Thursday, December 20, 2012

SparkyLinux 2.0.1


Paweł Pijanowski has announced the release of SparkyLinux 2.0.1, a lightweight Debian-based distribution featuring a customised LXDE desktop and plenty of games: "SparkyLinux 2.0.1 'GameOver'. No, it's not the end of the project. It's brand new release. This idea was waiting in my Tomboy for the whole year. Finally I got back to work and three weeks later it's ready to go. It was built on the latest release of SparkyLinux 2.0 and it's designed for games players. Many applications have been removed from the system and replaced by games. The main system is based on Debian 'Wheezy' and has LXDE as the default desktop. All packages has been synchronised with Debian's 'testing' repositories as of 2012-12-12. What's under the hood: Linux kernel 3.2, LXDE, Iceweasel, VLC, Leafpad, Pidgin, Transmission, XChat, Flash, Java, multimedia codecs, VLC plugin for Iceweasel...." See the release announcement for a full list of included games and a screenshot. Download: sparkylinux-2.0.1-gameover-i386.iso (3,913MB, MD5).

Stream Video and Music from PC/Laptop to Android - Ubuntu/Linux Mint



In this tutorial, we will explain how to make it easy streaming music and video from a PC or laptop to an Android device (smartphones, tablets, etc.) over a wireless network. We have previously done a tutorial for streaming videos from PC to iOS devices, you can check it here.

We will use under Ubuntu or Linux Mint (13.04/12.10/12.04, Mint 14/13 or older) the VLC Media Player, and in the Android device we will use VLC Direct Pro which allows to stream media contents from your computer to Android, it can be also used to control your VLC media player remotely.

Getting Started

   
1. Installing VLC Media Player & Configuration (Ubuntu/Linux Mint)

Let's first install the non-free-codecs package under Ubuntu/Linux Mint to be able to play media files on your Android device. To do this, open the terminal and issue these commands:


sudo -E wget --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/$(lsb_release -cs).list 
sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get -y  --allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring 
sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install non-free-codecs

Install now VLC Media Player with these commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:videolan/stable-daily 
sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install vlc

Start VLC and enable the web interface by opening View >> Add interface >> Web:


Minimize the VLC window, then check your IP address of your wireless (wifi) internet connection in the network manager, or run simply this command from the terminal:

ifconfig wlan | grep inet

Your wireless IP address will be listed after "inet addr":


This IP address will be used later with VLC Direct Pro on your Android-based device.

   2. Installing VLC Direct Pro Free & Configuration (Android)

Search 'VLC Direct Pro Free' in Play Store and install it:


Launch the app now and in the setup wizard, don't tap "Next", just tap the "menu" button on your Android device and select Settings:


Tap now "Manual Configuration":


Tap "VLC Host":


Enter now the IP address of the wireless internet connection of your computer/laptop as explained above:


Leave VLC web interface port as is (8080).

Move back to the 'Preferences' menu and tap "Automatic Connection Wizard":



Tap "Start":



The app will now scan your computer or laptop to see if VLC Media Player is running. Once detected, tap the Target icon (top left corner) and change it to Android, then tap the Computer icon and browse your computer/laptop hard drive to locate the folder containing your media files to play them:


Your audio/video file will be now streamed to your Android device:


Enjoy!