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.