thinking of making a wireless media server

paul4990 · Post by **paul4990** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 4:22 pm

Hello,
Here is my idea for a wireless media server and i need some help.

i am planning to have a motherboard, PSU and hdd running windows 2000 pro, and i have a DWL-6000ap WLAN AP

if i connect the DWL AP to my motherboard's ethernet, will the other pc's be able to connect wirelessly and browse files?

ill draw up a pic in a min

paul4990 · Post by **paul4990** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 4:28 pm

there

atari2600a · Post by **atari2600a** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 4:44 pm

Well for it to be a server, you'd need server software of course!

I have no experience w/ personal FTP servers, but my guess is that it wouldn't be much harder than punching "ftp://***.***.***.***/" into a web browser or an FTP client like SmartFTP (which is the program I use to maintain my website)

Big-O · Post by **Big-O** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 5:18 pm

Servers running windows run better with Win2k Server.

paul4990 · Post by **paul4990** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 5:32 am

nonono i mean like just go into workgroup computers and doubleclick the compname and get the files?

Post by **gannon** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 2:30 pm

I'd recommend using Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Server Edition along with Samba.
My current fileserver is 500GB, runs Dapper Server Edition, Samba, HTTP, FTP, and SSH.
Also, not sure how you want to use the wireless card in the main pc as the servers AP, I know I do that for my laptop in linux, and it works fairly good. Not sure if windows handles all the subnetting, gateways, routing, etc.. automatically though.

atari2600a · Post by **atari2600a** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 2:35 pm

Trust me, there's a slim chance of your wireless card working in Ubuntu, unless you're really good w/ Linux...

I think your best chance is to use Win2K Server Ed...

Post by **gannon** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 2:38 pm

Guess I must be good at linux since Dapper auto-detects all of my wifi cards

atari2600a · Post by **atari2600a** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 2:41 pm

Hm, well then I guess it doesn't detect CHEAP wifi cards, since Ubuntu doesn't seem to work w/ my cheap-ass "Buffalo" brand card!

Harshboy · Post by **Harshboy** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 2:48 pm

Whats wrong with Buffalo? Just go out and buy a cheap Linksys WMP54G model at walmart. Those things work in every OS (Even Mac, and crazy Linux distrobutions)

Post by **bicostp** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 4:10 pm

If you want to put something quick and nooby together, just get that PC on the network and share the folder you want to keep all the stuff in. Simple as that. If you wanted to get fancier, you could install Apache on the 2000 machine, put all the media files in the web root foler, and go to http://[insert IP address of server here]. Then you can run all the items through an HTML menu.

If you want to get even fancier, you could queue up a ton of the media files using VLC media player and use it to stream them over the network. (that's how I play DVDs on my TV PC.) You just tell VLC to stream to the other computer (enter the remote PC's IP address, no need to run it locally on the server) and add the web interface. Then it's as simple as loading VLC on the client PC, opening the network stream, and using a browser to mess with the queue. (go to http://[insert IP address of server here]:[insert port number here] to use the web interface)

Unless the client PC is a laptop, or if it is in a really tough spot, I recommend you run a real wire out to the client PC. It will be faster and far more secure. (By default with almost any wireless system will let anyone in without a password. Yes, then they have access to your entire home network and all the shared, and sometimes not shared, items within.) Faster? Yes copper wire is still faster than wireless, especially if you get gigabit ethernet equipment and Cat-6 cable. (I think Cat-5e is only rated for 100meg/sec networking.)

The ideal setup would be wired LAN with all the media files accessible through Apache and streaming over VLC.