empegVNC-0.1 has been released. It requires a developer image and the Hijack kernel, and runs as a standalone userland application.

This version has been almost completely rewritten.

It now uses what is likely the best RFB encoding method, assuming that I'm not going to see what the changes are since the last update. This might change in future releases.

It also supports controlling the empeg via the VNC client in the form of keypresses. Check the download web page for specifics. It does not, however, either show or control the Hijack menu system. This should also be fixed in a future release.

There is not currently a way to start the VNC server either on boot or without logging into the empeg in some way. (Too bad Mark got rid of SITE EXECs.)

This version fixes the speeded-up-visual problem of the last release. While I have not exhausitvely researched the cause of that problem, I think it had to do with continually open()ing and close()ing and/or mmap()ing and munmap()ing the /dev/display interface.

Some of the previous features are gone. Namely, the VNC display selection and the delay time. It now runs only on VNC display 0 and it always updates as fast as possible. These switches will likely be added back in future versions.

It seems to work properly for me, but I have not done extensive testing. Specifically, I don't have the facility to attach the audio outputs of my empeg to anything in the house, so I cannot test whether or not playback functions properly when there is a client attached. Comments on this, as well as any other issue, are appreciated.

Great work man !!!

It can be started in the init script so.

I am sure that you can find a way with Mark to add commands to start and and stop the vnc server from the Hijack itself.

Ask him ...

Actually, if someone (wfaulk?) wants to whip up a working "site exec" that (1) waits for completion and (2) returns the stdout/stderr from whatever was run, then we can see if it will squish small enough to make it into the Hijack kernel.

This functionality is NEEDED by lots of stuff, including EmpVNC.

Cheers

I also just added a Java applet that can be installed on the empeg to allow access to the VNC server from any java-enabled web browser. Take a look at the web page for more info.

empegVNC-0.2 has been released.

The only change is that it now automatically dissociates itself from the controlling terminal so that it need not be backgrounded manually via an "&".

I also just added an MPEG video so you guys can see what it looks like. It's much faster than the video, as I had to capture at about 5fps so that I could get it down to about 6MB, which is still too big. Try not to kill my DSL line, please.

This would be really cool to integrate with the display server stuff to provide the control/display via VNC and the upload/download from the web interface..

Okay, so DisplayServer has (had?) two functions, if I understand correctly. It allowed display and control of the player itself from a remote interface. It also allowed ``streaming'' downloads of music from the player external to the usual interface. My VNC server does the former, and Mark Lord's khttpd and/or kftpd are about a millisecond from doing the latter. So why do we need to integrate with DisplayServer?

I don't mean to merge the code, but that these complement each other very well..

Great hack, Mr. Faulk!

How much memory does it use (so that I know whether to always start it from init and how much, if any, memory I have to reserve for it on my 12MB MkII in addition to that used by Mark's menagerie of kernel daemons)?

Let's see. It has a buffer of about 4k in it. That should be the vast majority of the memory used in the process. In trying to find out more info, I discovered that the VM will kill extra processes if it runs out of memory. I can only say that I never saw that happen when I was only running empegVNC.

Unless I'm missing a feature of DisplayServer, a combination of Hijack (if and when it supports generating or delivering playlists) and empegVNC obviate the need for DisplayServer. Am I missing something?

EmpgVNC 0.2 Relased , I think we have an other fast coder !!!!!

So, for all practical purposes, zero. Excellent!

Hah. The change was adding about 4 lines of code:

/* disconnect from the controlling terminal */

if (fork()) {

  _exit(0);

}

setsid();

I'm actually remarkably slow.

empegVNC-0.3 has been released.

It fixes long keypresses, which didn't work before.

I've also noticed that empegVNC sometimes hangs up when the player is busy, like when it's ``Filling up space''. It can occasionally wedge, and sometimes even the player process wedges. These seem to occur only when a visual is being displayed. I might try to see if niceing empegVNC will help. If it happens, it's usually fixable by sending the player a `q' at the console. If that fails, send a Ctrl-C at the console. If that fails, pull the plug.

I just noticed that I over-fixed long keypresses to the extent that now turning the knob requires that you press left or right for each knob-click. I can see how this might be preferable. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

I do have an other question.

Could it be possible to make a prog that is resident in the tray (near the clock) with button bar to control the empeg.

I ued this as an winamp plugin and I think it could be very useful to do this.

First, I don't know a thing about Windows programming. Second, I'm sure something is possible, but I don't understand exactly what you want. You want a tray icon that will pop up a menu with fast-forward, play, pause, etc.? I'm sure it can be done, but I'm not the man to do it.

Hm, it really might be preferable. I have difficulties doing single knob clicks with 0.2. OTOH, autorepeat is also handy.... In other words, I haven't decided yet

I have not seen VNC server hang (in perhaps 20 hours of playing), but it does slow down (stops for 2-3s, actually) when the player is accessing disk. That's to be expected, I suppose.

A wish: larger image. It would be perfect if the client could scale the image (ideally, by full resampling with antialiasing), but I don't think standard client is capable of that. Would simple pixel duplication (2x2 for one) on server side be too memory, CPU and bandwidth consuming?

I think I saw the same thing that you saw about the single knob clicks in the previous versions. I think that I fixed that plus some more in v0.3. That is, I think I can make single clicks happen and make repeats work as well. I'll give it a shot and see what happens.

As far as a larger image goes: there are some clients that have a built-in resizing feature. On the MSWindows client I'm using, there's a checkbox for scaling in the options dialog (also in the top left button menu after it's started). For native resizing, there are a number of options, none of which I'm happy with right now, for network usage reasons. I'm going to have to sit down and do some math to figure out what the best idea is. But I'm keeping it in mind.

And it's nice to hear of someone using it. Thanks.

Ah, I finally found scale option on my client. If other clients tend to have it, better leave server as is. Interesting, my old Windows VNC client eats almost half CPU on an ancient 350MHz PII; your server consumes barely anything!

OK, I will try to play with 0.3 a bit...

Err, I cannot download it. Is www.beaglebros.com down?

Server not found.

Yeah. It was down. I was completing my semiannual refresher course in topology. That is, messing with ribbon cables in a PC. Would you believe that that machine has 8 ribbon cables in it? 3 IDE cables, 1 floppy cable, 2 SCSI cables, and 2 PCMCIA adapter cables. And it's a minitower case. I'm surprised there's any air running through it at all.

By the way, don't buy Western Digital IDE drives. I just had one start to die in well less than two years. Which explains my downtime.

I am getting strange behaviour with 0.3: I press space to get volume bar, then press shift-left to lower the volume. After one or two (quick) presses the bar disappears.

empegVNC-0.4 has been released.

This release fixes the problem with trying to actually use the knob twice in a row. (Tried to use `!' for bitwise not instead of `~'. Silly rabbit!)

It also adds back key repeats for spinning the knob. Note that it does not reintroduce the bug where you couldn't adjust the knob by one click. It's way too fast, though. I might have to hack in a delay of a few milliseconds in future releases. (Just FYI, having key repeats for the knob but not for the buttons is the closest to emulating the real interface. When the actual buttons are pressed, there is one signal sent for down and one sent for up, with no key repeat, so the player interprets a long button press when it gets a down not followed immediately by an up, which is what empegVNC sends since 0.3. When you turn the actual knob, it sends a turn signal for every click, and there is no ``stop'' indicator, so to move multiple places, you must send multiple knob turns.)

a question, of newbie variety. do i just send empegVNC-0.4 to my player and run it?
if so, thats not working.

That's exactly what you do. Check that your file lengths are the same as listed on the page you download it from.

How does it not work? When you start it, it should return the prompt almost immediately (without any message). Verify it is running with ps -af. Then you should be able to access it from your VNC client it as display 0 on empeg.

empeg:/empeg/bin# ls
d d.old empegVNC-0.4 empegVNC.htm g player vncviewer.jar web
empeg:/empeg/bin# ./empegVNC-0.4
bash: ./empegVNC-0.4: Permission denied

if i type "./em" and press tab it doesnt do anything

Works like charm now, Mr. Faulk!