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[roolark]

I want to post my experience setting up MC 17 on an Ubuntu NAS with 4, 2TB drives and ZFS Raid.

My goal was to have a FreeNAS like system, with raid z, that could host my library AND take advantage of MC 17's media network functionality. As many have posted already, MC is not developed for linux, and overall, does not play well with linux. I did get this setup working in a way that is 'acceptable', but there are some problems still. I 'think' the problems can be resolved, but I need help figuring them out.

Setup on NAS:
Ubuntu 11.10 using KDE not Unity. 64-bit
Linux ZFS
Wine 1.3 with VB6, VB2008, DotNet2sp1
MC 17.075

Setup on Client:
Windows 2008R2
low-power amd e-350 apu, SSD, 4GB ram


What works:
Library sync from client to NAS
Library playback from NAS to client
gizmo

What doesn't work:
Playback on the NAS (duh, it's headless anyway)
Browsing the library on the NAS

It is the crashing when browsing the library on the NAS that is most frustrating. I 'think' the problem is related to MC's use of IE and/or chromium in the browsing window. I can't confirm this for sure, but what I can confirm is that I'm not able to run chromium or IE 8/9 in wine, so it makes sense that MC would crash if it tries to load either of those when browsing the library. The odd thing is, when I launch MC on the NAS, provided I don't click in the library or tree, the options/menu etc all work and the media network functionality works. Perhaps there's a way to instruct MC to use a specific browser executable?

From a media network / NAS perspective, it is pretty cool to be able to have running.

[JimH]

A newer build of MC17 is available at the top of the MC17 board.

Windows 2008 is a little bit unusual.

[roolark]

Yeah, the Windows 2008 R2 is a result of cost.

I'm a college student, so I get a copy of Windows 2008 R2 (64-bit) with valid licensing that renews each year, provided I stay at the school. I built the computer myself, and needed a windows OS (64-bit) so that I could run MC on it as a client. If Windows 7 had been offered, I would've used that instead.

[Bill Kearney]

2008R2 and Win7 are pretty much the same thing, save for some desktop features that aren't enabled by default.  There's a website that focuses on using the server variants as desktops: http://www.win2008workstation.com/

It's been my experience, however, that media oriented applications that expect to run on the desktop versions of the OS often depend upon specific features that are sometimes hard to get activated properly on the server versions.  As a result I have MC17 running on a Win7Ultimate install. 

I experimented with running it inside a VM on a 2k8R2 hyper-v server and had troubles with proper audio playback.  I even went so far as to use a networked USB device (digi edgeport) for the VMs.  Again, playback is tricky enough when it's running 'single user' on the desktop OS, running on the server or in a VM doesn't quite let things work properly.  And this was on a 'well equipped' server (24gb RAM, i7, etc).

Student license copies of win7 should be pretty cheap.  Check with the school IT folks.

[latebeat]

I am interested in this setup too and came across your post by searching the forum.
Would you mind posting some more impressions after using it this far? Which parts of MC 17's media network functionality did you need the most that made you opt out of using just freenas?
Also have you considered running a win VM inside the linux box? I know that it's not the best solution when it comes to resources but it would solve all the compatibility issues.