Hi, I've sent this mail september 14th, but I didn't see it on the mailing list.... I try to re-send it, thank you
Hi. I would like to buy a motherboard for a VDR system: http://www.cadsoft.de/people/kls/vdr
This software uses DVB cards to receive digital television and transforms your PC in a powerful videorecorder - dvd player - divx mp3 etc etc etc
As you can imagine, a very fast boot would be very appreciate, making it possible to completely replace a standalone digital receiver.
I watched around and I found a shop selling PC-CHIPS motherboards. I need an AGP slot, and two or more PCI slots for DVB-cards, plus ethernet etc. I have a bit of fear the 815 is very limited in expansion, perhaps the 830 is better for me. Do you have any advice about motherboards? I also found a page (http://www.stud.fernuni-hagen.de/q3998142/pcchips/aka.html) where there are the pc-chips equivalents; nowadays I can very easily find ECS products which are the very same of pcchips 830 etc.
I've read archive mailing list and all but I still need some more informations. Will I be able to directly boot my own linux kernel, with IDE, XFS etc support? I need a hard-disk anyway, to record movies and load vdr software, etc.
bye and thank you! as
Hello from Gregg C Levine Actually, yes it was posted to the list, and I did read it. You do understand the theme behind this mail list, don't you? It concerns itself with the idea that the legacy bios on a machine can be replaced with something that will boot straight into Linux, even faster then the legacy bios, it replaced. (And that's my opinion only, Ron.) If I remember correctly there are a few SiS based boards out there, which have an alternate form of video output, which is composite video based, but I don't remember which ones. Can you repost your message, but in simpler terms? I think everyone else missed it, because of its original phrasing. ------------------- Gregg C Levine hansolofalcon@worldnet.att.net ------------------------------------------------------------ "The Force will be with you...Always." Obi-Wan Kenobi "Use the Force, Luke." Obi-Wan Kenobi (This company dedicates this E-Mail to General Obi-Wan Kenobi ) (This company dedicates this E-Mail to Master Yoda )
-----Original Message----- From: linuxbios-admin@clustermatic.org [mailto:linuxbios- admin@clustermatic.org] On Behalf Of Alessio Sangalli Sent: Sunday, September 22, 2002 11:55 AM To: linuxbios@clustermatic.org Subject: motherboard for vdr system
Hi, I've sent this mail september 14th, but I didn't see it on the mailing list.... I try to re-send it, thank you
Hi. I would like to buy a motherboard for a VDR system: http://www.cadsoft.de/people/kls/vdr
This software uses DVB cards to receive digital television and transforms your PC in a powerful videorecorder - dvd player - divx mp3 etc etc etc
As you can imagine, a very fast boot would be very appreciate, making
it
possible to completely replace a standalone digital receiver.
I watched around and I found a shop selling PC-CHIPS motherboards. I need an AGP slot, and two or more PCI slots for DVB-cards, plus
ethernet
etc. I have a bit of fear the 815 is very limited in expansion,
perhaps
the 830 is better for me. Do you have any advice about motherboards? I also found a page (http://www.stud.fernuni-hagen.de/q3998142/pcchips/aka.html) where
there
are the pc-chips equivalents; nowadays I can very easily find ECS products which are the very same of pcchips 830 etc.
I've read archive mailing list and all but I still need some more informations. Will I be able to directly boot my own linux kernel,
with
IDE, XFS etc support? I need a hard-disk anyway, to record movies and load vdr software, etc.
bye and thank you! as
Linuxbios mailing list Linuxbios@clustermatic.org http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
This is way too cool :).
http://www.cadsoft.de/people/kls/vdr
The fact this is built from off-the-shelf components is *very* interesting.
Click the remote to turn on your TV (and the attached computer) and the first thing you see is the LinuxBIOS boot message. Microsoft would be delighted :).
The set-top box that came from my cable TV company is slow, and the interface poorly designed. Innovation is slow to non-existant. It's bad enough I'd considered ditching the service.
This flips things entirely around. Ditch the floppy drive and the funky LED interface. Add a DVD or DVD-recorder drive, both for software reload (if needed) and to play movies. Connect the box to your home network.
Now you can control your recorder from anywhere in the house (or anywhere on the Internet). You can monitor and control the programs your kids watch :).
Fast boot is desirable. Booting Linux from flash would be nice but not essential, given you would have a hard disk. You'd be looking to boot from CD (for software reload) or hard disk.
Maybe the questions Alessio could have better asked would be:
Which BIOS/boot loader would be most suitable?
and then:
Which suitable small motherboard is supported and readily available?
( I too was unclear Alessio was asking :).
--- Preston L. Bannister http://members.cox.net/preston.bannister/ pbannister on Yahoo Messenger
Preston L. Bannister wrote:
This is way too cool :).
http://www.cadsoft.de/people/kls/vdr
The fact this is built from off-the-shelf components is *very*
interesting.
Ja and it's not a geek toy, my mother and father use that too!
Click the remote to turn on your TV (and the attached computer) and the first thing you see is the LinuxBIOS boot message. Microsoft would be delighted :).
eheh I think it's not so easy because the tv is not connected to the vga card but to a DVB card, with mpeg2 hardware decoding. You should initialize drivers, upload the firmware to the DVBcards and send an mpeg I-frame with linuxbios logo directly from the routines in the flash memory. A bit overkill!
The set-top box that came from my cable TV company is slow, and the interface poorly designed. Innovation is slow to non-existant. It's bad enough I'd considered ditching the service.
For vdr there are many plugins (not included in the core distribution, so you won't read it on that website) that allow to display (sx)vcd, dvd, divx, images, listen to mp3, etc etc
Fast boot is desirable. Booting Linux from flash would be nice but not essential, given you would have a hard disk. You'd be looking to
boot from
CD (for software reload) or hard disk.
Ja, a hard disk is needed (or you'll loose a very important feature of vdr, such as automatic recording of television, time shifting, etc) so I was initially thinking to use it for the 'system' anyway.
However, to save noise, heat, and all, a flash could be used for the system keeping the hdd powered off, and spin it up only when you wanna record-replay.
Which kind of flash memories are avaiable? the system itself is not so big, but I'm not aware of the common sizes of that kind of memory.
Maybe the questions Alessio could have better asked would be:
Which BIOS/boot loader would be most suitable?
and then:
Which suitable small motherboard is supported and readily available?
( I too was unclear Alessio was asking :).
ja sorry for the silly english I speak, but I always speak it with non native people and sometimes we create our own grammatics and use invented words. too bad!
bye! as
Gregg C Levine wrote:
Hello from Gregg C Levine
Hi!
Actually, yes it was posted to the list, and I did read it. You do
Sorry, perhaps I missed it with any answer to it. That's because it was sent immediately after my subscription? Who knows.
understand the theme behind this mail list, don't you? It concerns itself with the idea that the legacy bios on a machine can be replaced with something that will boot straight into Linux, even faster then the legacy bios, it replaced.
Ja. To make the things clear there was a period in my life where I used to program the ASM of various processors and interact directly with bios services at the good old DOS days hehe.
The problem is that I didn't find much docs on the website; from when I posted the first time I've dovloaded the CVS and read few docs there, and I can understand much better now - and ask more precisely.
remember correctly there are a few SiS based boards out there, which have an alternate form of video output, which is composite video based, but I don't remember which ones. Can you repost your message, but in
nope, I don't need it; the DVB cards can receive from satellite (or from a DVD) and they have an integrated hardware decoder with rgb video output that performs very well. The linux drivers are perfect and have more features that the windows ones (!). I don't actually need a graphic card for this system, as I have this pc near the tv ands no keyboard/monitor; however I woud like an AGP slot for future expansions.
simpler terms? I think everyone else missed it, because of its original phrasing.
ok. I'll describe my system in detail and explain what I need and what I hope linuxbios will be able to give me.
Hardware: motherboard with an AMD duron cpu, 128MB pc133 sdram; 80GB hdd (necessary for the storage of the recordings; the size of the system software, including DVB drivers and the VDR application is few MBs); DVD drive; serial port with home-made infrared LIRC receiver. And, of course, two DVB PCI cards.
Software: I have a simple (Slackware) linux installation, with no X nor unnecessary applications; when the systems boots up it a script is started from rc.local and loads the drivers and fires up the VDR program. Now I can use it my tv "on screen display" as output and an infrared remote control as input. It's perfect, VDR can even program the nvram of the motherboard to turn on the pc immediately before a recording (think you're out at work and want to record a cool tv-show or something) and then shutdown again the system. As you can see I need no special hardware or so, very simple: a serial port, a PCI bus, a ide interface for hdd and dvd.
Now, one of the most boring drawbacks of this system is the slow boot up time; even if linux itself is not so slow to startup, all the legacy bios time make the system boot in no less than 40-50 seconds!
I hope that installing linuxbios I will be able to boot much faster. Now I want to understand, that if I can really put my kernel image, with ide and xfs support (xfs is a filesystem suitable for very large data files like the ones made by an audio/video recording, that's why I use it) into the flash memory of my motherboard, or only a small linux that boots another kenrnel image (or a boot loader like LILO) found on the hard disk, exactly like a traditional BIOS. What exactly is the famous 'disk on chip'? Will I be able to program the startup of the computer at a particular time or shutdown it by software?
And, an advice for a good amd motherboard with no particular setup-problems; I saw the pc-chips / ECS ones that are quite cheap and generally avaiable, with good features (such as integrated ethernet or similar); can I go with one of those, or will I end up to debug ASM code with a PCI analyzer?? eheh
thank you, I hope I've been clearer now! bye as
-
Alessio Sangalli -
Gregg C Levine -
Preston L. Bannister