[resolved] Master Music Library

[craigbert]

Hello All,

I am not sure where else to ask this question so I thought I would start here.

In my family we have three different people downloading / buying music. It would be nice if there was some way to organize this into a central library where we could all pull from. To make matters more complicated, each of us runs a different OS. I run Kubuntu, my wife runs Windows Vista, and my son runs Mac.

Does anyone know of a good solution for this?

[dibl]

Re: Master Music Library

Does anyone know of a good solution for this?

Probably the answer to that depends a lot on your definition of "good solution" ....

Clearly that situation is ripe for a media file server. Personally I would give FreeNAS a shot -- I haven't used it myself but I know a guy who is not all that savvy who set it up and it is working fine for Windows and Linux clients. Build or buy a decent hardware platform (skimp on the video), put a big hard drive in it, or a RAID setup if you want to get fancy, and install FreeNAS on it and see if it will suffice for your LAN.

Oshunluvr has a fancy media server -- maybe he can give better guidance on the topic.

[craigbert]

Re: Master Music Library

That might work.

I am not sure how a media file server would work. They both have portable music players so I the media file server would play nice with those and with iTunes (yuk!) then that could be the best solution.

[dibl]

Re: Master Music Library

Yuk is right.

To be honest, there are some things that you just need a Windows VM to take care of:

- grabbing photos off your phone
- running your Canon printer
- downloading I-Tunes to your lady's player

and probably something else I'm not thinking of. Oh yeah -- running your proprietary MS Visual FoxPro database application.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Master Music Library

Since you're mixing OS's it's a bit more difficult - but only slightly.

Basically: Your choices include;

a) Having one computer host all the music files.
b) Having all the computers share their individual files with all the others.
c) Having a dedicated computer/sharing device for all computers to store music on.

"a" is a natural choice if one of the computers is a desktop (or a laptop that doesn't leave the house). Downside might be the number of hours you have leave the computer on. You could have an auto-shutdown/startup if that's an issue. Also, having enough available space on the dedicated computer could be an issue.

"b" is probably best if all the computers are portable and particularly if your musically tastes vary - makes it less likely you'll need the other computers music files often.

"c" would require a purchase - either a dedicated computer (my personal setup) or a network file sharing device like a simple ethernet connectible drive or a router with a USB storage option.

It really boils down to your usage, needs and requirements.

Do you just want to be able to move files from one computer to another?
Do you want all the computers to have all the files?

My personal choice was guided by having TB's of videos, pictures, and music to share. I not only wanted all my computers to have access to it all, but several other network devices (Roku and TV's).

I built a small Atom based computer and setup printer and file sharing among other services on it. It has no monitor, keyboard/mouse, or cd/dvd drive at all. The case was the most expensive part.

If you don't want to have a dedicated device (you have to buy and set it up) you could pretty easily setup a network shared folder on each computer, have everyone use those folders for the music and what-have-you. The Mac and Kubuntu computers both have NFS available and you can install Samba on both so they can share with the Windows machine - or possibly you can find an NFS utility for Windows.

Think through what you want to be able to do and post back....

[craigbert]

Re: Master Music Library

Oshunluvr,

Thanks for the reply.

I feel like "b" is where we are at. All three of us have overlapping musical tastes and it would be nice for the ones we have in common to just pop up and let us know that they are available. But at the same time where those same tastes diverge I would not care about knowing what was newly available or uploaded. In other words, if my son downloads a Mozart symphony that I don't have I would want to know about it and by the same token, if he downloads a new rap song I do not want to know about it (beyond the normal parental curiosity, of course.)

I will have a laptop/desktop available for hosting if need be to facilitate things. My main issue is that I despise re-inventing the wheel. I KNOW that we are not the first family to run into this hence my cry for "help"!

I look forward to gathering whatever wisdom you have to offer on this topic.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Master Music Library

Since one of you is running Vista, Samba would be a logical choice and the easiest for the most troublesome OS (Vista).

Basically, you need to have all the computers act as samba servers and clients. Each will share or export their Music folder (directory) and each will read the others shared folders. Part of having this work well will be a small amount of organization on your family's part - Everyone will have to agree to keep their music within a specific folder. Also, I suggest the simplest and safest way to set things up will include only allowing other computers to read and browse files, but not write to or delete others files. If you son downloads a rap song that's too foul for ears his age, you'll have to confront him in person!

If I recall correctly, on the Vista machine, you need to enable file sharing and select the folder(s) to share. Once Samba is setup on the Mac and Linux machine, The Vista machine should be able to "see" the others' shared folders. Once they're available, your wife can create a shortcut to yours and your sons folders.

I'm not a Mac person, so try this Apple File Sharing.

Be sure to use the same workgroup on all the machines so everyone is linked easily.

For you - There's several samba how to's. I'll post a good when when I find it. Bascially, you'll enable the samba server, share your /home/craigbert/Music folder and then for you - you can either browse their shared folders with dolphin or mount them directly.

Depending on how your computers are named, it should be easy enough to keep track of who's got what. When you want one of your son's or wife's files - you can play it remotely or copy it to your computer.

[craigbert]

Re: Master Music Library

Oshunluvr,

Thanks again for the reply! Having a group of helpful and patient folks makes all the difference in the world for learning!

I will give this a bit more thought, but I don't think there are really any other choices available, especially with the OS diversity I am having to deal with.