Mpd + client or a simple music app

Question

I was trying to weigh the advantages of using mpd + a client (ncmpc) as against cplay
I use the mpd + ncmpc on my Arch partition but cplay on my debian + fluxbox partition.
What would be the advantages of using mpd? I do plan to connect to this machine (connected to my music system) using another machine, but I can also do that via ssh and controlling cplay which i always start with screen.
What I am trying to get at is...what does mpd give me additionally?

Answer 1

Stythys wrote:mpd gives you a lighter weight client that uses less resources.
On the contrary ..mpg123 - used by cplay uses a lot less memory than mpd + ncmpc combined. Here's my ps_mem.py output
bash-3.2# python ps_mem.py
Private + Shared = RAM used Program
88.0 KiB + 19.0 KiB = 107.0 KiB crond
92.0 KiB + 19.0 KiB = 111.0 KiB init
92.0 KiB + 29.5 KiB = 121.5 KiB portmap
104.0 KiB + 55.0 KiB = 159.0 KiB hald-addon-acpi
140.0 KiB + 39.0 KiB = 179.0 KiB xinit
140.0 KiB + 89.0 KiB = 229.0 KiB hald-addon-input
144.0 KiB + 93.0 KiB = 237.0 KiB hald-addon-storage
204.0 KiB + 38.0 KiB = 242.0 KiB dbus-launch
228.0 KiB + 15.0 KiB = 243.0 KiB udevd
160.0 KiB + 85.0 KiB = 245.0 KiB su
160.0 KiB + 86.0 KiB = 246.0 KiB hald-runner
256.0 KiB + 55.0 KiB = 311.0 KiB famd
300.0 KiB + 100.0 KiB = 400.0 KiB agetty (5)
288.0 KiB + 126.5 KiB = 414.5 KiB startx
352.0 KiB + 93.5 KiB = 445.5 KiB sshd
412.0 KiB + 37.0 KiB = 449.0 KiB syslog-ng
360.0 KiB + 99.0 KiB = 459.0 KiB login
228.0 KiB + 284.0 KiB = 512.0 KiB dbus-daemon (2)
408.0 KiB + 145.0 KiB = 553.0 KiB htop
264.0 KiB + 292.5 KiB = 556.5 KiB openbox-session (3)
592.0 KiB + 68.0 KiB = 660.0 KiB ncmpc
780.0 KiB + 33.0 KiB = 813.0 KiB mpg123
636.0 KiB + 244.0 KiB = 880.0 KiB hald-addon-dell-backlight
956.0 KiB + 276.0 KiB = 1.2 MiB conky
1.8 MiB + 159.5 KiB = 2.0 MiB hald
1.6 MiB + 601.5 KiB = 2.2 MiB bash (4)
2.7 MiB + 614.5 KiB = 3.3 MiB python2.5
3.1 MiB + 2.1 MiB = 5.3 MiB fbpanel
8.7 MiB + 790.5 KiB = 9.5 MiB openbox
6.6 MiB + 3.2 MiB = 9.8 MiB mpd (3)
8.2 MiB + 1.9 MiB = 10.1 MiB urxvt (4)
9.0 MiB + 2.2 MiB = 11.2 MiB pidgin
21.6 MiB + 879.5 KiB = 22.4 MiB skype
38.7 MiB + 1.1 MiB = 39.8 MiB Xorg
53.0 MiB + 965.0 KiB = 53.9 MiB opera
178.3 MiB
=================================
Private + Shared = RAM used Program
If you check mpg123 takes about 813KB whereas mpd takes 9.8MB + 660KB for ncmpc. Of course I am not counting the urxvt which is running cplay and that's because there is another urxvt for ncmpc as well ..so I am negating those against each other - although they may or may not take the same amount of memory.
htop tells me cplay takes 1.8 % mem and mpg123 takes 0.6%
ncmpc takes 2% mem and mpd takes 2%, 2.2% and 1.5%
For some reason - mpd shows 3 instances...but i just started it once
Even when I kill all the pids of mpd and then issue mpd in the terminal - it immediately gives 3 pids to mpd. I checked using pidof mpd.
All in all cplay seems to take a lot less memory on my system.
Last edited by Inxsible (2008-07-12 00:50:47)