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72 Comments
- Ub3rg33k, on 10/12/2007, -2/+41Why on earth is this done with the desktop install instead of the server install?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+31sorry, but I did this 6 months ago, and this article should definitely mention and use ubuntu server edition. absolutely no need for a complete ubuntu installation!!
- thewump, on 10/12/2007, -4/+27Dugg because it's clean and concise. At the same time there is some danger here.. Would be better to promote this as a backup resource. Even if an old clunker CAN be a media center, it doesn't mean it SHOULD be.
Perhaps a future part could be how to do this with RAID? Now that would be interesting. - underthelinux, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20Also, note that this doesn't help you sync your tv to the box or dvr or anything. Its just network storage, really. Not a media center pc. But it is an easy-to-follow guide to how to set up a file server.
- thebankshow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Agree with underthelinux. This is just storage.
I set this up a few years ago with an old 233Mhz and it works great and is still running.
He mentions icecast for streaming media. I'd suggest using jinzora (http://www.jinzora.org) - ericnmu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14http://www.jinzora.org/
fixing your link - se0siris, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Here's a Linux tutorial along the same lines: Set up wi-fi and configure Samba. DONE.
Of course setting up under Windows is going to be easier if you've done it before. The only people looking for a tutorial for how to do this under Windows will be the people who don't *know* how to map a drive, and so they'll need the same level of detail as this tutorial gives. - se0siris, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10That's basically what this guide is saying, only it actually talks you through how to "share a folder".
The advantage of using Linux is that there's no need to get an extra licence (or tie up an existing one) just for something as simple as file storage. Windows is fine if you have a licence going spare, but if not then Linux is waiting for you. - ricksite, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Screw the media server, I now know where to put my can of Dr. Pepper!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15How to do it with any current windows OS, you can use NT or 2000 if you want to run on a very old box.
Boot computer, create a folder, share the folder. unplug all the peripherals, shove into a corner, you're done. - underthelinux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Yeah you're right. + $199 for that WinXP Home SP2 license. or a little bit with ubuntu for ~0.
- cbreaker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8FAT is a problem for things like DVD images because it only can do 4GB files. You're better off using NTFS now a days because NTFS-3g works on Linux and Mac, and allows full RW. On my MacOS install, I can read/write at about 25MB/sec to NTFS. Some people don't have as much luck with it, but it does work.
- dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8"It is safe to assume that this could be done equally as fast, or even faster than a regular installation of XP."
The system requirements for XP are higher than those of most Linux distros. And sure, it might be faster to go to the websites and download stuff, click though installers, but you could just as easily copy/paste the following into a terminal - It requires you to change a few lines, which could be automated and turned into a basic bash script if someone so desired - Sure, learning bash-scripting might be difficult for some people, but you don't need to understand it to type wget [pasteurl] then ./scriptname
sudo apt-get install ssh
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install samba smbfs
sudo /etc/init.d/samba stop
sudo mv /etc/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/smb.conf.orig
wget http://rubbervir.us/projects/ubuntu_media_server/smb.txt -O /etc/samba/smb.conf -o /dev/null
sudo pico /etc/samba/smb.conf # Edit the hostname/workgroup/username bits
sudo chmod 0777 /media/samba
sudo /etc/init.d/samba start
sudo smbpasswd -a system_user
sudo pico /etc/samba/smbusers # Add : system_username = "network username"
sudo smb -a system_username
sudo smbpasswd -x system_username
"Since I'm such a amateur can you get my wireless card to freaking work your greatness?"
ndiswrapper? Not the easiest thing ever to use, but there's a lot of guides about. But, I really don't recommend using wireless for a server, particularly one intended for storing videos and other large files.. Wired networks are far faster than most wireless (Not sure about the new n cards/routers, but for the price, you could get gigabit ethernet, which will be even faster..)
This comment will probably make me sound like a one-sided Linux fanatic, but I'm currently using Windows. Why? Because as a desktop OS it's good. I dislike Linux as a desktop operating system, but as a server OS it's great. Sure, you could use Windows on a server, but it's silly too - Linux is far better suited to being a server, it's generally more stable, doesn't need rebooted nearly as much (Kernel updates are the only thing that require a reboot), it's far easier to run Linux without any form of GUI (I'm not sure if it's even possible to remove the desktop from Windows after Windows 98, when they removed the "reboot and start in DOS" option..), which means less memory is being used for an GUI you will hardly ever see. - mississippiman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Look out you said a that doing it with windows is easier... now they are going to dig both of us down
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6XBMC
- cbreaker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6It should be noted that on these older PC's you're going to have a hard time getting a big hard disk to work. Some of them only support 120GB max, because of LBA issues. Chances are you won't find a BIOS update for a Pentium 3 board to support it.
A workaround is to get a USB or preferably FireWire enclosure that supports 500GB disks and use that. Since the enclosure handles the LBA, it will work on any machine with a USB/FW port. - N1XUK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Hmmm think i prefer my heavily dodgy version better:
Tiny XP rev05: Works on old machines
VNC: Free and cross platform
Hamachi: Free, Cross Platform, Simple and Works Across the tubes
iTunes: Free, Cross Platform and anyone who invite to share my Media Server finds itunes sharing easy
Foldershare: Sync files between machines and download via Web
Skype: Voip client
Skype Phone USB: Works great with voice dialling for my contact list.
uTorrent: Best P2P client on low end machines, RSS support too
400gb HD USB Drive: FAT format so plug'n'play on Windows,OSX, etc
Im able to Stream anything iTunes compatible on my home wireless network, system can download all my stuff, and works ok (ish) streaming across the net. (my upload speed aint great).
My only gripe is that unfortunately my Server aint fast enought to do all my mp4 encoding - katanaswordfish, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@ jimilarue:
Ubuntu is a thousand times better than Win98, and i don't know anyone who would buy a copy of WinXP to set up a closet-box.
And this tutorial isn't even complicated at all. You must have little to no experience with Linux, which is intimidating you into thinking that its very hard.
Basically he says:
-Install Ubuntu.
Download SSH.
Update Ubuntu.
-Reboot.
Download Samba.
Besides that fact that this must be done in the command line, which can actually be faster than going to various websites to download them, it is not at all very hard to do. It is safe to assume that this could be done equally as fast, or even faster than a regular installation of XP. - chrisxkelley, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@evilpig:
if you're going to be running a server with low-end specs, it's better to either just install the ubuntu server edition with no xserver, or to stop the xserver when you're done configuring it. ssh is really fine -- you just need to learn how to use it well and it's just like gnome (ok, or kde) :)
otherwise vnc would be great for a better machine - TylerC, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Yes, I would recomen a new harddrive though... Possibly a RAID config if your keeping every media file you have on it.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4In a pinch, because there is a lot of great free solution for media server box for linux.
That said, if what you are using works for you, I say keep it. Si non confectus non deficit... - holydope, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Dugg because it's really about setting up a file server, not a media server, and because there aren't any other guides on how to do that anywhere on the Internet.
On a more serious note, if you want to use a real linux powered media server, check out MythTV. - kodek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Linux might help you write scripts to do things with your media easier, like automatically re-encode a video for web-streaming, or email you when a specific show recorded/downloaded, etc..
- strabes, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Except for the "great" "free" Windows solution isn't free. You're tying up a Windows license and you had to buy windows in the first place when you bought your computer.
- dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Personally, I'd say your better of using Ext3 for the "universal" partition - I'm almost certain OS X can read/write to Ext3, it's generally the Linux native filesystem, and the read/write Windows drivers for Ext3 are great. NTFS support on OS X is read-only without a lot of fiddling, and on Linux it's still fairly new (Although the NTFS-3G thing does sound decent)
I'd strongly recommend away from FAT32, considering it's limited to 4GB files, - lmurillo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Not only does he use the Ubuntu Desktop edition, but he goes on to giving world wide read, write and execute permissions to the directory. Now if you ask me, that's not a good thing to do, at least talking security wise. Also you don't need to manually edit a file to add the users, you can use smbpasswd.
- cbreaker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The EXT2 driver for OSX is mediocre. I've had no success with it, and based on the Source forge forum for it, a lot of people have trouble getting it to work for them too. It's a side project of one programmer and it doesn't seem like he has enough time to really give it full attention.
The ext2 driver doesn't support ext3. - Durrok, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3$199 for Vista Ultimate 32 or 64 bit version now actually. The only reason I am thinking of going to Vista is because of the 64bit OS that is actually getting a lot of support from hardware and game developers. It would be nice to see the same for Ubuntu 64.
That being said I wouldn't change my server PC off Ubuntu for the world. :) - randomgeek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I've done essentially the same thing with my old box. I started with Fedora Core 3, and it's still on there even though it's completely outdated because backing up huge amounts of data isn't a very good option just to stay current. If you're going to use a distro that upgrades frequently, make sure that you partition in a way that will allow the base system to be upgraded without effecting the data (which I didn't do a very good job with).
I've taken it a bit father than what is mentioned in the article by hooking up the S-Video to my TV and the sound card to my surround sound system to truly make it a "media server". Also have Jinzora running so I can stream music to myself from anywhere, or use Jukebox mode to play through the stereo.
People always sort of freak when I can control the TV from my laptop over a wireless network. ;) - cbreaker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2By the way, you don't have to do "a lot of fiddling" to get NTFS-3g working on MacOS. There's a dmg for MacFUSE, and there's an installer for NTFS-3g. Install, remount the NTFS disk, and you're done. You don't even have to reboot.
- element3260, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2XBMC rocks! i use it in conjuction with a server setup similar to this. My media is stored on a seperate partition and shared with smb so that once a movie is stored their all I have to do is turn on my xbox and XBMC automagically grabs the info from IMDB so its shiny and ready to play :) My server also runs mythtv-backend and rtorrent (so that all i have to do is dump my .torrents in a folder on my home computer (which is nfs shared with the server) and they automagically start and are stored on my Media partition) if anyone wants more info on XBMC they can message me or head over to http://www.xbox-scene.com
XBMC is by far the best option for a set top box. It only costs about $100 and (once you get past the modding) is amazingly good looking and easy to use. - evilpig, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5I'd rather set up some VNC to go along with the ssh.
- pandaweb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2http://rubbervir.us/projects/ubuntu_media_server/update.html
a few unanswered questions answered - kynky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1regarding rickbauls comment.
On a sub 1ghz processor would reccomend hardware raid too, but above 2ghz software raid in many cases would be a better choice in many cases. Its fast enough, there is no hardware to break, which in many cases could lead to trouble if you cant source spare parts, possibly losing all data in raid array. Its a lot cheaper, and for the price you have an extensive array of options, raid 10 is a good choice for performance/recovery. raid5 is great, with software raid you can just buy new disks, and raid manager can increase size of array, i started an raid5 disk array with 2 disks, so had no recovery option, bought a 3rd, then had my raid 5 array. software raid is flexible. just my thoughts. - majortom1981, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is good if the computer has win98 but if the computer is running win xp (We ahve p3 500's with 256 of ram here at the library that run pretty good) then there is no need to wipe xp clean to do this.
All you would have to do is enable media sharing in Media player. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1that's a great point, I've run into that little quirk quite a few times with older machines.
Also if you're buying cheapo enclosures make sure they are marked that they support the 48bit LBA drives over 120GB I've picked up couple of cheap ones here and there that didn't. - cbreaker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Yea, you're done unless you don't ever want to install the weekly MS patches that almost all require reboots. Make sure you set the BIOS to halt on no errors!
Not to mention, there's no longer updates to 2000 or NT, so hopefully you don't run into compatibility issues, or bugs, because you can't get them fixed. If you use XP, you're limited to a small number of file server connections (and if you use Home edition you can't RDP to the machine to admin it, or add users beyond the control panel's fluffy user utility. And you can't set permissions on the file system.) If you use 2003 you're talking about needing a more powerful machine.
Microsoft doesn't care about older hardware. Not saying they SHOULD, but it just so happens you can still run minimal installations of Linux that use no more resources then it did seven years ago, and you can use up to date and maintained software, not obsolete and unsupported.
And let's not forget - you're SUPPOSED to pay for Microsoft OS's, and the server editions aren't exactly cheap. - drpcken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i'd love to build an ubuntu box, but i get so confused about which interface to use (kde, etc...) and then i try to open a console to type a command and I usually don't know what the command i ran just did... yes i'm a linux n00b. I WANT TO BELIEVE!
(help) - squirlyblack, on 08/01/2008, -0/+1Great how to. But, as in any discussion about linux, windows users have to come in and say that their solution is better. It's just easier, not better: linux was designed for this (i must agree with the others, use ubuntu server edition), windows was designed for gaming and huge hardware requirements. https://cisco.hosted.jivesoftware.com/index.jspa?c ...
- Lebrun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I installed mp3act (http://www.mp3act.net/) on my Slackware 10.2 box. It allows streaming, downloading and also a local "jukebox mode". Installation was very easy. The only problem I have with it is the lack of support for other formats, only mp3 is used; oggs, flac, ape, etc. are ignored. Other than that, it would make a very good media server for a home or small company network.
- subliminalurge, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3"Seriously, why should I bother with Linux in this situation? If it would be better then I'll change it, but tell me why?"
As has been said, if it's working for you and you're happy, probably no need to change.
As for why I, personally, would never run Linux on my file servers? Simple. SSH. All of my servers are in a back corner in my basement. When I need to work with one, I just ssh into it right from my main desktop and do whatever task needed to be done. There are remote desktop solutions that would allow you to do this with your Windows servers, but I've always found the command line to be FAR more responsive as a remote interface.
One example... Say I've got a full length movie in MPEG2 format, which I want to transcode to Xvid to save space. What I do is copy it over to my MythTV box via Samba, ssh in, and type the command. A few hours later (my Myth box is a puny little 1ghz Celeron) the xvid file is ready and waiting for me in the same directory, and I've been able to use my main desktop machine that whole time without the CPU being bogged down with the transcoding. - hiro, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2So basically the great free Linux solutions are no better than my great free Windows solution. Thanks for clarifying, it seems it just comes down to whether you hate Microsoft or not. Me? I really don't care which OS is on it, it's just used for storing and retrieving files, but nothing out there seems any better than XP so I'll stick with that.
- cbreaker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't think it's the *best* option - the Xbox is kinda loud, and it's not that powerful. But it does work really well, XBMC does look nice and it works good too. It won't do anything too CPU intensive though; after all it's just a Celeron 733 or something. It is one of the more elegant solutions for the front end though, without spending a lot of cash.
- superal1394, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2FreeNAS? anyone?
Seriously, this is just FreeNAS via Ubuntu and a longer download. - Tuckie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I'm annoyed at this article due to the simple fact that it have been a much better option to simply install xdsl or gentoox on the xbox. He already admitted to the fact that he doesn't use it, so he might as well turn it into a small server.
- Drahkar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Marked as Inaccurate. Sure it might be a short and 'Concise' but it not only lacks any real steps of configuration but its labeled wrong. First there is a lot of configuring that goes into those steps like installing Samba and Ubuntu. Then its calling it a media server, yet it has no streaming ability or software installed at all nor does it have any devices that can remotely access it and play media aside from your normal computer accessing network storage. This is an extremely basic File Server. Not a Media Server.
It is good that people are trying to help and make more useful How-Tos, but ones like this are not the kind we need. Its not complete and it doesn't do what the description entails. - holydope, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2@sniggitybiggity
I said it in Jan of 2005, but I'm a Fedora user. - rjonnal, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Do you mean "would never run Windows on my file servers"?
- boom01, on 12/14/2008, -0/+0My site uses Redhat but it loads fast:
http://www.bitis.com.vn/english/ -
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