More > JRiver Media Center 25 for Linux
Running Media Center as a Service
DonP:
I am building an Ubuntu Server box without GUI for the sole purpose of being a media server. How can Media Center be installed and automatically run in such an environment? In other words, can be be run as a service without loading the GUI?
mwillems:
So the answer is split: MC cannot run without a GUI, but MC can be configured to automatically start on a headless server. MC just needs an xserver, it doesn't need to be connected to a monitor though. I wrote some systemd services to facilitate running MC on a headless server, see:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,120184.0.html
BryanC:
I know a GUI-less media server seems like a good idea to save resources, but curating a media collection without a GUI doesn't make much sense to me.
You can certainly run headless, but I'd recommend using a remote desktop protocol so you can still use MC's standard view and other GUI tools you may wish to configure.
Right now I use x2go, which is perfectly acceptable solution although I am working on building a Docker container with Apache Guacamole built in. This means my clients need one less piece of software since the remote desktop is served by a web server that I can access with a browser.
mwillems:
--- Quote from: BryanC on November 08, 2019, 07:30:49 am ---I know a GUI-less media server seems like a good idea to save resources, but curating a media collection without a GUI doesn't make much sense to me.
--- End quote ---
I agree that there needs to be a GUI somewhere, and preferably that "somewhere" is not in a web browser, which makes tag editing a nightmare (I'm looking at you Emby ::) )
But in JRiver's case you can use a full MC instance as a client of a library server to do most kinds of media management, and it seems like it wouldn't take much to make the clients fully capable of making changes on the server. So a GUI-less server would be fine by me as long as the clients can do whatever the server can do. Right now they can't, so I agree that for the moment we need to be able to access the GUI somehow.
DonP:
It's not clear why a GUI is so important as any new media files can be added from other systems or devices to the file folder which itself is on a NAS drive where it is shared throughout the network. It should see new files and automatically add them so a GUI is completely superfluous. By default Ubuntu Server installs without a GUI and what is the point of running media server software without it actually being served on a server? Apache, MySQL, Mail servers etc don't need a GUI and I see no difference to a media server. It appears that Media Center needs a serious rethink, or at least an optional server-only mode!
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