I was recently asked by someone to investigate an MP3 player solution for someone that is partially sighted. Up until now they had been using a CD player with a big screen on, but when this broke there was no suitable replacement, and anything else that they tried jumped due the vibrations from the drumming that was going along with the music. I'm blogging this more for the benefit of my brother-in-law who will be setting it up - but it might be useful to somebody else.
Anyway an old laptop was provided - and as this system had to be fool proof and crash proof, a Linux install was an obvious choice. The system had to boot straight into the MP3 player, and the user would just hit the power button when finished and power saving would ensure a clean shutdown. The player had to be full screen (nothing around it to confuse) and the only other requirements were that it had to play a single playlist and have some nice big buttons.
I tried a lot of different things, icewm, fluxbox, various different players with various skins, but I just stumbled (thankyou Patrick O'Hearn) on an almost perfect setup - Banshee.
Banshee and Rhythmbox box have "party modes" where you can put it into full screen, but unfortunately Rhythmbox does not remember the state and always starts in windowed mode... so Banshee won there.
1. The base system is Ubuntu Hardy with Gnome - to install banshee from command line:
sudo apt-get install banshee
or use the Add/Remove gui - I think it's in there.
2. Get the playlist setup right, then hit F11 to put it into full screen. Then quit the app (it will remember status).
3. Next I wanted to do away with the window manager completely - I was going to use fluxbox - but I think raw X11, does just fine.
Create a file in your home directory called .xinitrc and put the follow in the file:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
dbus-launch banshee
This works for XDM but GDM uses the .xsession file so execute the following from your home directory to link them together:
ln -s /.xinitrc .xsession
4. Now before you quit gnome, go to System->Administration->Login Window and in the Security tab check "Emable Automatic Login" and type in your user name below. This will ensure the system does not ask for a login/password on startup of X.
5. Now logout of Gnome and you should be back at the login screen. Select Options->Select Session and select option 1. - Run Xclient script. Login normally and make sure that this is set as the default session from now on.
If you get stuck in X - you can always hit Ctrl-Alt-Backspace and it will take you back to the login window.
The session should start and the only thing that should load is Banshee.
The next thing I need to do is get the icons bigger - but I think just setting the screen resolution to 640x480 is the best way to do this. This can also be coupled with a high contrast theme if necessary. If anyone has any ideas on how to skin it or other players please let me know.
EDIT: Just found some problems with it running in raw X11 - doesn't always full screen - maybe fluxbox or similar is better option (or just lock it in gnome)... will update when I fix - or maybe someone else has some suggestions.
Comments
Post new comment