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How to Setup a Media Server Using Raspberry Pi

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Harmeet
New Update

Loading Raspbian OS on Raspberry Pi

First of all we need to download the Raspbian image from its website (http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads) and then the Win32DiskImager software for burning Raspberry Pi OS image to SD card. You may get various operating systems at its site but we use RASPBIAN "Whezzy" because it is an optimized version of Debian. Now, just install win32Disk Imager on your computer and select the image of Raspbian and simply burn it on your SD card.

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Finalizing Raspberry Pi installation

Setup your Raspberry Pi with a Raspbian loaded SD card and power supply to boot it up. (Note: Rasbian doesn't have an inbuilt BIOS so it does not show anything until you plug the SD card in it) After doing all these stuffs it asks for login credentials, the default username is pi and password is raspberry. Once you have logged in, run startx to switch to GUI mode and open terminal. Then run the raspi-config tool by using command sudo raspi-config, it will expand root partition to fill the sd card and reboot it (sudo shutdown -r now).

Mounting external storage containing media files

Raspberry Pi does not come with NTFS support by default, so you have to update your RSpi with the following command:

Sudo apt-get update or sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g)

Find the name of Usb HDD you attached to RSpi by using

Sudo fdisk -l

Mount HDD at desirable folder by running sudo mount -t /dev/sda1 /media/new. While doing this the name of our drive is sda1 and we mount it at media/new. You have to create directory media/new by using command mkdir because it is a new directory.Installing MiniDLNA server

To install mini-DLNA service on the device, run the following command:

sudo apt-get install minidlna

Next, you need to mention the path of the HDD containing media files in the mini DLNA configuration file.

gksudo leafpad /etc/minidlna.conf

Edit the line that starts with #media_dir= to point your HDD containing the media files. In our case we call it /media/new.

Finally, save all these changes in mindlna.conf sudo sevice minidlna-force reload.

That's it. You have your media server up and running. You can test it by entering the IP address of Raspberry Pi on port no: 8200 (default port).

Key requirements:

- Raspberry Pi loaded with Raspbian OS

- SD card (at least 4 GB)

- Wireless router

- Standard micro-USB power supply

- Ethernet cable

- External HDD containing your media files

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