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Television Media Software Entertainment Linux

Introducing The Dave/Dina Multimedia Distro 167

Posted by timothy from the more-the-merrier dept.
thomasvs writes "The Dave/Dina project is a small enthusiastic group of developers working on a complete open-sourced distribution for home entertainment systems. You can record and watch TV, watch DVD's, grab and listen to CD's, rate your music, videochat with other people, watch pictures, and all this on your TV set in the living room, with a remote control. The first .iso set has just been released. This is a beta release meant to attract new developers, testers, and hackers, who want to work towards a similar goal. It works fine for us, but it might need fixing on other hardware, which is our next goal. On a related note, Happy New Year to everyone !"
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Introducing The Dave/Dina Multimedia Distro More

Introducing The Dave/Dina Multimedia Distro

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  • This idea is like Windows XP Media Center Edition. Free software for everything you could possibly want in a Home Multimedia Center.

    But ya'know, not at all gay like WinXP MCE

  • wow... (Score:1, Troll)

    by bwhaley ( 410361 )
    Damn [davedina.org]... :)

  • Hmm (Score:4, Informative)

    by downix ( 84795 ) on Wednesday December 31, 2003 @05:30PM (#7848579) Homepage
    This sounds similar to the VideoLAN [videolan.org] project.

    A great idea tho, tried it out a few years back to much success.

  • davedina.org requesting $20,000 (Score:5, Funny)

    by morelife ( 213920 ) <f00fbug@post[ ]O ... t ['REM' in gap]> on Wednesday December 31, 2003 @05:30PM (#7848583)
    For new servers.

    They are down now.

    • His blog [advogato.org]'s up though. =)

      But not for long. ;-)

    • Re:davedina.org requesting $20,000 (Score:5, Funny)

      by thomasvs ( 600635 ) on Wednesday December 31, 2003 @06:04PM (#7848846) Homepage
      sigh, if I had known you people would be actually reading on New Year's eve... you're supposed to be out partying like me damnit ! Anyway, if anyone wants to set me up with an ftp or scp account so I can upload the iso's, let me know ! thomas (at) apestaart (dot) org, I can start uploading right away.
      • Haven't you learned anything on slashdot? Stick them on P2P, and let everyone else share the load.

        It seems that bittorrent is currently /. prefered (but probably only because it's new and trendy). I much prefer smarter P2P (like Gnutella).

        BTW, be prepared to be inundated with thousands of requests by people, asking you to upload them to each of their desktops :-)
        • I much prefer smarter P2P (like Gnutella).

          Does gnutella actually exist? Over the past few weeks, my mom (who I converted to linux some time ago) has been complaining that she needs some way of getting music on her computer. I've been trying various gnutella clients, but NOTHING has been able to work (ie, no gnutella client can successfully connect to the gnutella network, let alone search out and download files from it). And yes, my firewall was opened for gnutella properly.

          My failure in finding a linux

          • Does gnutella actually exist?

            Not only does it exist, it is improving greatly. When Kazaa came out, everyone was saying how much better it was than Gnutella. Now Gnutella has everything Kazaa had, in a free and open source P2P system. It's also getting things that (afaik) Kazaa doesn't have (tiger-tree hashes for example).

            I've been trying various gnutella clients, but NOTHING has been able to work (ie, no gnutella client can successfully connect to the gnutella network, let alone search out and downlo

            • It's also getting things that (afaik) Kazaa doesn't have (tiger-tree hashes for example).

              That's all well and good, but it doesn't mean dick all if nobody can connect to the network :)

              I don't know what to say. GTK-Gnutella works quite well. Did you just not have any hosts?

              I like the interface of GTK-Gnutella myself, but it just *won't* connect. When I start it up, it starts with the 4 standard host catchers, and I see the server list frantically trying to connect to hundreds, if not thousands of peers.

              • (yes, I am behind a NAT router, and yes I use iptables on my linux box, but the NAT router forwards the port to me and iptables accepts the connection -- I know this all works because a GRC.com scan reveals that the port is open).

                You don't have to have incomming connections open to allow Gnutella to connect... As long as it can make an outgoing connection, and the replies are passed-through, it'll connect. You'll just have less sources to download from if the Gnutella port isn't open.

                I strongly suggest

                • So what you're saying is, I can use gnutella with the firewall blocking it, it'll just be way worse :)

                  How can the firewall be blocking anything when an online portscanning service tells me that the port is specifically open (ie, it can connect to the server listening on that port). Does gnutella use more ports than just 6346?

                  • So what you're saying is, I can use gnutella with the firewall blocking it, it'll just be way worse :)

                    What I'm saying is, you don't need an incomming port open to be able to connect to other Gnutella nodes. So, your problem has nothing to do with that port.

                    How can the firewall be blocking anything when an online portscanning service tells me that the port is specifically open

                    Because your connections to other nodes does not happen on your port 6346...

                    Look at it this way: Even if the portscan says that

                    • What I'm saying is, you don't need an incomming port open to be able to connect to other Gnutella nodes. So, your problem has nothing to do with that port.

                      I know, I was making a joke (it's terrible now, I could close the port and make it even worse).

                      Look at it this way: Even if the portscan says that port 80 on your firewall is open, doesn't mean you'd be able to connect from inside to a webserver on the outside.

                      Guess what: I browse websites all the time. There's no special logic in the NAT routing ta
                    • My firewall rules basically say "block everything, allow established connections, allow gnutella" and the router basically has the same thing, so why doesn't gnutella work?

                      Well, the outgoing gnutella connections are being blocked. Either it's your firewall (which is why you need to at least try using it on a directly-network connected box) or by an upstream firewall/router (eg. Your ISP).
                    • Well, the outgoing gnutella connections are being blocked. Either it's your firewall (which is why you need to at least try using it on a directly-network connected box) or by an upstream firewall/router (eg. Your ISP).

                      My OUTPUT table has a "default accept" policy, and no rules in it. The router, of course, is the same (who would buy a router that would block you from doing what you want to do?). The only possible thing is that my ISP is blocking it, but I doubt that (in the past, my ISP has shown that th
                    • It just doesn't make sense, sorry.

                      Wether or not you think it makes sense isn't an issue. I've listed some things you can do to find-out where the problem is. If you aren't going to try anything, you don't want help, I won't waste any more of my time.
          • Try giFT. [sourceforge.net] It connects to Gnutella, OpenFT, and FastTrack (Kazaa's network).

            There's also a lot of different clients [sourceforge.net] for it (even one designed to look like Kazaa. Personally I can't vouch for any of them except Apollon, as that's the only one I've tried, but it works great.
            • I've used giFT in the past, and I love the modularity of it's design (ie, one program to focus on the dirty work of p2p, without having to be bothered with silly things like user interfaces, and a second program to focus on making a great UI and not having to deal with the nitty gritty details of p2p -- it allows each program to specialize and become very good at what they do). That's the theory. In practise, giFT is a pain in the ass to compile, giFTcurs is the only half-decent frontend (and it's totally n
        • Bittorrent IS smarter. It's private P2P. You have to know someone who has the hash file. It's not built to allow every other 12 year old to download Fitty Cent bile and get sued for it. It's built for geeks to share their beloved digital possessions with other geeks in limited runs while making the most of each individual's personal bandwidth.

          While Gnutella is a smarter kind of Napster/Kazaa, it is no more a holy grail of P2P than any other app. It's just more dumbified for the unwashed masses. Popul

          • Bittorrent IS smarter.

            It's different, but it sure as hell isn't smarter... But smarts has little to do with how good a P2P app is for it's purpose.

            It's built for geeks to share their beloved digital possessions with other geeks in limited runs while making the most of each individual's personal bandwidth.

            It's design intention is not an issue at all. You could say that Netscape Navigator wasn't built for surfing porn, but it wouldn't have any impact on how well it does the job.

            It's just more dumbifie

      • anyway, a first mirror is up at http://zandbak.zoo.apestaart.org/davedina-0.0/

  • Top Ten Ways to Kill a Webserver (Score:4, Funny)

    by aztektum ( 170569 ) on Wednesday December 31, 2003 @05:32PM (#7848594)
    10. Run it on a distro dedicated to multimedia playback and post it on /.

    The rest is up to you

  • Attractive (Score:2, Funny)

    by AndroidCat ( 229562 )
    This is a beta release meant to attract new developers, testers, and hackers, who want to work towards a similar goal.

    And lawyers and RIAA and MPAA who don't, oh my!

  • Oh well, should have started my ftp download a second sooner...

    Anyone doing this already with satisfactory results? I'm loving Tivo but am very close to trying out the all in one option.
  • So is it easy to setup or a pain in the ass just like so many other products? What kind of TV tuners does it support?
  • well good luck with the project in the new year. i think these distro's are good idea. something i would like to setup in my flat. but lack the spare hardware for now. Hope for the future.

  • FIRST POST ASKING WHY (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why?
  • That was quick. Did anybody catch a mirror? Or at least get some text so we have something to comment on other than each other?

  • I really think.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Wednesday December 31, 2003 @05:38PM (#7848659) Homepage Journal
    ... that highly specialized distros of Linux like these are going to be what gets it into households. Bonus points of they make it CD bootable like Knoppix.

    Man I'd love to have a mail server distro. Just run the install, then get a little wizard thing that asks the questions it needs to know to be configured, then boom, you have a mail server.

    Make another for web server, office workstation, game distro, artist distro, PDA distro, etc. If focus is given to suit these needs, people will be less shy about trying them out. I know I would be. It's rather daunting to set up Linux, then have NFI what you want to do next, then when you do get an idea it's a PITA to find out what you need to do it.

    • Re:I really think.. (Score:1, Informative)

      by greenskyx ( 609089 )
      I completely agree with you... two of my favorite specialized distributions are:

      E-Smith [e-smith.org] - Small business server/gateway. Allows VERY easy setup of samba shares and a few other things through a web based control panel.

      and

      IPCop [ipcop.org] - Firewall distro that is only 20MB!

      • Re:I really think.. (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        You ever look at the way E-Smith does things? Holly crap, what a mess! It's no wonder there's always exploits for it. And to have to pay for those updates from something that's supposed to be free (based on RH btw) what a joke E-Smith is.
      • Thank you for mentioning that! *bookmarked*
        • You should also bookmark contribs.org [contribs.org] if you want to do anything with E-smith. It's the community support site. It started rather recently so it's a bit sparce now, but I'm sure it will pick up as people join.

    • Re:I really think.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by earthforce_1 ( 454968 ) <earthforce_1@y[ ]o.com ['aho' in gap]> on Wednesday December 31, 2003 @06:27PM (#7849017) Journal
      Actually, I would rather see one universal distro that could become whatever you want it to be - anything from a single floppy firewall that runs on a 386, to an everything but the kitchen sink super desktop system, or perhaps one element of a beowulf cluster.

      That is the way the kernel itself is designed - it can be cut down slim and trim or loaded up with all the fixin's. But it is all built off the same code base.

      1000 specialized distros will lead to confusion in the marketplace, and would be a nightmare to keep up to date. Imagine if you have even 10 of them to take care of, and had to remember a few months later how to reinstall or patch if the tools and package management are different for each!

      • Actually, I would rather see one universal distro that could become whatever you want it to be - anything from a single floppy firewall that runs on a 386, to an everything but the kitchen sink super desktop system, or perhaps one element of a beowulf cluster.

        ...the website is here [debian.org]

    • Man I'd love to have a mail server distro. Just run the install, then get a little wizard thing that asks the questions it needs to know to be configured, then boom, you have a mail server.

      That's pretty much exactly what SuSE did with their Openexchange server [suse.com]. Instead of attempting to build a product that works on any Linux distribution, they just attached a purpose-specific Linux distribution to it. You don't install this product on top of your out-of-the-box Linux; you instead boot from the CD and yo

    • Re:I really think.. (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Our group LEN (Linux Experimental Network) is working on the concept. sorry for no link, but my connection simply would not handle the load, and I won't even be able to use inet here from /. effect.

      Right now we have an alpha 'distro' (more of an image with install instruction) for the desktop/multimedia system which is based around kde3.2(beta), 2.6.0 (although i find that test7-8 works much better than 2.6.0 release with identical config still can't figgure out why!) dvd stuff, video conversion, and some
    • Like KnoppMyth?

      Knoppix with MythTV preconfigured...

      Installable, or will boot from CD as a frontend given a network Myth setup.

  • ivtv (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Bigby ( 659157 )
    So does this make ivtv, lirc, etc... much easier to install. I bought a PVR-350 (tv tuner and tv-out) and a 160 GB hd to setup a multimedia center. The server (my primary computer) has the 160 GB hd, MySQL, and master mythtv backend. The client is a 450 MHz computer with the PVR-350. If it works well, I will buy another PVR-350 and put it in an extra 400 MHz computer. Quite scalable. The current problem is getting ivtv to compile properly.

    • Re:ivtv (Score:2)

      by JWW ( 79176 )
      Did you yank the firmware information out of the exe file from the windows driver? Ivtv needs that to compile. Also, many of the v4l modules need to be compiled as well.

      Once ivtv is compiled lirc is pretty easy to get working with the hauppague remote. Be sure to do a make clean in the lirc directory if you've had failed compiles of it, though.

      But I do know for a fact the PVR-250's do work, once ivtv is up and going and loaded (theres also some issues with setup of your /etc/modules.conf to get things
  • The hard part is getting TV out that is clean, supported and Hardware accelerated for mpeg1/2/4 playback.

    A P-4 1.2 ghz machine has barely enough power if you dont have hardware playback for the video files, then you have to get a decent capture card (DVR-250/350 is the ONLY choice.) supported audio that doesnt suck... (SIS/I810/AC97 audio is the absolute worst you can get, and is usually on every motherboard.)

    how about a standard hardware platform that works and wont be discontinued in 30 minutes?
    • I don't know what kind of crack your smokin, but I can get my measily 500mhz P3 to playback any video file, mpeg or avi, xvid, quicktime, etc...

      Even better, get a DXR3 for $30 on ebay. Mplayer and Xine both can use its TV out. And yes, it even does non-mpeg files on the TV-out and yes that same computer plays it back just fine.

      • Re:the distro/software is not the hard part. (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        hey dipshit.

        the dxr3 is .... GASP.... discontinued and not possible to get outside of used on ebay...

        Nvidia has crap for video out. ATI isnt well supported but much better in regards to video out. and ITX boards have nasty-crappy Tv out and XV support.

        why dont you actually try to make one of these things instead of talking out your ass..

        I agree with lumpy... without XV you cant play a divx cleanly on a 1Ghz machine. so most SIS chipsets that are motherboard integrated and have a decent tv out cxhipset

        • Nvidia has crap for video out.

          I don't know how many centuries ago you used an NVidia card for video-out (or if you're just BSing) but my Geforce4 MX card's video-out is significantly better quality than even moderately-priced DVD-players. I'd be willing to bet it's better than high-priced DVD-players as well, but I don't own one, so I can't say that with any certainty.

          why dont you actually try to make one of these things instead of talking out your ass..

          I can't speak for the poster, but I have built a

          • Hey, thanks man. Its a new year and this, uh, person is flaming for something he can't comprehend. Have a good year evilviper!!!

            BTW, I can guarantee its better because my laptop IS my DVD player. Video out works great. And yes, in Theater mode in Linux, so my sister can watch Finding Nemo on the TV while I read /. on the laptop wireless....

            Why do I need winblows again?

        • Hey donkey ball licker...

          NVIDIA has awesome video output. And, why don't you guys get out of the all in one video shit for a $20 PCI card that will do XV? Come on you get what you pay for. SIS, funk dat.

          The original post was about TV output and Linux.

          Yeah, RTFA biatch, I said you can get a DXR3 on ebay for roughly what you pay for 'net access to bitch ass out.

          The world doesn't have windows does it?

    • The hard part is getting TV out that is clean, supported and Hardware accelerated for mpeg1/2/4 playback.

      Just yesterday I posted an informal announcement that MPlayer has hardware MPEG1/2 acceleration (primarily) on Geforce4 videocards (there's some talk about hardware-assisted MPEG4, but I'm not holding my breath). The Geforce4 cards also happen to commonly have SVideo outputs.

      A P-4 1.2 ghz machine has barely enough power if you dont have hardware playback for the video files

      What the hell? I've hear

      • Hey kids... uh... why do you even WANT a "tv out" on a system? I mean, I know you can buy a cheap 27" TV at Wal-mart now for like $200, but uh... why would you? You can buy a used monitor for about the same money and it has RGB inputs. Or better still stop being a cheap bastard and shell out a few hundred for a decent rear projection set large enough to be able to actually enjoy watching movies.

        Getting decent video into a computer is pretty easy. And getting decent video out is as easy as hooking up a dece

        • why do you even WANT a "tv out" on a system? I mean, I know you can buy a cheap 27" TV at Wal-mart now for like $200, but uh... why would you?

          Because that 27" TV is higher resolution than any video that you can get right now. It's also because just about everybody has a TV in every room in their homes, and most computer monitors don't have a built-in TV-tuner as TVs do. Good enough?

          You can buy a used monitor for about the same money and it has RGB inputs.

          A 27" computer monitor for $200? I don't thin

  • Hey, anyone have a .torrent for this?

  • Advice to distro nerds. (Score:3, Funny)

    by supabeast! ( 84658 ) on Wednesday December 31, 2003 @05:45PM (#7848714)
    In the future, when you get /. to pump your new distro, make sure that your servers can handle the load first.

    Morons.
  • This sounds totally cool! Maybe I should build a box for this and give it to the folks next year for christmas.

    On a related note, Happy New Year to everyone !

    thanks! but how is that anywhere near related?!

  • Sure, content makers never want to let their works go for free.

    So charge people for the download. Allow access to every movie, book, piece of culture you can put in the database.

    Allow people to comment on it and categorize similar works. Ie, if you liked the Lion King, maybe watch some other Disney movies.

    But take it to obscure works, and you get to learn more about culture.

    For kids, it would be invaluable for learning... Theres so many learning software packages for kids, edutainment, but they go obs
    • How about something like the WWW, but you pay for a subscription? For all Americans who want to get OnLine. Where's my venture capital for this bold new idea?
      • Theres a great wealth of culture that the web doesn't have listed and referenced.

        Instead of camping out television, you could actively pick any show you wanted to watch.

        Don't pay cable or satellite bills, and the computer is the center of your entertainment system. Pay an internet bill instead.

        The shows you want to watch would be easier to access. It didn't matter in the past, where there weren't many television shows/movies, and people would could see them all.

        Now, someone may want to sitdown and wat
        • You're right. Help me lobby the government to create neighborhood storefronts which keep copies of thousands of books, fiction, nonfiction, reference. People could register to borrow the books, provided they return them in a short time. We could get local schools to do it too, I'm sure colleges will go crazy for this. If we get rolling now, I'm sure that we'll have nice, quiet places that people can go to read within the next 5-10 years. I even envision some of the more secretly repressed cute girls will wa
          • There will be corporatization of online media, its happening already.

            Once corporatization takes hold, there will be crackdowns on Kazaaalikes.

            The penalties for downloading will be more pricing than the cost of the download.

            This means the over all price of media will drop too, and the masses will adopt it.

            One cablebox/computer, that plugs into your TV. Allows you to watch any movie or television show ever made.

            This is what the future holds. If its a good box, or a bad box is up to the creator of it.

            T
            • You could use a sense of humor, or perspective, or both. Your posts would have been naive in 1995; in 2003 they are kind of cute, but your jeremiads are pathetic. After I've proposed AOL and the public library system in response to your urgent demands, you freak out about an imminent corporate takeover that has been the status quo since the 1980s. Sure, I'm "satan", and you're some kind of virgin. Get out there and learn something real, before you get a splinter or something.
              • I'm having trouble laughing at stuff anymore when theres an opprotunity present to make the world a better place.

                Laughing at something is just shugging it off, like its satire, and something that's going to go on regardless.

                To me, its hard to joke about something so gravely serious, and difficult to understand.

                With children being influenced by school, parents, and the media, its tough to lay blame anywhere.

                This system will be a one of the largest influences on children for the future.
                • I fear for the children you influence too deeply. Just do something already, and show it to somebody. Your rhetoric will become a lot more realistic once it encounters the real world. And you might even help someone, and make "the world" a little better. Don't worry - *you* are not the difference between despair and salvation, except to yourself.
  • The project has a sourceforge page at http://sourceforge.net/projects/davedina [sourceforge.net].

    No files there, but the CVS is being used and you can get to the web CVS archive to look around via http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/davedina [sourceforge.net]

  • Try this one out... (Score:5, Informative)

    by tbaggy ( 151760 ) on Wednesday December 31, 2003 @06:33PM (#7849052)
    Try out KnoppMyth [mysettopbox.tv] which is a Knoppix [knoppix.org] bootable CD customized to do just MythTV [mythtv.org]

  • freevo, movix, mythtv, geexbox (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    do we really need another one?
  • I've been considering a client/server solution which places a low power (fanless) client PC near your home theater. This client would do things like announce incoming calls (vgetty), news, etc. The client would also be able to serve audio and possibly video content from the server.

    Anyway.. for this to work effectively, I'd need a means to overlay graphics on the existing video signal to my TV/monitor. Does anyone know of an inexpensive means of doing this? Maintaining video quality is key. Many audio
    • What you need is to do the graphics overlay in the video chip that drives the TV (which could, of course, have component inputs and possibly support HDTV). That's how all the Set Top Boxes do it.

      ATI makes a chip designed for this purpose (disclaimer, I work for ATI, but do not speak for them): it's part of the Xilleon series (search http://www.ati.com for Xilleon). Basically, it's a processor, hardware MPEG decoder (or several), video scaler, digital overlay, and output encoder. It supports a graphic over

  • Does this mean that Dave/Dina's distro will be called Diva perhaps?

  • I can't believe it... historical first ! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Dave21212 ( 256924 ) <dav@spamcop.net> on Wednesday December 31, 2003 @07:03PM (#7849324) Homepage Journal

    A Google Search (dina tersago belgium [google.com]) on a supermodel babe yields as it's first result [davedina.org], not a bunch of spam/pron sites, but a new Linux project [sourceforge.net] ? WTF ? hehehe...
  • Great. Now I can have many more hours and channels of TV I don't want to watch.

  • TV Listings (Score:4, Interesting)

    by KingDaveRa ( 620784 ) on Wednesday December 31, 2003 @07:27PM (#7849491) Homepage
    These projects fail in the PVR stakes, at least for me, in that they don't have consistant, reliable sources of TV listings. Even if they do, they're often US-based. WebTV (remember that?!) and so on don't really work properly due to the fact they aren't supported worldwide. Unless you're going to pay somebody to provide your listings, they are probably going to just dry up. In Sky + [sky.com] I've got a reliable, if closed-source solution. But the developers are proactive and working on it, so its not all bad. For a project like this to be totally successful as a PVR it needs either a community willing to edit these listings (some are available anyway for free) or another method, like using DigiGuide [digiguide.co.uk] or a similar system. Some of the PC-TV cards out there like the Black Gold use DigiGuide for PVR features. Trouble is, its currently Windows only.
  • Will the mascot be a pink dinosaur humping the leg of a cartoon version of Ralph Cramden?
  • Will the distro support de100c (also de200c's) that were discontinued and fire-saled by HP about a year ago?

    These are cool units that look like a consumer "stackable" A/V unit, have video out, IR with remote control, networking, internal hard disk, etc. They were intended for storing digital audio, but enterprising folks have tried running Linux video apps.

    How would this distro fare?

    see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/de100c for more info.

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