PMServ - PS3 Media Server Linux Distribution

[ps3home]

Just tested it. Very nice job! Thank you! To be perfect, just needs mencoder to use multiprocessor. I've installed it on my hd. I used to use plain windows 7 only with java and ps3mediaserver installed. To give you an ideia, PMServ performs almost like that setup using multicore AMD X2 6000+. Using just 1 core. Thank you again.

[maxcovergold]

Hi. Forgive my ignorance, but I have a massive headache after hours of research into a topic I know nothing about and I just found this thread so thought I'd just ask. Will this allow me to build a "mini" computer to be a NAS and run completely independantly? Will it then allow me to access media from my Sony Bravia via DLNA and transcode from pretty much all video formats to mpeg2?

Thanks in advance, MaxCG

[vyrticul]

maxcovergold, you're right.

That's what this distro is meant to do. It's meant to run on a dedicated server. It acts as a NAS with NFS and CIFS support and transcodes to almost any DLNA/UPNP media device like your sony bravia.

also does some other stuff mentioned on the main post but yes it will do what you need it to do

[maxcovergold]

maxcovergold, you're right.

That's what this distro is meant to do. It's meant to run on a dedicated server. It acts as a NAS with NFS and CIFS support and transcodes to almost any DLNA/UPNP media device like your sony bravia.

also does some other stuff mentioned on the main post but yes it will do what you need it to do

Thanks for the reply. Could you maybe point me in the right direction in of where to read up on the OS/foundation and other bits I'd need to make this work. Linux is foriegn to me, but looks like it's deffinately be worth picking up the basics.

[vyrticul]

ps3home, thanks, always nice to hear that people are liking this. for the multithreaded thing, i was trying to get by, by using the packages available from some of the more popular repos but they don't have that and a couple of other things. i was doing that so the distro would be more future proof. however it looks like i'm going to need to make a repo for this and build some custom packages so that may come soonish.

maxcovergold,

Any of the linux tutorials you can find on google should be fine to learn the basics of the linux cli.

when you plug a usb drive into the computer, it will mount to /shared/USB/<drive label>

connect to the CIFS share on the server (from windows: \\<ip>\shared). from there you can manage it just like you would a normal windows share. if you want to copy files from a usb drive to a folder in /shared, it will be faster if you do it via ssh. ssh into the server and use the mv (move) and cp (copy) commands.

from the command line, besides the custom commands that i built for this distro that are listed on the main post, you'll want to know:

mount /dev/sd?* /<dir>
? = letter a-z, * = number of the partition on the drive. this will mount an existing internal drive to a folder. this will let you move files from that drive to the /shared folder. however if you want to really be awsome, if you keep the directory structure the same on the internal drive (TV, Movies, Music, Pictures, Downloads, USB on the root of the drive) then when you mount the existing drive to /shared it will be seemless and you won't have to worry about moving the files over.

df -h
shows disk usage

the last to know is some basic commands in vi (some of the custom commands use it to edit config files).
http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/UnixAndC/Editors/ViIntro.html

[maxcovergold]

That's absoutely fantastic. Nice to see someone with the patience for the asolute noob. Thanks.

Can I just confirm that, your tips and advice there are for the post install? I.E. i can't just plug a the software yo've provide into a "dead" computer into USB and boot from it? I assume the machine needs to be running something to send stuff over the network before I can access it through the IP address. Cheers, MaxCG

EDIT 2: OK, I should have read up on what an actual livecd was before I posted that. So I need to put a cdrom in the NAS at first to get it installed, I can then intall the software/distro to the internal HD that I should have the directories you previous mentioned TV, Movies, Music, Pictures, Downloads. Or will this erase anything on the disc? Then I can remove the cdrom to save space and energy. I have all my media on a ext3 drive atm, from what I uunderstand this is a linux files system, so does that mean you distro would naitivly support it?

EDIT: Was just wondering if this has the capability to transocde files located on another NAS within the network?

EDIT 3: I downloaded the livecd and tryed running it on the Mrs. laptop to see if I could an understanding of how it's to work. I started PSM from the main menu and it loaded up. At the end of the script and just before it asks for login details a couple of things came up that I was curious about:

Starting PS3 Media Server: Failed
Master Resource Control run level 3: Reached
Failed Services in Run Level 3: PS3MediaServer
Skipped Services in Run Level 3: CIFS NFS

Not sure if it should do that or not? I also added a USB HDD to the laptop after logging in, didn't say anything on screen but I went to my desktop and managed to access the machine via typing in the IP address as you mentioned followed by shares. It listed all the directories I put on the Hardrive before hand, (TV, Movies, Music, Pictures, Downloads, USB and also one called covers which I didn't add? :s however when browsing into the folders there were no files and I had put a bit of everything in to test.

Sorry for all the questions

[vyrticul]

new version, happy days

version 0.2.1 (09/01/2010)
[*] The booting loading bar now works properly.
[*] Auto-mounted USB drives are now browsable via NFS. (NFSv4 only)
[*] PS3 Media Server should now restart correctly more consistently.
[*] Changed so that network settings are configured during first boot.
[*] Updated to FlexGet r1377.

[vyrticul]

maxcovergold,

when you install the distro from the live cd, it will create the /shared directory structure. at that point anything you put in there should show up when your browse to it via cifs. anything that was put on there before is wiped out.

when you plug in the usb drive, it shouldn't say anything but it should automatically mount it to /shared/USB/<label>

as for ps3mediaserver failing to start, you mentioned you installed it on a laptop, are you using wireless? it's possible it tried to startup before the wireless connected and thus had issues...

run the command: `service ps3mediaserver start`

see if it successfully starts.

[ps3home]

vyrticul, take your time

[snowx1000]

How were you able to get ASS/SSA subtitles working? Running opensuse 11.3 as my desktop and have a build of mplayer with it working (works from cli), but not when going through ps3 media server. Thanks