Building a Debian and Linkstation (LS) system This is the tale of how as a beginner to Slimserver, Debian and the LS I managed to produce a working system. Hopefully other people in similar situations will pick up some useful ideas.
I started with a collection of music in many places on two or three windows machines on a LAN network connected to a Wanadoo Livebox and then to the net. I decided that I would encourage all the family to put their music in one place and thus anyone could access the music from any room with any sort of machine. I looked at the options and was persuaded to go for a Squeezebox as it is flexible and also fits in well with my Cyrus DAC X which allows direct digital connections. I bought the Squeezebox and connected it to the system via either the wired system or wireless. Both work well as long as my family don't turn off the Windows XP machine. I then encouraged family members to copy or move all their music to a network device which in my case is a later version of the Linkstation, now obsolete, a HD120LAN. Still the family didn't get the drift and I was occasionally stuck with no server. I then started to think of a small box which could do the job of acting as a server for the LS/Squeezebox. This box could be quiet and out of the way such that the family weren't likely to turn it off. I dug out an old box with Intel chipset, 633MHz processor, onboard sound, video and LAN and a 10Gb HDD. (I had tried a 2Gb HDD, but soon filled it up. I decided to use the flexibility of a larger drive.) The basic layout I have is an eight port switch, two XP computers, one Debian computer and one Linkstation all connected to a wired LAN and wireless links from the XP machines to a Wanadoo Livebox. (UK only wireless router). Sounds complicated, but the wireless bit came before I dropped a LAN round the house. I picked up the idea of trying Linux after looking at the Slimserver and Linkstation forums and discovering that they both use similar operating systems. So, I looked for a Linux distribution to suite. It seemed like Debian was most likely to be the right way to go as it works well as a network system. I decided not to open up the LS as I don't know much about Linux so I decided to first experiment with Debian on another machine, one that didn't compromise the LS. I down loaded a boot CD and off we go! The first attempt worked, but no desktop. This was so difficult for me as i hadn't done command lines for 30 years. I erroneously decided to install every package that i thought i needed including the desktops Gnome and Kde. I installed much unnecessary stuff like lots of older kernel images. I'd tried to run before I could walk so back to RTFM. I bought a book called the Linux Bible by Christopher Negus 2006 edition. This book comes with lots of information and a DVD and CD with various distributions. I read a little and set off. The second time I installed Debian i was getting clever and made the wrong decisions with video settings and also the mouse.... it kept crashing. After I used the default settings all was well. I then got the desktop going. I browsed the network and found the other computers and my LS box which is named music1. (How original!) The music was accessible and could be played using one of the gnome music players. Then I installed the Slimserver using the rpm file and alien. Slimserver was in place, but I couldn't start it. I looked about on the forums and decided to go with 6.51.1 and found that by adding a line to the etc/apt/sources.list I could install the deb package. This has left me up and running except I couldn't use the Slimserver because I was unable to change the music folder in the server settings menu. I tried lots of different ways of finding the correct address, but nothing would work. What I didn't understand is that for the Debian/Linux Slimserver to see a folder the folder must be mounted. This concept is similar new to me and i have had some problems. I also saw that the folder description that i thought i wanted had a smb (samba) label/ I was trying folder names such as smb://music1/share and others. I decided that i needed a working samba system and tried installing samba. I tried just samba-common, and subsequently smb-client and swat. Whether these packages need to be installed i don't know, but they are in my system. I realised that I was getting nowhere so i joined the forum and not being able to find another post that answered my problem I posted. Unfortunately the response i got wasn't of much help to me as I was unable, at that time, to understand how to correctly mount the music source. I tried posting again and was given instructions about how to mount the music source using a file type cifs. The problem about this was that I thought I had installed a Debian 3.1 distribution with a 2.6 kernel. I actually had the 2.4 kernel which doesn't work with the cifs files system. The script didn't work. I tried again and this time the post I received was closer to my understanding and I was successful. The message is that you should keep trying and keep posting. If a reply comes back with something you don,t understand, ask for further help and it will come. The final script and my explanation was as follows. # mkdir mnt/share This command makes a directory (folder!) called share in the mnt directory of the root user. The idea is to create a place for the Debian system to look for a shortcut to the actual location of the music files. (I think!) The next step is to tell the machine where to set up the link to the music source. mount -t smbfs //192.168.1.183/share /mnt/share -o username=mike If this works the machine asks for a password. use the correct password and all is well. I am using kde now and an icon appears on the desktop called remote share. look at the properties click calculate and your extensive music collection should be desctribed. Mount is the instruction to mount something. -t is the file type being mounted, in this case an smb file system. The location of the music1 LS disc is //192.168.1.183 on my LAN and so the location of the shared directory is //192.168.1.183/share, the location of the link to the shared directory is /mnt/share and the option(-o) is the username mike and the password follows. The username and password is that for the shared directory on the LS that you created when you setup the LS. After the above the Slimserver server settings music folder entry is /mnt/share. The only problem now is you need to tell the machine to mount the directory at boot. This is done by adding a line to the /etc/fstab file. I added //192.168.1.183/share /mnt/share smbfs defaults 0 0 which seems to work! (Tab between each entry) I have subsequently installed the 2.6 kernel which helps with the mouse problem and at boot the console returns fewer error messages. I really enjoy Debian now I can get myself to work! I hope the above helps! Thanks to aubuti and smc2911. Any constructive help and/or corrections would be most welcome. If anyone wants the above as a file let me know! M. -- mudlark ------------------------------------------------------------------------ mudlark's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7151 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=26720 _______________________________________________ unix mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/unix
