How can I stream audio signals from various devices/computers to my home server?

Posted by Breakthrough on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Breakthrough
Published on 2012-06-03T03:16:42Z Indexed on 2012/06/03 4:43 UTC
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I currently have a headless home server set up (running Ubuntu 12.04 server edition) running a simple Apache HTTP server. The server is near an audio receiver, which controls a set of indoor and outdoor speakers in my home.

Recently, my father purchased a Bluetooth adapter, which our various laptops and cellphones can connect to, outputting the music to the speakers. I was hoping to find a solution that worked over Wi-Fi, namely because it won't cost anything (I already have a server with an audio card), and it doesn't depend on Bluetooth.

Is there any cross-platform (preferably free and open-source) solution that I can use which will allow me to stream audio to my home server, over my home network, from a wide variety of devices (laptops running Windows/Linux or cellphones running Android/BB/iOS)? I need something that works at least with Windows and Android.

Also, just to clairfy, I want something that simply allows devices to connect to my server and output an audio signal without any action on the server end (since it's a server hidden away near my receiver). Any subsequent connection attempt should be dropped, so only one device can be in control of the stereo at once.

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