AudioLinux and NUC Troubleshooting and Tuning

[austinpop]

5 minutes ago, BigAlMc said:

his 'Dad jokes' aside - barrel of laughs!

 

Apologies in advance for this one...

 

A fool and his SSD are soon parted.

 

[austinpop]

16 minutes ago, LTG2010 said:

you need to mount the data disc in the media directory eg. /media/windows ( doesn't have to be labelled windows)

you just need to edit the fstab with nano no need for all the mount commands then save and reboot.

add this line to the fstab:

UUID=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx /media/windows ntfs-3g nofail,noatime,uid=audiolinux,gid=users 0 0

substitute the x's with your drives UUID

use the command: lsblk -f

 

Good stuff, but first he needs to partition his disk, and format the partition. His screenshot showed the disk is unformatted.

 

 

Any quick shortcut way to do that - say if you just want a single partition to span the whole disk, formatted ext4? Or does one have to go through the various steps of firing up parted,  making a label, making a partition, making a filesystem on that partition etc?

[austinpop]

34 minutes ago, LTG2010 said:

Easiest way is to plug it into a windows machine and format.

 

Already suggested, but Individual 1 does not have any M.2 slots available on his existing machines.

[austinpop]

2 hours ago, BigAlMc said:

Thanks @LTG2010, @look&listen, @austinpop & @hifi25nl

 

Hi Piero,

 

Which version of audiolinux contains the gparted application? Is it in the headless licence I bought or do I need lxqt as well?

 

Thanks,

Alan

 

Or just live dangerously, and use parted on the cmd line! It's not like you have any precious data on this NUC.

 

@BigAlMc

 

Turns out I had some free space on my NVMe SSD, so I was able to do a quick dry run.

 

Suggested steps

1. Get root privileges: su
2. Run the tool:   parted
3. You're now in an interactive shell with a prompt like this: (parted) 
4. Select the correct drive:  select /dev/nvme0n1
5. Since no existing partition table:  mklabel gpt
6. Suggest you keep the first 10GB free in case you ever want to add partitions to boot an OS from this in the future
7. Create a partition from 10GB to the end of the disk: mkpart primary ext4 10GB 100%
8. Now check that this partition is ready: print
9. You should see it listed as partition 1. Quit the tool: q
10. At this point your new partition will be visible when you type lsblk as /dev/nvme0n1p1
11. Now create an ext4 filesystem: mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p1
12. Your new formatted partition will now show up in blkid
13. Copy the UUID, and follow the steps to add an entry in /etc/fstab as previously posted, something like this:
    UUID=cff048ec-8b9d-4369-9a93-7aeedf14f1d4       /media/linux1           ext4            rw,noatime      0 2
14. Now mount this filesystem: mount /media/linux1
15. Check this mount by typing df to confirm

 

Your location /media/linux1 is now ready for use. On future reboots, it should automount.

[austinpop]

Happy for you @BigAlMc!

[austinpop]

34 minutes ago, ray-dude said:

 

Sorry, I was referring to the original tweak from the mother "A novel way..." thread (OG == Original Gangster ... I blame my teenager for polluting my vocabulary

 

I did start to work my way through the mother thread, but there is a LOT there.  I'm currently holding out for an  EtherGen (or equivalent), but I'm tempted to do some bridging experiments, just for the learning.  I appreciate the guides!

 

Hi Ray,

 

Yes, as Leo points out, please do use the first post index as a way to make some sense of the OG (I like it!) thread.

 

BTW - how is the squeezeilte parameter optimization going? I still need to try your settings. So is this still the high water mark for you:

1. -b 4097152:97152
2. -a 1000000:4::

?

[austinpop]

1 hour ago, Johnseye said:

 

I just asked Ghent to make me a JSSG360 Jager to 2.5mm cable.  A little cheaper and faster than from Paul.

 

But Paul is the only Jaeger-Meister, though.

[austinpop]

6 minutes ago, Bricki said:

Has anyone managed to get the toslink output working on the NUC/AL combo? 

 

I remember reading that Roy got it working and I am searching for the post but can't find it.... It's buried somewhere in the novel way thread... I can't actually remember now if he got the toslink on the nuc board working or if he used a usb to toslink adapter or something... If anyone can remember the post or has some experience that would be great ??

 

Actually, @romaz did not get the Toslink output to work on his NUCs, either with his early experiments with Adrian's Dream OS, or more recently with Audio Linux. See his post from the massive thread:

 

On 11/11/2018 at 7:16 PM, romaz said:

Regarding Toslink and SPDIF, as most know, these NUCs have no SPDIF outputs and with headless AudioLinux, the Toslink outputs on the NUCs that have Toslink outputs are non-operational.  For those looking for an inexpensive way to output to a SPDIF or Toslink DAC, there is the option of using something like this which I own:

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009KAU0WO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

It turns out the HDMI outputs in these NUCs can output digital audio (you would have to turn on this feature in the BIOS) and using this Kanex HDMI to Toslink/SPDIF device, it works very well (up to 24/192 PCM).  In fact, using an optical HDMI cable and powering this Kanex unit with my LPS-1 (set to 5V), SQ is quite good going out to either SPDIF coax or Toslink.  Having said that, USB still sounds better resolved and more finessed but who knows what might happen if the clocks on this cheap unit were replaced.  

 

[austinpop]

Just now, rickca said:

Thanks.  I used etcher to create my flash drive from the download.  Seems easier than rufus.

 

Does it do the reverse? Create an image from a USB stick?

[austinpop]

Sounds like there are enough options on how to save a USB disk to an image.

 

Just for completeness, if you're on MacOS, you can also just use the built-in Disk Utility application. The quirk there is it saves the image as a DMG file, which can optionally be compressed and/or encrypted (which doesn't change the file suffix).

 

If you're going to burn a replacement stick from the Mac, you're done. If you want an IMG file, you have to use a command line utility hdiutil.

[austinpop]

Just now, look&listen said:

DMG = Disk iMG

 

Understood.

 

My point was that Rufus, for example, does not recognize DMG as a valid format, so if your intent is to move the image between MacOS and the rest of the universe, an extra conversion to IMG might be needed. If you stay on MacOS, then DMG is fine.

[austinpop]

4 hours ago, hifi25nl said:

The 3 realtime tests (as root. you can use more cycles than 10000 if you want)

 

1) cyclictest -q -l 10000 -m -Sp98 -i100 -d0

 

2) hackbench -l 10000 &>/dev/null && cyclictest -q -l 10000 -m -Sp98 -i100 -d0

 

3) hwlatdetect --duration=60 --threshold=15

 

The first 2 are executed if you type

rttest

 

 

What are we looking for in terms of desired results?

 

Low average latency? Low variance? Both?

[austinpop]

4 hours ago, lmitche said:

Nice job on 0.7 Piero! Many thanks.

 

Larry

 

+1

 

I'm very impressed with the usability of v0.7. Compared to v0.3 where I started, this is a huge improvement.

 

Thanks for your excellent support, @hifi25nl, and for being receptive to your customers' requirements.

[austinpop]

21 minutes ago, John769 said:

 

Hi.  Looking at the last screenshot 'Primary power settings', what's the difference between enabling 'Low Power' or disabling all three options and selecting 'Low Power' in the 'Power efficiency policy' drop down?  Specifically, what's the appropriate one for simply lowering the TDP from 15w to 10w?

 

The difference is that all 3 of the profiles - Balanced, Low, and Max - have Intel SpeedStep® enabled. See https://www.intel.com/content/dam/support/us/en/documents/mini-pcs/BIOSGlossary_NUC.pdf

 

I also had not realized this, and thought by selecting the Low power setting, I was done. It's only when I saw Leo's screenshot that I discovered that unchecking all 3 profiles revealed the Intel® Dynamic Power Technology drop down, and within it, you can turn Speed Step off.

[austinpop]

Just FYI for folks who have been using AL headless since 0.3 and earlier...

 

Please be aware that Extreme mode in 0.3 is the equivalent of Extreme2 in more recent versions like 0.7.

 

As you will recall, Piero had suggested a while ago that folks who were finding the Extreme mode too thermally stressful could tame it down by removing the flag idle=poll from the audiolinuxEXTREME.conf file. Well, this tamer version on 0.7 is now Extreme.

 

So in short:

• on ≤ 0.3: Extreme includes idle=poll 
• on 0.7:
  • Extreme  excludes idle=poll
  • Extreme2 includes idle=poll

So: Extreme on 0.3 ≈ Extreme2 on 0.7.

[austinpop]

7 minutes ago, rickca said:

I got my NUC7PJYH to boot with an LPS-1.2 set to 12V.  All I did was disable SpeedStep, SATA and onboard audio.

 

The interesting thing is it works with an LPS-1.2 if I use the two USB3 ports in the rear for my USB flash drive and the USB cable to my DAC.  If I use a rear USB3 port for the USB cable to my DAC, but a front USB3 port for the USB flash drive, the NUC will not boot with the LPS-1.2.

 

Actually, the USB cable goes to a Berkeley Alpha USB which uses bus power only for the dirty input side.

 

Which suggests it's all about the current draw from the DAC or DDC on USB. Bus powered DACs will probably not work.

[austinpop]

5 minutes ago, BigAlMc said:

 

Working like a dream now tho.

 

 

Don't wake up!

[austinpop]

1 hour ago, Monge said:

I’m trying to stream Tidal with IPeng App to my CJYH diskless with Squeezelite+LMS on this machine only.

I have installed LMS and Squeezelite and started the services and rebooted.

But then I open Ipeng on my IPAD and click PlayerName I see audiolinux for a short while and then it disappear and it says “No Players and Music Sources (Servers) found. 

I did register ny IPAD on mysqueezebox.com and added Tidal app and some radiostations here.

Do I need to add a plugin on AL headless (0.8) and how?

I have the Ipeng app, but do I need to buy Ipeng UE also?

 

 

Did you configure squeezelite by:

• running squeezelite -l to identify the name of the audio device,
• then, editing the squeezelite.conf file to match that name? 

As far as I know, this is a manual step that needs to be done.

[austinpop]

For those wanting to do a backup of their AL USB stick to a compressed img file using MacOS, here are the steps:

 

Boot AL into RAM, keep USB stick mounted

• Login to AL and run some commands

• lsbk to get the device name of the USB stick, say /dev/sde

• fdisk -l -u=cylinders /dev/sde. Example output:
   

  Disk /dev/sde: 28.7 GiB, 30752000000 bytes, 60062500 sectors

  Disk model: Ultra USB 3.0   

  Geometry: 64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 29327 cylinders

  Units: cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes

  Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

  I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

  Disklabel type: gpt

  Disk identifier: 524A1828-2002-4187-B469-3E7A2DE53ED0

   

  Device Start   End Size Type

  /dev/sde1   2   489 488M EFI System

  /dev/sde2 490  5489  5.4G Linux filesystem
   

• Note the values of Units (1048576) and the End (5489) of the Linux filesystem on the stick.

• Remove the USB stick

 

On a MacOS system

• Insert the USB stick on MacOS

• Run the Terminal app. It'll open up a command line. Run the following commands, one by one.

• diskutil list to identify the device id of the USB stick, say /dev/disk4

• diskutil unmountdisk /dev/disk4 to unmount the USB stick

• Use the Units and End+1 value from the previous section to form and run the dd command:

• sudo dd if=/dev/disk4 conv=sync,noerror bs=1048576 count=5490 | gzip -c  > AL-backup.img.gz

  • Will prompt for password. Supply your MacOS login pw. This assumes you're an Admin user.

• At this point, you have a backup file AL-backup.img.gz

• You can later burn another stick from this file, just like Piero's original image.

• I've done this and verified it works.

 

[austinpop]

5 minutes ago, bobfa said:

Getting setup for NUC testing.  I have the NUC7i7DNBE  board on order from SimplyNUC (I hope) and the Asaka X7D is also ordered. I have the license for AL... I wanted to ask about RAM for Headless endpoint. I have not ordered it yet. I have seen a couple of references to 4GB and some that say 16Gb.  I am slightly confused.  I also need some USB sticks just to be safe.  32gb overkill?

 

The plan is to test A/B with my UltraRendu.  I will be using my JS-2 Power supply and if I need I have an LPS-1.2.  

 

This feels like we need an AL/NUC Wiki???  I can try to host one if we need.

 

Bob,

 

Here's the rationale about RAM:

• More memory consumes more power
  • more noise
  • more demand from PSU
• Roon Bridge seems to run fine on just 4GB RAM, even with AL booted into RAM
• I use 8GB, because it enables me to experiment with up to 4GB of buffer space for squeezelite
• I see no reason to go beyond 8GB for an endpoint for now.

As for USB sticks, yes definitely get a few spares. I have had good luck with these: https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Ultra-Flair-Flash-Drive/dp/B015CH1JIW

 

I look forward to your findings! Please post your listening impressions comparing with the UR over on the novel thread.

 

[austinpop]

16 minutes ago, ray-dude said:

Quick question for those that have been playing with LMS as their music server.  I'm finding it plays much nicer with the squeezelite end point vs Roon Server, but I would like to do an apples to apples comparison.

 

Which processes are folks singling out to include in /opt/rtapp/rtapp.conf to give the server process realtime priority?  It seems to be running as a daemon, with a lot of subprocesses,, but I'm getting a bit lost tracking them down to see which should have a priority boost.

 

 

 

Hi Ray,

 

LMS runs as a perl script. You can verify this by looking at running processes (ps -ef). This is the LMS process:

 

logitec+ 17987     1  0 23:48 ?        00:00:01 /usr/bin/perl /opt/logitechmediaserver-git/slimserver.pl --prefsdir /opt/logitechmediaserver-git/prefs --cachedir /opt/logitechmediaserver-git/cache --logdir /opt/logitechmediaserver-git/Logs

 

For realtime optimization on my server, I made the following changes - this is on top of what the menu script does when you Set Realtime priority to Extreme:

• In /etc/rtirq.conf:  
  • RTIRQ_NAME_LIST="eth en"
  • Rationale: on the server, we want the network interrupts to have highest priority.
  • If you're bridging, I'd give higher priority (list it first in RTIRQ_NAME_LIST) to the downstream interface - the one connected to the endpoint. 
• In /etc/rtapp/rtapp.conf:
  • APPLICATIONS="RoonServer RoonAppliance RAATServer perl"

I've not A/B'ed with and without these changes, so who knows if this makes an audible difference!

[austinpop]

11 hours ago, ray-dude said:

By convention, most Unix apps have a -h (help) flag (for example "squeezelite -h"), and/or a man (manual) page (for example, "man dd").  

 

I too come from an old school Unix background. Kids these days have no respect for conventions.

 

Now instead of -h, we're supposed to type --help.

 

Bah humbug!

[austinpop]

7 minutes ago, ray-dude said:

Thank you Rajiv! I was assuming the Perl script was invoking some binary process that actually connected to the end point.  Back in the day, Perl was a write once, rewrite many scripting language for me, so I twitch a bit whenever I have to figure out someone else’s Perl code   I may have some leftover eggnog tomorrow and see if there is a gem in there that actually manages the interface with the end point. 

 

 

 

 

Yes, please try to "squeeze" some light out of the darkness!

[austinpop]

2 hours ago, ray-dude said:

 

@austinpop when you were doing your servers and storage evaluations, were you using the large buffer(s) (-b and -a) squeezelite configuration on your end point?  If so, were you able to hear a difference in SQ?

 

I just posted my impressions on server differences over on the new thread Larry created. But to be clear, I was using Roon Bridge in those comparisons. I could not rapidly switch between 2 different instances of Roon Server and have it work with a Squeezelite endpoint.

 

If what you suggest is true, then if I redid the experiment by running LMS on both my servers, and switching back and forth by attaching the squeezebox endpoint to one or the other, I should perceive no difference between the servers?

 

I will try this later tonight if possible.

[austinpop]

5 hours ago, hifi25nl said:

This is right. The menu version can be seen on the main menu screen on the title, but headless version on console will stay as in original installation, since this is not an image update, but a menu update.

 

Piero is adamant that he wants the menu version to remain tied to the original image it was installed from. So for example, here's an 0.7 instance, which I updated to 0.85 from the Update menu. It still says:

 

********************************************

              

              Welcome to

         AUDIOLINUX HEADLESS

             version 0.7

 

********************************************

 

Personally, I would like this to change to the current version, since how else can we keep track to what level we are up to? If not on the login splash screen, where else can we query the current version information?