General File Storage

[Bopher]

Ok heres the thing and I don't want to sound insane or dumb or both. Currently I have almost 0 knowledge with Linux of any kind. I have downloaded the DVD install and am ready to really make a jump into using MCE because 1) its free 2) seems to do what I want in the future (home automation). Now my issue is that currently I run a file server using Windows XP home headless in my living room. My main system which is my gaming system runs Windows 7 RC, my laptop runs the same, my wife runs XP on her Asus One. The file server needs to stay simple and I know how Samba works and have done it before when I was fiddling around with Ubuntu. I need to keep the server side where my wife can access our family photo hard drive and not be angry I changed stuff so she can't access it without jumping through hoops. The file server I was hoping to turn into a hybrid for now with switching to a dedicated core later down the road. I also havr an XBox 360 I would like to still stream music to.

So I guess in all that I guess my big thing is can I run LinuxMCE and still access the drive like I do with Windows? And if I can how?

[colinjones]

It does that out of the box. You can run your core/hybrid with all your media and indeed any other files based on it - personally I would recommend keeping them separate, and purchasing yourself a decent NAS device for your network. This allows you to keep your LMCE machine separate from your files so that you can rebuild/reboot/reconfigure with impunity! The wife's laptop, yours and the XBox can all continue to access their files uninterupted.

That being said, if you do want to keep your "file server" along with your media on the LMCE, then that is ready to go out of the box. The /home/public/data folder is exported with SAMBA by default. Under there are Audio, Video, Pictures and Documents folders. You can place all your current documents under the Documents folder. Move your PCs into the LINUXMCE workgroup and they can simply map a drive to that share and access all their files as normal. Also this folder structure is exported using upnp if that is of assistance.

[Bopher]

That is perfect then. Thanks a lot. Now I just need to get a DVD burner for this. I think for now I'm going to fiddle around in Virtualbox and see what options I have. My file server is being a pain about booting from USB so I can't go that route right now.