How to create music server on Lubuntu

If you have a large collection of music files (.mp3) and you want to be able to play it on every computer or smartphone, why not create your own local music streaming server, in this article i will show you how to create music streaming server on lubuntu.

The program that we are going to use to create music server is called zeya, this program actually didn't exist on lubuntu/ubuntu 16.04 repository, it was exist on lubuntu/ubuntu 14.04 though. Seems that the developer is not making new version anymore.

But no worries, we still can install it on lubuntu 16.04, and i know it works, because i already try and it works on my laptop that runs lubuntu 16.04.

Step by step how to create music streaming server on lubuntu with zeya

• download the debian package of zeya version 0.6-2
• install the debian package by double click the .deb package or from command line like this:

sudo dpkg -i zeya_0.6-2_all.deb

• install package mpg123 (needed to play mp3 files)

sudo apt-get install mpg123

• put your music files (.mp3) inside a folder, for example the folder name is mymusic and it's inside my home folder, so it should be ~/mymusic/
• run zeya from the command line, like this:

zeya --backend=dir --path=~/mymusic/

• open on web browser http://localhost:8080, or use your ip address if you want to open it from other computer, let's say your ip address is 192.168.0.106 then open http://192.168.0.106:8080, or if you have local domain that should work too.

Note that if on your computer port 8080 is used by other program/service, you can change the port number by adding --port parameter, like this:

zeya --backend=dir --path=~/mymusic/ --port=9191

So now instead of using port 8080, you want to use port 9191 this time, http://localhost:9191, zeya uses html5 technology so no need for flash, silverlight, applet, or any kind of plugin, all you need is web browser that support html5, such as chrome, firefox, etc.

But there is one problem with zeya, the loading time from one music to another could take quite some time, sometimes it's fast but sometimes can be very slow. Unfortunately the developer of zeya seems abandoned the project, so this bug won't be fixed.

So that's how you create music streaming server on lubuntu, zeya is a very good program, it's just too bad the developer didn't continue to developed it.