Make MediaMonkey available for Raspberry Pi

[mr.crabs!]

If XBMC can make a standalone distro to run their media center software, then wouldn't it be excellent if we could run MediaMonkey in much the same way?

I currently use a USFF Dell 745 connected to a 15" monitor plugged into kick-ass 2.1 powered speakers and a wireless keyboard/trackpad RiiMote. It works well but the wife complains about the size of it (strange as she doesn't normally complain when it comes to size ).

It would be great if my little model B 512MB raspberry pi could boot as quickly as RaspBMC (or quicker) and run as it does on my windows PC to play the music from my NAS drive using the shared database that exists on my NAS which all my PC's use.

Please think about it MediaMonkey devs. This is surely a great opportunity to get your software out there and make a lot of music lovers grin from ear to ear??

[rovingcowboy]

I run my mediamonkey jukebox in standalone computer have been for 10 years.
So i'm at a loss to know what you're needing.?

[Lowlander]

MediaMonkey is Windows only at least for now. MAC OS and Linux (ie. OS an independent version) has been in the planning for years, but I think a standalone distro probably goes to far. Loads of development time would need to be dedicated to it, the result would be infinitely cool, but only for a small group of people. Besides MediaMonkey still doesn't have a Media Center friendly mode (TV mode) that has been requested for many years.

The current solution to run MediaMonkey as DLNA server and use a DLNA client (like one build in your TV/stereo/game console or a PC/tinker tool like Raspberry Pi) is sufficient in my opinion (as you get the power of Auto-Playlists this way).

So for me development time is better spend on adding/improving features that more people would benefit from, despite that this would be a cool thing.

@RovingCowboy: You may want to read up on this: http://www.raspberrypi.org

[rovingcowboy]

Okay lowlander i looked there and seen what looks like a motnerboard for a small computer, so i still dont know whats so hard about running mm as a stand alone? Unless like you say its a windows os program and that other mb dont run window's? But then you can run wine on mac so maybe theres a version of wine for that little mb.?

[Lowlander]

The request is for OS and MediaMonkey, similar to XMBC. This means you'll need a Linux flavor and MediaMonkey and that integrated into a single package.

[rovingcowboy]

The request is for OS and MediaMonkey, similar to XMBC. This means you'll need a Linux flavor and MediaMonkey and that integrated into a single package.

Oh okay its like red hat is for linux only for mm and linux.

[mr.crabs!]

Thanks for your responses.

My idea for doing this was to reduce the footprint of my music setup and to have a quick booting dedicated music center. The Raspberry Pi is so small that it easily attaches to the back of a monitor (touchscreen would be even better!) via the VESA connectors. It is easily compatible with HTPC remote controls (as is XBMC on Raspberry Pi) and is surely easily powerful enough. If mine can stream 1080p video across my network (Pi limited to 10/100) then it would rock as a music center. Essentially all you would see is say a 15" monitor, a few cables and whatever speaker system you use - mine is currently Edifier C3's powered speakers.

@Lowlander > I realise the difficulty in transcribing this across to Linux and appreciate what you say about serving the needs of the many, but how friggin' sweet would it be? Maybe taking a peak at what XBMC have done with their Linux/Android packages would maybe save some effort? I think if people were to catch on to this it may become a worthwhile venture. Already people are buying Raspberry Pi's just to use XBMC as their HTPC in their living rooms. Storage space is not an issue with the Raspberry Pi as an external HDD can be added or like me music can be played from a NAS (Synology NAS in my case).

@Rovingcowboy > I too run mediamonkey on a standalone PC. Although it is an Ultra Small Form Factor PC it is still a bit noisy/space consuming and slowish to boot. Hence the reason for a small, silent, quick(ish) dedicated alternative like the Raspberry Pi.

Perhaps a live CD or something similar would be useful perhaps based on BartPE. Even a bootable partition with just mediamonkey? I don't know, but I do know these things are not as simple as that. I love MediaMonkey, it is a top quality application. I'm currently checking out the Android version and it's looking promising.

Please, please consider something Raspberry Pi compatible in whatever form. Even a linux version that will run on the Pi is plenty enough.

[mr.crabs!]

BTW as for the Live CD I mean for windows PC not the Pi - just to clarify.

[rovingcowboy]

I'm having trouble mr.crabs it is just very hard to consentrate on what your wanting, you see my standalone jukebox is a full tower with 5 inch rear case fan 3 inch side case fan 2 fans in the ps. All intake is from front bottom to get a good air flow. And its sitting on desk 3 feet off floor, which is the exact height my head is when i'm in this chair, and the stand alone is 3 feet behind me, so now i hear a jet in take off and a vacum cleaner at same time. Plus have stereo up on - .0032 octive level just to hear music makes it hard to hear or think of anythine but putting oil on the fan bearrings to quiet them down, so i just cant tell what you would want with a small standalone how you going to get all the fans and 5 hd's in the small thing???

[Lowlander]

You don't, it is a small unit without fans and hard drives other than what is needed to run OS and MediaMonkey isn't necessary as you can store the files on a NAS/networked PC. None of my PC's store music as it's on a NAS, thus the PC's can be as barebones as possible if you only need to run MediaMonkey.

[mr.crabs!]

I'm glad Lowlander gets what I'm saying.

Rovingcowboy is obviously not following my idea.

Simply, raspberry pi is a bare bones ARMv7 driven PCB which boots from an SD card to a linux environment. It is very bare bones, very quiet as there are no fans and reasonably fast for small projects etc. It can be housed in a small case the size of a credit card (ish) and about an inch deep. Some of the commercial cases will fit to the VESA stand connectors on the back of a TV or PC monitor making for what could be a very minimal footprint music center. Rovingcowboy - check them out on the internet as it seems you don't know what they are/do.

As lowlander understands, the music itself is stored on a NAS drive, not the SD card of the Pi. My current setup is serveral windows PCs running mediamonkey with the mediamonkey database ("MM.DB") shared between them (stored on the NAS drive too) - thereby any additions or changes I make on one PC will be reflected on any of the other PCs as they are all running from the same shared database. It also means I only need one repository for all my music files instead of multiple copies on each PC. What I would like to do is run several raspberry Pi's in the same way.

Surely that's easy enough to understand.

The reason I mentioned about the live CD for windows or a small bootable partition install is because unfortunatley mediamonkey is not yet available for Linux, but the aforementioned would speed booting to mediamonkey on a windows PC considerably.

[mr.crabs!]

I sit in the presence of comedy giants.

Anyone with a sensible/helpful response welcome.

[pushpull]

You can put windows on a thumb drive. XP, possibly WIN8. Without any other OS support I think this is your only option.

Edit: Raspberry Pi FAQ

What operating system (OS) does it use?

We recommend Debian as our default distribution. It’s straightforward to replace the root partition on the SD card with another ARM Linux distro if you want to use something else (there are several available on our downloads page). The OS is stored on the SD card.

Will it run WINE (or Windows, or other x86 software)?

No.

Looks like Linux all the way.

[mr.crabs!]

Oh well, looks like for now it'll have to be RaspBMC for music though it sucks in comparison to the excellent media monkey.

Fingers crossed for a raspberry Pi compatible version.

Thanks for all your comments.

MediaMonkey Forever.

[trickster001]

BUMP! i too want a solution like this. raspmbc is just no comparison to MMonkey and MM would compliment the raspberry pi setup immensely!