[SunRescue] MP3s

[Martin Frost]

Shawn Boyette wrote:

> Back when my main Linux box was a 486/120, it could play MP3s smoothly
> if nothing (and I mean *nothing*) else was going on. Of course this
> was back in the days of the 1.2.13 kernel.

My main box (apart from my SPARCbooks) is a 486/100. ;) I'm waiting
for the predicted drop in SS20 prices, and also (strongly) considering
building a machine for pure floating point performance (probably Alpha-
based; possibly UltraSPARC if they weren't so expensive for the MP
ones).

> If I were going to try this, I'd build a stripped-down kernel with
> audio compiled in and then do as you were suggesting. The P90 I'm on
> plays MP3s perfectly but xmms consumes about 80% of CPU time (thank
> god this is a SMP box!)

Well, I'd probably use a BSD rather than Linux, but the idea's the
same. I wouldn't be running X, either. At the most, a console driver
as well as the audio and network stuff, probably just serial console
to a VT220 or one of my other terminals I have lying around.

If a P90 will do it, then a 486/100 should (the early Pentiums I've
seen run slower clock for clock than the late 486s: I guess this is
due to the fact that the system bus structure was less mature at
that time).

Apologies for drifting somewhat off-topic. ;)

--m