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I've come up with a quick pet project (which might, maybe, even end up being useful at my home someday); the idea is to allow users of a Linux device (I'll call it A, and it'll probably be a small embedded one) to play music that is stored in other computers (I'll designate those by B), located in the same local network. The difference between this and straight-out streaming would be that, in this case, B would be as passive as possible, merely making the files available, and A users would be able to view shared files and select a target for playback.

I haven't found ready-made solutions for this case, though I'm sure many of them are bound to exist. So my question is what would be the easiest way to do it: through a ready-made solution or, if one is not available, through combining various applications and standards (NFS?) or coding it out.

jasonwryan
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userBigNum
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  • There are tons of already-built things which do this, pretty much *any* much player can play from a network share. There are even fairly cheap boxes you can buy and connect to a TV that will play music off of shares (of the appropriate type). Like, say, a PS3. Please be more specific, this is hopelessly lacking in focus... – derobert Oct 17 '12 at 20:19
  • See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UPnP_AV_media_servers_and_clients – derobert Oct 17 '12 at 20:22
  • You may or may not want to use a sound server: [Sending audio through network](http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/1893/sending-audio-through-network) – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Oct 17 '12 at 22:52
  • Since it was a pet project anyway, I really didn't have a very specific focus. But thanks everyone, I'll be looking into those media servers. – userBigNum Jul 23 '13 at 22:47

3 Answers3

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The easiest way would be to use SMB ("Windows File Sharing") on both machines. B will share folders full of files, and A will browse those folders. There are numerous clients and a couple of SMB servers available for various distros and DEs.

Sparr
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When it comes to streaming media and sharing files, you have several options. Some are more compatible with others. I would be interested in knowing what OS or application system B is. This might help:

Linux <-- SMB --> Windows
Linux <-- Netatalk (AFP) --> OS X
Linux <-- uPNP --> Most Media Servers regardless of Operating System
aus
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As for a ready-made solution, how about giving OwnCloud a try? It would run on B and any A can use it to playback music stored on B, with the integrated media player or any Ampache-compatible media player (Or you could just use Ampache, of course.)

sr_
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