Live CD

The Live CD based on Knoppix which is based on Debian.

Structure

The Live CD contains multipurpose GNU/Linux software and a special software for elphel cameras. The software is organized as debian packages. Our debian packages are presented on our SourcreForge page in the Live-CD and Players sections.

Root file system of Knoppix is compressed and cloop kernel module is needed to decompress it on-fly when it is necessary. The CD contains comressed root file system, boot loader and flash tarballs for different modeles of our cameras.

If you already have installed Debian or Knoppix system, you can add some our debs to work with our cameras.

We recommend to install following packages from our SourceForge page:
• elphel-pack It has utilites to configure network specially for cameras (for rtp stream receiving), search cameras in the LAN, update flash and helper for Mozilla/Firefox to work with .sdp files.
• netcardconfig-knoppix elphel clone to configure network card and to make a simple bridge from several cards.
• patched MPlayer to watch and to record rtp stream from our cameras.

To install selected package(s) you may use the following command:

# dpkg -i --force-overwrite <deb-file-name>

Our version of netcardconfig-knoppix is dependant of iputils-arping package. You may to istall it with:

# apt-get install iputils-arping

Other our packages and applayed patches contains common minor improvements and bug fixes for the base distro.

Usage

Boot and use

Currently we have Live CD only for i386 architecture.

Boot CD allows to use Linux with necessary network settings and utilites for our cameras without any modification of data on your hard drive.

Insert our CD in CD drive and let computer to boot from this CD. It is possible you need change some BIOS settings to do it.

You may simply to wait until system will be ready.

First you will see Knoppix boot menu. To continue boot you can wait some time or simply press Enter. In most case Knoppix starts succesfully and automatically detects computer hardware.

Then network cards will be configured. Config script may ask you about to make a bridge if your computer has several network cards. Press Enter or wait some time for default configuration.

Then it automatically search elphel cameras in your LAN and make static html page with links.

After boot complette you will see the page with cameras.

Knoppix cheat codes (boot parameters)

Special parameters can be setted at boot prompt time.

The first word must be a name of boot variant.

knoppix

Default mode.

expert

Verbose interactive mode.

debug

Debug mode.

failsafe

Boot without hardware autodetection.

memtest

RAM test.

Further some parameters divided by blanks can follow in any order.

screen=1280x1024

Use this if you have monitor resolution bigger than 1024x768 pixels and autodetection not works.

lang=XX

Specify the two-letter denotation of your language.

See file "KNOPPIX/knoppix-cheatcodes.txt" at the Live CD for more complete information.

Common software for video

mplayer

This is a movie player. It can play files and streams with many different video and audio formats.

To watch an rtp stream from our cameras you may use the following command:

mplayer rtsp://camera-ip:7070/

Where camera-ip is a ip address of the camera.

To play a file recorded with mencoder or any other videofile you may use the following command:

mplayer path-to-file

Or you may use KDE menu to run mplayer in dialog mode

You may use keyboard to control playing

• space pause/continue
• Q shut

Look mplayer man page and site for more information.

mencoder

To record rtp stream from our cameras.

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Special software

netcardconfig

netcardconfig is an improved version of knoppix network configurator. It needs root priveleges. It has two modes: interactive and batch.

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It is called from startup script on our Live CD. If you have installed netcardconfig-knoppix not on our distro, it is possible you need to insert call to the script in a system startup script.

netcamconfig

Run "netcamconfig" as user "root" to apply additional network settings and some kernel parameters.

This script adds aliases for the network card with most popular LAN ip adresses, adds route records for multicast ip addresses and changes kernel parameters to prevent long i/o operations with hard drive,

It is called from startup script on our Live CD after netcardconfig. If you have installed elphel-pack not on our distro, possible you need to insert call for the script in a system startup script.