InfectedProject

SlimServer is a great piece of open source software, designed for streaming music over a network. Using my Mac and a old Pentium III box running Ubuntu Linux, I have achieved pretty much all of the functionality of the Airport Express’ “AirTunes” feature. I have made this quick tutorial so you can set this up as-well. We will call the computer that you want to send music from “computer” and the server we have connected to our stereo “server.” Please note, I’m using Mac OS X as the “computer” operating system and Ubuntu Linux as the “server” operating system. This guide can be applied to other operating systems as-well though.

Requirements:

• Two machines, a computer, and a server running either Windows, Mac OS X, Linux (or other *nix OS)
• Some basic networking experience
• Static IP’s set for these two computers
• A 3.5mm Headphone jack to RCA Jack Converter for connecting to a stereo – like this
• The “server” hooked up to the stereo system

Step One:

Download the SlimServer software for your computer’s appropriate operating system, you can install this on your server if you have you music library on it. Please note if you are running Ubuntu Linux on your computer you can type “sudo apt-get install slimserver” into the terminal (without the parenthesis) to automatically download and install this.

Step Two:

Download VLC to your for your server’s appropriate operating system that you have connected to your stereo system via the 3.5mm Headphone jack to RCA Jack Converter. Remember install this on your server connected to you stereo. Please note if you are running Ubuntu Linux on your server you can type “sudo apt-get install vlc” into the terminal.

Step Three:

Install the SlimServer software (install this on your computer with your Music library). Please note if you did Step One via “sudo apt-get install slimserver” on your Ubuntu server this is already installed!

Step Four:

Enable (turn on) SlimServer on your computer.

Click on “Automatically start:” and select “When I log in.”

Step Five:

Type “http://localhost:9000/” into your favorite web browser to see if you have installed SlimServer correctly on your computer.

Step Six:

Test your connection from your server running VLC to your new SlimServer installation on your computer by clicking “File” then “Open Network..”. Select the “HTTP/HTTPS/FTP/MMS” radio button and type in the following URL “your.computers.static.ip:9000/stream.mp3” replace your.computers.static.ip with the real static IP of you computer.

If all goes well you should see a VLC window with the following text “Welcome to SlimServer.” you can try to play a song from the web interface if you want now.

Step Seven:

Auto start VLC on the server so you can always send songs over to it. If your server is running Ubuntu Linux or similar you can just open “System” from the menu bar on the top of the screen, then “Preferences,” then “Sessions.” Create a new startup program type in a name for it and then type “vlc -vvv http://your.computers.static.ip:9000/stream.mp3” in the command section. Click “OK.”

Step Eight:

Enjoy your new poor man’s web interface for iTunes as well as AirTunes like streaming! Thank you Slim Devices, Inc for creating a wonderful piece of open source software!