CerebralHawks

Navidrome looks like good stuff. If I ever move off of Plex, I’ll absolutely be looking at it. I’m running macOS, but my goal is to buy a gently used Windows PC from a business or something (like they couldn’t upgrade it to Windows 11 or whatever’s after that) and replace Windows with Linux, and use it as a server. My Mac (M2 Pro, 16GB RAM) is more than enough machine to run multiple servers, but I’d rather do that with a dedicated machine running some *nix that I can terminal into from the Mac. Navidrome does run on macOS with minor tweaking that is not above my skill level, but when I set up the server I’ll be looking real hard at alternatives.

Definitely more advanced than what I do! I’ve also been collecting for a long time, and I’ve just been storing the media. I went from Windows/x86-64 to Mac/ARM64 a few years back, and I have kinda limited options that way. I would have just gone to Linux if my computers didn’t die, but at the time, Apple made sense.

I do Apple Music, but, that doesn’t answer the question. I also self-host my music via a Plex server. I got Plex Pass for well under $100 on sale years and years ago. Much harder to recommend now. Plexamp is awesome for music, and I also use Prologue (iOS app) for audiobooks hosted on Plex.

For tagging, I use Mp3Tag and tag manually. It was free on Windows, but the guy wants $30 for it on Mac. It’s a long story as to why, but after he was kind enough to explain it to me… I paid the man. (For my part, I’d used it for free for many years and I got a lot of miles out of it, and still do, and it’s a good, well maintained app from a solo developer.) There are free alternatives. Not so many good ones on Mac (part of why I paid). For album art, I get them from Apple using this handy site (not mine): https://bendodson.com/projects/itunes-artwork-finder/ — you can use 600px or you can use either 2000px or 3000px, I forget which. I’m good with 600px. I think Apple uses the smaller size for phones and the bigger one for TVs and Macs (especially as iMacs have 5K screens now).

My library might also not be as big as yours is. Plex says I have 14,462 tracks indexed. Maybe those are rookie numbers, I dunno. I pretty much have everything I want. All I’d really want now is to take my Apple Music playlists and download them to m4a 192k or similar. I have a few decade playlists that are like 500-600 songs each (80s, 90s, and 00s).

What exactly are you trying to accomplish?

People (mostly those who use Android phones) called Apple selfish for not opening AirDrop to competition. The EU forced them into an open protocol, but Google has selfishly limited it to phones from the last year hoping people will buy new phones for the feature, proving yet again that Google is probably more evil than you give them credit for. At least Apple shit works with Apple shit. The walled garden is indeed a thing, but hey, it works awesome. Like universal clipboard. And how you can just… use your iPhone… on your Mac. And the shit just works. I can cast my Mac to my Apple TV with nearly zero latency. I’d game on it like that… I mean, if Macs didn’t suck for gaming.

Anyway, if you just want an open thing where any two phones can send files across a decent distance (like, not seeing each other or through a wall), that’s basically not going to happen. What you need is a sort of “town square” application where you can send a file to anyone using the app who is within X metres of you. And that’s fine but everyone will have to have the app. Now if you’re face to face, it gets a lot easier. I have an iPhone (16 Pro Max) and a Galaxy (S10) and I can easily toss files between them. Be on the same WiFi network, have one as a server, have the other connect to it, download files, it works both ways. Of course, I trust myself on my own FTP server. I may not trust you and you may not trust me. So having something that open is kind of a no go.

If you wanna be a 1337 ha… yeah, I’m not gonna use all the symbols… you can build a Raspberry Pi type thing, a little self contained computer that has a web server on it. It’s on the network, you put a QR code on the case that connects people to it, and they can download off of it. You just make the shared folder write protected so they can’t upload anything (like a virus). This is pretty easy stuff for someone who knows how. Maybe you attach a 2TB SSD and put some music and movies on it and just let people come take what they want. Sneakernets have been around for decades, but WiFi makes it a bit easier. Of course that’s piracy focused, but that’s not the only use, just the most easy to explain.

There are options, but they require participation and cooperation. The cool thing about iPhones is, you could just turn AirDrop on and get memes dropped to you. Even with the 10 minute limit, I just turn it on every 10 minutes at conventions. It’s still fun. And really, you can just grab any old secondhand iPhone off Swappa or some other kind of site, or a local pawn shop, just make sure it’s not account locked or you’re buying a paperweight. You can’t (easily) steal an iPhone and some people sell them locked just to screw with people. And people are upgrading theirs all the time, you should be able to get an 11, 12, or 13 fairly cheap.

I self-hosted Plex and Jellyfin on Windows. It’s fine. But as others have said, Windows machines tend to be too power-hungry. Honestly I think that’s more a symptom of x86-64. Changing the OS from Windows to Linux does not magically change the power needs of the hardware. (However, Linux tends to demand less of the hardware, especially if there’s no GUI.)

I now self-host Plex on a Mac mini (M2 Pro, 16GB RAM/512GB SSD). M2 Pro in Intel speak is like i5 as in, it’s the “next one up” and “good enough for most people” but not the low entry into the platform (M# base or i3), though I’d say M4/M5 base is better than M2 Pro. Just like going 2-3 generations newer, the i3 gets closer to and may surpass an older i5.

There’s a reason self-hosters prefer Linux, but I’d think it would be more about the hardware than the software. Windows is problematic because you’re opening ports and Windows is a target due to its massive market share. Mac is kinda (/sorta /not really) UNIX based, and Linux is, well, it’s Linux; neither is bulletproof, but both are better than Windows because they’re not really being targeted. That said, the MacBook Neo and Mac Mini going for $500 if you’re a student, $600 otherwise is getting a lot of people sick of Microslop’s BS to switch, and the Neo in particular is forcing the PC market to get competitive as macOS market share is rising — this also makes it more of a target. You’re always at some risk online and a little common sense goes a long way.