LiMP - ver 2.1

LiMP - ver 2.1

Linux Multimedia Player is a tiny Linux-based Live distribution that converts your computer into a multimedia player. It supports most of the known formats (MPEG 1 and 2, DivX, WMV, qt-mov, Real, MP3, WAV, WMA, and Ogg, VCD and DVD). It has auto-detection of harddisk (IDE, SATA, or SCSI) and sound, video, and network cards, USB storage device and supports all cards as of kernel 2.6.15. It identifies the filesystems and mounts them in the folder "START". Network support can be configured through a friendly GUI. Windows Shares, Linux SMB shares can also be mounted and accessed inside the folder "START". It has menu-driven options and requires no knowledge of Linux, all in an embedded image file of size 26 MB. It can be easily integrated into Windows XP/2000/98/95, a Linux boot loader, or bootable CD-ROM.

This distro, uses the powerful MPLAYER, and user friendly XMMS ( a clone of WINAMP), to give a better interface to play all VIDEO, AUDIO formats plus VCD and DVD.

The entire program is loaded in memory and runs only from the memory. When this distro is booted from CDROM, after loading the program in memory, it automatically ejects the CD.

Whats New in this version:

Enabled DMA using libata drivers.
Support for Reiserfs4, the new released file system.
Bootsplash support added, see screen shots. (Image contributed by Luke)

Features :

1. LiMP distro runs only from memory and so CDROM/DVD is free to use.
2. LiMP is completely safe to use, as it mounts the partitions (NTFS, EXT2, EXT3, REISERFS, REISER4) and windows / linux shares in READONLY mode.
3. Computer Shutdown schedule for bed time listeners.
4. It supports viewing encrypted DVD's (Zone set DVD's)*
5. User has to option to load his favorite language font, for viewing subtitle
6. User can set his favorite skin for xmms as default so that it loads on startup.
7. It runs a vnc server and can be accessed remotely from any vnc client.
8. Also includes few card based games like solitaire, Freecell, etc

*Viewing encrypted DVD using libdvdcss is illegal in many countries. If it is an offence in your country, please don't use this Distro.

Directory - Files info :

wallpaper.jpg - User can replace this file with his favorite wallpaper and that will
be used as wallpaper in LiMP
grldr - Grub loader ( for windows 2K / XP setup )
grub - Contains menu.lst a setup file for grub loader
grub/menu.lst - setup file for grub loader for windows 2K /XP
grub/grub.exe - Grub file for Windows 9x
grub/sample_config.sys - sample file for using grub in windows 9x
isolinux - Folder necessary for bootable cdrom
help - Help files for LiMP
limp - This is the main directory for LiMP program, and this has to be copied to
one of the hard disk partition "root" directory, to get extra features.

limp/codecs - This contains the extra codecs needed for the LiMP
(Quicktime, wma, wmv, etc)
limp/dri - This has the display enhancement drivers
limp/font - To support various language subtitles, this font file will be
used. More fonts can be downloaded from "mplayer web site" extract and copy the font.desc and other files here. This will be used by mplayer when watching video.
limp/font/subfont.ttf - Mplayer also supports "ttf" fonts. If you have "arialuni.ttf" ( it supports Cyrillic, Hebrew, etc) just copy it here and rename to "subfont.ttf"
limp/gconv - Support files for multi language subtitles.
limp/help - Contains help files and this help files can be accessed from
"LiMP - help"
limp/xmms/skins - Folder for skins, that will be used by xmms inside
LiMP. Winamp Skins are also supported. Just copy your winamp skins to this folder. To make your favorite skin to be loaded automatically, add "default" as the starting name to the preferred skin file.

In LINUX all FILES' / FOLDERS' names are CASE SENSITIVE. So be careful when replacing the FILE / FOLDER Names .

Mini Help:

1. Right click on the Desktop to get "LiMP Menu".
2. To setup Network, in the "LiMP Menu", select "Network setup", and enter the details. This settings are stored only for this session. To config the network permanently, edit the file "\grub\menu.lst" using NOTEPAD modify the line
Highlighted in BLUE (this is single continuous line ) accordingly.
title Limp_with_network on (hd0,0)

kernel (hd0,0)/limp/mpl_ker root=/dev/ram0 rw gateway=192.168.2.21 ip=192.168.2.34 dns=192.168.2.5 hostname=limp_pc vga=791 splash=silent

initrd (hd0,0)/limp/limp.img

3. For those who have more than one drive : choose this option to play VCD or DVD in the selected drive.

In the "LiMP" menu, goto "CDROM utils", click "Change/reset CDROM device path from /dev/scd0" or "Change/reset DVD device path from /dev/scd0"

This option can also be set from the kernel boot line (in pink color) (this is single continuous line ) :

title Limp_with_network on (hd0,0)

kernel (hd0,0)/limp/mpl_ker root=/dev/ram0 rw gateway=192.168.2.21 ip=192.168.2.34 dns=192.168.2.5 hostname=limp_pc vga=791 splash=silent CDROM=scd1 DVD=scd2

initrd (hd0,0)/limp/limp.img

When "Play Video CD" is chosen VCD will be played from the cdrom (scd1) similarly, when "Play Video DVD" is chosed DVD will be played from the DVD (scd2).
For those who have only one drive this option need not be set.
4. To view other Language Subtitle : Download the preferred language font from www.mplayerhq.hu and extract and copy it to the "\limp\font" directory or if "arialuni.ttf" is available copy it to the "\limp\font" and rename it to "subfont.ttf"
5. To make your favorite skin for xmms to be loaded automatically, add "default" as the starting name to the preferred skin file. Make sure that you don't have two files starting with default.

Setup Procedure for WIN 2000 / XP
1. Unzip the downloaded file limp-xxxx.zip to the root directory where WINDOWS or WINNT is installed eg C:\ or D:\
2. Edit the boot.ini file ( it is a hidden, system, readonly file.)
3. Make sure that the file and folder (grldr, grub, grub/menu.lst, limp/limp.img limp/mpl_ker) are in SMALL CASE
Procedure to modify boot.ini
a. Click "START", "RUN" and enter "cmd" without quotes. and in the comming window type the following commands.
b. c:
c. cd \
d. attrib -r -h -s boot.ini
e. notepad boot.ini
f. Open the file "sample_boot_ini.txt" , and copy the line C:\GRLDR="Start LiMP" (C:\ is the WINDOWS root directory, modify "C:\" according to your installation)
g. Paste this in the opened file "boot.ini" file (in procedure "e" ) and save and close the file.
g. attrib +r +h +s boot.ini
4. Edit the file "grub\menu.lst" using notepad and modify the line containing "kernel..." with ip=ur_ip_address hostname=ur_computername.
hd0,0= first harddisk first partition ( windows is in C drive)
hd0,1= first harddisk second partition (if windows is in D drive change all hd0,0 to hd0,1)
hd1,0= second harddisk first partition (windows is in C drive, harddisk is connected as slave in first interface ide0) like that...
4. Reboot the computer.
5. In the boot Menu choose "Start LiMP", default is set to boot WINDOWS
6. In the next Menu select appropriate choice, defaults is set to boot limp_with_network
7. Limp, now loads the files in memory and starts booting....
8. After it finishes it creates DISPLAY and loads MPLAYER application.

For linux users using GRUB :
1. Just copy the "limp" folder to "/"
2. Open the file grub/menu.lst and copy the 3 lines (title, kernel, initrd) to /boot/grub/grub.conf
3. Edit the line kernel (ip=ur_ip_address hostname=ur_hostname)
Make sure that the file and folder (grldr, grub, grub/menu.lst, limp/limp.img limp/mpl_ker) are in SMALL CASE

To Update to new version of Limp :

Just replace the folder "limp" with the new "limp" folder. And modify the menu.lst or grub.conf with the given menu.lst file. ( Because new options might be given for enhancement)

That's ALL !!!
A word about Codecs:
The codecs included supports wma, wmv, QT, mov, divx (its varients like xvid, etc), mpeg1, mpeg2, mp3, ogg, realvideo, real audio, AC3.
In case of any error like "codec not available" extra codecs can be downloaded from http://www2.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/codecs.html and uncompress the files and copy the files to "\limp\codecs".
MINI FAQ :
During fullscreen playback of video, due to faulty CD /DVD or improper encoding, if video screen hangs, you can use "ALT-TAB" to cycle through the windows and select "CONSOLE", the "CONSOLE" window will be active, press
"ALT-F4" to close the "CONSOLE", this will close the applications.
Project website:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/limp_os

email address :

vkkindia@rediffmail.com

Reference in Mplayer web site :
This project is also recognized and listed in the Mplayer web site http://www4.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design4/projects.html under the heading "CD Based Distributions"
Download:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=152666