HQPlayer's Network Audio Adapter

[jabbr]

3 minutes ago, Jud said:

 (It's because there's other software I'd like to install that I'm not using the image, which installs as easily as possible and works beautifully.)

 

Let this be a learning experience for you!

 

Really easy to copy @Miska's debian image to an SD, plop it in and go.

 

Let's see, from OS X I use "unetbootin" (I also use "Etcher") to write the SD from a downloadable image.

You can use the USB terminal to get Ethernet working. Then enable ssh.

You can then install additional software from the command line...

 

or do same with archlinux ...

 

you can always keep one SD for archlinux and another for Debian. Put an "A" on one and then a "D" on the other and tell us which sounds better

 

[Jud]

6 minutes ago, jabbr said:

 

Let this be a learning experience for you!

 

Really easy to copy @Miska's debian image to an SD, plop it in and go.

 

Let's see, from OS X I use "unetbootin" (I also use "Etcher") to write the SD from a downloadable image.

You can use the USB terminal to get Ethernet working. Then enable ssh.

You can then install additional software from the command line...

 

or do same with archlinux ...

 

you can always keep one SD for archlinux and another for Debian. Put an "A" on one and then a "D" on the other and tell us which sounds better

 

 

Archlinux doesn't seem to use images as such (which is fine).  Also no problem with images - on OS X for images I like a tool called "Pi Filler."  But I have a Linux desktop to work from also.  Here's the installation procedure I'm following (now that it's easy to get to a login on the newly booted installation, hopefully I'll be good to go): https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv7/freescale/cubox-i

[jabbr]

24 minutes ago, Jud said:

Here's the installation procedure I'm following (now that it's easy to get to a login on the newly booted installation, hopefully I'll be good to go): https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv7/freescale/cubox-i

 

Yeah that looks more difficult  There are also ways you can install Debian on an SD using the command line and "dd" but those apps I quoted are easier with nice GUI

For desktops typically make an installation USB these days ... CD/DVD is becoming archaic... mostly emulated using VirtualBox etc.. 

 

[jabbr]

@Miska, I know this is perhaps beyond what is possible, but perhaps not. I am trying to get Phasure NOS1a working via NAA. Windows 10 is OS, and of note, HQPlayer runs on this Celeron J1900 fine actually with PCM -- I've installed a TRIAL copy to test this (my licensed copy of HQP runs on my workstation along with Roon). HQP on the NAA machine handles up to 701 kHz without a sweat and sounds terrific. I've tried the remote HQP at 700 kHz, 352, 384, 192 etc but no luck ... attached is the networkaudiod log ... other times I get "out of storage" errors. On one occasion I got stuttering sound out... any ideas? 

networkaudiod (1).log

[Miska]

1 hour ago, jabbr said:

@Miska, I know this is perhaps beyond what is possible, but perhaps not. I am trying to get Phasure NOS1a working via NAA. Windows 10 is OS, and of note, HQPlayer runs on this Celeron J1900 fine actually with PCM -- I've installed a TRIAL copy to test this (my licensed copy of HQP runs on my workstation along with Roon). HQP on the NAA machine handles up to 701 kHz without a sweat and sounds terrific. I've tried the remote HQP at 700 kHz, 352, 384, 192 etc but no luck ... attached is the networkaudiod log ... other times I get "out of storage" errors. On one occasion I got stuttering sound out... any ideas? 

networkaudiod (1).log

 

The "Engine stalled" message happens when wait on the WASAPI event times out (one second timeout), meaning that the driver didn't ask for more data within a second. Overall, everything else looks normal or related to this same problem...

 

I don't know why this happens though.

 

[Miska]

6 hours ago, Jud said:

The documentation that I've seen for installation of Debian 9 armhf just doesn't do it for me (all sorts of stuff about CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Ray disks!). 

 

No such things needed, it has image in two parts, the common hardware agnostic armhf part, and then the hardware specific part. You concatenate the two and dump it to the microSD. When you boot it up, installer is launched and run entirely from RAM, so you can make fresh install on the very same microSD.

 

http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/stretch/main/installer-armhf/current/images/netboot/SD-card-images/

http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/stretch/main/installer-armhf/current/images/hd-media/SD-card-images/

 

Installation manual:

https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/armhf/index

 

[Jud]

10 hours ago, jabbr said:

 

Yeah that looks more difficult  There are also ways you can install Debian on an SD using the command line and "dd" but those apps I quoted are easier with nice GUI

For desktops typically make an installation USB these days ... CD/DVD is becoming archaic... mostly emulated using VirtualBox etc.. 

 

 

As with many things *nix and *nux, it may look more difficult than GUI tools, but it winds up being just about completely reliable, controllable to a much finer extent than virtually any GUI tool, and I find myself learning more this way.

 

Thanks to you and Miska - got the serial login going last night, though I had to get to bed before I could do next steps: (1) ensure the text file that passes parameters to the boot script already has the necessary parameters for the serial console or edit it to contain them, so I don’t have to interrupt boot each time to be sure they’re entered; (2) ensure eth0 is up, or bring it up; (3) upgrade system with pacman; install software of choice with pacman, including networkaudiod, then make sure it’s configured and running correctly.

[Jud]

4 hours ago, Miska said:

 

No such things needed, it has image in two parts, the common hardware agnostic armhf part, and then the hardware specific part. You concatenate the two and dump it to the microSD. When you boot it up, installer is launched and run entirely from RAM, so you can make fresh install on the very same microSD.

 

http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/stretch/main/installer-armhf/current/images/netboot/SD-card-images/

http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/stretch/main/installer-armhf/current/images/hd-media/SD-card-images/

 

Installation manual:

https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/armhf/index

 

 

@Miska, I know you don’t have time (or likely the desire), but I wish you were writing the Debian documentation.   If the install docs had had an introductory paragraph giving the simple overview you just did, I may well have gone ahead with Stretch.

[lmitche]

12 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Yep, I see the microUSB port.  Good.  (I imagine I could also put the SD card in a USB adapter, mount it to a directory and chroot.)

 

The documentation that I've seen for installation of Debian 9 armhf just doesn't do it for me (all sorts of stuff about CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Ray disks!).  The reason I like the idea of Arch is that someone has gone to the trouble of properly configuring networkaudiod and other software I want to install, so my rudimentary Linux knowledge won't be tested too much.  (It's because there's other software I'd like to install that I'm not using the image, which installs as easily as possible and works beautifully.)

Archlinux is also very well documented.

[Jud]

Just now, lmitche said:

Archlinux is also very well documented.

 

Debian certainly is too.  It’s just that either the writing style is lost on me, or there’s too much information for me as someone who doesn’t want to take the time to be immersed in the world of Linux/Debian.  I just want to dive in, learn enough to accomplish a specific short term goal, and be done.  The people who wrote the documentation can’t be blamed for not catering to folks like me.  But of course that doesn’t help me.

[Jud]

On 7/26/2017 at 2:51 AM, Miska said:

 

No such things needed, it has image in two parts, the common hardware agnostic armhf part, and then the hardware specific part. You concatenate the two and dump it to the microSD. When you boot it up, installer is launched and run entirely from RAM, so you can make fresh install on the very same microSD.

 

http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/stretch/main/installer-armhf/current/images/netboot/SD-card-images/

http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/stretch/main/installer-armhf/current/images/hd-media/SD-card-images/

 

Installation manual:

https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/armhf/index

 

 

So I got myself a fine, working, updated Archlinux Arm install.  Then I tried using pacman, but it didn't come up with hqplayer-network-audio-daemon (the Archlinux package) in its database.  Hmm.  Searched the Archlinux Arm package databases online - nope.  By this time I was pretty much suspecting....  So I downloaded the package from the regular Archlinux online database, and worked with that package to build one for Archlinux Arm according to the documentation.  Ran pacman on the newly built package, and unfortunately, what I'd thought: "This package will not install/work on Armv7," or words to that effect.  Now I've read about other users installing networkaudiod on Archlinux Arm and it works, but the reason for doing Archlinux in the first place was to have something configured to work out of the box.  I tried to install the other software I wanted (upmpdcli) using Pacman, and exactly the same result.  So it looks like I'll be wanting to use Debian or some variant after all.

 

My choices there are Miska's Cubox image or installing Stretch and Miska's networkaudiod package for it.  I'll try the image first, since it's nicely configured, but I'm wondering (1) if I'll be able to use a default user and password to login on the image, or set them up; and (2) assuming I can install upmpdcli on the image, if I can set up both networkaudiod and upmpdcli to be available on boot.  Guess I'll find out.

[Jud]

3 hours ago, Jud said:

My choices there are Miska's Cubox image or installing Stretch and Miska's networkaudiod package for it.  I'll try the image first, since it's nicely configured, but I'm wondering (1) if I'll be able to use a default user and password to login on the image, or set them up; and (2) assuming I can install upmpdcli on the image, if I can set up both networkaudiod and upmpdcli to be available on boot.  Guess I'll find out.

 

Ha!  OK, this is why I couldn't do anything with Debian Jessie installs (that I was thinking of upgrading to Stretch) previously: no driver for my MS Natural ergonomic keyboard in the NAA image or the Stretch image.  So the NAA image just sits there at login and I can't type anything; the Stretch image apparently doesn't have the console arguments needed, because after autoboot the screen blanks.  The way you're supposed to stop autoboot to enter the console arguments is by (ahem) hitting any key on the keyboard.  And of course I can't do that because it doesn't recognize I'm hitting keys.

 

So yeah, I could keep trying to work my way through this and probably learn a lot.  But I think I will take the lazy way out and just go back to letting the NAA image work for the time being on the Cubox, and meanwhile look at something a little friendlier for an NAA and upmpdcli install.

 

@Miska, @jabbr, anyone else: Thoughts on the ECS Liva or Gigabyte Brix?

 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883105007&ignorebbr=1&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC-_-pla-_-Desktop+PC-_-N82E16883105007&gclid=Cj0KCQjwnubLBRC_ARIsAASsNNntbFj7XwXlEaD43giCsTNyLfsI3K4aM-6g_PnHK3kYgaGIdB21CnoaAsUrEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/812172/Gigabyte-BRIX-GB-BXBT-1900-Desktop/?cm_mmc=PLA-_-Google-_-Desktop_Computers-_-812172-VQ6-51194794196-VQ16-c-VQ17-pla-VQ18-online-VQ19-812172-VQ20-101646044276-VQ21--VQ22-624116863-VQ27-10575869396&adpos=1o2&creative=51194794196&device=c&matchtype=&network=g&gclid=Cj0KCQjwnubLBRC_ARIsAASsNNm7sglQRiTF3WuacfVcbLPFB3TkzyMnTKNrCCbwRr30zTs-swe2DlEaAnu0EALw_wcB

[jabbr]

@Jud don't give up on cubox! ... unless you want the ClearFog -- its really terrific  

 

Just use your laptop and minicom (or whatever) and don't get too complicated. This worked for me : http://blog.jabresearch.com/post/2017/06/04/CLEARFOG-BASE-AS-FIBEROPTIC-NETWORK-AUDIO-ADAPTER-(NAA)

 

For cubox -- use @Miska's image   and then dd to copy it to an SD or Etcher or whatever ... 

 

 

 

[Jud]

11 hours ago, jabbr said:

@Jud don't give up on cubox! ... unless you want the ClearFog -- its really terrific  

 

Just use your laptop and minicom (or whatever) and don't get too complicated. This worked for me : http://blog.jabresearch.com/post/2017/06/04/CLEARFOG-BASE-AS-FIBEROPTIC-NETWORK-AUDIO-ADAPTER-(NAA)

 

For cubox -- use @Miska's image   and then dd to copy it to an SD or Etcher or whatever ... 

 

 

 

 

Hey @jabbr 

 

Will give Armbian another try.  Here's hoping my keyboard is still recognized (and everything else still works) after the upgrade to Stretch/Armbian.

 

Getting images onto the SD card is no problem at all.  I have multiple ways to do it on two different computers, all of which work.  My problems begin after the system boots: With Debian (not Armbian), including Miska's image, various Jessie images, and the Stretch image I used last night, my keyboard isn't recognized; with Archlinux Arm, the software I want to install isn't available via the pacman packaging system for the armv7hf architecture.

 

If Armbian still recognizes my keyboard after upgrading to Stretch, I'll install networkaudiod and then see about installing upmpdcli.

[jabbr]

20 minutes ago, Jud said:

If Armbian still recognizes my keyboard after upgrading to Stretch, I'll install networkaudiod and then see about installing upmpdcli.

Forget the keyboard -- it doesn't ever need one! Just boot using minicom over USB, get network & ssh up and then access using ssh over network...

[EdmontonCanuck]

This is probably a really stupid idea (I have one of these every now and then), but has anyone thought of trying to run a headless linux HQPlayer server in an Amazon P2 instance (an instance supplying NVidia CUDA cores) to output back to an ethernet renderer in their home? You could then configure a local Roon instance to send it's stream to that HQP instance in the cloud. Would that work at all? Would network latency make something like this totally unworkable?

[Jud]

On 7/28/2017 at 11:44 AM, jabbr said:

Forget the keyboard -- it doesn't ever need one! Just boot using minicom over USB, get network & ssh up and then access using ssh over network...

 

Well, the keyboard worked, so I'm OK there.  Installed networkaudiod, in the midst of installing upmpdcli from source, since there's no package for this architecture (that I know of at the moment, anyway).

 

For possible future reference, when you mention "boot using minicom over usb," I don't know what that means.  I have minicom installed on my desktop and CoolTerm on the MBP, so I have software capable of working with a serial connection.  What happens from there?

[jabbr]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

For possible future reference, when you mention "boot using minicom over usb," I don't know what that means.  I have minicom installed on my desktop and CoolTerm on the MBP, so I have software capable of working with a serial connection.  What happens from there?

 

the terminal program allows the Cubox screen to be displayed on the PC via a USB connection.

 

Just plug a micro USB cable into the Cubox and the other end into your PC/laptop. https://wiki.solid-run.com/doku.php?id=products:imx6:microsom:usbuart

 

then run your terminal program, and boot the Cubox... log in and you should be in a command line. Then enable the network. etc.

[Jud]

OK, everything installed.  HQPlayer doesn't see the NAA/DAC, and here's the message I see repeated several times in response to a systemctl status inquiry:

 

Quote

Jul 30 23:53:39 cubox networkaudiod[1566]: [/usr/sbin/networkaudiod] (1566): clSocket::SetOption(): setsockopt(): No buffer space available

 

So what's the error in setup/configuration I need to rectify, @Miska (or someone else who knows)?  Thanks...

[Confused]

Is there a list of HQPlayer NAA's anywhere?  I note that the Signalyst website has a list of 'recommended hardware', but this does not include kit such as the sMS-300 or Antipodes Edge.  In the absence of a list anywhere, if looking for commercially available HQPlayer NAA 'Network Endpoints', is there anything to add beyond Sonore, SOtM and Antipodes products?

[Miska]

On 7/31/2017 at 1:00 AM, Jud said:

OK, everything installed.  HQPlayer doesn't see the NAA/DAC, and here's the message I see repeated several times in response to a systemctl status inquiry:

 

 

So what's the error in setup/configuration I need to rectify, @Miska (or someone else who knows)?  Thanks...

 

I've seen this reported when the binary is used on some other system than it was built for. I have not seen it happen on Debian Stretch with it's original kernel.

 

It could be either incompatibility with libc version, or kernel configuration issue. You could see and compare sysctl's with net.*mem* and see if there are any differences in limits.

 

[Jud]

12 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

I've seen this reported when the binary is used on some other system than it was built for. I have not seen it happen on Debian Stretch with it's original kernel.

 

It could be either incompatibility with libc version, or kernel configuration issue. You could see and compare sysctl's with net.*mem* and see if there are any differences in limits.

 

 

Thanks Miska.  I’m supposing something in Armbian for CuBox has done one of these things, since (1) I didn’t do any configuration on my own in those areas, and (2) searching the thread showed another user with exactly the same problem back in April-March.  That user tried Archlinux Arm and it Just Worked, so perhaps....

[jabbr]

17 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Thanks Miska.  I’m supposing something in Armbian for CuBox has done one of these things, since (1) I didn’t do any configuration on my own in those areas, and (2) searching the thread showed another user with exactly the same problem back in April-March.  That user tried Archlinux Arm and it Just Worked, so perhaps....

You probably want to update Armbian to stretch though as networkaudiod needs that...

[Jud]

4 hours ago, jabbr said:

You probably want to update Armbian to stretch though as networkaudiod needs that...

 

I did.  I don't recall whether the other user did, but I did and still got the precise error message he did.  So it's something in the Armbian tweaks that persists across the upgrade.

[Jud]

After a long journey through Cubox-land (and many thanks to @arglebargle for helpful hints and encouragement), I grew impatient with my lack of sufficient Linux-fu to get it to do what I wanted (be an NAA and run upmpdcli as well).  So I decided to get a little box that wouldn't require me to work within the ARM architecture (wouldn't box me in, so to speak  ).  I was able to get hold of a mini PC with an i5 CPU (detuned - good, because the box is silent), 4GB of DDR3 1600, and a 64GB mSATA SSD for a total cost of $230:

 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856110131&cm_re=Asus_VivoMini-_-56-110-131-_-Product

 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231725

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/64GB-mSATA-SSD-Samsung-MZMPC064HBDR-000L1-MZ-MPC0640-0L1-Solid-State-Hard-Drive-/112497117549

 

After some false starts with another Linux, I decided to just go with Ubuntu Xenial Server.  After installing the dependencies (libasound2 and build-essentials are the package names in Ubuntu; you need ALSA as well, package name alsa-base), I downloaded and installed the latest Xenial deb for network audio daemon.  It Just Works, yay!  And upmpdcli the same - Just Works!

 

I've been too busy to actually play any music yet (  ), but the DAC is seen by HQPlayer through the NAA, so looking good.