1freeworld Groups - Print Page


    
      
        1freeworld Groups
        (http://www.1freeworld.net/cgi-bin/Yabb/YaBB.cgi)
      

        Science & Technology >> Linux, BSD & Open Source >> Fun Project in Linux
        
(Message started by: ReeBop on Mar 17^th, 2005, 10:23am)

Title: Fun Project in Linux
Post by ReeBop on Mar 17^th, 2005, 10:23am

After a long day of Jabber IM server building, it was time for a fun project. I built a small Knoppix 3.7 workstation up in my bedroom loft (Pentium 166, 64 megs of RAM), and I wanted capability to listen to internet radio stations. I have some faster stuff in storage, but in the meantime, how to solve this problem? The machine's harddrive is a bit small, and it will take more horsepower to run MPlayer properly to play things like Real or Windows Media.
My answer was a long audio cable, my bedroom stereo system, and VNC. I loosened up my firewall to allow VNC in my local network only. I ran the audio cable from my main Linux box to the upstairs stereo and then setup a VNC viewer on the bedroom Linux workstation. I connected in through VNC and could control the desktop with ease and change the Internet radio stations at will. Finally, I could easily listen to Hawaiian Rainbow when I fall asleep if I wished.
The beauty of all this? All the software was FREE. Did I say FREE? Yup, I sure did. One caveat though is to turn off the VNC client when I'm through finding a station, because I notice it will use 99 percent of the CPU if I leave it running. Eventually, I'll bring home a much faster machine, take it up to the loft and not need VNC, but this solution was easily implemented in less than 15 minutes. Good Fun!
[smiley=boat.gif]