How to Transfer Audio Output from Mac OS X to Ubuntu via a Network?

"I was working on a good solution to this earlier this year, but haven't gotten the best way.

The first piece you will likely need is Soundflower. This will let you take the digital-out of your Mac, and loop it to a new digital-in source.

The piece I'm missing is the best way to broadcast a digital input to another machine.

It is probably possible to do this via ESounD, Pulse, or Jack, but I am not familiar with implementations of those, and this hasn't been my highest priority.

Another route I was considering was using VLC, to somehow source the Soundflower as though it were line-in or mic input, and publish an audio stream, then connect to this stream from Ubuntu, i.e. at http://192.168.0.2:8000.

However you arrive at it, I hope that this answer has helped you fit one piece of this puzzle."

"Update for searchers:

Look at shairport-sync, you can run this on Linux/Ubuntu to setup an Airplay server that is happily recognized by OSX, and you can configure a number of backends to deal with the audio it receives, such as sending it to the speakers on the Linux/Ubuntu end."

"With XBMC installed on a Linux machine and without any other software on my Mac, I can stream anything I want (I run it under Debian so it should work also under Ubuntu).

To do this:

Configure XBMC as an Airplay receiver : go to System > Services > Airplay and enable Airplay (I do not use password)
On your Mac, Open Audio Midi Setup
Right click on the Airplay item on the left side and choose “Use this device for sound output” from the Action pop-up menu.

Now, anything you play on your Mac should output to your Airplay device.

To reverse back to normal output (e.g. on a MacBook), right-click on another output (e.g. the standard speaker or integrated output) and choose “Use this device for sound output” from the Action pop-up menu.

See also : Audio Midi Setup: Set up your audio devices"

"If you're not tied to any particular audio application at the Mac end, I suggest using VLC Media Player. It could function as the Macintosh's music player and playlist repository, the Mac's digital audio streamer, and the streaming audio receiver/player for the Ubuntu system powering the good speakers.

There are advantages to using VLC besides avoiding the need to combine the functions of several programs. Because VLC offers pre-compiled binaries for operating systems from BeOS to Zaurus, as well as source code for (nearly) everything else, you could easily adapt to future changes in OS or hardware setups without having to worry about compatibility. Moreover, VLC can play every format you're likely to have on hand -- or likely to have ever heard of, for that matter."

"solution using sunflower + esound:

http://k-ui.tumblr.com/post/872595281/pulseaudio-mac-os-x-as-pulseaudio-has-not"