How can I set my Windows computer's audio out to go to my Linux computer?

September 10, 2011 11:56 AM

I'd like to be able to select my Linux box as my audio out device in my Windows 7 box. Is there a way to make that happen?
posted by jsturgill to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Response by poster: Stream audio to the Linux box over the network, preferably by having windows use a virtual device that it thinks is just another soundcard output.
posted by jsturgill at 12:27 PM on September 10, 2011

Response by poster: (In answer to your question, "What exactly are you trying to do?")
posted by jsturgill at 12:28 PM on September 10, 2011

I've not used it but there's a software package called "Airfoil Speakers" that appears to do what you're after: http://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/speakers.php
posted by wkearney99 at 12:45 PM on September 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

AirFoil is great!
posted by krilli at 12:56 PM on September 10, 2011

Airfoil by Rogue Amoeba. Seriously, look no further.
posted by Freen at 1:20 PM on September 10, 2011

Response by poster: It costs $25. That's reasonable, but I'm thinking this problem has an obscure FOSS solution somewhere out there. I'll keep looking for a while.
posted by jsturgill at 1:17 AM on September 11, 2011

Well, you could set up an icecast server on the windows box and a listener on the Linux side.

Alternatively, most Linux systems use PulseAudio, which is a network transparent protocol. Apparently there are binaries for Windows, which you might be able to contort into streaming audio for.
posted by pwnguin at 9:21 AM on September 11, 2011

Yeah, I do this all the time with Linux and pulseaudio. If there is pulseaudio for Windows, give it a go.
posted by CautionToTheWind at 8:22 AM on September 12, 2011