Using DLNA/uPnP in Rhythmbox

For some reason best known to Canonical, the Grilo plugin was omitted from the Rhythmbox music player in Ubuntu 14.04. This article shows how to add it from packages in a third party PPA kindly provided by fossfreedom. We retain the core Rhythmbox files supplied by Canonical and cherry-pick the necessary Grilo plugin.

Tested on 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) 32 and 64-bit Desktop editions.

Install the Grilo framework, which allows us to discover DLNA/uPnP servers on the network:

sudo apt-get install grilo-plugins-0.2

For 32-bit machines, carry out the following download and package extraction:

wget https://launchpad.net/~fossfreedom/+archive/ubuntu/rhythmbox/+files/rhythmbox-plugins_3.0.3-1%2Bppafossfreedomsaucy1ubuntu2_i386.deb
ar x rhythmbox-plugins_3.0.3-1+ppafossfreedomsaucy1ubuntu2_i386.deb data.tar.xz

Alternatively, if you have a 64-bit machine, proceed as follows:

wget https://launchpad.net/~fossfreedom/+archive/ubuntu/rhythmbox/+files/rhythmbox-plugins_3.0.3-1%2Bppafossfreedomsaucy1ubuntu2_amd64.deb
ar x rhythmbox-plugins_3.0.3-1+ppafossfreedomsaucy1ubuntu2_amd64.deb data.tar.xz

For both architectures, install the Grilo plugin:

tar -xvf data.tar.xz ./usr/lib/rhythmbox/plugins/grilo && rm data.tar.xz
sudo cp -R usr/lib/rhythmbox/plugins/grilo /usr/lib/rhythmbox/plugins && rm -R usr

Start Rhythmbox from the Ubuntu sound menu and select Tools → Plug-ins… from its menu. On the list enable Grilo media browser by checking the box next to it and then clicking the Close button. If the side pane is already displayed, you should see your DLNA/uPnP servers appear under the Shared section. Otherwise, press F9 to toggle the side pane display on.

• Technical How-To Articles
• Contact Us