[giantjoebot]

I have played around with this idea for a while. I'm going to make a home media server version of Linux, and one of the main features is going to be XBMC. So I would really like some input. Any help is more than welcome.

I have put together a couple basic systems, and to get everything working takes a lot of time. It would be much easier, simpler, and faster if everything was already setup and ready to go on a ISO. Burn it, throw it in, a little configuring, and away you go.

The basic idea is to have computer that not only plays your media, but also acquires it, and allows you to access your media over your home network and an internet connection. I call it a Home Media Server. Everything is already there, its just a matter of putting it all together.

So here is my plan

Start out with Ubuntu. Take off unnecessary programs, like open office. Then start adding and configuring things. Some things I'm sure about, something I'm not so sure about.

Here are things that I'm sure about

1. XBMC
   
2. Vuze
   
3. AzSMRC
   
4. Amule
   
5. Apache webserver
   
6. MySQL
   
7. PHP
   
8. Ampache
   
9. SMB
   
10. XBMC HTTP-R
    

Now for the things that I'm not so sure about

WebShare, MyDisk, PHP Navigator, or Ajaxplorer - to access files online. Not sure which one to use, and could really use some input.

Glype proxy - For secure browsing in public unsecured places, and getting past filters

Zenphoto - if I can get it to change the location of the photo gallery folder

XBMC remote for iphone and Android - XBMC HTTP-R seems like it will work for everything. Not sure if I should add these or just leave them for people to install on their own. I don't have either so it will also be hard for me to test them.

XBMC Streamer for iphone - again might leave this for people to install on their own.

MediaTomb - not sure if its necessary since XBMC has a upnp server built in. I don't really have any use for it, but if people want it

Notes
Listed above is SMB, going to set it up with an SMB server (workgroups) out of the box.

Also want to try and get some sort of bandwith shaping going on. Even if its just limiting the both P2P's to a set limit.

If your wondering about video over the internet, like orb, then here is what I do - Start downloading with ftp, and start playing it with VLC. As long as the download speed is faster than the play lenght, and you can always wait a few minutes until it is, then you can play videos over the internet. Problem with transcoding to a lower bitrate and then streaming, like orb does, is it takes a lot of resources, and I'm not aware of any program does this ,simply, in linux. If you get it working and people want it, then tell me how you did it, and I'll see if I can add it.

If anyone has any ideas on something that would like to add, or that might be better than what I listed, I'm all ears

[hogfan]

I am assuming you will be starting with the Karmic Koala mini install?

1.)Add Lirc to the install and maybe include a set of lircd.conf files out of the box for standard remotes like the MCE remote & Xbox DVD Playback remote. When the user chooses remote in the install, a script could copy the appropriate lircd.conf file to the proper location after lirc is installed.

2.) Give the user an option to choose a torrent client to install. Personally, I haven't liked Vuze since it replaced Azureus. I prefer a smaller footprint like utorrent.

It would be good to have defaults, but give the user some options too. Maybe an optional install of Firefox for users who want to use the XBMC launcher plugin.

[robweber]

That sounds like a cool idea. Take a look at 'Sick Beard', it is a program to parse feed lists and then passes the torrents off to other programs for download. It will also sort and rename then when done for easy import to XBMC. It is in alpha but has had some great reviews on this thread.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=63591

[giantjoebot]

I am assuming you will be starting with the Karmic Koala mini install?

1.)Add Lirc to the install and maybe include a set of lircd.conf files out of the box for standard remotes like the MCE remote & Xbox DVD Playback remote. When the user chooses remote in the install, a script could copy the appropriate lircd.conf file to the proper location after lirc is installed.

2.) Give the user an option to choose a torrent client to install. Personally, I haven't liked Vuze since it replaced Azureus. I prefer a smaller footprint like utorrent.

It would be good to have defaults, but give the user some options too. Maybe an optional install of Firefox for users who want to use the XBMC launcher plugin.

Firefox will totally be on there, I see no reason to get rid of it.

I was planning on installing Lirc, but I don't know if I'll end up doing all that. If someone else wants to do it, or can tell me how to do it, then I'll be more than happy to put it in there. But for the time being I'm just concentrating on putting all this stuff together. I'm not trying to makes this super easy to install, just easier than it would be if you had to start from scratch. You're still going to have to configure some things, and get your hands a little dirty. You just won't be playing with mud for days like I did.

LVM, the gui version, for creating jbod's, and RAIDs.

I'm a little embarrassed to say that I'm not familiar with the mini version of Karmic Koala. If you want to give me a link or something, I would love to check it out. I was also thinking of trying other distros, but I think I'm going to stick with ubuntu for now.

Sorry, no choice on the torrent client. I have setup systems using utorrent, and it works, but you only get one download folder. AzSMRC only works with vuze or azureus, and it allows for multiple users, and a folder for each user. So you actually can have as many download folders as you want, you just have to log in as that user. Music can go to music, movies can go to movies, ect. It makes things easier. I'll be stripping down Vuze a little to where its more like the old azureus, and the ui for AzSMRC is like the old azureus ui. So give it a try, and if people don't like it then maybe we can give some options.

@robweber
Sick beard looks cool. I especially like the logo. I'll try and check it out when I have time. I definitely want to setup automatic downloading on something like EZTV, and make it easy to use. there is a plugin for AzSMRC that I want to try to get working out of the box called ScaneRSS.

It would also be nice to be able to check your torrent progress in XBMC, but not sure how to get that working.

[jhsrennie]

From your post it sounds as though you're interested in Linux as an end in itself so the choice of OS is decided. For anyone who isn't fussed about the OS, I did pretty much what you describe using Windows XP and it was very easy and works very well.

WinXP is actually a pretty lightweight OS, at least by todays standards.

JR

[giantjoebot]

I've done it in xp as well a few times, but there are several reasons why I want to use Linux instead

Faster - the boot for my xp machines that I put together was a lot longer
Secure - you don't have to run antivirus on linux
ISO - I don't know of anyway to create an install disc with xp with all this stuff on it, but there is a way to do it with linux
Free - Linux is free to distribute, and xp isn't, you need a CD key
Apache - apache web server works better on linux

I've tried both, and while they both have their good and bad points, I've weighed the difference, and I have to say that linux is the way to go on this one. If you want to do a windows version, you are more than welcome to.

This is what I'm willing to do. Put together a Linux CD with applications for a Home Media Server, and configure it in advance to the best of my abilities. I'm not looking to write any programs, or anything like that. Just use existing programs and information that is already available. Maybe down the raod more can be added, I just want to get the ball rolling.

Does anyone have any input on the applications that should be installed? I would love some input on existing things right now, and not conceptual things. And please provide links and such. I'm not a mind reader

[robweber]

It would also be nice to be able to check your torrent progress in XBMC, but not sure how to get that working.

See this thread for an existing uTorrent plugin that allows you to check on the status of torrent downloads. If your bittorrent client has some sort of web access you may be able to reuse some of the code.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=53367

This link is just to the post where it explains how to modify the default.py file to display percent of the download complete

http://forum.xbmc.org/showpost.php?p=445...stcount=41

[giantjoebot]

Thanks for the reply robwebwer

A couple posts down from your link is a link for this in chuck_1970's sig
http://code.google.com/p/xbmc-torrrent-controller/

[snoop2048]

Hello,

I like your idea - but Im not sure I would call it a home media server. It sounds more like a media client to me.

You say stuff like firefox etc will be on there, so in reality your just building a Ubuntu desktop with a few tweaks for the media centre experience?

Not sure of your aim really, but if you are aiming for media center type thing with a desktop start with the ubuntu netbook remix. I think the interface works well on a HDTV with its big icons etc. Nice and easy to navigate etc.

Anyways - not be being negative. Good luck man.

[giantjoebot]

No Its defiantly not the client, and more of a server. But yes the basic idea is to add and tweak. Yes I'm going t o base it off a desktop version, and leave firefox on there, but that is only to make it easier to use. Make it easier to use when you configure it, and if anyone wants to add, remove, or tweak things. Just like Windows Server, and some Linux Server distros have a desktop environment. I was actually considering using BEL Server Basic, since it already has all the web server stuff already installed.

Its a server in the sense that it has a web server that has several web apps. It also has P2P programs that work in a server client fashion. It also is a file server using SMB, and probably ftp.

Speaking of FTP, I'm use to using filezilla server, and I'm not sure what the best program in Linux would be. Any suggestions?

[NickB.]

If this is truly a media server that you're building, and sorry if this is a dumb question, but why are you putting XBMC on it? XBMC is typically more of a front-end piece...

Strangely enough, I just posted a thought about using a Linux server running XBMC as a Terminal Server. Maybe we're thinking the same thing(?)

[giantjoebot]

Its not a dumb question at all. My answer is, why not. Why have a separate computer for a server and one for xbmc? Why not combine the 2. It would save money to just have one computer. With GPU offloading, and the speed of newer hardware it shouldn't be a problem to run both.

The intention is to make that htpc in your living room do a lot more than just play music and movies. I know in my home I have limited space, and a computer that is already in the living room is in the perfect spot to run 24 hours a day. If it was in my room I wouldn't be able to sleep. Plus they kind of go hand and hand. Its all about media. Being able to access that media from anywhere you like, including your TV.

It might be best to somehow prioritize xbmc, because some of those web apps can be resource intensive.

I found another online file browser Ajaxplorer. Edited original post to included it.
http://www.ajaxplorer.info/wordpress/

[NickB.]

Its not a dumb question at all. My answer is, why not. Why have a separate computer for a server and one for xbmc? Why not combine the 2. It would save money to just have one computer. With GPU offloading, and the speed of newer hardware it shouldn't be a problem to run both.

The intention is to make that htpc in your living room do a lot more than just play music and movies. I know in my home I have limited space, and a computer that is already in the living room is in the perfect spot to run 24 hours a day. If it was in my room I wouldn't be able to sleep. Plus they kind of go hand and hand. Its all about media. Being able to access that media from anywhere you like, including your TV.

Oh no doubt - real computers (read: not the iPad) are built to be multitaskers, but from an architecture standpoint, in my mind at least, the machine we're talking about would be an HTPC/Media server - which is what I have my XBMC machine is doing. The way I had read the OP was that he was talking more about a dedicated back-end server like a Windows Home Media server.

[giantjoebot]

Well sorry If I didn't describe it that well. Its all in my head, and sometimes its hard to put it in words.

NickB you totally do get it, and I really appreciate that. Do you have any suggestions for me?

What would be really cool is to make the online stuff look like xbmc, but thats maybe something for the future. What I'm going to do for now is just have a simple home page with links to all the online apps, so you only have to go to one place to access it all. A very basic web page in http with hyper links.

There is one more web app that people might want, and thats EyeOS, but honestly I kind of would rather leave it out. In my experience web apps that try and do everything run slower, and the ones that just do one thing, do it really well and a lot better, like Ampache.

Also thinking about having 2 file browsers. MyDisk and something else. One simple and one more complex. Maybe even the old version of MyDisk, MyDiskServer
http://hostyourself.net/

[NickB.]

GJB,
I know exactly what you mean so no worries! I'm always having to remind/ask myself, and my guys at the office "what problem are we trying to solve here". I've been brainstorming a similar solution, just haven't gotten very far with it yet. For me the idea is to have a centralized repository for all our "stuff" - backups of the machines in the house might be nice too. Low power set driver boxes for the bedroom tvs could be interesting too, which is why I was thinking about an X-Term type solution but so far it looks like a Revo type machine running XBMC would probably do just as well. MythTv and a centralized bittorrent are also something I've wanted to chew on... as-is some research on UPnP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_P...components)

For now, I'm relying on good old fileshare mapping to access content across my network and it works decently... but I really would like to make the leap to a "personal cloud" type of concept for the house. I hadn't run across ampache before, but it looks really interesting and there appears to be an integration with something called coherence that would allow you to stream content to a whole range of devices (http://coherence.beebits.net/wiki/SupportedDevices - even some smart tvs)... but on further review it appears that XBMC has a UPnp server built into it too (http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=UPnP_Sharing). It's even DNLA certified, which I never really paid attention to before... I'm pretty sure I've seen those stickers shopping for TVs before.

Wow! Ok, I'm an idiot


Holy cow, so there really are some interesting options that could come into play here - including your original list of software. Now the question is how to put it all together, and what are the best pieces to use(?) I think this is a topic that REALLY needs to be fleshed out a little more for public consumption. I know I, for one, and constantly running across neat bits here and there - hey TV X can stream Netflix... hey Hauppage makes all sorts of neat DVR stuff... XBMC plays every movie format I can throw at it REALLY, REALLY well... hey, iTunes and WHS and Windows Media player all have ways of sharing content across a home network somehow... hey there are NAS devices that apparently can double as UPnP servers... and while I have run across a number of really interesting specific implementations, trying to put it all together into a "what do I want my cloud to look like and do" sort of vision is still a challenge (yeah I think the word Cloud is overused too, but I'm not really sure what else you could call it if it's pumping out content direct to TVs, mobile devices, etc).

For me, next steps are a serious dig into UPnP and DNLA