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Thursday, June 21, 2012

The Logitech saga ...

OK. Let me state as first thing, that Logitech is NOT paying me for this   :)
I love this company ! So far everything I have from Logitech is working flawlessly, from my keyboard, mouse, TV universal remote (series Harmony ... REALLY Neat !) and of course my SqueezeBox.
(well .. Mr. Logitech ... I would not be offended if you want to contribute somehow :) )

Time ago I posted some information about the SqueezeBox internet radio and it's Logitech Media Server code.
Just remember that I don't use Windows, so everything in these articles assumes we are talking about Linux. Specifically the Logitech Media Server was installed previously over an Ubuntu 10.04 distro, now is running over a CentOS 5.x one.

This time I want to discuss a little bit more about the server and other projects around it.
First of all, the SqueezeBox is still working quite great !
I updated the server and the firmware a couple of time and few days ago I decided to move the server on another machine.
Why ?  well, just to optimize the resources and free up a little bit the machine previously hosting the server.

Logitech Media Server


So I downloaded the latest version of the code and installed it from the scratch on a different machine (always on my network).
Initially it was not recognized by the SqueezeBox so I checked some things.
Here some hints and things to check :

  • Be sure that the linux machine where the Logitech Media Server  is installed has the port 9000 and 3843 open
  • Be sure that the directory where the music is stored, has the right permissions.
    The permission should be assigned to the user squeezeboxserver (created automatically during the server installation)
  • Check that the server is actually running
    I had some permission set wrong so the server crashed because it could not access the music folder for the scan
  • Give some time !!  There are some timeout involved in the system, so there is some time (15 minutes or more) before the SqueezeBox sees the server
Also remember that any time you change the Logitech Media Server code, a new firmware is loaded in the SqueezeBox !
My current version of the Logitech Media Server is the 7.7.2



SoftSqueeze

While waiting for the SqueezeBox to see the server, I found another very interesting project : SoftSqueeze.
SoftSqueeze is an open source project aimed to reproduce a SqueezeBox on a PC.
Very neat !
It requires to have Java installed.

Use on Ubuntu 10.04

I installed it very simply downloading the RPM from the website and converted it (with alien) in DEB.
Then simply I installed it.
On my machine (Ubuntu 10.04) the DEB installed the main access to the program it in the /opt/softsqueeze directory.
So in order to run it, is possible to open a terminal and then digit : /opt/softsqueeze/softsqueeze

If is working, it's easy to add an icon in a panel. In this case pointing in the /opt/softsqueeze/softsqueeze/lib is possible to find some icons.


After the installation SoftSqueeze recognized the server using the server name I assigned it.
However it was not working.

In order to have it working I had to force the IP address of the server, instead the name of the server found automatically. It is possible that is due to the fact the version of the player (SoftSqueeze) installed is optimized for the server version 7.5.x and I installed the latest one, 7.7.x.


Anyway after forcing the local IP of the server, the player started to work immediately.
So now the new server recognize the SqueezeBox and SoftSqueeze without problems.

Use on Kubuntu 12.04


I have a laptop with installed Kubuntu 12.04 (it uses KDE).
I just copied the DEB package created with alien and installed via the standard package installer.
Same identical procedure and problems find on Ubuntu.
After forcing the IP address of the server instead the found name, started to work perfectly !
Very very neat !

Like the Ubuntu 10.04, I created a link to the application and is working without problems.
So a new way to hear my collection in streaming !

Hope this can help somebody :)

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