AudioLinux and NUC Troubleshooting and Tuning

[BigAlMc]

Thanks Piero,

 

For the record I WANT to update to 0.8 and future releases. But my install (install not update) to 0.7 caused all sorts of stability issues and stress.

 

As a newbie to AL I guess I need to find a best practice of making regular clones of the USB drive when its working well (and especially before making changes) so there's a good safety net if I mess anything up.

 

At the risk of tempting fate I followed @Bricki advice this morning and deleted the Roon unique ID and that seems have resolved my stability issues as ten hours later it hasn't dropped.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

Hi Rick,

 

Just for clarity I didn't update, I was messing around and did it new install, ie flashed latest 0.7 image to the USB using Rufus.

 

Not sure at this stage if it was bad luck or something in latest build that caused my issues but went from being solid to very flakey.

 

Working like a dream now tho.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

3 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

Don't wake up!

 

Is that a menu option? 

[BigAlMc]

5 minutes ago, rickca said:

 

I made a copy of my USB stick on a hard drive of my Windows 10 machine by using ImageUSB.  It has an option that says 'Create image from USB drive'.  It actually creates a .bin file that is the size of your USB flash drive.  You can then use ImageUSB to create a new USB flash drive ... that's how it's supposed to work, I haven't tested my backup procedure yet!

 

What I'd like to know is whether there is a way to create an .img file from the USB flash drive similar to the .img file we downloaded from Piero's site.

 

Yeah this is maybe a dumb question but would the Save System menu option create a clone if we put a different USB flashdrive in?

 

I'm guessing that's almost certainly a no.

 

In which case would a Clone Current System menu option be a possibility @hifi25nl ?

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

11 hours ago, LTG2010 said:

Yes, its an endpoint used in balanced (not low) power. It's not ideal the copper heatsink is perforated to allow air flow from the fan, if I get some spare time I might make up a new heatsink from solid aluminum or copper.

As a server I guess things will get hotter.

 

Personally I much prefer the Akasa cases to the plastic cases Intel ships the NUCs in but that will very much be a personal taste thing.

 

As for the temperatures I kept an eye on it and when scanning my library in Roon with all 8 cores enabled in Roon the 4 cores got to about 49. Quite high but well within reasonable operating temps for i7 CPUs.

 

In normal (Roon) usage I'm seeing 31/32 on the endpoint and 37/38 on the server. (i7DNBE & i7DNKE boards).

 

The Akasa cases are cool when you touch them  - i.e. no sense of them being hot or heating up.

 

 

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

9 minutes ago, rickca said:

Those are very nice temps.  How much of an impact on sound quality did you find by replacing the original NUC cases with the ones from Akasa?

 

At the risk of getting kicked out this terrific forum I can't say I put a lot of effort into listening to the contribution of the cases. ?

 

Was more focused on listening to the overall SQ.

 

Also taking the boards out the original case and setting it up in the new case takes a while so I'm not sure I'd trust my audio memory to compare the two.

 

The end result sounds amazing but does the case make much of a difference? No idea. Sorry.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

1 hour ago, hifi25nl said:

In this case is easy. The following line can be applied only if partition has not been expanded and only for headless:

 

dd if=/dev/sde conv=sync,noerror bs=1048576 count=5990 | gzip -c  > audiolinux.img.gz

 

 

Thanks Piero,

 

And does it matter if the OS is loaded to RAM or not before you do this?

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

After getting my system stable (thanks to @Bricki as deleting the Roon unique_id did the trick) and making backups of both the server and endpoint USB drives (thanks to @ray-dude for the dd method instructions) I decided to install and enable the Squeezelite endpoint in order to tinker with buffer sizes.

 

Made some good progress but will revisit that later as not quite figured it out and need to see if I can add another 4GB RAM into my endpoint without upsetting the LPS-1.2 apple cart! 🙄

 

Meantime quick question. I noticed almost by accident that high res music is playing as 48/16 on my Directstreams screen.

 

When I look at the Signal path in Roon it shows FLAC 96/24 2ch

 

Is this a limitation in SqueezeLite that it only does up to redbook or am I missing a setting somewhere?

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

15 minutes ago, Monge said:

I’m using Putty for remote login and WinSCP to navigate the AL filesystem like @afrancois did.

But then I try to edit a file in AL root I cannot save it course I don’t have permissions to do so. 

 

How do I get permission or acesss to do so In WinSCP?

 

Thanks Monge

 

Hi @Monge,

 

In WINSCP just change the user to root and password to audiolinux0

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

16 hours ago, clipper said:

Are you choosing the correct output device when you start squeezelite?

 

Do a squeezelite -l command to see the available output devices.

 

If I don't specify front (see below), I get 48 for everything.  I start squeezelite by typing squeezelite -o front &.

 

 

 

 

Thanks @clipper,

 

I haven't specified anything so guess I'm getting default.

 

How do I specify front once I've checked the available options?

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

On 1/5/2019 at 12:39 PM, BigAlMc said:

Made some good progress but will revisit that later as not quite figured it out and need to see if I can add another 4GB RAM into my endpoint without upsetting the LPS-1.2 apple cart! 🙄

 

I think I posted the update and subsequent question on the AL Server thread inadvertently but I'll post the update here in case anyone else is wondering the same thing.

 

Update was that I added a second 4GB RAM to my i7DNBE endpoint but alas it then would not boot on the LPS-1.2 😒

 

The question I posted by mistake on the server thread rather than here was whether 1 8GB RAM would work because its 1.2v per stick.

 

The answer is yes. Added 8GB instead of the original 4GB and it still boots on the LPS-1.2 🤗

 

Now just need to get Squeezelite working as Roon endpoint to try and play around with @ray-dude and @austinpop buffer settings.

 

More tinkering fun and frustration ahead!

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

I'm setting up three cron jobs:

 

robot_arm_insert_USB

 

auto_ram_save

 

robot_arm_remove_USB

 

😁

[BigAlMc]

Hi @hifi25nl or all,

 

I'm really struggling with AL 2.1 to set up a stable Roon Server.

 

Have tried several attempts now at burning fresh AL image on SD card, inserting in NUC, doing basic setup (renaming device, updating menus/system/kernal etc) enable Roon Server.

 

Restoring Roon DB fails and then letting Roon try to build a new DB similarly fails. NUC itself is fine, AL menu is accessible via Putty but Roon keeps getting really flakey and then sits at "Initialising" on the Roon app on  my phone.

 

I was wondering if there was something unstable in 2.1 itself but I think it might be a partition/storage question.

 

I'm using a 32GB SD. Here are the results of DF:

 

 

That dev/sda2 at 100% is now my main suspect. Is the Roon DB running out of space?

 

Assuming this is the issue then how do I make this partition bigger? Ideally NOT using GParted as tried that before and was too complicated for me.

 

Here are the Rufus settings I tried. Or how do I change this on the menu?

 

 

Many Thanks,

Alan

 

[BigAlMc]

2 minutes ago, hifi25nl said:

With 100% used space your system cannot possibly work... 

 

You should make an USB stick with Audiolinux lxqt or Ubuntu, boot from that installation, launch gparted (with graphical interface not parted) and resize the ext4 partition. 

 

 

 

Thanks Pierro,

 

So at least my main suspect has been verified.

 

Is there a way on a windows laptop to set or change this partition size? Perhaps using Rufus or Ethcher etc?

 

I specifically want to avoid using GParted but could create an Ubuntu boot image as last resort.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

4 minutes ago, jcn3 said:

@BigAlMc -- i ran into this problem, too.  you're out of space on the usb stick. the issue is that you have to extend the partition to make it use ram properly.

 

here's what worked for me:

* make a new stick

* start AL

* load system to ramroot (menu > 2 system menu > 12 ramroot enable/disable)

* reboot and load system into ram

* resize the AL partition (menu > 2 system menu > 6 resize AL partition)

* save system

* reboot, but don't load to ram

* complete remainder of set up

* reboot and load system into ram

 

 

 

Thanks @jcn3,

 

That's interesting and more my speed.

 

I kinda tried that but did it all in Ram mode after changing to Ram boot.

Will give it a go unless an easier suggestion comes up.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

1 minute ago, hifi25nl said:

 

No possible on Windows but you can use the ramroot mode suggested before but only if you have enough RAM

Thanks Pierro,

 

Will give it a go.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[BigAlMc]

Hi Pierro,

 

Am I missing something with 2.1 AL Headless or is the only way to disable Ramroot to add a keyboard & monitor during boot?

 

Is there a command I can use instead because I've configured my NUC, like many others have, to use the minimum assets (USB, HDMI, etc) and connecting a monitor and keyboard is a pain in the ass to be frank.

 

Am I misunderstanding this menu or have you removed the ability to select/unselect RamRoot via Putty?

 

Thanks,

Alan

 

 

[BigAlMc]

Hi Pierro,

 

What do I need to do to get Ethool installed and working?

 

 

Thanks,

Alan

 

 

 

[BigAlMc]

Hi,

 

Doesn't seem to be working:

 

 

Thanks,

Alan

 

 

 

[BigAlMc]

Hi @hifi25nl,

 

When I try to update Install Roon in the AL2.1 headless that you sent me it asks for Root password, but then whizzes through the update way to fast and the update seems to fail.

 

I'm trying to manually force the Roon 1.7 update through before I set up my Roon Server and enable Ramroot  (as the overnight automatic update in Roon failed so I'm trying to fix it).

 

Any way I can check what version is installed before I proceed? And does the below look like a failure to you?

 

Many Thanks,

Alan

 

 

 

 

[BigAlMc]

20 minutes ago, BigAlMc said:

Hi @hifi25nl,

 

When I try to update Install Roon in the AL2.1 headless that you sent me it asks for Root password, but then whizzes through the update way to fast and the update seems to fail.

 

I'm trying to manually force the Roon 1.7 update through before I set up my Roon Server and enable Ramroot  (as the overnight automatic update in Roon failed so I'm trying to fix it).

 

Any way I can check what version is installed before I proceed? And does the below look like a failure to you?

 

Many Thanks,

Alan

 

 

 

 

 

Nevermind. It came good. Several reboots and several attempts later it did a proper install.