On Feb 24, 2004, at 2:24 PM, vinylrake wrote:
Greetings all,---->
I am trying to figure out how practical it would be to set up an older Mac (Beige PPC upgraded to a G3 running OS 9.x, or a pre-G3 machine running OS 8.6) on my home (hard-wired-ethernet) network as a music file server/player.
This is very similar to what I did with my B&W G3/400 with various releases of OS X and iTunes.
I'd recommend fitting the Beige with enough memory to run OS X, add a PCI video card (for OS X support), and use the built in file sharing / iTunes sharing. OS X is smart enough to talk to whatever OS is on the network, and all your macs will be able to access the iTunes library and playlists on the server. An added bonus is mapping the server's drive to mount on the workstations so new music can be added to an "Uploads" folder. You can then access the server and move the files to the iTunes library.
I even went as far to use the B&W as the centerpiece for a temporary home theatre solution using the TV out of a Radeon 7000 PCI. While in the living room, the B&W not only acted as a file/music server, but also DVD player, 'net radio, online video player, and Unreal Tournament client (for when I got bored). Any machine, whether it be unix, windows, or another mac, could get to the fileshares (although there is no current unix iTunes client that I know of). For another $200, add the EyeTV and turn your mac into a PVR!!
One thing to note, you can upgrade your Beige to a G4/550 with a Radeon video card for less than $300 now. Not bad to build an all-in-one entertainment machine :) Of course, you *could* do most of this with OS 9.x, but not without shelling out cash for software, which by all accounts and purposes should be considered "obsolete". Go for the long term solution, and when you feel like upgrading, use something like Carbon Copy Cloner to move everything to the new machine!
Hope this helps!
--
Brent Randolph
Mac OS X: because making Unix user-friendly is easier than debugging Windows.
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