MMS@RaspberryPi

MMS on Raspberry Pi 2 Here we go with MMS on a Raspberry Pi 2. Like in the last post, you have two possibilities to install mymediasystem (MMS) onto a Raspberry Pi. The Raspi is running a Raspian 8 (Jessie), which I pulled directly from the Rapsberry Pi site.Download the Debian-Package or compile it yourself. This blog-post describes shortly how to install MMS, but won’t cover much the topic about configuration. This is because I didn’t tried a lot.
Here is the Debian package and the source files:

Download

  • MMS Debian Package for Raspberry Pi 2: [link] (15MB)
  • MMS source files for Raspberry Pi 2: [link] (47MB)

Read how to install or compile it for your Raspberry Pi 2. It might also work for All Raspberry Pi models, but you won’t line the compile time an a Raspberry Pi 1 😉

HowTo

I’ve installed the ‘Full desktop image based on Debian Jessie‘, so I don’t need to take care about an window manager on my own.

Install and Update

So step one would be to install a Raspian Jessie and update your installation.

$ sudo apt update && apt upgrade
$ sudo reboot

Debian Package Installation

Download the Debian package from above and perform a

$ sudo dpkg -i mms_20160405-1_armhf.deb

Dpkg will complain about unresolved dependencies and stuff. Ignore it, because this will solve it:

$ sudo apt -f install

You’re done. Start mms from a terminal window (e.g. xterm):

$ mms -i keyboard

Configure the basic settings in /etc/mms/Config. Add at the very end of this file input = keyboard, so you can omit this parameter on startup.

Installation from source

You can skip this chapter if you installed the Debian package.
Download the source files from above. Deflate the package and enter the directory:

$ tar xvzf mms-1.1.1_raspi2-raspian8.tgz
$ cd mms-1.1.1_raspi2-raspian8

Now install the build environment and the dependencies:

$ sudo apt install g++ autoconf build-essential libimlib2-dev libncurses5-dev libsqlite3-dev libtag1-dev libsdl1.2-dev libinotifytools0-dev libcommoncpp2-dev libboost-dev libboost-date-time-dev python2.7-dev libalsaplayer-dev libcdparanoia-dev libxfixes-dev alsa-base alsaplayer-common alsaplayer-daemon liblircclient-dev libavcodec-dev libavfilter-dev libavformat-dev libavutil-dev libtool-bin gettext

If you paid attention the last time, the dependencies looks the same like for the Ubuntu Server 16.04.
In fact life is a bit cruel, because we will get different versions installed. The worse part for me was the ffmpeg version is an older one (6:11.6). Whereas on the Ubuntu 16.04 it’s a 7:2.8.6.
That’s why I couldn’t compile straight away and had to change the code again (thumbnailer.cpp). But finally I did it.

./configure

Now it’s time to configure the MMS package:

$ ./configure  --sysconfdir=/etc --enable-debug --enable-tv --enable-game --enable-weather --enable-notify-area --enable-clock --enable-python --enable-lirc --enable-clock --enable-alsaplayer --disable-xine-audio --enable-python --disable-epg

Note: all other switches are untested (I don’t use them).

Compilation

Compile the sources now by:

$ make -j3

Since the Raspberry Pi 2 has four cores you can use three of them for compilation (the -j switch).
Warning: Don’t use “4” or more, this will kill the installation and your Raspi gets unresponsive.
The compilation itself takes a very long time. I think it was more than half an hour or something.

Installation and Launch

When the compilations finishes (After more than 1000 Warnings) you can install MMS finally by:

$ make install

Start MMS now the usual way:

$ mms -i keyboard

ToDos and config setup

Here are some unsorted thoughts about configuration:

  • edit the files below, set the paths to your media content there. But set comments(“#”) in the lines with mov_dir and remove the comment(“#”) from mov_dir_no_watch. Do the same for the other two also. This will prevent from inotify to kick in. Inotify runs very slow on Raspberry, so don’t use it.
    /etc/mms/MovieConfig, /etc/mms/PictureConfig, /etc/mms/AudioConfig
  • See here how you can make omxplayer work in MMS
  • I use the alsaplayer for music playback. Install alsaplayer-daemon and alsaplayer.
  • Note: the home key on your keyboard is the default setting for “Going Back”. You can reconfigure it in /etc/mms/input/keyboard
  • The MMS-version I use is 1.1.0-2296
  • The uname -a for the Raspian installation is Linux ubuntu 4.4.0-16-generic #32-Ubuntu SMP Thu Mar 24 22:38:01 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux.

Time will tell, if MMS is really usable on a Raspberry Pi. For now I’m fine with the performance. I just wonder if VDR is running as a remote client on it. Well, that’s my next to do then.

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