Crazy idea.. make my own iTunes Server

[thejadedmonkey]

So I was just posting about how (if Apple ever comes out with a 12" MBP replacement) I will get a smaller laptop. Hopefully with between ~26 to ~32 gigs of SSD space and not much else... Well, anyway.. I would sell my MPB, and get a desktop for gaming/linux, and use my 12" PB for portability..

But what about my music? Can I store all of my music on a linux/xp tower and stream it wirelessly to my mpb..? Yes. But there's got to be an easier way.

So I was thinking.. can you have OS X pull the iTunes db file off of XP, edit the location so that instead of being c:\documents and settings\username\my document\my music\iTunes, it would be something like \\myXPbox\music\iTunes [maybe using automator actions?]

Or can I have iTunes on windows create the db file so that it points to a share on itself, and then just have OS X pull the database file off of the PC on every log on?

Obviously, any play lists wouldn't be saved on my mac if I had it always pull the latest db from the PC... but does this sound doable?

Lastly, would there be a way to save the mp3's from a certain playlist on the hard drive of the PC, automatically? Maybe using a script that saves each file in a playlist in a local folder? but that would only work if the PC is used as a NAS...

Or would it just be easier to use iTunes streaming and manage my own selection of music I keep on the SSD manually..?

 

[mainstreetmark]

So I was just posting about how (if Apple ever comes out with a 12" MBP replacement) I will get a smaller laptop. Hopefully with between ~26 to ~32 gigs of SSD space and not much else... Well, anyway.. I would sell my MPB, and get a desktop for gaming/linux, and use my 12" PB for portability..

But what about my music? Can I store all of my music on a linux/xp tower and stream it wirelessly to my mpb..? Yes. But there's got to be an easier way.

So I was thinking.. can you have OS X pull the iTunes db file off of XP, edit the location so that instead of being c:\documents and settings\username\my document\my music\iTunes, it would be something like \\myXPbox\music\iTunes [maybe using automator actions?]

Or can I have iTunes on windows create the db file so that it points to a share on itself, and then just have OS X pull the database file off of the PC on every log on?

Obviously, any play lists wouldn't be saved on my mac if I had it always pull the latest db from the PC... but does this sound doable?

Lastly, would there be a way to save the mp3's from a certain playlist on the hard drive of the PC, automatically? Maybe using a script that saves each file in a playlist in a local folder? but that would only work if the PC is used as a NAS...

Or would it just be easier to use iTunes streaming and manage my own selection of music I keep on the SSD manually..?

I suspect it's be much easier to just use itunes streaming, or even just a VNC connection to manage the library directly, yet remotely.

While you CAN point itunes to shared location as you've said, your ratings/playlists/playcounts will get all way out of whack.

iTunes has never had good support for 1-to-many libraries. It wants there to be a 1-library-per-1-user.