Networking for MP3 fun... or Help Me, I'm a Noob.

[Pirate Bill]

I've been using the Firefly Media Server on my Linux home server for a couple months now. It's also available on Windows here. I would have posted about it earlier but, since I hadn't used it on Windows yet I wanted to have a chance to test it out first. I just installed it, ran it, and it works great. A very easy install and configuration.

It will do exactly the same thing that iTunes does with the sharing. Only, it runs in the background so you don't have to have iTunes open all the time. You do have to remain logged into Windows though. If you log out it will close the server. That's one advantage to just sharing the music folder and mounting it on other networked computers. As long as the computer is on you can access the shared folder even if no user is logged in.

Of course, if you're not timid and not afraid of Linux and want to go the route I did with a hacked NSLU2 server and external drive then I can offer some tips.