MediaTomb on Ubuntu

MediaTomb on Ubuntu.

I recently talked about MediaTomb in a previous post, here is a basic guide to installing it, configuring it and adding files through the filesystem, all done on Ubuntu.

What is MediaTomb, you might ask.
MediaTomb is a mediaserver for Linux, it runs through UPnP. What it basically does is being a user-friendly web-interface for your mediaserver needs.

Installing MediaTomb
Depending on which release of Ubuntu you run on, for this guide I used Ubuntu 8.0.4 (Hardy Heron).

You can head over to MediaTomb’s official website to read further into downloading and installing on the distribution you run.

Seeing as the repositories for MediaTomb is already added to the sources in the newer releases of Ubuntu, we can simply install the application through ‘Applications>Add/Remove’ on the top-panel. However, the packages are not updated in the official Ubuntu repository, if you want to receive automatic updates for your MediaTomb install you will have to add a “deb” line to your sources.list etc/apt/sources.list

APT (i386, AMD64):
deb http://apt.mediatomb.cc/ hardy main


The next thing we want to do is installing the application. ‘Applications>Add/Remove’ on the top-panel, write mediatomb in the search. You should now see MediaTomb available in the menu, click the radio-button and apply changes. You now have MediaTomb installed.

Configuring MediaTomb
Browse into your /home/<user> folder, press ctrl+h to show hidden files, write .mediatomb and open this folder.
Open config.xml in text editor, here comes the part where you add the possibility for MediaTomb to stream files, how it recognizes the filetype you want to stream.

Tip: Use ‘Find’ (Ctrl+F) to easily find the string you’re looking for, in this case: <server> and <extension-mimetype>

Change <protocolInfo extend=”no”/> to <protocolInfo extend=”yes”/> in the <server></server> section, this is commented for PS3 support. This allows the PS3 to receive info about files you wish to stream. This adds support for mp3s without any extra fiddling.Then add <map from=”avi” to=”video/x-divx”/> into the <extension-mimetype></extension-mimetype> section, this is commented for PS3 support. This allows the PS3 to play files (The PS3 also requires the 2.10 software update for this to work) of an avi/divx nature.

Adding data to your mediaserver
Write mediatomb in your terminal window (Alt+F2 gnome-terminal). You’ll see some text running down, you want to focus on the bit about “MediaTomb Web UI can be reached by following this link: http://localhost:49153/”.

Open up your favorite webbrowser and go to the link you’re provided.
This should be quite self exlaining, it’s documented under User-Interface.

You should now be able to find your MediaTomb mediaserver with your movies, music and pictures on your PlayStation 3.