Hey there,

I was wondering if there exists any sort of music visualization software that will run without an xserver?

This is for a project car computer I've been working on. Currently it is running Debian Sarge, but I'm not married to it.

I've optimized the system as much as I could for fast boot time and low latency in processing commands, so it would be a shame to run something like Gnome or even Xfce just for visualization.

I have two LCD monitors (not TFT, but not concerned about it) in my front seat headrests with tv-out running to them. Everything is working fine, I just wanted to hit it with a pretty stick. As it is, I don't really use the displays at all (can't see them from the front anyways), but I thought it would be neat to add a projectM/milkdrop style visualization for the folks in the back seat.

Is this possible to do from the command line? Currently I'm using rxaudio to play my mp3s, but again, I'm not married to it. I looked around quite a bit on google, and didn't have much luck.

My hopes aren't incredibly high, so don't be afraid to dash them

Thanks for taking the time to look at my question.

-Xehn

Have you tried MPlayer with vga output (-vo vga) and some visualization plugin?
Concerning visualization, I found something like that: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/other.html -- not sure if it applies though.

I would also suggest mplayer.

That said, you don't have to run a window manager if you're running X (especially in cases like yours with only one likely app and the resources of an `embedded' system). See if there is some lightweight visualizing software that can run in fullscreen (without any window manager).