eee PC with linux or squeezebox?

[dre]

Hi,

 

I'm about to buy a high quality dac that best works with asysnchonous data via USB. I saw on another forum the possibilty to modify the Squuzebox to have it output it's data over USB.

 

The Squeezebox is a user friendly little device that streams music very well and is easily tucked away It takes a little modding to have it done what we want, providing the bits to our audiolab DAC.

 

A netbook is a bigger and it takes more fondling when choosing the music to play. It will also be little harder to fit in my closet. However if it is possible to to configure it to output digital music via USB out I would have the same functionality plus a lot of extra's. Maybe it is possible to stream videos to my TV. And finally when I go on holliday I can take it with me.

 

If I were to go the "computer" path iso SB, I´d rather go for linux than apple. I have an ipod touch which is a brilliant little computer, but I do not like itunes software. Half a year ago I installled ubuntu linux on my PC and was amzad how good and easy it works.

 

Is there anyone out there that knows whether the things I described are feasible with an eee PC?

 

[gregc]

I've just finished setting up an eeePC as a music server. This was my first experience with computer audio so I'm sure I'll be making improvements but I'm happy with it as a first attempt.

 

The basic steps were:

 

- I used EAC to rip my CDs to flac format and put them on an external USB disk drive.

- Installed Ubuntu 10.10 on an older eeePC.

- Installed the MPD (music player demon) server software using the Ubuntu package manager.

- Connected the netbook to an external USB DAC (Musical Fidelity V-DAC)

- There are a number of MPD client programs but I have found the MPoD iPhone client to be incredibly convenient.

 

On the plus side, the eeePC is small, generates relatively little heat and is pretty quiet. So far there seems to be sufficient cpu power to do the job, although I wouldn't run anything else on the system at the same time. I'm curious to see how it holds up running 24/7 and I'm still evaluating the overall sound.