Smart Home Blog

Budget multi-room audio system based on LinuxMCE

May 21st, 2010 Comments(1)

Base LinuxMCE distribution includes Sqeezebox Control Center aka SlimServer. It allows to build multi-room audio system very easy. But Squeezeboxes are not so cheap as we’d like. So, Dianemo developers (company which offers commercial installations of LinuxMCE and returns back to community a lot of new and fixed functionality) implemented support of several sound cards (including USB ones) on one core or media director. Each card has one Squeezeslave (software implementation of Squeezebox) associated with it. As result using cheap USB sound cards you can build multi-room audio system.

Code to implement SoftAudio feature will be added to the project repository soon. So, hope we’ll have it in some new 0810 update next month.

Run Slimserver on Asus WL500G Premium

September 18th, 2008 Comments(2)

Asus WL500G Premium is a very interesting device. Basically it’s WiFi router with four ports for wired connection. Additionally it equiped with two USB ports. Using one of those ports and external hard drive we can easily get NAS.

Moreover, the sources of WL500G’s firmware are available on the ASUS web site. As result there is a custom versions of firmware with extended functionality (possibility to run Torrent client, for example).

If you have Squeezeboxes you can turn WL500G into music streamer for your devices using those recommendations to install and run SlimServer there.

I thought to buy Asus WL500G because it provides amazing functionality. But it has a big disadvantage – lack gigabit ports and 802.11n. I can live without hight speed WiFi connection but wired gigabit network is required for streaming media content (especially HD) over the house. So, I decided to wait for availability of Belkin N+ Wireless Router.

Using Windows MCE as Softsqeeze

March 07th, 2008 Comments(0)

MCE and SlimServer

Sqeezebox together with SlimServer is the easiest way to create a multiroom music system. Now with plug-in mceSoftsqueeze it’s possible to use Windows MCE as a Softsqueeze – software emulator of real Sqeezebox. It logs into SlimServer (preferably installed on a separate networked PC) and can be managed directly from your Media Centerâ€™s 10-foot interface and remote in your entertainment area.

[via eHomeUpgrade]

SlimServer didn’t start under Plutohome

July 16th, 2007 Comments(0)

Two days I tried to understand why SlimServer doesn’t start under my Plutohome system. It worked fine till power was down during a couple hours four days ago. I saw in the log following output:
05 07/15/07 23:37:22.992 Trying to connect to SlimServer at address: 127.0.0.1:7890 10 07/15/07 23:37:22.993 We can't connect yet to the server. Waiting!
When I run the SlimServer manually I saw that it was killed by some reason:

dcerouter_1:/usr/pluto/servers/SlimServer# ./slimserver.pl --audiodir /home/public/data/audio -cliaddr 127.0.0.1 --cliport 7890 --d_protocol --d_cli --d_server --d_mdns 2007-07-16 12:52:21.6547 SlimServer OSDetect init... 2007-07-16 12:52:21.6549 SlimServer OS Specific init... 2007-07-16 12:52:21.6550 SlimServer saving pid file. 2007-07-16 12:52:21.6551 SlimServer settings effective user and group if requested... 2007-07-16 12:52:21.6552 SlimServer settings init... 2007-07-16 12:52:21.6759 SlimServer strings init... 2007-07-16 12:52:21.7731 SlimServer Setup init... 2007-07-16 12:52:21.7803 SlimServer setting language... 2007-07-16 12:52:21.7805 SlimServer IR init... 2007-07-16 12:52:21.7851 SlimServer Buttons init... 2007-07-16 12:52:21.7867 SlimServer Graphics init... 2007-07-16 12:52:21.7914 Old SLIMP3 Protocol init... 2007-07-16 12:52:21.7922 Slimproto Init... 2007-07-16 12:52:21.7926 mDNS init... 2007-07-16 12:52:21.7927 mDNS: Initializing.. 2007-07-16 12:52:21.7928 SlimServer HTTP init... 2007-07-16 12:52:21.7998 mDNS: Adding service: SlimServer - _http._tcp - TXT - 9000 2007-07-16 12:52:21.7999 mDNS: Adding service: SlimServer - _slimhttp._tcp - TXT - 9000 2007-07-16 12:52:21.8000 SlimServer CLI init... 2007-07-16 12:52:21.8003 mDNS: Adding service: SlimServer - _slimcli._tcp - TXT - 7890 2007-07-16 12:52:21.8004 mDNS startAdvertising... 2007-07-16 12:52:21.8006 mDNS: stopAdvertising() Killed
Finally I found in the .slimserver.conf (it’s placed in the /root/bck/root/) that the cache directory is /root. I changed it to /var/cache and after that the SlimServer started successfully!

See also:

Slimserver and the Nokia 770

May 30th, 2007 Comments(0)

As you may know to listen music with SlimDevices streamer Squeezebox you should have a SlimServer running on your PC (Linux, Mac or Windows). It’s possible to control specified streamer via its remote control. But there is a way to control whole system using Nokia770 and optimized SlimServer web interface. Just install and run version 6.5 and point Nokia770 web browser to

http://your.server.ip.address:9000/Nokia770/

Bingo! Now you can control any SlimDevices playes (Sqeezebox or Transporter), choose room, artist, track etc. Moreover, you can listen music on your Nokia770 (you just need to configure its audio player).

It seems that Nokia770 (and its next generation N800) is going to be very popular device for using as intelligent remote control. As example, have a look: