Is Jellyfin right for me?

[mkeveney]

I can't find documentation that specifically describes my use-case, so I'm not really sure Jellyfin is what I want.  Perhaps you folks can help.

* I have a mini-format computer that's not doing anything (Gigabyte Brix). I want to install my music on it. 
* My music is all MP3 and FLAC files; I do not subscribe to any streaming services.
* I want to plug PC-style speakers directly into this server, and have the music come out.  I do not want to _stream_ the music anywhere; nor do I want to play it on smart speakers or any other device.
* I want to operate the server completely headless. Linux preferred.
* I'd like to use a web UI (from my laptop), and/or a phone app to select the songs or songlists to play.
* I'm not interested in video.

At first I thought I wanted a 'jukebox' software, but those all seem to use a local screen interface--to simulate the jukebox experience.  Not quite what I'm after.

I'm an experienced software engineer, and am comfortable using the command shell and dev tools.

So.. is Jellyfin what I want?  Do you have any other recommendations? Can you point me to a setup guide that does all of the above?

TIA!

-Matt

[mkeveney]

...just discovered MPD; at first glance, it looks like what I want.
https://www.musicpd.org/

[Emailluka]

if you are not interested in video, probably jellyfin is not the right choice - it can be used for that, but there probably are more streamlined solutions for your usecase.
there are a bunch of such services like mpd you can look into. f.ex.: subsonic or navidrome

[TheDreadPirate]

I second the Navidrome suggestion if your use case is music focused.

[TheDreadPirate]

Oh. I should mention that a headless server is likely not going to be great for connecting speakers directly to. You would likely need to install Gnome/KDE.

[cbility]

...just discovered MPD; at first glance, it looks like what I want.
https://www.musicpd.org/

I use Moode (which I think runs MPD under the hood) and I think it sounds like what you want.

I have a raspberry pi running Moode connected to a DAC that is wired into my amp and speakers. I can control playback via other devices by accessing the Moode web server hosted on the pi. I mostly use it with streaming services at the moment but apparently its got first class support for local files.

I may be wrong as I havent used then but I think subsonic/navidrome act as more of a personal streaming service, so the client plays the audio, i.e. what you said you didn't want.

[mkeveney]

For posterity, thought I'd follow up, in case others find this thread via search...

The system I settled on was indeed MPD: https://www.musicpd.org/

This is not for the computer neophyte: you have to be comfortable installing things via the command shell.

I installed MPD on Debian via apt, despite the MPD website's warning that these versions are often out-of-date. It is out-of-date, but not by much and seems to work fine.

I recommend installing the basic command line client MPC as well, simply for troubleshooting.

Then, install one of the MPD clients listed on the site above. I installed a web-based client so I can simply log in with a browser from either my laptop or phone.

I've actually installed two clients: "Maestro-MPD-Control-Server," and "Ampd." They listen on different ports so they can live together. The latter runs via Java, so you may need to install that too. I can't decide which I like better; Maestro has a few more features but Ampd seems easier to use on the phone.

Installation was straightforward; just follow the install guides. It works fine on a headless setup.

One hiccup was that the client volume control did not work at first: In my case, it turned out that the 'software' audio driver was appropriate, but was turned all the way down by default, so I initially thought it incompatible with my setup. The MPC client was helpful in troubleshooting this.

Both web clients support playing 'internet radio' which I've only briefly tested. Seems to work if that's your thing.

Note that this setup does _not_ rip CDs or load music onto your Linux box, so plan to sort that out yourself. Once the music's on the server, the client/MPD combination lets you browse, search, create playlists, etc.

Hope that's useful. Thanks to all who replied.

-Matt