Old Laptop - New use

[Krisbee]

While others have been making good use of new tech, I wondered what to do with an old laptop. The demise of XP meant a Thinkpad R51e was sitting idle in our household. After a bit of tinkering it's turned into a squeeze machine. It boots straight to this:

http://i1312.photobucket.com/albums/t526/squeezetop/squeezetop/Screenshot-150414-154457_zps3cd7d158.png (http://s1312.photobucket.com/user/squeezetop/media/squeezetop/Screenshot-150414-154457_zps3cd7d158.png.html)

Full keyboard/mouse control with the possibility of IR control via a FLIRC dongle.

http://i1312.photobucket.com/albums/t526/squeezetop/squeezetop/Screenshot-150414-154532_zps50da23e5.png (http://s1312.photobucket.com/user/squeezetop/media/squeezetop/Screenshot-150414-154532_zps50da23e5.png.html)

http://i1312.photobucket.com/albums/t526/squeezetop/squeezetop/Screenshot-150414-154435_zpsfaeb8966.png (http://s1312.photobucket.com/user/squeezetop/media/squeezetop/Screenshot-150414-154435_zpsfaeb8966.png.html)

This is using Jivelite with the Joggler skin tweaked to fill the laptop's 1024 x 768 screen.

I've used Fedora20 32bit XFCE and added the Community Squeeze repos and after other configuration tweaks can switch to workspace two and crtl+f brings up the CS webui and standard LMS webui.

http://i1312.photobucket.com/albums/t526/squeezetop/squeezetop/Screenshot-150414-154300_zps446e77ce.png (http://s1312.photobucket.com/user/squeezetop/media/squeezetop/Screenshot-150414-154300_zps446e77ce.png.html)

http://i1312.photobucket.com/albums/t526/squeezetop/squeezetop/Screenshot-150414-154340_zps2a729450.png (http://s1312.photobucket.com/user/squeezetop/media/squeezetop/Screenshot-150414-154340_zps2a729450.png.html)

http://i1312.photobucket.com/albums/t526/squeezetop/squeezetop/Screenshot-150414-154402_zps03b5e822.png (http://s1312.photobucket.com/user/squeezetop/media/squeezetop/Screenshot-150414-154402_zps03b5e822.png.html)

The laptop my have a decent 15inch 1024x768 screen, but otherwise the specs are low - celeron m 370 1.5 cpu and 1GB of memory. I've made no attempt to optimise the install and this gives some idea of the load:

http://i1312.photobucket.com/albums/t526/squeezetop/squeezetop/Screenshot-150414-154642_zpsc5241c9f.png (http://s1312.photobucket.com/user/squeezetop/media/squeezetop/Screenshot-150414-154642_zpsc5241c9f.png.html)

[Tim]

Great to see old tech revived and used for something, rather than going down the tip or getting dusty in a cupboard :thumbsup:

[Krisbee]

Hi Tim,

Without Linux this 8 year old laptop would be just so much scrap. As it is, this configuration is possible thanks to the skill and generosity of those who have created LMS plugins, squeezelite, jivelite and worked on the Community Squeeze project. I don't know if any AOS members are actively using or following this project and the long threads at the slimdevices forum. But although the project's main hardware target is the Wandboard, with or without the John Swenson designed audio board, Clive Messer has also packaged software for standard PC/laptop use.

Of course if you don't need/want the convenience of using the Community Squeeze webui, then a Debian based linux distro is a good bet. I've used Curnchbang too as it has a 32bit version suited to old hardware with low memory and weak CPUs. It is easily configured for autologin and auto start of squeezelite and jivelite. In this case, jivelite has to be compiled, but as long as you can follow instructions, that's straightforward.

I've yet to get a FLIRC dongle and test IR control.

[MartinT]

Very nice, Chris. It's a potential solution for those who want a Touch but can't get one any more. Your laptop, low power that it is, is likely to have more welly than a standard Touch so that would help to keep the buffers low, too.

As Tim says, great to see old tech put to good use.

[Krisbee]

Very nice, Chris. It's a potential solution for those who want a Touch but can't get one any more. Your laptop, low power that it is, is likely to have more welly than a standard Touch so that would help to keep the buffers low, too.

As Tim says, great to see old tech put to good use.

To be honest I hadn't give much thought to "buffers" and such like. I need to do some more testing/listening with the latop connected to my external DAC. As you might know, squeezelite has control over various buffers:



./squeezelite-x86-64 -h | grep buffer
-a <b>:<p>:<f>:<m> Specify ALSA params to open output device, b = buffer time in ms or size in bytes, p = period count or size in bytes, f sample format (16|24|24_3|32), m = use mmap (0|1)
-b <stream>:<output> Specify internal Stream and Output buffer sizes in Kbytes



Currently squeezelite is confgure to use the default stream buffers and only the mmap ALSA is set to zero.

I've never had a SBT and missed the boat when they were sold of cheap. It really was Triode's creation of "squeezelite" (and his BBC iplayer plugin) that converted me to using LMS. I think the SBT only has a 533MHz Arm processor, but I've no idea if the old laptop can the handle the load generated by any sox upsampling for example, or any of that fancy room correction stuff. It doesn't really matter as it's not going to be used for that.

The intention was for occasional use as an alternative source to my CD player. Running LMS on the laptop itself gives the option for it to be used as an independent radio for casual/background listening, plug in a USB stick and it should automatically scan it for audio files, or I can connect to a remote LMS. Using the CS webui, it's a simple matter to switch between external DAC and the latop's own low-fi sound system.