Play Kaffeine files on the lan?

[rolf]

I've got this board from Rudy's ad over at the Mandriva forum as I wanted something with a smaller footprint than my full-blown desktop running to record over-the-air tv programs. The Win TV HVR-980 is a cheap but quite serviceable tuner that works for this and Kaffeine writes some really big (multi-gigabyte files) that display very nicely on my 50" Samsung plasma TV.

So, I've managed to get Kaffeine recording the OTA programs on the little box. Machines are networked with a Linksys WRT54GL and getting them to talk has been a new adventure for me:

1. Turn off firewall on both machines. There must be some advanced way to open ports but I spent a little fruitless time on that and GRC shows 'Stealth', still, so I'm good to go with the router NAT protection, I suppose.
2. Set up NFS file sharing in MCC on both computers: something of a jungle for the newcomer but I'm now getting access in file browsers.
3. Change the mount point in fstab to use ip_address:/home instead of linux:/home, as MCC sets it up, since the error shows linux: does not resolve. There might be another configuration but I found this easy solution @ google. MCC ought to do something more for this to work.

Now, I can mount the share in my desktop file system. The reason I want to do this is my desktop has a nice dual-head nvidia card, the little box has some onboard intel video adapter, and I want to play the big files on the desktop, using the higher-quality output of the second head connected to the 50" plasma Samsung display. with 'Twinview', which I've pretty much sussed out.

Next problem, which I ask for help with, is the file will stream to the desktop but only audio plays in Kaffeine, there. I wonder if it is a limitation of the LAN. One possible bottleneck is the nic on the little box is intel 82562 PRO/100 VE (LOM), a 100M feller.

On the ASUS P5Q Deluxe, we have:
Marvell 88E8056 PCIe Gigabit LAN controller featuring AI NET2
Marvell 88E8056/88E8001® Gigabit LAN controller featuring AI
and I've got the PCI controller connected to the network.

I don't know that these LAN-connected adapters are working at their full speed, or whether using PCIe would make a difference, or putting a Gigabit adapter in the little box would help.

Any thoughts? ThanksIA.

[Joste]

Have you tried with a different player? Maybe VLC?

It just seems odd if the video doesn't play at all... I would expect it to be choppy if anything. The only time I have had problems streaming high quality video is when the box playing it wasn't fast enough - it was OK on other faster machines.

[Joste]

Oh, and upgrading the NIC won't help unless the WRT54GL is gigabit ethernet - I don't think it is.

Try pinging the little box from the desktop when playing and when not - really high ping times/packet loss might indicate a lack of bandwidth.

[rolf]

Right! vlc is doing it aok, afaict. Thanks, Joste. A bit strange about kaffeine as it was working earlier for local files. I just did a big upgrade to the Nicolas unstalbe KDE tree, so maybe?..... Thanks, again.

p.s. You're right about the router: it's only 100M. I think the network is adequate, as vlc is demonstrating right now.

[Joste]

Cool, I didn't think it would be network - I used to stream video on a 10mbps lan no problem.

[viking60]

1. Turn off firewall on both machines. There must be some advanced way to open ports but I spent a little fruitless time on that and GRC shows 'Stealth', still, so I'm good to go with the router NAT protection, I suppose.
2. Set up NFS file sharing in MCC on both computers: something of a jungle for the newcomer but I'm now getting access in file browsers.
3. Change the mount point in fstab to use ip_address:/home instead of linux:/home, as MCC sets it up, since the error shows linux: does not resolve. There might be another configuration but I found this easy solution @ google. MCC ought to do something more for this to work.

I am not sure I got what you did in fstab here:
It looks something like this on my box

Code: Select all

UUID=5639bb34-8c88-4f68-aebd-361855e85c6d /home ext4 relatime 1 2

did you change it to:

Code: Select all

10.0.0.1 /home ext4 relatime 1 2

BTW I think you made a good deal there

[rolf]

No. In 'Network Sharing' of MCC, there are modules to set up an nfs server to share files and to discover served shares on the network. I did this on both boxes. When I 'Search servers' on the big box, the server on the little box shows up and MCC assigns a mount point, /mnt/rolf, offers to save fstab settings when I close, like diskdrake.

This module called the nfs server on the little box 'linux' and fstab was like

linux://rolf /mnt/rolf + some options

When do 'mount /mnt/rolf' there is an error about not finding/resolving 'linux' so I say a dns failure. When I switch 'linux' to the machine's ip addy on the lan,

192.168.1.102://rolf /mnt/rolf ...etc.

I can 'mount /mnt/rolf' and access the files of my $HOME on the little machine on the big machines filesystem under /mnt/rolf, making them accessible in the player's file chooser, like vlc, thanks Joste, so I can watch high-def recordings of ota Nascar on my 50" Samsung plasma display

[viking60]

You mean you start out here:


And edit here?


(I have the Norwegian version).

I think I've got it now

[rolf]

ack , min lille Bellwort!

Your first screenie shows, just below 'System' (same in both languages, it appears!), 'Nettverksdelling', which is 'Network Sharing' in English MCC. To the far right, in the center row of modules, I see 'Del stasjoner og mapper med NFS', and this is 'Share drives and directories using NFS' here. In there is where I set up the NFS server on the little box, specifying the directory(ies) to serve to the network, where my Kaffeine recordings will be stored, for one thing. I'm also running several torrents on that machine of the 2010 Spring release, as it doesn't draw as much power as the desktop, so I can leave it on. I just accepted defaults and your second screenie shows what is being shared and the options, which I know nothing about.

On the big desktop, I want to 'Access NFS shared drives and directories', the module to the left in that row, 'Sett opp tilgang...' in your screenie. With both boxes on, I chose 'Search servers' in that module, which found a number of servers, including a PS3 media server and Directv box, which are on the network. I clicked around until I found that the server sharing my /home/rolf directory on the little box was called 'linux' by this program. I clicked on the /home/rolf line and the module showed me in 'Details' that the mount point, /mnt/rolf, was already configured by Draknfs, along with some default switches. Here is a screenie after I have changed the fstab entry from using 'linux' to using the ip address of the nic on the little machine:

Under 'Options', I changed to allow user to mount. Also, I changed to not automount at boot as I thought the machine would not always be on. I'm not sure but it seemed that an entry in fstab did not get written when I disabled automount, so I changed back to allow it and, when I closed, DrakNFS asked me if I wanted to save the fstab changes and I did.

Here is the line how DrakNFS originally wrote it to fstab:

Code: Select all

linux:/home/rolf /mnt/rolf nfs user,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,noauto,suid,exec,soft 0 0

When I tried to mount /mnt/rolf, I got the name resolution error, iiuc. I found a similar Suse problem at google that was solved by using the ip address, instead, bypassing DNS, and edited fstab with vi, making that line like this:

Code: Select all

192.168.1.103:/home/rolf /mnt/rolf nfs user,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,suid,exec,soft 0 0

So, now, I 'mount /mnt/rolf' on the big machine with nice nvidia card hooked up to the 50" Samsung plasma tv and I can see everything in that share on the little box in the directory tree of the big box, in file choosers of players, etc. liker pannekaker

[viking60]

Good job! Even a Swede could understand this now.
Og pannekaker er gott ja.

[Joste]

An alternative to editing fstab is to add the hostname and IP to /etc/hosts which makes life easier since you can then do things like 'ping linux' rather than the IP.

[rolf]

That sounds like sage advice, thanks. BTW, kaffeine is not displaying video, only audio, even for its own tv recording files made in 2010, which displayed fine in 2010. Time to look for or make a bug, I think.