There are two versions of the script , one in ruby and one in python , choose whichever floats your boat
for the ruby version , you need two gems

sudo gem install librmpd
sudo gem install libxosd-ruby

here’s the code

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'rubygems'                              # Rubygems
require 'librmpd'                               # MPD Library
require 'xosd'                                  # OSD Library

mpd = MPD.new 'localhost', 6600                 # Init MPD
mpd.connect                                     # Connect to MPD Server
song = mpd.current_song                         # Get the current song

osd = XOSD::Xosd.new(5)                         # Init XOSD
osd.font = "-adobe-courier-*-r-*-*-24"          # Choose XOSD Font
osd.color = "#287D28"                           # Choose XOSD color (dark green)

if song.title then                              # Check to see if the song has a title
  osd.display_message(3, song.title)            # If so , display the title
  sleep(2)                                      # Display it for 2 seconds
else
  osd.display_message(3, song.file)             # if there is no title, display the filename
  sleep(2)                                      # Display it for 2 seconds
end

UPDATE: If you are running the latest version of Ubuntu (now Intrepid Ibex) you can skip these steps and just run the following command

sudo apt-get install python-osd python-mpd

If you’re not, follow on –

Then for the python version you need two modules:

http://ichi2.net/pyosd/pyosd-0.2.14.tar.gz
Extract that tarball and run

tar zxvf pyosd-0.2.14.tar.gz
sudo python setup.py install

then go to
http://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-mpd/
and Choose the format you want (zip,bzip,or gzip) , and decompress it
then run

sudo python setup.py install

ok , after all that…here’s the code

#!/usr/bin/env python
import mpd 					                        # Import MPD Library
import pyosd										            # Import OSD Library
import time											            # Import Internal Time Module

client = mpd.MPDClient()							      # Init MPD Client
client.connect("localhost", 6600)					  # Connect to local MPD Server

cs = client.currentsong()                   # Get the currentsong dict
if 'title' in cs:                           # Check to see if "title" title exists in the dict
 	songtitle = cs['title']                   # If it does set songtitle to the id3 title
elif 'file' in cs:                          # If it doesn't have a title use the filename
 	songtitle = cs['file']                    # Set songtitle to the filename

FONT = "-*-helvetica-*-r-normal--34-*-*"    # Set the font

COLOR = "#287D28"									          # Set the color (dark green)
p = pyosd.osd(font=FONT, colour=COLOR)		  # init pyosd with the font and color
p.display(songtitle)								        # Finally use Pyosd to display the song title

time.sleep(2)                               # Show the message for 2 seconsd

If you have any questions regarding this script or any other post of mine , please do not hesitate to contact me at
mike3.1459@mikedonghy.org minus pi

Backing Up!

Before we do ANYTHING , make sure you backup all data that you cannot afford to lose … because more than likely we are going to be erasing any of that durring the partitioning portion … you have been warned

Disclaimer: I am not responsible if your machine is damaged or harmed in this process , if you follow the guide EXACTLY there should be no problem

1. Go to FreeBSD.org
2. Find your architecture in the list and choose [ISO]
3. In the list of downloads , the files you need should be called 7.0-RELEASE-(YOUR ARCHITECTURE)-disc(1-3).iso , if you want to have the maximum amount of packages available to you you must have all three discs
4. Burn all three disc images to CD
5. Insert the first disc and reboot your PC
6. Select your country
7. Choose Standard Installation

8. STOP!

   … depending on how you setup this next big all of your data may be erased ,
   

   BACKUP YOUR DATA NOW

9. Once you’ve backed up all of your data , press the d key until all slices are deleted
10. Press the c key to create a new slice … make this one about double the amount of physical ram you have in your computer , if you have 512 megs of ram make this one 1024 megs (1gig) for the type , enter 130 for a swap partition
11. Now select the remaining unused space and accept the default size (or change if if you want more than one partition and enter type 165 (UFS , the FreeBSD default)
12. Now in the next screen (the BSD DiskLabel editor) press the c key and enter an amount equal to double the amount of your ram , for instance if you have 512 megs of ram enter 1024M here , select swap as the type
13. press the c key again , accept the default , select FS as the type and enter / as the Mount Point
14. Press the q key to finish
15. Select the distribution set you want , the descriptions are pretty accurate … I chose X-User which is a pretty good base to use (you can change this at any time)
16. this is the VERY LAST CHANCE to save your data … after this it will all be overwritten , select CD/DVD for your source and sit back while FreeBSD installs (this should take between 20-40 minutes depending on your processor speed)

Optional Steps

Setting up openbox

1. follow the prompts after the installation , insert the other cds as the installer requests and after you reboot you should have a full working FreeBSD system , you do have X but no window manager
2. to easily get a window manager running , login as root at the login prompt using the password you set in the installer
3. type “pkg_add -r openbox” to install a window manager
4. type “pkg_add -r feh” to install a program to set your wallpaper
5. type “pkg_add -r xterm” for an x-terminal-emulator
6. type “pkg_add -r firefox” to install a web browser
7. finally type “pkg_add -r sudo” to install the sudo package … we’ll configure this later
8. type logout to log out of the root user account
9. now login as your user account
10. type vi ~/.xinitrc , press the i key and type “exec openbox-session” , press the escape key , and type “:wq”
11. Finally type startx to open X and openbox will open , press the right mouse button to view the openbox menu

Setting up sudo

sudo is a program that allows users to act as root to do certain tasks like adding packages , installing ports ,or editing system files

1. login as root from a virtual-term and type visudo
2. press the i key , add a line at the bottom that says “%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL” , press the escape key and type “:wq”
3. now you need to add your user to the “wheel” group to get sudo access , to do this type (as root) “pw usermod -G ftpusers” and replace with your user name…

Now as a regular user you can type sudo followed by your password to execute any command as root

• 700 mhz pentium
• 128 mb of ram
• 10 gb hard drive
• cd rom drive (no rw)

now for any other operating system … these specs seem a bit ridiculous…
maybe it could run windows 98 or something….
so after the install… I boot up expecting a
horribly slow system , and what do I find ?

I find a system that is just as fast as m 3 ghz+ windows box…
Linux really is awesome for old systems…

for my window manager , which is basically the desktop environment¹
I chose the reasonably lightweight and extremely usable xfce which
should be easier to grasp for windows users than something more Linuxy² like fluxbox^{3 for instance
anyhow…if you are a geek like me…you like to see pictures among the boring words…
xfce looks really awesome…kinda like this:}

(annotated version here)
Well…that’s about it for now, check out linux using a live cd⁴ from ubuntu Here

^Footnotes

1. ^{Yes…I know that window managers and desktop environments are not the same…I also know that you linux geeks reading are reaching for your email client of choice (probably mutt) to fire off an email to set me straight … I get it…please do not revoke my nerd license…thank you}
2. ^{I love making up words}
3. ^{Fluxbox is an awesome window manager by the way if you are a hardcore hacker and [A control Freak!] also like having complete control over your desktop [Literally down to the pixel]}
4. ^{A Live CD is a cd that runs an entire operating system completely in ram , without touching your hard drive … good for evaluation purposes}