29 Mar 2007

Squeezebox

Posted by Jacob Emcken

2 days ago I recieved my Squeezebox… finally I pulled my head out and bought one. I should have done this along time ago. This is one of the best investments since my IBM x40… and that says a lot. At first I got really disappointed because I couldn’t get the Squeezebox to connect to the wireless network. After a few hours tinkering with my wireless access point and the Squeezebox wireless settings I gave up. I plugged it to the network with a wire and installed the latest Slimserver on my Windows partition (I know, I know… Windows, not something I was proud of).

When the Squeezebox found the slimserver on the Windows box the Squeezebox asked me to allow it to update its firmware. After that the wireless ran without problem. Yay.

I’ve started ripping all our music to FLAC even though my girlfriend was almost finished with our over 300 CDs in mp3.

Right now I use Linksys NSLU2 (running Debian Etch) both as music storage and to run the slimserver. It feels a bit slow but it is really not that bad. I’m thinking of finding another NAS but it either has to as silent as the NSLU2 or it has to be wireless. If any of you guys know a good alternative the the NSLU2 let me know.

Back to the Squeezebox… Not only can you play all you digital music but you can listen to internet radio (there is a Pandora plugin). You can have it to wake you up, show RSS (news) feeds on the display, play you podcasts and much more. All you digital music needs gathered in one freaking cool looking, easy to navigate, low noise box in your living room. All in all the Squeezebox rocks! Period.

Category: Linux

4 Comments to Squeezebox

Tommy Ipsen
April 24, 2007

You might consider one of the Synology DiskStations since these NAS’es are compatible with the Squeezebox. Especially the new X07-series looks promising – rumours has is that there is a DS207.128 (2 disks,128MB,266MhZ) as well as a DS107+.128 (1 disk, 128MB, 500MhZ) on the way – due to large amount of memory these are especially interesting for running the slimserver software directly on the NAS! (As well as webserver, database, ftp, mail, photoalbum etc)

Jacob Emcken
April 26, 2007

Thanks – I’ll take it into consideration when I go look for new hardware for the Slimserver.

Charles Lakos
January 13, 2008

Hi, could you tell me which version of slimserver you installed on your NSLU under Debian etch, and where you got it from? I did the straight install, which installed version 6.3, which has some problems. Version 6.5 is available as an ipkg, but this format isn’t supported (at least not directly) on Debian etch.

Thanks.

Jacob Emcken
February 27, 2008

I just installed the one which is already in Etch (the old ver 6.3).

But you can also find new versions here at Slimdevices own repository… thought I found using the NSLU2 too slow.

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/?DebianPackage

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