OK guys, you got me, I'm sold. When my number comes up I will definately be getting a MK2 (particularly after my current problems with a competing product, see the ICE forum).

One problem though. I don't do Windoze. Never have, never will. Don't touch the stuff and all that. I run, MacOS 9, Mac OS 8.6, Mac OS X Server, NeXTStep, Linux (but only on a 486 with no USB and rediculously slow serial), I could probably even dig up a Solaris box.

Anyway, I am going to want to get a MK2 with ethernet and I am wondering if I can just throw a ftp deamon, NFS server, or netatalk on there and move files that way. Then what do I do to setup playlists, etc? Can the linux software run on the Empeg itself so that I could telnet in and do playlists directly? Is the music database proprietary or is it something like MySQL that I could just hack together an interface for?

Are you guys ever going to do Mac software? Any chance of a BSD (OSX Server has a pretty standard BSD layer) port of the linux software? What can you do for me?

Will any of the software work over ethernet or will we have to load everything over serial/USB still???

Sorry for all the questions, just trying to figure out how I am going to get this to work. Come on, I am gonna drop over a grand here, whats a little software port between friends :-)

-Mike

Hmmm, it just occured to me that this post probably belongs in the tech forum. My apologies, never was very good at organization.

-Mike

Come on, someone? Anyone? Am I going to be able to get music onto an Empeg without Windows???

-Mike

The database isn't really suitable for maintenance via ftp, nfs or netatalk when it comes down to it.

We do plan mac software, but currently havn't had time to move this on much. We will ensure that (at least) ethernet syncing works fine with VirtualPC, and are looking into USB syncing, which *almost* works on VPC.

A web based interface would be nice, but this is a HUGE amount of work and so is unlikely to be provided - by us, at least.

If you have linux, there are the linux tools to maintain the music. The source of these is due to be released soon (we keep changing the sync protocols to improve reliability, hence the delays in release) and this would recompile under linux-ppc pretty easily. In theory, a mac person could build a native MacOS gui for the tools - if anyone is seriously interested, we may well be inclined to fund an effort.

Hugo

If you have linux, there are the linux tools to maintain the music. The source of these is due to be released soon (we keep changing the sync protocols to improve reliability, hence the delays in release) and this would recompile under linux-ppc pretty easily.

Hugo, what are the chances of the linux source being able to compile, or be tweaked to compile, on Win32 ?

It would be good to be able to do some scripting for database maintenance from NT (even better from my point of view would be the database and sync code wrapped up in a COM component, but I can't see you finding time for that...)

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Unit serial number 47 (was 330 in the queue)...

Maybe the linux source could be tweaked to compile under Cygwin?

I only downloaded it (Cygwin) a week or two ago and have had absolutely no time to look at it beyond that due to work getting in the way , but isn't it supposed to provide a unix-like environment under Win9x/NT?

(I'm setting myself up to look really stupid here I know, but what the heck, life's too short to be worrying about that )

Geoff
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Reg No. 554, s/n 00064 - It's mine I tell you.... all mine :)

ISTR that it does compile and work under Win32, with USB too, though this hasn't been tried in a while. The low-level connection class comes in unix and win32 variants.

Hugo

John has rewritten quite large bits of it since it was last compiled on Win32. It was designed to be reasonably portable and the low level layers to talk to the serial port and USB are the same as those used by emplode so they definitely work on Win32.


--
Mike Crowe
I may not be speaking on behalf of empeg above :-)

> The database isn't really suitable for maintenance via ftp, nfs or netatalk when it comes down to it.

Is this true? Not counting uploading actual tunes, I've been doing
a fair bit of database maintenance by tarring up all the small files
in /drive0/fids, and transferring them to my linux box. There
I have some perl scripts which modify the files to set up the appropriate
play lists. Then I just sz them back again, and get the empeg to
rebuild the database.

This allows me to have a backup of all my playlists on my home machine, which
is very handy, because every now and then, during a sync my empeg
gets confused, and all my tunes end up in Unattached Items.

I haven't yet gotten everything so that they look up track names
correctly, but that's not far away.

After a bit of work, the perl scripts could reasonably easily be
made to run as cgi scripts, with input from forms.

Richard.

Thanks for the info Hugo. What are the odds of the linux software compiling/running on the Empeg itself? To me it seems that this would be a way to get around a lot of these issues. Maybe mount another machines drive on the Empeg via NFS over ethernet and run the linux software on the Empeg to load the songs. It also seems like you might be able to come up with a workable web interface based around the linux tools running on the Empeg itself.

If the linux software goes opensource and includes the ability to add songs and do maintenance over ethernet, I may take a shot at a MacOS X (includes BSD layer) port myself. Assuming you aren't doing anything too x86 specific I would think that it wouldn't be too nasty. With that done, adding an appropriate GUI would be fairly trivial.

Thanks,
Mike

p.s. As far as funding development, give me a free MK2 and I will definately take a shot at it ;-)

that is why you can only use make and not a pc

I meant it isn't a simple directory structure with 1 file=1 tune - playlists are a bit of a pain to build with a ftp client as I'm sure you can appreciate :)

Also, this method doesn't give access to the dynamic (usage counts, etc) data stored in the dynamic data partition.

Obviously, what would be really nice is a java app on the empeg itself which acts like emplode, complete with drag & drop, etc, but I can't see us having time to do this for a while...

Hugo

You can use Virtual PC 3.0 and the serial port. You can use a db9 -> din8 adapter to attach it to your mac's printer or modem port (if you have a Yosemite G3, you have to have the stealth port. If you need to use your modem, you're out of luck). In the VPC preferences map COM1 or COM2 to the Modem or Printer port, and be sure to check the 'non-modem device' preference. Yup, it is slow, but I'd rather have to chew off my fingers than use a Windows box ever again.

Having been a Macintosh consultant, I am aware of the posibilities of using VPC and a serial adapter. Currently being a Software Engineer I would much rather attempt to write something that will keep me from having to use Windows in any way shape or form. Seeing as I would like to one day be able to use an Empeg (rather than waste time waiting for it to sync) I would do just about anything to avoid transfering gigs of MP3s over serial :-)

Actually, no one answered my original (and most important) questions. That being if it would be possible to run the linux version of the Emplode software on the Empeg itself (via some sort of loopback mode)? I can think of a bunch of different ways to get this to work if that software can be made to run on the Empeg.

1. Wrap it in a web based GUI
2. Run it as a server process and open a client connection to it from a java app on _ANY_ other machine.
3. Mount another machines drive via NFS and transfer songs from it.
4. Mount another machines drive via SMB and transfer songs from it.
5. Add the ability for it to act as an ftp/www/hotline/napster client and retrieve remote files.
6. Etc, etc, etc.

-Mike