My goal is to get rid of Windows XP on my audio server and manage all of my digital media using Linux, most likely Ubuntu. Linux is appealing to me because I can run my server without having to purchase another version of Windows XP. There is also a certain level of “coolness” in having a Linux audio server. It seems like a good way for me to wet my feet in the Linux world. The problem is that I have not actually made the transition and I am trying to determine what is taking me so long.
Here is what I want to do in Linux:
- Stream music to my living
- Pick songs through a remote
- Play FLAC files
- No monitor or keyboard
All my songs are in Windows Media lossless format, which I would really like to kick to the curb. FLAC is becoming more and more appealing to me, especially as more hardware supports it. If I can make the switch to Linux, I am going to re-encode all of my songs to FLAC.
Currently, my audio system is a computer hooked up to a receiver that is controlled by my PocketPC running NetRemote. I can pick a song or playlist from my PocketPC and play it through my jukebox. In order to replace Windows XP with Linux, I essentially need to find an alternative to Netremote. Running Netremote under Wine does not appear to be too successful, though I need to research it more. The lack of a remote is the main hindrance is to me replacing Windows XP
The Slim Devices Squeezebox seems like it might be an option in helping me get rid of Windows except for one thing: no adequate remote control. In the Squeezebox’s favor, it has an open source server software that can play FLAC files as well. Not being able to pick a song from the remote really is a deal-breaker though.
Another alternative would be to use the Sonos Audio System to access music stored on a Linux machine. The Sonos remote looks fantastic. I must admit it seems little odd that I need to spend almost $1000 to make Linux feasible as an alternative to Windows XP and Netremote. The other thing about the Sonos system is that I would not need a Linux machine at all, rather I just would need some network area storage.
For the time being, it seems like I am stuck with Windows XP. Does anyone have any suggestion on how to get my desired functionality through Linux?
October 31st, 2006 at 11:45 am
Don’t know what you mean by “no adequate remote”. The remote might not have a screen but the squeezebox’s screen easily makes up for it. Plus you can use a wifi PDA to access the web based user interface.
Failing that there is also a unit by Pinnacle
http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT3522012081.html
October 31st, 2006 at 2:17 pm
Check out:
* Tangerine (http://www.snorp.net/log/tangerine), an easy-to-use DAAP (iTunes) server; it will make your music appear to other machines as if you were running iTunes
* Amarok (http://amarok.kde.org), the best media player on Linux; it’s also very easy to script it so you may be able to reverse-engineer the NetRemote application and make a program that sends commands to Amarok.
October 31st, 2006 at 10:39 pm
I guess for me an adequate remote is a remote that works like an iPod and lets me pick a song from the couch. The catch is that the remote needs to have a screen itself since I have no monitor.
November 1st, 2006 at 1:22 pm
I have a SoundBlaster Audigy2 ZS Platinum Pro sound system. This audio system includes a ‘livedrive’ remote connector cabinet that has an IR remote control receiver on the front.
The remote is comprehensive and the functionality is as limited as the host Linux distribution (ie, unlimited), but IR is pretty useless (IMO).
You can get RFIR converters from several vendors to get around that (remotecentral.com is a good place to start).
I serve up roughly 65GB of mixed-format media files (M4A, FLAC, MP3, WMA, etc) to all the other computers here, plus the stereo in the bedroom and living room. I use a Marantz touchscreen remote control, but there are better ones, and I use an HP iPaq 5450 PocketPC as the remote in the office.
I use the cheapo HP media fixtures over WiFi.
Ubuntu 6.10, PocketPC 2003, and some custom scripts.
Works and sounds as good as you’re going to get with current technology.
How good?
The bedroom sound system uses two custom Lowther speaker cabinets and my own design of monoblock tube amps.
The living room has a much better sound system.
The audio quality of the served media is adequate for the purpose.
December 11th, 2006 at 3:01 am
I’m in exactly the same sitaution and am looking for a solution. The one other complication I have that you didn’t mention is a desire to have multi-zone control but I’m actually willing to give that up to get a more stable system (Netremote just isn’t very stable and is poorly supported IMO)… in fact, getting rid of NR is more imprtant to me than getting rid of Windows, but I’d love to do that, too. It seems like someone should write an AJAX interface that one could browse on a PDA that would look like iTunes or any similar player.
December 11th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
Sonos does multi-zone as well. I think what I want to move to is using Sonos with a NAS. Sonos will let me use FLAC.
April 15th, 2007 at 9:24 am
What about running a small, low-speed computer (or even a set-top box) with Linux and MPD server on it (http://musicpd.org). Plays FLAC, can be controlled over network (there are clients for Linux, Windows, PocketPC, Palm, Web browser… heck, almost everything out there).
It can also stream music over network using icecast.
June 24th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
I agree with lothalev about MPD, it’s the best solution for a network controlled audio server. However, you might want to take a look at MythTV as it’s installable from the Ubuntu repositories and capable of playing all kinds of media files through many different interfaces.
I haven’t actually tried it myself but I’m planning to set up a MythTV-server in the next few months.
I hope this is still relevant for you as I see the last comment was a few months ago.
July 8th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
It is well worth the effort to set up a Jinzora 2 server.
It’s got a beautiful web front end and streaming/re encoding engine, and it works with MPD.
I used to use it to re encode my music to 32kb/s mp3 (from any codec or bitrate) to stream it over the internet as a playlist to my cottage which has a dialup connection.
It’s very powerful, give it a look.