How to turn an old mac into a media (file) server?

Hi guys, i'm currently on a project trying to figure out a use for my old upgraded iMac G3. What I would prefer to do is turn it into a media/file server where I can stream files to my PC and Android tablet. Any idea on how I can do this?

Thanks, and Happy New Years!

2012-01-01T03:49:05Z

Great ideas, but if possible I would like to not install Linux on the machine, as I had trouble in the past trying to do so. I would simply like to set it up as a file server in which I can access such files from on other computers by a web browser prefreberally. There must be some type of simple setup out there :).

2012-01-01T03:51:42Z

@Someone That was my original idea but I could not figure out how I could access it from other non-Mac computers. Would I need to input the mac's ip into a browser to access the server?

2012-01-01T14:52:28Z

@Someone I enabled both windows file sharing and FTP access. Is there anything else I need to set up to access the files from other computers, do I need to download any FTP programs? Also, for windows file sharing you can only access it from a PC, right? And if so, how?

@Friend I think your first idea is great, but does the software support the PPC architecture? It's an iMac G3 450 MHz 256 mbs Ram.

Person2012-01-01T01:15:24Z

Favorite Answer

Well, if simply putting them all into a directory and sharing it on the network doesn't do the trick you could toss a PowerPC Linux build on it, which should be more than enough.

You can enable Windows sharing and FTP access from the Sharing control panel. I imagine that one or the other would do the trick depending on how you want to access it.

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?2012-01-01T02:37:16Z

One way would be to install the server version of ubuntu (ppc).

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPCDownloads

10.04 LTS would be a safe choice.

Going headless allows all the machines' meagre resources to be devoted to file serving.

Then from the terminal install webmin (seems to be hardware agnostic). There are plenty of copy-and-paste how-to's out there, if you haven't played with linux before, and it's pretty straight forward.

Webmin gives you a nice graphical interface (in a browser on another computer) to manage your server. Be sure to choose a fixed ip address during the install, or set your router to always give your server the same ip address if you stick with dhcp.

Webmin even gives you a file manager, but you'll need to make sure java is installed (on the server) before it will work.

There ought to be some upnp server application in the repo you can install to supplement samba (the file server you chose during the ubuntu installation).

Cheers!

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Friend2012-01-01T10:32:56Z

2 options

install xampp

or

filezilla ftp server

xampp will let you design an interface in format of a webpage that can stream your media to any device in the world, you will need a static ip or a short dns service that updates your ip whenever it changes, eg. DUC from no-ip.org to access your media files over the internet.

however the filezilla will let you download files from your mac to any device that is connected to the internet, some browsers will let you stream media files directly from an ftp server, some wont..

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Anonymous2016-09-22T01:11:26Z

I could often play out part, and wish for an ice cream truck to return via!! :D BQ: Since you are a police officer I bet you'll be able to come over, however you could ought to convey toys and sweet!!! :D

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?2012-01-01T01:21:39Z

similar to this

http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/how_turn_your_old_mac_boxee_media_server

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