More and probably repetitive newbie questions

[jaydee999]

Hi there
I recently acquired a Joggler on ebay, and have updated the unit with the latest software/firmware, and then again with PNPIII. I had a lot of problems with the whole telnet thing (kept telling me the remote host had closed the connection), but eventually I got it up and running. Squeezeplay seems to be working fine: currently playing one of the many internet radio stations as I type. I have thee questions:

1. Using a remote control for Squeezeplay
You talk about using the iPhone app to control the Joggler. However, when I open the app on my iPhone, I get the error message "Your player was not found". Any idea what step I have missed out to get the app to find the Joggler?
2. Bluetooth speaker link
I recently bought a Philips bluetooth speaker to play music off my iPhone. Is it possible to set up a BT USB dongle on the Joggler so that I can pair the Joggler to the BT speaker and stream music through it over BT? This would mean that the Joggler can stay where it is and I don't have to have a 3.5mm jack cable trailing all over the place to where I want to place the speaker.

3. Additional apps / programmes
How easy / possible is it to install additional programmes? e.g. if I wanted to use Firefox instead of Opera? Or does the answer depend on the type and complexity of the programmes I have in mind?

Any help much appreciated. I've built many PC's for myself and the kids over the years, but never done any software hacking, if that's what's needed, so I would need some basic step by step instructions.

And a big thank you to all the top guys who have built / contributed to the OS and all the "slipstreaming". What a great community!

Cheers

jaydee

[ilovemyjoggler]

Hi there
1. Using a remote control for Squeezebox
You talk about using the iPhone app to control the Joggler. However, when I open the app on my iPhone, I get the error message "Your player was not found". Any idea what step I have missed out to get the app to find the Joggler?

What os is your iphone using? Apparently this app is not too keen on 6.

Is squeezeplay actually running when you're trying with the app? Also I've had to restart LMS on my main pc before now to get it to pick up on my iphone. Did it prompt you for your settings when you first used the app?

Sorry if these questions seem ridiculous but sometimes it's the most obvious thing!

[gegs]

Answers(ish) in true "Miss World" style reverse order:

3) Opera is the only browser currently working on the stock OS, although you can run a multitude of browsers in one of BuZz's (and others') distros. What you have in PnPIII is mostly what's available for the stock OS, although you can add lots of programs one of the USB distros, the easiest being Joli IMHO. I'm more comfortable with one of the other linux distros because I also use them on the desktop.

2) I suppose this depends on whether linux supports your bluetooth dongle "out-of-the-box". If it requires esoteric drivers or doesn't have any for linux, you might be scuppered. You might get better mileage with one of the USB linux distros rather than PnPIII. I have a USB hub with Linux Mint on a stick, a dongle for a bluetooth mouse, a USB soundcard and USB-powered speakers. The bluetooth dongle for the mouse is a receiver rather than a transmitter; I'm not sure how easy it is to transmit audio through bluetooth on the Joggler but one of the other fine people on this forum probably does.

1) I use the official Logitech app on the iPad and it works a dream. You must have Squeezeplay running on the Joggler first though, the app won't start it up for you, it only controls a running instance of the program.

[jaydee999]

What os is your iphone using? Apparently this app is not too keen on 6.

Is squeezeplay actually running when you're trying with the app? Also I've had to restart LMS on my main pc before now to get it to pick up on my iphone. Did it prompt you for your settings when you first used the app?

Sorry if these questions seem ridiculous but sometimes it's the most obvious thing!

Yes, I'm using 6. . Squeezeplay is running on the Joggler, yes. However, I have just deleted the app and re-installed it, and shut down and re-started LMS and now all seems fine.

Thanks for the help! Loving the Joggler even more now!

jaydee

[ilovemyjoggler]

Happy to help.

[jaydee999]

Answers(ish) in true "Miss World" style reverse order:

3) Opera is the only browser currently working on the stock OS, although you can run a multitude of browsers in one of BuZz's (and others') distros. What you have in PnPIII is mostly what's available for the stock OS, although you can add lots of programs one of the USB distros, the easiest being Joli IMHO. I'm more comfortable with one of the other linux distros because I also use them on the desktop.

2) I suppose this depends on whether linux supports your bluetooth dongle "out-of-the-box". If it requires esoteric drivers or doesn't have any for linux, you might be scuppered. You might get better mileage with one of the USB linux distros rather than PnPIII. I have a USB hub with Linux Mint on a stick, a dongle for a bluetooth mouse, a USB soundcard and USB-powered speakers. The bluetooth dongle for the mouse is a receiver rather than a transmitter; I'm not sure how easy it is to transmit audio through bluetooth on the Joggler but one of the other fine people on this forum probably does.

1) I use the official Logitech app on the iPad and it works a dream. You must have Squeezeplay running on the Joggler first though, the app won't start it up for you, it only controls a running instance of the program.

3. Thanks for the info. I will have a play with the different distros.
2. Silicon Wave. How do I establish whether it works out of the box? It installed OK just now on the W7 PC, but Linux could be a different matter
1. Resolved.

Thanks for the help.

[gegs]

My bluetooth mouse worked "out of the box" with Ubuntu and Linux Mint on the Joggler because Plug'n'Play correctly identified the bluetooth receiver and installed the driver (if it wasn't already part of the kernel). The mouse doesn't work on the stock OS because, I'm assuming, it doesn't have all the facilities of a full-blown distro and the Joggler wasn't intended to be attached to other devices, with the exception of speakers plugged into the 3.5mm audio socket.

I can only suggest you try a USB linux distro, plug in the dongle, see if it is identified and if the audio settings allow you to choose the bluetooth dongle as an audio output option. That's kind of what I meant by working "out of the box". If it doesn't work automatically I wouldn't despair; it might take a bit of research, some additional software and some editing of sound configuration files, but I'm sure you'll get there.

The following link has some information about running bluetooth audio in linux :
http://linuxpixies.blogspot.co.uk/2011/ ... thout.html

The most interesting thing to me is the second bit of code. It looks like the "asound.conf" file used for sound configuration on the stock OS and the USB linux distros. My suspicion is that it wouldn't work on the Stock OS if it doesn't have Bluetooth capability but could work on one of the USB distros.

Perhaps some kind person, who knows more about these things than I, could post an asound.conf file that works for the Joggler along the lines of linuxpixie's code below:

Code: Select all

linuxpixie@laptop:~$ cat .asoundrc 
pcm.bluetooth {
    type bluetooth
    device 00:02:3C:26:BA:87 # change this MAC address using the command "hcitool scan"
    profile "auto"}
pcm.!default {
   type hw
   card 0
   device 0
}

BuZz might be able to tell you if you need to install additional software to get bluetooth audio working.

[jaydee999]

@ gegs
Thanks for the input. Haven't actually tried the dongle yet, but hope to get round to it over the weekend, assuming I have any sticks left! The linux distros seem to be corrupting their capacity

[gegs]

@ gegs
Thanks for the input. Haven't actually tried the dongle yet, but hope to get round to it over the weekend, assuming I have any sticks left! The linux distros seem to be corrupting their capacity

The linux distros are disk images of a specific size. If you have any additional capacity on your USB stick beyond the size of the image it will be unformatted. You can use Gparted (the GNU Partition Editor) to reclaim the lost space but you must research how to use it first; it is very easy to delete or format the partitions on your hard drive if you don't select the correct device from the drop-down menu. Gparted works with ext4 formatted distros, not btrfs ones.

BIG HINT: Gparted will normally default to your boot disk, so you almost always have to choose another device from the drop-down. The USB disk should be obvious from its size and due to the unpartitioned area at the end (Gparted has a nifty GUI that's quite easy to understand, but please read how to use first if you don't know how to use it already).

[Juggler]

@ gegs
Thanks for the input. Haven't actually tried the dongle yet, but hope to get round to it over the weekend, assuming I have any sticks left! The linux distros seem to be corrupting their capacity

The linux distros are disk images of a specific size. If you have any additional capacity on your USB stick beyond the size of the image it will be unformatted. You can use Gparted (the GNU Partition Editor) to reclaim the lost space but you must research how to use it first; it is very easy to delete or format the partitions on your hard drive if you don't select the correct device from the drop-down menu. Gparted works with ext4 formatted distros, not btrfs ones.

BIG HINT: Gparted will normally default to your boot disk, so you almost always have to choose another device from the drop-down. The USB disk should be obvious from its size and due to the unpartitioned area at the end (Gparted has a nifty GUI that's quite easy to understand, but please read how to use first if you don't know how to use it already).

Slightly OT, but would be really interested to know why there are issues with GPartEd working with btrfs ? I understand that this is better for USB flash drives (with the configuration BuZz uses). I cannot resize a btrfs partition and cannot use clonezilla to image.

TIA.

[gegs]

Slightly OT, but would be really interested to know why there are issues with GPartEd working with btrfs ?

GParted supports btrfs if you run it on a linux system with btrfs-tools installed - http://gparted.sourceforge.net/features.php. Unfortunately btrfs-tools isn't on the LiveCD version of GParted, which is the version I use most.

Using a USB hub, you could boot a btrfs distro on the Joggler and then insert another stick with a btrfs filesystem in a spare port on the hub. Using GParted you could resize the partitions on the secondary USB stick (assuming btrfs-tools and GParted is installed on the main stick). After Gparted has done its magic, exit the program and power down. Now boot from the stick that has been resized; when booted, insert the other stick in the hub and resize its partitions as above. You should now have two btrfs sticks with no unused space.

I haven't tried this but it should work.

Or you could resize the btrfs filesystem using the method on this thread:
http://www.jogglerwiki.com/forum/viewto ... rt=10#p305