AudioLinux and NUC Troubleshooting and Tuning

[hifi25nl]

The boot option has the same name but the right parameters have been added.

 

You can check looking at /boot/loader/entries/audiolinuxBFQjail.conf

[jcn3]

Any reason to not try AL with a NUC6i5 I currently use running Win10/AO/Fidelizer? I understand the concept of using a powerful CPU and having it operate without strain, but wouldn't the i5 have plenty of HP as a Roon endpoint with AL?

 

Also is there a trial period for AL? I realize its not expensive . . .

[bobfa]

anyone else seeing these messages when enabling ramroot?

 

==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: wd719x

==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: aic94xx

[mourip]

1 hour ago, bobfa said:

anyone else seeing these messages when enabling ramroot?

 

==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: wd719x

==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: aic94xx

 

I have gotten those since my first boot-up. I have been ignoring them since I am getting great sound and rock solid performance.

[mourip]

1 hour ago, jcn3 said:

Any reason to not try AL with a NUC6i5 I currently use running Win10/AO/Fidelizer? I understand the concept of using a powerful CPU and having it operate without strain, but wouldn't the i5 have plenty of HP as a Roon endpoint with AL?

 

Also is there a trial period for AL? I realize its not expensive . . .

 

I am running an NUC7i5 for an endpoint in a fanless chase in it runs with no issues and the case is cool to the touch. I also have an i3 CPU on and ASRock endpoint and the same for my Roon Core they all run great. 

[tapatrick]

5 hours ago, bobfa said:

anyone else seeing these messages when enabling ramroot?

 

==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: wd719x

==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: aic94xx

yep got those too..

 

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mkinitcpio#Possibly_missing_firmware_for_module_XXXX

"These appear to any Arch Linux users, especially those who have not installed these firmware modules. If you do not use hardware which uses these firmwares you can safely ignore this message."

 

[hifi25nl]

https://gist.github.com/imrvelj/c65cd5ca7f5505a65e59204f5a3f7a6d

 

"Of importance is that this module is entirely unnecessary for most users.
It's simply a warning as these are commonly used modules for SAS/SCSI Disk Controllers in server hardware.

It's not recommended that you install these if you don't have such hardware in your system.
If you don't know what they are, don't install them.
Because if you did know what they are you'd know if you needed them to get your disks working."

[User471]

On 1/26/2019 at 9:52 PM, davide256 said:

 isn't raid setup in PC BIOS? Or did that change with UEFI?

 

Never mind, I see that you did it in software vs BIOS

 

I briefly tried LXQT AL as a server this weekend and the good news is that the RAID array was seen and mounted correctly automagically under /run if I remember correctly 

 

Due to the amount of time it was taking rebuilding my Ronn DB from 4TB of music I bailed but might try again with headless AL to free resources and see if it works

 

I use AL as an endpoint and it's excellent. What are the theoretical advantages of using AL at the server end though? 

[davide256]

4 hours ago, User471 said:

 

I briefly tried LXQT AL as a server this weekend and the good news is that the RAID array was seen and mounted correctly automagically under /run if I remember correctly 

 

Due to the amount of time it was taking rebuilding my Ronn DB from 4TB of music I bailed but might try again with headless AL to free resources and see if it works

 

I use AL as an endpoint and it's excellent. What are the theoretical advantages of using AL at the server end though? 

The empirical result for me was  that it made a bigger difference using AL for Roon server vs PC/Win10/Fidelizer Pro than switching from microRendu to NUC/AL endpoint.

 

[User471]

39 minutes ago, davide256 said:

The empirical result for me was  that it made a bigger difference using AL for Roon server vs PC/Win10/Fidelizer Pro than switching from microRendu to NUC/AL endpoint.

 

 

Worth the time and effort then

 

I will report back my impressions

 

One thing occurs, using AL in Roonserver mode booted off a USB (maybe even as ramroot) where is the Roon DB stored?

[davide256]

6 minutes ago, User471 said:

 

Worth the time and effort then

 

I will report back my impressions

 

One thing occurs, using AL in Roonserver mode booted off a USB (maybe even as ramroot) where is the Roon DB stored?

Thats why you need extra RAM beyond just whats required to run AL... the DB  gets stored in RAM.  You also have to remember to do a RAM save before rebooting/shutting down AL,

else your Roon  changes/history wont be saved and if a Roon software update is pending you should not boot to RAM so that all the changes are made to the source USB drive onetime vs having to update the RAM image every time. So more complex to manage but well worth it.

[mourip]

14 minutes ago, davide256 said:

Thats why you need extra RAM beyond just whats required to run AL... the DB  gets stored in RAM.  You also have to remember to do a RAM save before rebooting/shutting down AL,

else your Roon  changes/history wont be saved and if a Roon software update is pending you should not boot to RAM so that all the changes are made to the source USB drive onetime vs having to update the RAM image every time. So more complex to manage but well worth it.

 

Any guesstimates on how much ram would be needed for a less than 1Tb library to avoid having to put the database on another internal disk?

[User471]

12 minutes ago, mourip said:

 

Any guesstimates on how much ram would be needed for a less than 1Tb library to avoid having to put the database on another internal disk?

 

Over at RoonLabs a dev quoted 5GB for a 3TB collection

 

I have 4TB and 16GB of server RAM so will try headless and see if it flys

 

 

 

[austinpop]

2 hours ago, mourip said:

 

Any guesstimates on how much ram would be needed for a less than 1Tb library to avoid having to put the database on another internal disk?

 

Here's my data point (round numbers)

• local library size (on NAS): 1TB
• local albums: 1400
• local tracks: 12000
• total albums (includes Tidal, Qobuz added to Roon library): 1900
• total tracks: 19000

Size of /var/roon/RoonServer (in my case, I have this on an Optane at /media/optane/var/roon/RoonServer) is 2.67GB.

[tapatrick]

I had similar issues @bobfa (did you get yours working?) but after a few days back and forth with Piero, I got the network bridge working. It's worth the effort for the improvement in SQ. I did follow the instructions carefully but kept getting issues but eventually succeeded. When working it looks like this:

 

[audiolinux@audiolinux ~]$ networkctl

IDX LINK             TYPE               OPERATIONAL SETUP     

  1 lo               loopback           carrier     unmanaged 

  2 bridge0          bridge             routable    configured

  3 eno1             ether              degraded    configured

  7 enp0s21f0u3      ether              degraded    configured

 

I loaded the latest version of Headless V9.0 and updated the menu as per Pieros instructions but for me the menu item - create network bridge did not seem to work. The manual instructions here contain all the steps needed: https://www.audio-linux.com/html/bridge.html

 

It took me a lot of fiddling as I'm no linux expert and didn't seem to work. If it helps anyone, not an expert! these are the steps from Pieros instructions that worked for me (with my edits). You can also add static ip addresses but I didn't do that and it still works fine.

 

Its important to have all the connections in place, in slots that you know are live, remove any files in systems/network first and create the 4 new network bridge files listed below. Also the last steps, save and reboot (or 2) are essential.

 

"Now let's go to /etc/systemd/network/
cd /etc/systemd/network/
We remove the previous files, if any
rm /etc/systemd/network/*

You can check the names of network interfaces with
ip addr show
In the examples that will follow we have 2 network interfaces, enp3s0 and enp4s0. Your names will be different.
"Piero --> In my test enp4s0 is connected to the router (and internet) and enp3s0 is connected directly from pc (with a normal ethernet cable) to a BeagleBone Black NAA running archlinuxarm " 

This command will create the new files:
touch bridge0.netdev bridge0.network enp3s0.network enp4s0.network

Now you can edit the 4 files separately with nano
nano /etc/systemd/network/bridge0.netdev
nano /etc/systemd/network/bridge0.network

nano /etc/systemd/network/enp3s0.network

nano /etc/systemd/network/enp4s0.network

so that the content of each is:

1) bridge0.netdev
[NetDev]
Name=bridge0
Kind=bridge

 

2) bridge0.network

[Match]
Name=bridge0

[Network]
DHCP=yes

3) enp3s0.network (substitute values with yours)
[Match]
Name=enp3s0

[Network]
Bridge=bridge0

4) enp4s0.network (substitute values with yours)
[Match]
Name=enp4s0

[Network]
Bridge=bridge0

Finally restart systemd network:
systemctl restart systemd-networkd 

 

save system
and reboot (a couple of times if necessary)

[bobfa]

3 hours ago, tapatrick said:

had similar issues @bobfa (did you get yours working?) but after a few days back and forth with Piero, I got the network bridge working. It's worth the effort for the improvement in SQ. I did follow the instructions carefully but kept getting issues but eventually succeeded. When working it looks like this:

I have not had time to get back to testing this.  I see that the bridging scripts have been updated in the latest menu.  I will test with the and see what happens.  My current server (Sonic Transporter) is bridged and that helps.  I think we will get to a point where the setup menu system will make this accessible to everyone.

 

I left off at a point where the endpoint was not accessible and could not get an IP address when rebooted when talking to AL server in a bridge.  

 

Keep us informed as to your progress.

[LTG2010]

There was an error in the bridge scripts but Piero has fixed it in 9.5.

[tapatrick]

5 hours ago, LTG2010 said:

There was an error in the bridge scripts but Piero has fixed it in 9.5.

Thanks. My post was in addition to this, because I tried the update and it did not work for me for some reason.

[lpost]

On 1/28/2019 at 6:07 AM, davide256 said:

You also have to remember to do a RAM save before rebooting/shutting down AL

 

Has anyone tried a simple cron daily job to run ramsave, perhaps in the middle of the night?

[bobfa]

 

@hifi25nl 

 

 

Posted January 9

Audiolinux has already a ramsave periodic option.

You can start/enable it (as root) with the commands

 

systemctl start ramsave.timer

systemctl enable ramsave.timer

 

The default is every 30 min. You can change it editing the /etc/systemd/system/ramsave.timer

•  

[lpost]

Thanks.   Did you find this on Piero's website or elsewhere?

[bobfa]

He posted it here.   Click on the posted on date link. 

[davide256]

3 hours ago, bobfa said:

 

@hifi25nl 

 

 

Posted January 9

Audiolinux has already a ramsave periodic option.

You can start/enable it (as root) with the commands

 

systemctl start ramsave.timer

systemctl enable ramsave.timer

 

The default is every 30 min. You can change it editing the /etc/systemd/system/ramsave.timer

•  

the only wrinkle being that if you are running AL endpoint with the USB drive removed after boot, there won't be a media drive to save to. What happens if the drive isn't there, i.e. can you just insert it later for unattended save?

[tapatrick]

@hifi25nl 

I have set up automatic ram save every hour. How can I check it is working?

[hifi25nl]

You can look with the command

systemctl list-timers