today?
Apple do some great media stuff, but they are not exactly on a budget.
See my journal, I write things there
I like the idea of a subscription based service for maintaining software because it supports the companies which develop the software. However, Microsoft's version, where the computer will cease to function and the files contained therein become inaccessable is not acceptable to me. One of the experiences I have had working at a Laboratory where some mission critical equiptment runs on propriatary software with expiring licenses is that the corporations are basically able to extort money from you. When they say, double the cost, you arn't able to switch to a competitor. An arangement where a subscription gaurantees that you have access to the most recent software but does not require you to pay to continue to use your existing software (like the lindows one) is definitely the way to go (at least as an consumer).
Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.
I think we all want someone to beat Microsoft at their own game. My only hope is that more companies start porting their apps towards UNIX based environments. Linux is great at work, but at home I am locked into a microsoft PC because of gaming / multimedia. At least Lindows is making progress on bridgeing the gap. 2 thumbs up for effort to those guys.
what about if it used DMA from the boot program. from what i have read and a few guesses it sounds like dms isnt turned on for the drive when its being used from the bios
This must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
One of the thing that seems most interesant to me is the Loader, wich with only an Eprom chip is able to handle cd, mp3, vcd and dvd.
Somebody know about some similar, able to perform only supported with software, without the need of the Eprom?
Who cares? Apple prices it's hardware like every machine is hand-chiseled by a Tibetan monk from a solid block of pure, polished, weapons-grade unobtanium!
0 1 - just my two bits
a ping maybe more accurate, no wait .. hrm an inch.. no wait, hrm no. Have you seen the specs of this machine? Lindows OS= Cheap Crap, lindows makes cheap crap. it's not hard to put together this sort of Shite with the sort of cheap crap materials that they use here at lindows.
Lindows really isn't rocket science.
The main point about the original media box was that the BIOS itself was capable of decoding DVD's, so the CPU wasn't stressed with the overhead of an OS, and even then it could just about keep up with a DVD.
I dunno if this BIOS had DMA enabled in it or not though, though I'm not sure if it would help much. Fact is, this board NEEDS an MPEG2 decoder.
I could never get the hang of Thursdays either.
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
The answer is: No.
Next question?
I know there is at least one Lindows person on the MythTV list, and that he is constantly trying myth on all kinds of hardware. So I wonder how much of the media code that is used in this is taken from something like myth. It seems that they had this out rather quickly after MS got theirs in the market. If some of the code is from MythTV shouldn't they have to release the code that is developed from it?
PVR functionality would have greatly improved it's score with me. Provided it worked that is.
In my country, we have laws that state that if a product doesn't do what it was advertised to do, then we can return it for a refund. Either the USA doesn't have this kind of law (unlikely), or people who bought them lack the inteligence to RMA these novelty-sized doorstops asap. Oh wait, if they bought Lindows in the first place....
It did boast "Instant on" DVD, CD, MP3, and VCD playback as one of the prime features
.......
That's if you bought the optional Viagra add-on pack for it. If you didn't, it's not too late, you can expect a hundred emails each day
http://www.linitx.com
Roll your own Mini box. Choose your own Distro. Install your own choice of DVD player.
I like the Idea of a Newb proof linux, and a Newb HTPC, but why is Joe Consumer getting sold short, because he isn't Joe Geek.
Doesn't happen in most home stuff.
Go into a HiFi or Audio Video shop, and they will try to sell you up to the best, even though the budget stuff is available.
In most computer shops they try to sell you the garbage at only marginally lower prices than the good stuff.
Or maybe that is just the UK
A Skoda is for life, not for casual humour.
this doesn't look like an alternative to me
Hmm... the author doesn't seem to have any idea about how those Mhz might work. The C3 900+Mhz CPU does compare with a 233 PIII. It's the same thing as Intel vs. AMD. And for guys like that AMD markets the system with a Intel-compatible number. So the reviewed box isn't half the power of the regular PC. It's a lot slower. No wonder it has problems with the DVD output.
About the box: with a good ventilation (bigger box) the C3 has a wonderful feature over the recent CPUs - it's cold enough it can go on with passive cooling. Something Intel and AMD don't take into consideration. And the market seems too obsessed with more and more Mhz although most of that power goes unused.