Hi I have an unusual install problem. I'm trying to build my own GeexBox ISO (they provide a simple utility that allows you to do this)
http://www.geexbox.org/en/index.html and a lot of the codecs and drivers it needs to function properly have been left out. (Deliberately in some cases, due to potential legal issues in various countries). Ideally what I'm looking for is a codec pack in a compressed file format like .zip or .tar etc that I can easily extract to the included codecs directory. (found plenty of Windows exes with big codec pacs of this nature). I don't think I'm really breaking the law by asking people what it is I am searching for, so I might at least know where to start. Preferably I want some kind of mega codec pack so that I can pretty much play any kind of media I can throw at this fun little (as in 4Mb~ little) distribution. My goal is to build an embedded media box on a small but powerful computer, so as I have 256MB of compact flash memory to play with, a nice fat codec pack wont be likely to have much impact.
Although I can at present play video, I have no sound - notably because no module has been included for my sound card. The package that you can download has a file structure where the top directory is naturally GEEXBOX, followed by the subdirectories in the structure of font, iso, language, lirc, win32, COPYING, VERSION, generator.bat, generator.sh, README.
If I drill down though through \Geexbox\geexbox-generator-0.90-4\iso\GEEXBOX\lib\modules\2.4.21\kernel\drivers\media inside here I find a folder called video. However there is no folder called sound or 'audio', or anything equivalent. So I wondered if it might be possible simply to add a directory called sound or audio to here and include my excluded sound drivers? Would that work, or is this the totally wrong way to go about this?
Also if this is possible, since I don't have access to a linux machine at this current point in time does anyone have the driver for the Realtek ALC650 AC97 codec Chip that my motherboard uses? Hopefully it will just be a case of puttting it in the correct directory and possibly doing a modprobe to load it when the system has started.
In any case this is a neat project, though not without its limitations. The fact that it doesn't have the capability to build a media library so that you can store and retrace all your media files locally is a real kicker for me. ATM every time you switch it off, you loose all your previously stored settings. Also not being able to rip (legally owned|) movies and music kind of sucks too. But I guess that's asking a lot of a distribution this size.
But oh well, there are several similar projects to this (this is the best I've found so far though for installing on a IDE Compact flash drive) and none of them quite do all the things I would like. I guess its a case of 'up with it I shall have to put.'
But if you guys can help me work around these few limitations, your help would be much appreciated.
Q
PS
Does anyone know if Mplayer has a built in media library? (Like the one in Media Player 9.0). I can't seem to access it if it does. Or maybe someone knows of a project where someone is adding media library support to MPlayer? If so, feel free to let me know.
PPS
I'm sorry I didn't ask about this on their forums but their forums are all in French - and they are pretty unresponsive to emails. So I thought I would ask you guys instead.