[TriLUG] options for a music server and player

Michael Hrivnak mhrivnak at triad.rr.com
Mon Sep 27 13:54:49 EDT 2004


This is a piece of cake.  I'll share a similar scenario.

Not that I've ever been involved in throwing a wild party (ah-em), but, if I 
had, I would have stashed a laptop behind the entertainment system and 
connected it to the stereo.  The laptop would have been running Mandrake.

From there, I would have gone to a back room of the house away from the 
party-goers and logged into the laptop via ssh -X.  The -X switch forwards 
any X apps to my local display.  So, at the command prompt:

[mhrivnak at laptop mhrivnak]$ xmms &

Now xmms is running on the laptop, but the display is on my local machine.  
You can imagine the discussion among drunken party-goers (theoretically 
speaking of course) about the music selection changing without anyone 
touching the stereo.  It works pretty well in that scenario to head over to 
www.winamp.com and point xmms to your favorite Alternative radio stream.

This would serve you well since it doesn't require running X on the laptop.  
If you don't have enough storage space on the laptop, you could mount a 
network share on another computer.

The only problem for you with this setup is that you might not want to control 
your system from another part of the house.  Ideally you'd have another 
laptop with a functional screen that you could use to control the system from 
anywhere you want!

One thing to watch out for is the quality of the audio output on the laptop.  
It is often fairly noisy just because of the close proximity of all the 
components inside the laptop.  If it's a problem, there are some USB options 
that could serve you well.

Michael

On Monday 27 September 2004 08:58 am, Matt Pusateri wrote:
> On Sun, September 26, 2004 11:16 pm, Christopher L Merrill said:
> > My goal:
> > Streamed music to my entertainment system from either my personal
> > collection or from Internet sources.
> >
> > Available equipment:
> > My internet connection is on the opposite end of the house from the
> > entertainment system, but I already have a DLink wireless AP /
> > firewall
> > installed and working.  There is a FC2 server running behind the
> > firewall - also a good distance from the entertainment system.  I have
> > an old Compaq Presario notebook not being used.  266MHz, IIRC.
> > Currently running Win98, but willing to load anything.
> >
> > Questions:
> > For streaming my own collection, I assume I'll need some sort of
> > music server on my FC2 box (which is where I would prefer to store
> > the music images).  Is there something already included in the FC2
> > distribution that would be a good choice?
> >
> > I assume that installing the notebook in the entertainment system
> > with a wireless card is the easiest way for me to go.  The notebook
> > is pretty obsolete - 266MHz, 128Mb.  The existing Win98 installation
> > would be fine with me...but I'm assuming that getting modern wireless
> > drivers is already difficult - and only going to get more difficult.
> > Thus, a lightweight linux distro with a music player sounds like
> > a better choice.  However, I am not in a position to spend many
> > hours setting it up.  I'm open to any distro that would make this
> > easy to accomplish???
> >
> > I'm also open to music player choices.  Mostly, we'll just want to
> > choose from playlists on my server or streaming music stations.
> > Given the limited resources on the machine, would it be wise to
> > forego X altogether and stick with the command-line?  (FYI, this
> > particular notebook ran Mandrake 7 in the past, IIRC).
> >
> > Also, the monitor on the notebook is non-functional.  I can plug
> > it into a standard monitor for configuration/installation
> > purposes.  But afterwards, I'll have to figure out how to get
> > a video signal to my TV.  There is no S-vid output on the notebook.
> > Can anyone suggest a cheap VGA-to-video adapter?
> >
> > TIA,
> > C
> >
> > --
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Chris Merrill                  |  http://www.webperformanceinc.com
>
> This will get you music from one end to the other, although I am not
> sure if linux can drive it or not.
>
> http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/
>
> Matt



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