Share a folder from your Vortexbox

If you need some additional shares except the default ones (music, movies, pictures, files) just create them. Only a few steps need to be done, and it only takes a few minutes. Before making any changes to smb.conf backup the original one.

1. Add a new section to the smb.conf
   Connect to the vortexbox with SSH and open smb.conf with an editor.
   
   e.g:

   nano file /etc/samba/smb.conf

   
   
   add following section:

 ###### Share for temporary data sharing #########
[Sharename]
path = /home/trash
guest ok = yes
writeable = yes
# create mask = 0777


explaination:

[Sharename] - the name of the share, it can be different from the diretory name
path - path to the directory on OS layer
guest ok - everyone in the network can access the folder
writable - it's writable for everyone in the network
create mask - permissions for "owner", "group", "other" as typically on Linux OS. 777 means that all 3 groups have "read", "write", "execute" permissions. default value is 744. Note: in my example it is uncommented



2. Reload smb.conf and restart smb daemon



service smb reload
service smb restart

Youtube Plugin - Bad Youtube URL

Today I also recognized a problem with the youtube plugin. When you paste a URL to a youtube video it displays "Bad YouTube URL". It neither works when entering the original URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zovedef1oIU nor when you try to add it like this youtube://zovedef1oIU

In the slimdevices forum other users allready posted the problem. I hope it will get fixed soon.

Thread can be found here: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=87731&page=11

Upgrade to Vortexbox 2.0

Last week I updated my Vortexbox to the new Version (2.0). But I had some troubles.

At first I tried the direct update from fedora 14 to fedora 16 according to the tutorial. I updated to Logitech Media Server (LMS) 7.7.0, cleaned up the /boot directory, but after downloading the preupgrade file for fedora 16 there was still
not enough space on /boot although the partition size was 485 MB.

As I allready made a backup of my music library I decided to install VB 2.0 completely new from CD. This worked fine and only took 15-20 minutes. But after the first time booting the LMS 7.7.0 wasn't installed. So I had to install it manually.

 
yum clean
yum update
yum reinstall logitechmediaserver

Now everything seemed to work fine until I imported my music collection. LMS 7.7.0 has a problem with pictures stored in some mp3 tags. After some research in the VB forum I found a solution that seems to work up to now. It's the update to LMS 7.7.1 rc1. The official update to 7.1.1 should be available next week when I remember correctly.

Update (11. december 2011): After a restart of the VB I have the same problem as before upgrading to RC1.

I've found a solution now that works for me. After the VB booted, I have to stop vortexbox-player and Logitech media server (service still called squeezeboxserver). After that, start LMS again and vortexbox-player.

 
service vortexbox-player stop
service squeezeboxserver stop


service squeezeboxserver start 
service vortexbox-player start 

Log files / Navigating on Commandline

When you have problems with your system, you will need to have to search through the log files. Maybe you find the problem for you own, or have to search for help in a forum. In both cases it's necessary to study the log files. Usually the location of logfiles on Linux systems is /var/logs. Also on Fedora (Vortexbox).
Some useful log files are:

• When upgrading vortexbox, the logfile you see on the webinterface is located under:
  /var/log/vbupgrade.log
  
  
• Any loginfo of the Squeezebox server is stored in the sbs log-files. There are a couple of them located under:
  /var/log/squeezeboxserver
  These log files were very useful for me when I had the problem with the Youtube Plugin.
  
  
• If you configure a samba share, and the config file has an error, you can see the log in this file:
  /var/log/samba

 
This brings me to an idea for the next post. A short simple guide, how to add a samba share to your vortexbox.

If you need some help in Linux command line navigation, following links are helpful:
Edit files on command-line
Navigate through directories

Youtube Plugin - Settings

Because the Settings are hidden a little bit here an extra post. Just go to the SBS Settings - Advanced. In the left dropdown list select "Youtube". Here you can set that a video is always streamed to your box in the lowest resolution to save bandwidth.

Youtube Plugin on Squeezebox Server

In my opinion this is the best plugin for your Squeezebox Server. With the Youtube plugin you have a nearly infinite music collection. It's very simple to use and works great. You can search what every you want on Youtube. The Youtube songs are handled by the player like songs on your local HDD. So it is no problem to add Youtube songs to playlists (also mixed with local tracks).

The list for top rated, most popular and favorite music are queried from the youtube API.

• Top Rated Music - It should be equal to the filter "Most Liked" for "All time"
• Most Popular Music - Special Youtube algorithm
• Favorite Music -This feed contains videos most frequently flagged as favorite videos
• Youtube Search - Same output as the search on Youtube
• Music Search - Search on Youtube in the category music
• Channel Search - Searching in channels
• Playlist Search - Searching in playlists
• Recently Played - Songs you have recently played via the Youtube plugin
• Youtube URL - Add a direct Youtube URL

More infos can be found in the Youtube API: http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/2.0/developers_guide_protocol.html

The Youtube plugin streams the whole video but only plays the audio track. So you have to pay attention if you have some limitations on your Internet connection. But there is a setting that videos are streamed in low resolution.

Problems with the Youtube Plugin

I tried the Youtube Plugin in the version 0.12. With this version and the Squeezebox Server Version 7.6.0 - r32859 I had the problem that it was only possible to play 15 songs from youtube. After playing them allways an error was displayed:

problem: can't connect to server for <youtube://....>

After restarting I had the same problem again after 15 songs. I updated the plugin to version 0.13, but without success. It helped to update to the latest Squeezeobx Server Version 7.6.1 - r33149.

Squeezebox Server Plugins

To add more functions to the Squeezebox Server, Logitech provides a lot of plugins which you can install. You can also add 3rd party plugins to your SBS. They are not officially from Logitech but some of them are really good. My favorite plugin is the Youtube Plugin. With this one you can search for songs on youtube play it on your box. Because the plugin is as good, I think I will make an own article about it. :-)

The plugins can be installed in the Settings of the Squeezebox Server in the Tab Plugins. To activate 3rd party plugins from the squeezebox community you need to scroll down to the bottom, tick the checkbox (accept the security warning) and apply it to the server.
Maybe you also have to restart the server, I don't remember exactly. But at least after this reboot, all available 3rd party plugins should be listed. Infos and support for 3rd party plugins can only be found in the Squeezebox Forum.

There is also a possibility to add 3rd party plugins from a user defined repositorie.

Short introduction to Squeezebox Server

With the server you can control all Squeezeboxes in your network. It's usually made to manage hardware Squeezeboxes (the current models can be found here ).
But the Vortexbox crew did a great job an implemented the Vortexbox Player. It's a software solution and runs on Linux. Because it's pre-installed and configured so you can just plug your box to a Hi-Fi, visit the Squeezebox Server webinterface (192.168.x.x:9000) and use it as a jukebox.

The media library is also stored on the server and therefore is always available on every computer. They can be accessed from any network device that support Samba shares or from a DLNA compatible device.

If you need help or have any questions related to the Squeezebox Server you can check the Squeezebox Forum.

Here you can see how the webinterface looks like:

Change Vortexbox Volume

I use my Vortexbox connected to my Hi-Fi as a jukebox. The MP3s are store on the box and it can be controlled from any computer in the network via the webinterface or even from my Tablet.
The vortexbox player that is installed makes this possible. On the one hand you can change the volume using the webinterface but on the other hand the system volume can be also configured. After my installation the system volume was very low and I needed to change it.

To change the system volume, just connect to the box with SSH. When you run in the command

alsamixer

you get a simple command line based GUI. Here you can navigate with the arrow keys and adapt the volume.

After making changes in alsamixer it's important that you to store the settings with:

alsactl store

Commandline Interface of the Vortexbox

Because you can only make basic changes in the webinterface it's often necessary to connect via SSH to the Vortexbox.
SSH is already installed and configured and you simply need to use a SSH client and connect to the box.

SSH clients:

• The Most popular SSH client is putty. It's very useful when you have Windows. Just download the executable, launch it, type in the Server IP and connect.

• On Linux there is usually a SSH client installed. If not you can use open-ssh. It works good and is very simple. Just go to a Terminal and enter 

ssh -l root 192.168.0.5

With the parameter "-l" you can set the username. The defaul user on the VB is root. Therefore pay attention what you do. The password has to be entered after you are connected.

The Vortexbox Webinterface

A simple build-in webinterface makes it easy to control basic functions like restarting of services, upgrading to the latest version, reboot...
A second webinterface is used to control the Squeezeboxserver.
 

The Overview Menu shows the current installed Fedora and VB version. And whats also very useful, the storage capacity.

In the System Menu you can reboot/powerdown the box and also restart a service if it makes problem after an update. The Squeezexox Server sometimes hangs after installing a SBS-Plugin.

DLNA is automatically enabled and configured to use the pre-defined folders. This can be changed in this menu. Also after adding new content that should be shared via DLNA it's possible to rescan the folders. 

For those who don't know what DLNA is: It's a specification of a protocol to share multi media files to DLNA compatible devices (e.g. TVs, Tablets,...). No streaming server has to be set up anymore. Just connect your TV to the network choose the Vortexbox as DLNA Server and watch a movie. When you want to find more infos about DLNA maybe you should also look after UPnP.

Because the VB is based on a Linux there are frequent updates available. One way is to SSH-connect to the VB and run yum upgrade.The other way is to confortably connect to the webinterface, go to the Upgrade Menu and simply click the upgrade button. The tail of the logfile is displayed on the webinterface.

Information and explaination of some log files and where to find them (for those who are not so familiar with linux (-: ) will follow in some of the next posts.

These were the important functions of the VB webinterface. It has some additional menus. If you want me to post some infos about the other menus just leave a short comment.

Software - Vortexbox General

Vortexbox is a Fedora Linux with some customization. Free download under: http://vortexbox.org/downloads/
It's command line based but Squeezboxserver administration and some simple settings can be controlled via the webinterface.

Following features were important for me:

• Squeezeboxserver installed
• Vortexbox Player installed
• Webinterface to configure and monitor the Vortexbox
• SSH
• Samba
• DLNA server

After installation my hardware was detected corretly and the drivers were installed automatically. The intallation was finished in less than 1 hour. With my hardware it takes about 20-25 seconds to boot.

How to find the right Power Supply

I used an external power supply because my box shouldn't make as less noise as possible.
After some research it was clear that I need additionaly a DC-DC converter.
The DC-DC converter uses the 12V input of the power supply and converts it to the power levels which are used by the mainboard (3.3V, 5V and 12V).

To choose the appropirate PSU for the hardware I used the follwowing calculator:
http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

When you look at my hardware list you may see that the DC-DC converter has more watts than the PSU. I did so because these 2 parts were the cheapest and it doesn't matter because the box needs only about 45 watts.

Hardware

It wasn't  hard to find a fitting hardware. Except the search for the right power supply was a little bit tricky. The important things were that the box is silent and enery-saving. So I took a fanless Mini-ITX mainboard, an external power supply. I had a 2,5" harddisk laying around and took this one instead of a solid state disk. For OS installation I temporarily connected a CD-ROM drive.

Because I didn't want to buy a case for a box that only stands under my table, I build the hardware in an old satellite receiver case.

Hardware-List:

• VIA EPIA LN10000EG Mini-ITX Mainboard
• CN700 Chipset
• 1 GHz
• 1 GB RAM
• External Power Supply 12V 60W
• 80W DC-DC Converter
• SAMSUNG HM121HI 120GB (2,5") 

Pics:

The jukebox idea!

A short time ago I thought that it would be very comfortable to have a music player which can be controlled by any computer in the home-network. It should also be possible to use my Android tablet as remote control. I searched the web for a capable Linux-Distro and found the Vortexbox Project.