Question: I am not sure if there is a practical way to do this; I tried some googling, but the signal-to-noise ratio was pretty bad, so I thought I'd try here.

At home, I have an old Linux laptop that serves me as a git / utility server. It has a very small drive, and very modest specs.

The computer I use most is a Macbook Pro, where I have most of my music. However, the speakers on it are not great. I have other, much better speakers at home that I can connect to it; however, the cables are annoying.

So, what I thought was, I could connect the speakers to the Linux laptop (which I don't move, so the cables are fine), and somehow play the music from the Mac in iTunes on the server, and thus on the good speakers. So I would say click play on a song on the Mac, and automatically the Mac would stream the song to the Linux laptop which would play it on the good speakers.

Is there a software that could do this?

Initially, I thought I'd simply put my music collection on the Linux server, run `mpd` on it, and play my music by `SSH`ing into the server and using something like `ncmpc`. However, the hard-drive of the Linux laptop is much too small for all my music, so that wouldn't really work.

Answer: 
There is a plugin for Totem media player that will allow you to play content from iTunes via Airplay to a linux machine. This works for any non Apple DRMed file whether it is audio or video. 

[Article with link to git repository for plugin](http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/01/airplay-video-playback-comes-to-totem/)   

[Totem Plugin for AirPlay - Engadget](http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/22/airplay-video-support-comes-to-linux-courtesy-of-totem-media-pla/)

People tend to get irritated when there is a hardware recommendation over a free piece of software, but I think that the Airport Express is an ideal and seamless solution for what you want. I have 2 (bought second-hand) and they are great.

All you have to do is have it join your network, plug in the speakers, and set iTunes to play to the Airport. This thing is really handy on the road as well and can act as a wireless to wired bridget among a handful of other things.

You can get a used model for around $63 after shipping [Used Airport Express](http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/apple-airport-express-wireless-n-wifi-base-station/)
On your Mac share folder/directore the iTunes music is in often /Users/name/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/music

On your linux computer connect to this share and then using VLC/Totam/,,,,, you can access and play the music from this connected folder. In fact I think Totam, VLC and Banchee(sorry if my spelling is wrong I am dyslex) has a function that will add this network drive/folder to there liberys. I know Windows "Grove" has this function.