A Remote Music Server

[bobbyschultz]

I have fairly extensive Linux knowlege...so dont hold anything back here

Heres what i need to do: i have a rather large stereo system in my home and a huge collection of mp3's, but its getting rather retarted to keep burning cd's of my mp3's and carry them downstairs to play on the stereo...so..

i have a ton of old computer parts, and some cash to burn, so i want to build a linux box for the stereo system and plug the linux box's sound card into the stereo reciever, and then play mp3's from the linux box through the stereo receiver..this is all good except i am having trouble with one thing:

i want to use command-line (no X or any window managers) so i can SSH into the box to control the mp3's from any other comp in my house (i.e. a laptop while im cooking in the kitchen). i could easily just type the commands to play the mp3's but i want a gui (but still text-based, similar to YAST) program to act as a "Music Manager".

Someone please tell me a good "music manager" like this and/or a good mp3 program (i.e. mpg123).

Or, if im going at this completely wrong, let me know of another way.

Ive tried streaming mp3s to it (with WinAMP and IceCast), but the lag time between changing songs in WinAMP and it actually streaming the change to the server is to long for my likeing.

thanks for reading my incredibly long post..my English Composition teacher would be proud

-Bobby
bobbyschultz2@gmail.com
AIM: bobbyschultz2 (feel free to IM me with responses and we can discuss...actually i prefer this method )

[JonathanD]

Well, you could use X with vnc. That is what I do. I have a linux server at home and I use xfce (because it uses less resources). Then I start x11vnc. This implementation of vnc grabs the actual X display of the server and lets you access it remotely (a bit like remotedesktop under win). This way, I can access my linux server from any location.

The good thing about it is that when I terminate the vnc session, all application continue to run on the server. So I can start a download with azureus from home on my server. Then later I can check the progress of it from work (vnc tunneled through ssh) and start more downloads or even other tasks.

You could use any other vnc implementation (like tightvnc) on your linux server, so you would not have to have the X-Server, you would just need the X-Client on your linux server (uses even less resources).

Hope this helps.