I have had my MicroClient Sr. running Xubuntu 7.10 for about a month now. I have swapped the Compact Flash install for a 2.5″ 80Gb HD install instead. This made boot times a bit faster and also stopped me worrying about read/write limits on the CF card.
The MicroClient runs OK as an every day desktop PC but has a few issues that have caused me to have a re-think as to how I might use it.
1. Graphics performance isn’t great. I can’t watch videos on the internet (Youtube etc.) as they are jerky/choppy. This is all down to the linux rivers for the Unichrome II CX700M chipset.
2. Multitasking isn’t really possible. I can’t listen to MP3’s and surf the net. If i click a link in my browser, the music cuts out as the processor does the necessary to load the new page.
In light of these (and some other) issues I am considering using my MicroClient Sr. as a stand-alone MP3 player connected to my TV. Does anyone know of a cut down Linux distribution that is simply an MP3 player?
Filed under: hardware, linux, news, norhtec microclient, software | Tagged: graphics, microclient, mp3, norhtec, performance, review, video
multitasking is definitely the thing I would miss most about modern pc’s …. multicores have changed our lives.
I don’t think you’ll find a distro doing “just” an mp3 player. though, my sr is presently running a debian stable (with custom kernel though) and MPD + pitchfork and it’s a pleasure to change the music from any computer on the web.
BTW, if you use a daemon for mp3 (like mpd or xmms2 ), maybe you could renice it for it to have higher priority and therefore not be bugged by firefox loading
I don’t think the problem with Youtube is video drivers. I can play full-screen SD divx movies on my MC. The problem is the use of flash video – it takes 50% cpu on my 2GHz core duo laptop to play Youtube video (i.e. one whole core!).
You may be able to do better either by going to the mobile site (m.youtube.com) or by specifying a different format (adding &fmt=1 on the end of the URL). I haven’t tried this yet as I haven’t installed anything which can handle RTSP yet (the video equivalent of HTTP). If I end up installing something which handles RTSP, I’ll let you know how I get on (I would guess that VLC would be the best bet).
Hi, running the browser with lower priority (e.g. nice -n 20 firefox) might solve the problem with audio playing.
Thanks for the comments & tips guys!
TimW: I didn’t realise that Flash video was so resource hungry, I guess I could just download + convert any videos I wanted to watch in that case…
mykhal: Good idea, I’ll give it a shot.
I had a similar problem in puppy linux running on an ebox 4300. Anytime the web browser rendered a new web page, the music playing in gxine would get choppy. I was able to solve it by disabling visualizations in gxine.