An awesome standalone media player
Why such a name ? Well, its main purpose is to play DivX movies and, as everybody usually call this kind of projects DivX boxes, we'll just prepended a "GeeX", cause that's for the geeks you all are ;-)
So, GeeXboX is a full operating system, running under Linux and based on the excellent MPlayer. No need for a hard drive, you just have to put the GeeXboX bootable CD into the CD-Drive of any Pentium-class computer to boot it. Moreover, GeeXboX is free software, created as open-source software. This means that everyone can modify it and build his own release of the GeeXboX.
You may wonder why you should have to boot another operating system to play your media files, but just think about the Mini-ITX platforms like VIA Epia/Eden or Shuttle barebones. Bringing DivX to your home cinema is now affordable, plugging this kind of computer directly to your TV !!
At the time of the first development releases (Dec. 2002), it was only capable of playing DivX movies, but now, nearly every kind of media file can be played with GeeXboX, with the OS supporting :
· MPEG 1/2 movies (MPG files, VCDs, DVDs ...)
· MPEG 4 movies (DivX, XviD ...)
· RealMedia and Windows Media movies.
· OggMedia streams
· Matroska streams
· Audio streams like : MP3, Ogg/Vorbis, WAV (AudioCD), AC3 ...
GeeXboX is an operating system but you still need something to boot on ;-) You're lucky, GeeXboX is based on MPlayer, which can be considered as one of the less cpu-dependent movie players, thanks to the use of FFMpeg for decoding movies.
Requirements:
x86 Pentium-Class CPU or above (P2-400 should be quite enough) or Macintosh G3 (G4 highly recommended)
a VESA 2.0 compliant graphics card.
an ALSA compatible sound card.
at least 64 MB of RAM
CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive
Motherboard which supports booting on CD-ROM (should be ok for everyone ;-)
Keyboard, Joystick or Remote Controller, using a Lirc-compatible IR (InfraRed) receiver
What's New in This Release:
System:
X.Org 7.4 inclusion (default, change it with generator).
Support for SMP and multi-cores.
Update to Linux 2.6.27.4.
Update BusyBox to 1.11.3.
Update to SysLinux 3.72.
Use of initramfs instead of initrd.
Toolchain:
Update to GCC 4.3.2.
Upgrade uClibc to 0.9.30-rc3.
Upgrade glibc to 2.7.
Use glibc as a default when building with X.Org.
Ports:
Port to x86_64 architecture.
Port to PowerPC 64bit architecture.
MacIntel support.
Optimizations for EasyGate platform.
Optimizations for EeePC 700.
Player:
Update MPlayer to r27662.
Enable ASS support.
Add MonkeyAudio decoder.
Add GOOM audio visualization.
Fix for CDDA playback.
Add TV selection menu.
Add de-interlace filter for DVDs and TV streams.
Use of keypad for DVDNAV controls.
Add support for extended PLS netstream entries.
Enhanced DVD Navigation Menu support.
Fix somes issues with encrypted DVDs playback.
Use per stream type configuration profiles.
Video:
Add widescreens and HDTV screens support.
Add X11 video acceleration for most graphic cards (Intel, nVidia, ATI, S3, SiS, VIA ...).
TV-Out is no longer available when booting with X.Org enabled.
Some Intel VESA driver fixes.
ATI VIDIX driver color fixes.
Restore VIDIX support on PowerPC.
Drivers:
X.Org hardware autodetection.
Dozens of new WiFi, Ethernet, DVB ... drivers supported.
All drivers are now modularized (no longer built-in): only useful ones are actually loaded.
Add kernel drivers auto probe and load mechanisms.
Fix many PATA devices issues.
Add support for 16bit PCMCIA cards.
LIRC 0.8.4
Networking:
Upgrade to Samba 3.0.32 (better support for MS Vista shares).
Add support for Plan9 network shares .
Add NFS v3/4 support.
Add PXE boot from Samba.
Allow for defining static samba mounts
Installator:
Introduction of configurator: post-install reconfiguration utility.
Use of libparted instead of old fdisk for disk partionning.
Enhanced install to USB process.
Provide faster boot methods for install to HDD.
Generator:
Add HDTV (X.org) related new options and configuration settings.
Add GOOM audio visualization settings tab.
Add NFS shares configuration tab.
Add static Samba shares configuration tab.
Automatic packages download at ISO image compilation.
Miscellaneous:
Add AppleIR remote support.
Add X10 RF MCE remote control support.
Add ACPI multimedia buttons handling.
Enhanced system information menu.
Enhance VESA boot menu.
Enhanced Web interface and better browser compliance.
Add optional support for Video Disk Recorder (VDR).
Use FeH image viewer instead of FBI.
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