MPD

The Music Player Daemon is a music server that can be located either remotely or locally. MPD has support for MP3, Ogg, FLAC, AAC, Mod, and wav files.

About MPD

MPD is used for primarily for either of two basic functions: as a remote daemon on a network, or a local daemon. Because of its minimal need for resources both servers and desktop users use MPD. MPD does require some setting up to have it run correctly.

Install MPD

Add the basic sound formats to the USE flags:

echo "media-sound/mpd aac flac mp3 ogg vorbis" >> /etc/portage/package.use 

and install MPD

emerge -av mpd

Configuring MPD for a Local Daemon

Configurations for MPD differ depending on if you want to use MPD as a local daemon or network daemon. MPD is originally designed to run as a server and its default settings reflect that. MPD can be configured through either ~/.mpdconf per user, or globally in /etc/mpd.conf.

Setting Permissions per User

A base root setup needs to be completed first.

In /etc/mpd.conf add a valid user to be able to run the init-script.

sudo vim /etc/mpd.conf

Allow regular user access to MPD's files.

sudo chown -R user /var/lib/mpd /var/run/mpd /var/log/mpd

As regular user, create each of MPD's log files to have regular user permissions.

touch /var/log/mpd/mpd.log
touch /var/log/mpd/mpd.error.log

Copy /etc/mpd.conf to $HOME/.mpdconf.

cp /etc/mpd.conf ~/.mpdconf

Create the local configuration directories:

mkdir ~/.mpd
mkdir ~/.mpd/playlists

Now edit the preferences file $HOME/.mpdconf and specify the MPD file locations:

music_directory                 "~/Audio-Directory"
playlist_directory              "~/.mpd/playlists"
db_file                         "~/.mpd/database"
log_file                        "/var/log/mpd/mpd.log"
error_file                      "/var/log/mpd/mpd.error.log"

Also you will need:

• The pid setting to be active to shutdown the MPD daemon.
• MPD will not run without a valid username.
• Most users will want to allow the Alsa Mixer.
• Commenting out replaygain? Changing to "album" is usually a good idea since not all CD's are recorded at the same volume level. A replaygain preamp of -3 is a good place to start.

Create the Music Database

Setup roots database (required but not used.)

sudo -u root mpd --create-db

As regular user, create a database.

mpd --create-db

(Alternately) Single-User Only

The configuration file /etc/mpd.conf can be used if you are configuring a server or are the only person on the computer who plans use MPD.

The user will need to have read and write access to the files listed in /etc/mpd.conf

Verify these exist:

• /var/lib/mpd/music
• /var/lib/mpd/playlists

MPD requires it's configuration files to belong to the audio group and to the owner listed in the configuration file

chown user:audio /var/lib/mpd
chmod gu+s /var/lib/mpd
chown user:audio /var/log/mpd/ /var/log/mpd/* /var/run/mpd/ /var/run/mpd/*

Link MPD to your Audio Directory

cd /var/lib/mpd/music
ln -s /home/user/audio-collection .

Create the Music Database

As regular user, create a database.

mpd --create-db

[...]
depend() {
     need alsasound localmount net.lo
     use netmount nfsmount
}
[...]

cd /var/lib/mpd
/usr/bin/mpd --create-db
chown mpd:audio -R .
chmod ug+rwX ./* -R
chmod o-rwx . -R

/etc/init.d/mpd start

rc-update add mpd default

emerge -av mpc
mpc ls music_subfolder/some_band | mpc add
mpc play

emerge -av ncmpc
ncmpc -c

touch /var/run/mpd/mpd.pid
chown user:audio /var/run/mpd/mpd.pid

MPD_HOST and/or MPD_PORT environment variables are not set
error: problem getting a response from "localhost" on port 6600 : Connection refused

MPD_HOST="localhost"
MPD_PORT="6600"