PMServ - PS3 Media Server Linux Distribution

[Ignis]

I hate to hijack a thread like this however after a few days of trying i figured id do it anyways ;P

I have an old pc wich has a mainboard in it with 4sata ports so i thought itd be nice to convert it to a nas however id still want it to be able to stream directly to my PS3 after a few days of skimming tru the web and a few tries with freenas i ended up here.

So i downloaded the usb image, copied it to my stick, inserted it to my pc watched it all boot up, my main pc, detected the PS3 being run from nas.site wich was hopefull.
Then the problem started, my computer did not detect the nas as a drive (wich is the cifs/samba if i understand correctly) it gives me no option to copy files to it. So i checked out the pc and noticed other then the USBdrive from wich the OS was running, it detected no harddrives... so i used this guide: http://www.skullbox.net/newsda.php to mount the 1TB drive i have in it atm and mounted it to /shared/mediaserver and did chmod +c 777 /shared/mediaserver on it.

So now the box has the 1TB available however im a bit lost as to how i can make my windows pc recognize it and enable me to copy files to it.

EDIT:
After browsing trough this thread once more ive noticed somewhere it already mentioned that by going to \ip\shared you could access the folder however i was wondering if there was a way for the NAS to show up in your network of windows 7 too?

EDIT2:
just another thing im wondering (as im a linux noob) how safe is my data on that box? lets say i hookup 3 more sata drives, what would happen to the data on them incase of a mainboard crash?

[joshuahanna69]

I must say thank you for creating this. I was playing with ubuntu, and stumbled upon this and after a while of messing with it I have finally got it working to where I love it. I still have a lot of learning to do with Linux but this set up is awesome.

Phatyj

[joshuahanna69]

Is there a way we could include FFMPEG in this Distro?

[mcavity]

this looks great.
I plan to run this on my Vm ware box. Is there any way we can get a minimum to run spec?
2 cpus 2 gig memory 4 gig hard drive ect?
I plan to point it to my NAS box for storage.
*****
edit.
Possibly helpful notes for new people.

I created a virtual machine on an ESXi box.
I gave it a single CPU and originally gave it 512 megs of memory.
This worked well for SD video however 720 failed.

I increased the memory to 2 gig and 720p video ran very well. [I may try 1 gig and 1.5 to see the results]

Also know you have to use ps3mediaserver-editconf to add a folder to the list that ps3 media server shares. it wont just list a new directory in the shared folder.

I edited \etc\fstab to mount a share from my NAS into a new directory under shared.
[it might be nice to add something in the install script to mount shares but maybe I'm just thinking too fancy]
Overall very pleased!
There is a little weirdness regarding subtitles but I may just have to play with that a bit more.

[mcavity]

More notes.
I reduced the memory to 1 gig and I'm still able to trans-code 720 p video well.
[cpu on VM host is an AMD Phenom x4 925]

I'm trying to update to the sunjunk linux build however it does not seem to be working.
is there a command to show what version your running?

[superHARD]

Good evening...I'm a noob I know...but I'm hoping you can help me. I have two questions:

1) I have solaris 11 express installed, and am using virtualbox to run this as a VM. I have the shared folders set up so that the guest OS can see the 'server' folder of the host os (where my videos are at) but I can't figure out how to see the 'server' folder.

2) I have installed this cd to the hd, now how do I change the default's so that when I start the VM that it doesn't try to load the OS all over again, and just to default to boot off the HD. I looked at the "f1 help" menu but nothing changed the boot defaults.

LOL if anyone knows how to make a VM start on bootup in the solaris box, that info would be helpful also

[superHARD]

OK, one question answered. It looks like if you clone your OS in vbox, then the psserver doesn't boot right. I removed the clone and now this linux distro boots knowing the cd has been installed to the HD and it defaults to boot off the HD

Also it looks like somehow the 'guests' is disabled so vbox can't share the host files to the guest OS. So I need to mount this off the network, right?
What's the best way to do this? Please provide the actual command as i'm confused by some info I'm reading elsewhere since there are no usernames or passwords on my internal network

solarisserver/server is the network path...fyi

[RegisMK5]

I want to start by saying thanks. Your build is amazing and simple. I've spent the last 2 days trying to install PSM to freenas with little success. Your build is exactly what I need and works perfect. However...

I am installing the x32 Preload ISO to a sata 2TB drive (no other partitions or drives). Everything installs perfect and I can stream to my PS3. However, after I restart the box I am welcomed with "Error 18: selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by bios". No amount of searching has yielded a result. I have reinstalled 3 times now with no success.

Could you help me determine why this is happening?

This error does not happen when I run via the Live USB raw installation. The issue with this setup is that I do not know how to add the hard drive and change all shares to point to this location.

Any information or assistance would be greatly helpful

EDIT: I believe I have resolved my issue.
First of all, it seems that older computers cannot handle the boot partition being larger than a certain size (I've read it needs to be as low as 300MB). So my solution was to run via a usb stick.
I then ran into issues with my 2tb not formating. I downloaded and booted into Gparted and repartitioned the drive. By this point I had relearned enough linux to create the directory /shared/Media and map the new external drive using the command

Code: Select all

mount -t ext3 /dev/sdb1 /shared/media


I then had to edit PMSserver-config to include the Media drive

Everything appears to be working now.
Once again, amazing program. Keep up the good work.

EDIT2:
While the above command works and is a great test, it does not stay mounted between reboots.
Here is what I had to do.

Code: Select all

vi /etc/fstab
add:
/dev/sdb1 /shared/Media ext3 auto 0 0


The server and shares now successfully stay up between boots and everything is working great.

[smokei]

Outstanding work! I have been using this for a month now on a Dell Mini 9 I had laying around and it even streams some 1080p! I have 2 usb hard drives connected and moved the download folders to the USB's and things mostly run smoothly for several days.

Every few days though, I have to reset Transmission. States that the there are too many files open in the Transmission WebUI, and from what I gather its due to a problem with the version of transmission and my hardware. I was wondering, being the SUSE nub that I am, how to use yast to update transmission.

[slooff]

maybe:
zypper ref
zypper up
in a telnet/ssh window?