Linux Media Server Building Method

The media server has good tailorability and can implement one or more functions. How to build a Linux media server? The following small series will introduce you to the method of setting up a Linux media server. Interested friends may wish to understand it.

Almost any Linux can be an excellent media server system, because it takes fewer resources, running and stable, so you can use their most familiar with any version of Linux. Any variant of Ubuntu (Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, etc.) is especially suitable as a media server system because they make it easy for users to get limited codecs. I am running Xubuntu on a ZaReason MediaBox system. This simple system can be used to play movies and music. It's not a digital video recorder (DVR), it doesn't need a TV tuner because I don't have any broadcast TV. No wiring, satellites, or even wireless broadcasts are required. If you don't need it, you won't miss it. But if this is what you need, you should have it, because Linux wants us to be very satisfied.

The MediaBox is a likable device with two 3.5-inch SATA3 drives and a CD/DVD drive. My system is powered by an Intel quad-core i5-4430 processor and 4GB of RAM, which comes with a large number of ports. You can see on the back:

4 USB 3.0 ports

2 USB 2.0 ports

2 HDMI ports

1 DVI port< Br>

2 Gigabit Ethernet Ports

Optical Audio + S/PDIF Audio Outputs

6 Analog Audio Inputs/Outputs 1 PS2 Port

It has a front panel with 2 USB 2.0 ports and a headphone and microphone jack. It also has Bluetooth and wireless B/G/N. Wireless G speed (up to 54 Mbps) streaming more than enough movies, N speed (up to 600 Mbps) allows you to easily stream media to multiple endpoint devices, and also achieve high-speed file transfer. It uses a 250 watt power supply and the processor temperature never exceeds 40 degrees Celsius. This small device doesn't take up too much space and doesn't require too much power.

Of course, you can use any PC to act as a media server. The larger chassis is more comfortable to operate and has more room to accommodate drives and accessories. For best performance, you need a SATA 3 hard drive and plug in many audio and video ports. HDMI is good because it avoids a lot of connections; audio and video are transmitted on the same link, so you don't need a bundle of RCA connections (don't spend a lot of money on the line! A pricey connection) It's awkward.)

My home theater system is actually a hodgepodge: older 5.1 channel surround receiver, old 6-disc CD changer, new Sony Blu-ray player (supports Netflix, Amazon) , Pandora, Hulu and a large number of other online services), MediaBox and 42-inch TV. Only TVs, MediaBoxes, and Sony players have HDMI ports, so each device is connected via a bunch of HDMI and RCA cables. This is practical.

Sony player is not suitable for use

Sony player is suitable for playing Amazon and Netflix videos, because playing these videos is a big problem on Linux. Maybe it’s played today, but it won’t play tomorrow. Sony's app is very bad. It's hard to enter your login information because it seems that virtual keyboards are mysterious to application developers; some applications also require a Sony account to manage them. This didn't add any useful features, it just added a lot of trouble. Just to give an example, the NPR application is not to mention, it is too garbage, a lot of radio stations, I do not know how to choose, can not search or add to the favorites. Once your application is installed, if you want to use a different login, the door does not. So in my configuration environment, Sony devices are actually a retreat, and in case other services can't run on Linux, it can come in handy. It's much easier to access them through a web browser, so that's always my first choice.

If you want to know why I bought a Sony player, sometimes I would like to know it myself. I bought a Sony player before I had a media server. It was cheap and sold for around $100. I don't know if I want to play the actual Blu-ray disk in the future. Blu-ray sounds great: HD video (1920x1080 pixels) and stuffing up to 50GB of data onto a single disk. But it is bound by copyright protection and patents; of course, copyright protection has been cracked long ago. Terry Hancock is developing a free alternative to Blu-ray, called Lib-Ray, which he calls Blu-ray, a set of overly complex technologies designed to stop people from watching Blu-ray movies. & rdquo; Blu-ray is also firmly locked, and producers like Terry can't release Blu-ray disks that are not protected by Digital Rights Management (DRM).

Everything is ready

It's great to use a standard Linux distribution on a big screen. I can run any program, surf the Internet, browse large-format books, and handle everything I can do on a regular PC.

FIG. 2: SMK wireless keyboard with a touchpad.

I use a small SMK wireless keyboard with a touchpad to control the MediaBox. Sometimes I plug a full-size keyboard into the front USB port to handle more complex tasks, such as system upgrades, or running an SSH session from my laptop. Since it is Linux, I can handle all of these transactions.

Software

Linux has a variety of excellent multimedia software. My favorite three multimedia softwares are XBMC, VLC and K3b.

I use XBMC to watch movies transcribed from DVD. It's great to load them all into a large hard drive. I also store my music CD on the MediaBox. Before, my living room was full of CDs and DVDs. After they were all collected, the room looked neat. XBMC runs on Android, iOS, Mac and Windows. If you have two XBMC servers on your network, they can share the media library. You can use the XBMC as a DVR that can record both Internet TV and streaming media from a TV capture card.

VLC is great for playing music and movies, it can also play Internet and Ethernet media streams. It can rip and convert almost any kind of audio and video media and record any media stream it can play. Media that VCL can't handle is likely to be corrupted.

For ripping CDs and DVDs, Brasero and K3B are easier to use than VLC. Almost all DVDs use copyright protection. Of course, copyright protection has been cracked many years ago, so you need a simple library libdvdcss (http://www.videolan.org/developers/libdvdcss.html) to rip. You also need it to play movie DVDs on Linux. Of course, it is not legal to want to play our movies on Linux, but I am not too good at it.

Of course, there are many excellent multimedia software on Linux: MPlayer, Totem, Amarok, Banshee and Rhythmbox, which one you want, which one you can use.

Make sure it's workable

It's a bit of a hassle to make all of this work practical, but believe me, at most, it's a bit of a hassle to deal with Sony devices and a bunch of junk apps. XBMC has been around for a long time, so a lot of documentation has been accumulated.

The XBMC wiki manual (http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Main_Page) has information about various remote controls, from programmable remotes to smartphone apps. Small home theater computers (such as Boxee Box, ASUS Chromebox, and Apple TV 1) go to XBMC as a PVR/DVR.

The Ubuntu Restricted Format (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats) is a comprehensive guide on how to play all media on Ubuntu PCs.

The above is the method of setting up a Linux media server. It is very easy to set up a Linux media server. The operation is very stable, and friends who need it may wish to build one.