Contents

Quick Start Guide

Quick Start Guide

For first time users who would like to get Freevo up and running.

This guide is for Freevo-1.9.0 but applied to older and newer releases too.

Prerequisites

A working X-server, running at a resolution of 800x600

Freevo prerequisites installed

Knowledge how to edit text files

Initial Installation and configuration steps

Download the latest Freevo from sourceforge. You will need Freevo and the kaa packages.

Unpack these, install the kaa packages and then Freevo.

As root

cd /<path/to>/freevo-1.9.0
mkdir /etc/freevo /var/log/freevo
freevo setup

This will

prepare the directories that Freevo will use for writing the configuration files
write a /etc/freevo/freevo.conf

Open /etc/freevo/freevo.conf in a text editor and change any obvious errors.

Change to your user account

Copy the file /usr/share/freevo/freevo_config.py into ~/.freevo/ using this command

cp /usr/share/doc/freevo/local_conf.py.example ~/.freevo/local_conf.py

The file ~/.freevo/local_conf.py is where you will change your freevo settings.

To run the recordserver, webserver or commercial-detect server as root, you will need a copy of local_conf.py in a system directory.

As root

ln -s /home/user/.freevo/local_conf.py /etc/freevo/local_conf.py

At this point you will be able to start freevo.

If the Xserver is not running, type:

freevo -fs

If the Xserver is running type:

freevo

However, it is not fully set-up and you will receive a number of error messages:

Error: TV_RECORD_DIR not set
Please set TV_RECORD_DIR to the directory, where recordings should be stored
or remove the tv plugin. Autoset variable to /root.

Error: VIDEO_SHOW_DATA_DIR not found

Error: can't find /tmp/TV.xml
Use xmltv to create this file or when you don't want to use the tv
module at all, add TV_CHANNELS = [] and plugin.remove('tv') to your
local_conf.py. TVguide is deactivated now.

WARNING: /etc/freevo/lircrc not found!

More Installation and configuration steps

Lets assume that your directory tree is something like this:

/
|
 freevo/
       |
       audio/
       |    |
       |    albums/
       |    |
       |    radio/
       |
       fxd/
       |
       games/
       |
       images/
       |
       tv/
       |
       video/
            |
            movies/
            |
            dvcam/

Lets make these directories:

mkdir -p /freevo/audio/albums /freevo/audio/radio
mkdir -p /freevo/fxd
mkdir -p /freevo/games
mkdir -p /freevo/images
mkdir -p /freevo/tv
mkdir -p /freevo/video/movies /freevo/video/dvcam

Now we need to fix the errors and correct other settings.

vi /etc/freevo/local_conf.py

Just after the copyright block make sure it says CONFIG_VERSION = 5.27, if not then there is a list of new settings that will be printed as well as the error messages.

Find and changes these setting in your local_conf.py:

AUDIO_ITEMS = [
    ('Music Collection', '/freevo/audio/albums/'),
    'fxd/webradio.fxd',
]
IMAGE_ITEMS = '/freevo/images'
VIDEO_ITEMS = [
    ('movies', '/freevo/video/movies'),
    ('camera', '/freevo/video/dvcam'),
]
VIDEO_SHOW_DATA_DIR = '/freevo/fxd'
TV_RECORD_DIR = '/freevo/tv'

and these to get more information about what is not working, once everything is set-up to you liking you can turn these settings off

DEBUG_CHILDAPP = 1
LOGGING = logging.DEBUG
LOGGING_RECORDSERVER = logging.DEBUG
DEBUG = 1

If you do not wish to use TV then we need to add plugin.remove('tv') to local_conf.py

Note the /etc/freevo/local_conf.py is a Python script so it must follow some simple syntax rules, just follow what is in the local_conf.py as a guide

Remote control configuration steps

If you have a working remote control using the lirc then we generate a /etc/freevo/lircrc by:

freevo makelircrc -w [<number>]

The number is used if there is more than on remote definition in the lircd.conf

Running freevo --fullscreen again and you will have a working freevo system.

What to do next

Helpers

Helpers are a collection of utilities that run under the Freevo environment and the various helpers can been seen in the helpers directory.

To find out what a helper can do and its options type:

freevo <helper> -- --help

Plug-ins

Plug-ins are the core of Freevo these can be activated and removed in the local_conf.py.

If, for example, you do not want to have images this can be removed by adding to the local_conf.py

plugin.remove('image')

If you would like a weather to be activated then add something like this to the local_conf.py

plugin.activate('oneclick', level=55)
ONECLICK_LOCATIONS = [ ("SZXX0033", True, '', 'Zürich') ]

To find out what plug-ins are available and activated then type:

# freevo plugins -l | less

To find out more about a specific plug-in then type this:

freevo plugins -i <plug-in name>