Tsaiberspace

My MacBook Pro has been gradually taking over primary-computer-and-storage responsibilities (photos, music, web browsing, etc.). The laptop gets periodically backed up to my main always-on Linux server.

One side effect of the Mac-ification of my life is that my music collection became iTunes-ified. To get my Windows machine into the program, I had to throw out Winamp and install iTunes for Windows.

I started importing all the music into the Windows iTunes, but then realized I’d have to do a re-import every time I added more music. What a drag. Then I noticed that the Windows iTunes was displaying the MacBook under “Shared Music”. That was when the light bulb went on - I should be able to set up an iTunes server on the Linux machine. Then the Windows machine could just remotely play everything and automatically stay up to date with no import pain, since the Linux machine gets a direct backup of everything.

Enter Firefly Media Server (formerly known as mt-daapd). All my research indicated I’d have to download and compile stuff from Apple, ugh. But those articles were all at least 3 years old. Forging ahead:

% aptitude install mt-daapd

I started the ornerous task of dealing with Rendezvous.tar.gz from Apple when out of the corner of eye, I noticed that everything was already working, playlists and all!

Quite possibly my least-painful Linux experience ever.

Unfortunately, mythmusic on the MythTV machine lacks a DAAP client, so I’m still stuck synchronizing files over (and using mythmusic’s horrible GUI). Ideally I’d set it up to look like an AirPort Express with AirTunes so that I can push my laptop iTunes to the living room speakers, but apparently there is some still-uncracked encryption involved that prevents this from being a reality.