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Install & setup SqueezeCenter™ 7 for your favourite Squeezebox™ players
"Turn off you PC and Start Serving Music Files from QNAP"
Contents
What is Squeezebox?
 Squeezebox™ Duet lets you listen to the music you love in any room in your home. Access millions of songs — even when your computer is off. The multi-room controller with 2.4-inch color display makes it easy to browse, select, and play songs from your personal collection, Internet radio — even online music services. (Taken from the official Slimdevices web site, http://www.slimdevices.com)
So what is SSOTS then?
Usually one would install SqueezeCenter on a PC, which, obviously, must be running when one wants to listen to music. However, this is not the preferred option of many users for different reasons (to name a few: energy consumption, noise, uncoolness, not living in a data centre). Says flipflip the author of SSOTS
SqueezeCenter (the new name for SlimServer, starting with version 7.0) is the server software initially developed to run on a PC. It supports common digital audio formats (.MP3, .FLAC, .Ogg Vorbis, .WMA, .AAC, .WAV, etc.) and streams them to its players. SlimServer On Turbo NAS (SSOTS) developed by flipflip¹ is an add-on to the Turbo NAS's firmware which provides the environment to run Squeeze Center software for it to manage and serve your music collections stored on your QNAP NAS without the need to have a PC running 24-7. SSOTS comes with a web-based administration interface where you can install, control, monitor and even upgrade your SqueezeCenter. So how does everything work together? See below for the usage scenario.
Let's get started!
Install SSOTS via QPKG
Go to 'Application' > 'QPKG Plugins' and click 'Get QPKG' to get a list of currently available software packages. Choose the link that matches your NAS model to download the appropriate ssots.qpkg file.
Once downloaded first unzip the file archive then go to 'Application' -> 'QPKG' and install the ssots.qpkg file the same way as if you were updating the system firmware.
Upon successful installation you should see a QPKG entry like the screen below. Now click 'Enable' to start the SSOTS service. Once you see the status becomes 'Enabled', click the URL link to bring up SSOTS web-based administration page to continue on the installation of SqueezeCenter 7.
Download the SqueezeCenter 7 and Install it using SSOTS
The SqueezeCenter software is not included in the ssots.qpkg file and we will need to download it separately from the official SlimDevice web site. You may download it from http://www.slimdevices.com/su_downloads.html.
Choose the correct file to download as shown below and remember to save the file to the 'Public' share in your NAS. The file name is called 'squeezecenter-[x.x.x].tgz'.
Let's go back to the SSOTS web administration page to start the installation. Click 'Install' at the top to proceed.
Make sure that you have copied the SqueezeCenter installation file to the Public share on your NAS then simply click 'Next' to go to next step.
The setup will detect the installation file automatically and show it on the screen. Now click 'Install squeezecenter-7.3.3.tgz' to start the installation.
Upon successful installation you will see in the log says 'Success'. You may choose to 'Start SqueezeCenter' or 'Continue' to go to the server status page. The 'Settings' page contains various options that you can configure to suit your needs.
This is the server status page where you can 'Start', 'Stop' the server or view the 'Server log'. To launch SqueezeCenter 7 web administration interface click the link at the bottom.
Setup SqueezeCenter
This is the first page of SqueezeCenter Setup Assistant we'll quickly go through these steps now. On this page you can choose to sign up for a SqueezeNetwork account or simply hit 'Skip' to go to the next step. Click 'Next' to proceed.
This guide assumes you store all your music files under 'Qmultimedia' -> 'Music' so you will have to create a folder called 'Music' under your 'Qmultimedia' share first then select this folder from the directory tree on the left and click 'Next' to continue.
Now setup needs to know where you normally store your playlist files so again create a folder named 'playlist' under 'Qmultimedia' -> 'Music' share and select this folder from the directory tree then click 'Next' to continue.
That's pretty much all setup needs to know to get you started. Simply click 'Finish' to end.
That's it, now you can enjoy all your music collections stored on your QNAP NAS via SqueezeCenter.
External Resources & Links
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