AudioLinux and NUC Troubleshooting and Tuning

[afrancois]

As most AL users strive to have AL in RAM it would be nice to have AL started using Netboot. Thus booting over ethernet.

It will be somewhat harder to configure, but this way you will not have to manually remove the USB thumb drive (or in my case the USB SSD drive)

I've done this a long time ago, to load an entire OS from the network. The bootloader and the drives were on my NAS. I did configure a LUN and some iSCSI drives if memory serves me.

[afrancois]

I have a Chromecast that's connected to my TV and I use it sometimes to display the lyrics while playing music.

This feature doesn't seem to work in AL.

Are there any firewall rules that prohibit the discovery of the Chromecast device by Roon? 

[afrancois]

6 hours ago, mourip said:

 

Did you use your login information from your original email to get to the new version?

 

My login no longer works even for the old version...

Exactly, I tried to download the latest AL headless version but my credentials no longer seem valid.

[afrancois]

10 hours ago, austinpop said:

What is the proper way to update my system to 0.6 while preserving all customizations? I did this - downloaded the 3 files below:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 audiolinux users 70295236 Dec  6 17:32 linux-rt-bfq-4.19.1.3-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz

-rwxr-xr-x 1 audiolinux users 16020220 Dec  6 17:33 linux-rt-bfq-docs-4.19.1.3-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz

-rwxr-xr-x 1 audiolinux users 18297092 Dec  6 17:33 linux-rt-bfq-headers-4.19.1.3-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz

 

I then ran 

 

pacman -U linux-rt-bfq-4.19.1.3-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz linux-rt-bfq-headers-4.19.1.3-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz linux-rt-bfq-docs-4.19.1.3-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz 

 

I rebooted, but when I login, I still see 0.5 on the login screen. And, if I type alconf I still get the old menu. 

 

Finally, what is the command for the new monitor menu?

 

All of this is on headless.

Same here, I've updated the kernel, but the menu stays the same.

There must be some extra steps involved to update to 0.6

[afrancois]

Just something that might simplify things for some:

 

I have a separate disk on which I have installed audiolinux_220.img.gz. This lxqt version does automount your disks or USB keys.

I download the latest packages with Chromium and copied them over to another disk on which I have installed headless 0.5.

I even copied over my RoonServer folder that way.

I first made a backup of Roon on the NAS and restored it in the lxqt version. After that, it was simply a matter of copying the RoonServer folder onto the headless 0.5 disk.

[afrancois]

Don't know if this has been mentioned before, but you can monitor the CPU temperature from within AL headless by simply typing: sensors.

I'm running 0.5 on a stock unit NUC7i7DNHE in RAM using extreme mode.  72 C° seems quite high.

 

[afrancois]

Have others that have AL + REF10 noticed that it takes up to an hour before the REF10 gives it maximum potential?

This only came to my attention after installing AL.

 

I know that some of you let the REF10 always ON.

[afrancois]

1 minute ago, mourip said:

 

Do you know what the "high" and "critical" values represent? Are these bios settings for warning or are there historical values that have been previously reached... or none of the above?

I do honestly don't know. I haven't touched the BIOS settings. I did, however, do a BIOS update.

[afrancois]

1 minute ago, LTG2010 said:

That's probably the Tcase max temperature for a mobile CPU meaning once 72 C is reached the processor wil throttle ( reduce frequency) so that it doesn't go up any further. This will degrade the performance so ideally put it in a AKASA case to get it down to 42 C.

Clocks should be on all the time for best performance, it lessens the overall Crystals lifetime but we are talking 5 years +.

I will get the plato X7D. This must a very effective case if it gets it down to 42 °C passively.

[afrancois]

if the date and or time are wrong in 0.5, type: timedatectl set-ntp true
Verify with: timedatectl status

 

[afrancois]

For those who are running headless and use a Windows machine.

I'm using Putty for remote login and WinSCP to navigate the AL filesystem.

 

WinSCP

 

I 

 

It allows you to navigate the file system of an AL headless.

 

For example, by simply double-clicking on alconf in the /usr/bin folder you get the content in a Windows.

 

the arrow left of alconf says it's a symbolic link to /opt/scripts/alconf.sh

 

As I'm still in 0.5 and some have been able to download 0.6, it would be nice to have the content of alconf.sh :-)

[afrancois]

46 minutes ago, BigAlMc said:

 

Brilliant @afrancois,

 

I use WINSCP at work but hadn't occurred to me to use it to SSH into the NUC.

 

Would this work for transferring music to an AL NUC server?

 

Thanks,

Alan

It has also been a while since I have used WinSCP. My previous linux endeavors are far back in the past.

 

No problem copying files from my NAS to the NUC's memory (running AL in ramboot)

 

 

Have also successfully mounted audiolinux/home/audiolinux/music in Roon.

Then I searched in Roon after Hells Bells and of course, I found two entries. Be right clicking on the icon right of the title you can query the file location. Take the one that's in memory and compare with the one coming from the NAS.

I haven't done the comparison yet. Perhaps put something more audiophile into the folder :-)

 

 

[afrancois]

I've copied a full album on my drive d:\music-memory and changed the artist to MEMORY-artist with mp3tag and copied the files using WinSCP to the NUC's memory. After that go to overview in Roon and you will see the album as newly added. You can play it from memory now.

[afrancois]

15 minutes ago, mourip said:

Can you open a file, edit it and then save it back to AL?

Yes, very easily. Double-click to open the linux file, modify and save.

[afrancois]

Some scripting with WinSCP to automate your flac file copies to memory

 

script1.bat

"C:\Program Files (x86)\WinSCP\WinSCP.exe" /log="D:\WinSCP-Script\WinSCP.log" /ini=nul /script="D:\WinSCP-Script\script1.txt

 

script1.txt

open scp://root:[email protected]/ -hostkey="ssh-ed25519 256 tdi7pWzRJyRudTOA16KV8KjKyiJf8CLFYqvVRwGKcUo="

option batch on
option confirm off 
option transfer binary

put d:\music-memory\* /home/audiolinux/Music/*.flac

exit

 

 

[afrancois]

5 minutes ago, gsquared said:

 

No it's the stock case until Akasa makes a case that will work with this model.

 

@Dev have you experienced this with yours?

what does the command "sensors" give you?

My CPU is at 72 °C

[afrancois]

23 hours ago, BigAlMc said:

 

Two topics and not sure if they are related.

 

Working on my new i7DNBE based Roon endpoint in the Plato X7 fanless case. Running 4GB RAM, no wifi or bluetooth as the board doesnt support them. Using AL headless in Extreme mode with Ram root enabled.

 

A. Everytime I restarted the NUC endpoint I need to reselect and enable it in Roon. Any ideas why it's not automatically recognising it?

 

B. I can't seem to get the power down low enough for either the LPS1.2 or my SPS-500 to work with it. The LPS1.2 flashes red as soon as I connect it. The SPS-500 (on 19V and I thought it handled like 3amps) doesn't provide enough juice for the NUC on button to do anything.

 

I've put the power settings down to 10w and burst of 12w. I've disabled all the USB slots apart from the two being used for the USB flash and connecting to the DAC. I've even switched off 3 or the cores so that only 1 core is running and switched off hyperthreading and performance boost.

 

The LPS1.2 I can understand but I thought the SPS-500 was a decent plan B as it has more power but my i7DNBE thinks otherwise. 

 

Unsure what else to try disabling in order to get it working on a cleaner PSU.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Also, as per the picture below. Should I be disabling all these HDMI endpoints that are showing up on the NUC?

 

Cheers,

Alan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm using an AL NUC7i7DNHE as a server, so I don't need any audio devices enabled on the NUC.

While I had disabled audio over HDMI in the BIOS. HQPlayer and Roon continued recognizing the audio card.

The solution was to blacklist the device. Another credit to the Intel BIOS efficiency :-(

 

I created a file /etc/modprob.d/noHDMIaudio.conf

The file contains:

blacklist snd_hda_codec_hdmi
blacklist snd_hda_intel
blacklist snd_hda_codec
 

 

[afrancois]

16 hours ago, tapatrick said:

thanks @afrancois! I've been catching up on tweaks and blacklisting unused functions etc.. I found that this should be /etc/modprobe.d/noHDMIaudio.conf

That's right. A typo of me.