> >Which *nix would be a good choice for a standalone (slimserver) server? > >The only one I'm (slightly) familiar with is FC, but quite a few people > >seem to be running FreeBSD.
I'm a big FreeBSD fan -- I'm running 5.3-RELEASE on a Pentium 233 MMX (yes, that's a Pentium I). It's incredibly stable and well-documented. There's a learning curve if you're coming from Windows, and the installer isn't the most user-friendly, but the online FreeBSD Handbook really does make things understandable. > Go for FC (I guess this Fedora Core?). Slimserver is available as RPM > file, but afaik there are no packages for FreeBSD. SlimServer is available through the FreeBSD Ports Collection. Simply cd to /usr/ports/audio/slimserver as root and "make install clean". Right now it's at 5.4.0, but the maintainer (who particpates in the Developer mailing list/forum) will be updating it to 6.0.1 shortly. In the meantime, I simply downloaded the tarball, extracted it to my home directory, and got it working right away. I have a wired SB2 connected to a dedicated wireless bridge, and playing FLACs has been flawless so far. > >I'm assuming the server doesn't need to run X and would be remotely > >administered using ssh; would it be better to transfer music across via > >ftp (or something), rather than using samba and all it's associated > >hassle? Samba is a lot easier to use than FTP once you get it configured. I rip CDs with EAC from my Windows XP system directly to a samba-mounted drive that holds all my media files. Using FTP would add a few more steps to the process. I've found and used some step-by-step guides to using samba with FreeBSD -- just search for "samba freebsd" on Google. There's also a basic samba installation guide in the FreeBSD Handbook. > >I really want to setup a system where *anyone* can rip and play a CD, > >so I need to make the thing work as simply and reliably as possible. > >Load CD - press button - wait for eject - done, would be ideal. It's difficult to make such a system both easy and reliable. The setup I use is mostly straightforward; EAC rips the CD and pulls data from freedb, sends it to FLAC to compress, and writes it to a samba-mounted drive. The configuration will take some effort, though. -David _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
