Last time we introduce you to mpd – Music Player Daemon, a flexible and powerful server-side application for music playback. But as it was for some users to difficult to install and configure, and also very buggy, we decided to use some better application to play music remotely. We will explain to you how to configure vlc for remote use.
Pre requirements:
– Wireless network in your home
– Smartphone or tablet
– vlc player and vlc-plugin-jack installed (default in V.2.0)
Enable automated login
Go to Cinnamon or Gnome desktop environment and enable auto login.
Go to Menu – Administration – Login Window – Security Tab
tick “Enable Automatic Login” and select your username. Open qjackctl program and go to setup and select Misc tab. Tick “Start JACK audio server on application startup” Click OK. Try to start jack to see if everything is OK. When you are satisfied with your jack configuration close qjackctl.
Automated login setup
Enable jack plugin in vlc preferences
Open vlc, go to Tools, Preferences, select Audio and select JACK audio output in Output module settings. Save your configuration and close vlc player.
Find your IP address.
IP address is simply address of your computer. If you want to access your computer from remote location, you need to know his IP address. IP address is automatically assigned to your PC on boot. Login to Fluxbox. On the right side of the screen, under NETWORK maybe you can see your IP address. If this is not the case, don’t worry. You can find what is your IP address with this command: /sbin/ifconfig. Open terminal (shells->Eterm1) and type
/sbin/ifconfig
In this example my IP address is 192.168.1.174. That address you have to write down and remember.
Edit startup configuration files
Now we have to edit some files, open terminal (shells – Eterm1) and type:
gedit .fluxbox/startup
after conky line add this
qjackctl&
vlc -I http –http-host 192.168.1.174&
Replace 192.168.1.174 with your IP address and save this file.
Now every time when you login to Fluxbox session qjackctl and vlc will be automatically started. Close gedit editor and type this in terminal:
sudo gedit /usr/share/vlc/lua/http/.hosts
This .hosts file contains configuration which hosts (you, your wife, your neighbour) can play music from their mobile phones or tablets. Uncomment the line for your network. In our case is 192.168.0.0/16. If you have address 10.0.0.x or something similar you have to uncomment the 10.0.0.0/8 line. Save the file and reboot your PC.
Install software on your device.
The final step is to install vlc remote application on your iPhone/Android or tablet and point it to your IP address. There are many apps for Android. We recommend VLC HDR or Remote for VLC . And that’s it. Happy listening.
I have tried this setup and when it works it does seem rather nice using an IPad to remote control VLC. There are a number of problems for my setup, the first is Jack does not always start up correctly but when I clear the error Jack will start when I click on the start button. I also see that sometimes my external USB drive with all the music on does not mount. Finally and most annoyingly when playing music there is a very annoying clicking noise. If I use Deadbeef the music plays fine only when playing music via VLC is there a problem. Any Suggestions? Mike
USB sometimes does not mount if it’s connected to some ports that are on the front of the computer case. See on what ports it always mount and leave it there. Before using Jack and VLC for remote operation you need to setup correct values in Jack for your PC. If you save wrong values Jack will always fail or play bad. For annoying clicking noise maybe your Jack settings for VLC and Deadbeef are different.
I had this too. Add sleep 10 before jack starts up….works for me.
Perhaps start vlc with nice – 9 vlc to give it higher cpu cycles?
Is it necessary to install cinnamon and gnome? I planto remove them when I try this distro.
Can the machine be administered with only fluxbox?
–R
It can be administered with only Fluxbox but you have to be an expert to do this. Don’t remove Cinnnamon and Gnome because they are not running when you use Fluxbox, so they don’t interfere with music playback.
Do you know why playback is gliching in vlc every 3 seconds, but not in deadbeef?
I don’t know. It doesn’t glitch at our config.
How I can play music from NAS?
In many ways 🙂 You just have to read documentation on the Internet about samba or NFS. It depends on what you use for NAS.
Hello
I’m going to build an Atom based mini pc just for playing music, and I have a question.
According to “Enable jack plugin in vlc preferences”, can I choose SPDIF output instead of JACK?
You can use jack and spdif