Help me listen to my music ... please?

July 12, 2008 1:38 AM

Tossing an idea around here ... I'd like to use my old Powerbook as a media server for my Windows network.

1. Me - Vista Business notebook, brand new. I also use an eeePC when I go away.
2. Beloved - almost new XP Pro notebook
3. Son - teenager at home - aging XP Pro desktop, aging Pocket PC, Windows compatible phone
4. Daughter - comes and goes - aging XP Pro notebook

And I have a spare G4 Powerbook that, although three and a half years old, is running nicely.

What I want to do is somehow turn the Powerbook into a media server for our Windows machines. We are a wireless household and we all love our music and movies (currently over 100GB of each on an external hard drive - NTFS). I'd love to be able to use the Powerbook as some sort of server for our media. Ideas?

posted by chairish to computers & internet (5 comments total)

Turn on Windows sharing? Install a UPnP server?
posted by PueExMachina at 6:30 AM on July 12

ubuntu ppc version; will work perfectly with ntfs external disks and I never had a problem with it on my G3 powerbook.

not sure if there is an equivalent in the gnome (i.e. default) ubuntu but in kubuntu there is an amazingly simple way to share folders just by right-clicking on them in the file manager (konqueror not dolphin). there's also samba of course, the equivalent of windows sharing but that can be a little less trivial to set up.
posted by dorian at 6:35 AM on July 12

hm I'm not sure there is ppc kubuntu being released anymore, just regular ubuntu.
posted by dorian at 6:45 AM on July 12

duh yes there is.
posted by dorian at 6:52 AM on July 12

seconding ubuntu, if you're comfortable with tinkering.
posted by malaprohibita at 2:01 PM on July 13