[UCIMC-Tech] does Makerspace have a spare PC (even if stripped-of-RAM+disk) for WRFU streaming?

[Stuart Levy]

Hey all,

I'm not sure how best to ask something of the Makerspace in general -
hope you don't mind it going to you.

Question: does Makerspace, or the IMC in general, have a spare PC in
good condition - *even a stripped one,* lacking disk or RAM - which
could become WRFU's dedicated internet streaming server?    If so, could
I have it?    I'd like to populate it with any needed hardware and set
it up somewhere.

Details:

WRFU still aims to start internet streaming, hopefully close to the turn
of the year.   Don McClure and I were talking about this last night.

Chris Ritzo had set up a demonstration server using AirTime
software+service, during the October anniversary gathering.   It worked
well, but depended on using AirTime's cloud servers -- which meant we
got support (good) but have limited & expensive storage for archiving
programming (not so good).   The service also costs about $500/year for
a reasonable number of streams (not great either).

It's supposedly also possible to install the same AirTime software onto
a *local* computer, let it be the streaming source, and archive programs
onto its filesystems.   Then we could archive lots of programs, and
wouldn't need to pay AirTime's cloud charges, at the cost of having to
maintain and back up the machine ourselves.    I think that's the best
way to go.

Am hoping there's a donated shell-of-a-PC which could serve.   AirTime
is supported under Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, so I'd probably install that.   I
would go and buy any needed hardware to make it functional.

We'd need to find a good place for it where it'd (a) have a good
internet connection, (b) be reasonably accessible but (c) be fairly
protected from temperature extremes, being tripped over, etc.