Make a Home Media Server With Old PC & Open Source VortexBox

While VortexBox has been around since 2008, it had a major update late last year and it’s now based on Fedora 16. Just download the free open source disk image and turn any old Intel based PC (at least a P4 with 1GB memory) into a media server for your home.

[googlead]With the right hardware you can even configure it for multiple audio streams and it supports Plex, Sonos, Squeezebox, DLNA and UPnP too…

“VortexBox is a free, open source (GPL v3), quick-install ISO that turns your unused computer into an easy-to-use music server/jukebox. Once VortexBox has been loaded on an unused PC, it will automatically rip CDs to FLAC and MP3 files, ID3 tag the files , and download the cover art. Vortexbox will then serve the files to network media players such as Logitech Squeezebox, Sonos, or Linn. The music files can also be streamed to a Windows or Mac OSX system.

Features

• Automatic ripping of CDs and DVDs
• Based on Fedora so it’s easy to modify.
• Automatically tags all files from online music database.
• Automatically downloads the cover art.
• Automatic sharing of file to SMB (Microsoft) file shares.
• Automatic re-indexing Squeezebox Server after every CD is ripped.
• AppleTalk – for OSX or Bonjour for Windows.
• NFS – For Linux boxes and almost anything else, Solaris etc.
• DLNA support – Play music and video DLNA enabled players, XBOX 360,PS3, Windows 7 etc.
• Easy installation of mplayer for AlienBBC support.
• Good support for Sonos.
• Works well as a back end server for XBMC (XBOX Media Center) running on XBOX, Windows, OSX, AppleTV, or Linux.”

Pre-built VortexBox Server   :   vortexbox.org    :   Installation Guide

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