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This article introduces you how to build a Linux media server, the content is very detailed, interested friends can refer to, hope to be helpful to you.

Figure MediaBox of 1:ZaReason.

Almost any Linux can be an excellent media server system, because it takes up less resources and runs stably, so you can use any version of Linux you are most familiar with. Any variant of Ubuntu (Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, etc.) is particularly suitable as a media server system because they make it easy for users to obtain limited codecs. I run Xubuntu on a ZaReason MediaBox system. This simple system can be used to play movies and music. It's not a digital video recorder (DVR), and it doesn't need a TV tuner because I don't have any radio and television. There is no need for connections, satellites, or even wireless broadcasting. If you don't need it, you won't miss it. But if this is what you need, you should have it, because Linux wants us all to be satisfied.

The MediaBox is a delightful device with two 3.5in SATA3 drives and one CD/DVD drive. My system is equipped with Intel quad-core i5-4430 processors and 4GB memory, and it comes with a large number of ports. You can see it on the back:

4 USB 3.0 port

2 USB 2.0 port

2 HDMI port

1 DVI port

2 Gigabit Ethernet ports

Optical audio + S/PDIF audio output

6 analog audio input / output terminals and 1 PS2 port

It has a front panel with two USB 2.0 ports and headphones and microphone jacks. It also has Bluetooth and wireless B/G/N. Wireless G speed (up to 54 Mbps) streaming movies is more than enough, N speed (up to 600 Mbps) allows you to easily stream media to multiple endpoint devices, as well as high-speed file transfer. It uses a 250 watt power supply and the processor temperature never exceeds 40 degrees Celsius. This small device does not take up much space and does not consume too much electricity.

Of course, you can use any PC to act as a media server. A larger chassis is more comfortable to operate and has more space to accommodate drives and accessories. For best performance, you need a SATA 3 hard drive and a lot of audio and video ports. HDMI is good because it avoids a lot of connections; audio and video are transmitted on the same link, so you don't need a bundle of RCA connections (don't spend a lot of money on connections! Expensive connections are bluffing. )

My home theater system is actually a hodgepodge: the older 5.1-channel surround receiver, the old 6-disc CD changer, the new Sony Blu-ray player (which supports Netflix, Amazon, Pandora, Hulu, and a host of other online services), MediaBox, and 42-inch televisions. Only televisions, MediaBox and Sony players have HDMI ports, so devices are connected through a bunch of HDMI and RCA connections. It's feasible.

It's not useful in Sony players.

Sony players are suitable for playing Amazon and Netflix videos because playing these videos is an age-old problem on Linux. Maybe it can be played today, but not tomorrow. Sony's app is terrible. It's hard to enter your login profile because it seems like virtual keyboards are secretive to app developers; some apps also need to set up Sony accounts to manage them. This does not add any practical function, but completely adds to the trouble. To give just one example, not to mention NPR apps, it's so rubbish that a lot of radio stations can't be searched or added to their favorites. Once your application is installed, there is no way to use different login information. So in my configuration environment, the Sony device is actually a fallback, and it can come in handy in case other services don't work on the Linux. It's much easier to access them through a Web browser, so that's always my first choice.

If you want to know why I bought a Sony player, to be honest, sometimes I want to know myself. I bought a Sony player before I had a media server. it was cheap and sold for about $100. I don't know if I want to play the actual Blu-ray disk in the future. Blu-ray sounds great: high-definition video (1920x1080 pixels) and cramming up to 50GB data onto a disk. But it is bound by copyright protection and patents; of course, copyright protection was cracked a long time ago. Terry Hancock is developing a free alternative to Blu-ray, called Lib-Ray, which he calls Blu-ray "an overly complex set of technologies designed mainly to prevent people from watching Blu-ray movies." Blu-ray is also firmly locked in, and producers like Terry cannot distribute Blu-ray disks that are not protected by digital rights management (DRM).

Everything is ready

It's great to use the standard Linux distribution on the big screen. I can run any program, surf the Internet, browse large format books, and handle everything I can handle on an ordinary PC.

Figure 2: SMK wireless keyboard with trackpad.

I use a small SMK wireless keyboard with a trackpad to control the MediaBox. Sometimes, I plug the full-size keyboard into the front USB port to handle more complex tasks, such as system upgrades, or run SSH sessions from my laptop. Since it is a Linux, I can handle all these transactions.

Software

Linux has all kinds of excellent multimedia software. My three favorite multimedia software are XBMC, VLC and K3b.

I use XBMC to watch movies copied from DVD. It's good to load them all into a high-capacity hard drive. I also store my music CD on MediaBox. Before, my living room was full of stacks of CD and DVD. After putting them all away, the room looks tidy. XBMC can run on Android, iOS, Mac and Windows. If you have two XBMC servers on your network, they can share media libraries. You can use XBMC as a DVR, which can both record Internet TV and stream media from TV capture cards.

VLC is perfect for playing music and movies. It can also play Internet and Ethernet media streams. It can rip and convert almost any kind of audio and video media, and record any media stream it can play. Media that VCL cannot handle is most likely corrupted.

In terms of ripping CD and DVD, Brasero and K3B are easier to use than VLC. Almost all DVD use copyright protection measures, and of course copyright protection was cracked years ago, so you need a simple curbdvdcss (http://www.videolan.org/developers/libdvdcss.html) to rip it. You also need it to play the movie DVD on Linux. Of course, it's illegal to show our movies on Linux, but I have nothing to feel bad about.

Of course, there are a lot more excellent multimedia software on Linux: MPlayer, Totem, Amarok, Banshee and Rhythmbox. You can use whatever you want.

Ensure practicability

It may be a bit tricky to make all these devices feasible, but believe me, the best you can do is deal with Sony devices and a bunch of junk apps. XBMC has been around for a long time, so it has accumulated a large number of documentation.

The XBMC Wiki Manual (http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Main_Page) contains information about a variety of remote controls, from programmable remote controls to smartphone applications, from small home theater computers such as Boxee Box, Asustek Chromebox and Apple TV 1, to using XBMC as PVR/DVR.

Ubuntu restricted format (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats) is a comprehensive guide to how to play all media on Ubuntu PC.

On how to build a Linux media server to share here, I hope the above content can be of some help to you, can learn more knowledge. If you think the article is good, you can share it for more people to see.

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