Hey there everyone!  Just wanted to take a minute to share my experience
with SlimServer installed as an RPM on a SuSE 9.3 system with a very
large library in ALAC Apple Lossless (not AAC) .m4a format.  With
minimal pain, I've got the whole thing running flawlessly -- absolutely
stoked on the setup.

1) FIXING THE INIT SCRIPT

First, I had to rework the /etc/init.d script to properly run on SuSE. 
There are other posts on this topic, but mine integrates the closest
with the existing SuSE init script setup.  By default, the RPM installs
its init script in /etc/rc.d/init.d which doesn't work on SuSE.  The
first step is to:

# mv /etc/rc.d/init.d/slimserver /etc/init.d/
# rm -rd /etc/rc.d/init.d

Next, replace the contents of /etc/init.d/slimserver with the attached
text file.

2) FIXING THE CONF FILE

Edit /etc/slimserver.conf and specify the empty "cachedir" setting as
/usr/local/slimserver.

3) INSTALLING ALAC

FAAD2 was not designed to play Apple Lossless audio.  Thanks to David
Hammerton for creating ALAC, a decoder specifically designed for Apple
Lossless files.  Go to http://craz.net/programs/itunes/alac.html and
download the source.  It compiled out of the box on my system.  As root
in the source directory, do:

# ./configure
# make all install clean

It will install alac in /usr/local/bin.

Next, edit /usr/local/slimserver/convert.conf.  Comment out the
sections that start with "mov" as we're gonna replace them with one
section at the bottom of the file like this:

# ALAC support
mov wav * *
[alac] -r $FILE$

mov flc * *
[alac] $FILE$ | [flac] -cs --totally-silent
--compression-level-0 --endian big --sign signed --channels 2 --bps 16
--sample-rate 44100 -

mov mp3 * *
[alac] -r $FILE$ | [lame] --resample 44100 --silent -q
$QUALITY$ -b $BITRATE$ -r - -

If you want the transcode to MP3 to work, you'll need to compile &
install LAME as well, but I won't get into that here.  There are plenty
of examples on how to do that already.  The above configuration includes
the config for lame, so once installed it will work.

CONCLUSION

My SlimServer is running on a P4 Celeron 1.7GHz machine with 512MB ram.
I don't have my SqueezeBox yet, so I'm using the software emulator via
a 802.11g wireless connection to my WinXP laptop.  The straight alac
section above streams straight WAV/PCM, uses about 2.5% CPU on the
server, and uses between 1.25-2.5Mbps on the network, which isn't bad. 
In the end, I chose to use the alac/flac section (transcoding) above
which streams FLAC, uses 5% CPU on the server, but only .75-1.25Mbps
bandwidth on the network.  For when I'm away at the office, I'll use
the alac/lame section to cut down the bandwidth to something DSL
compatible.  It uses approximately the same CPU% as the alac/flac
section.

I'm absolutely ecstatic.  I've got lossless CD-quality audio streaming
to my stereo, compatibility with iTunes for ripping & using my iPod,
and I don't have to sync a copy of my 450 CD library on my server at
the office (I can stream right from my home server now).

If I've missed anything else, please shoot me a message.  Glad to
help.

Cheers,
Daniel


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