Audiolinux Server configurations, Software, Hardware, and Listening Impressions

[bobfa]

20 hours ago, Bricki said:

I have selected this Max battery setting in the BIOS of my sonicTransporter i5 AL roon server. Previously I have moved it from turbo to non-turbo and heard an increase in SQ.

 

After Larry mentioned low power mode (reducing the TDP) on his server was beneficial I decided to try some settings to achieve the same result.. after selecting Max battery I have heard a quieter sound with a darker background that has better separation and more depth. I am hearing more textures on vocals and more color in piano... I also think it is more relaxed...I won't be changing it back off Max battery that's for sure 😁👍

I am thinking about how to follow in your footsteps a little bit.  I have a ST i7 DSP and I am going to try AL on it.  I will have to setup bridging but there appears to be some direction on how to do that.  

[bobfa]

I am thinking about different server systems for Roon and I am going to try AL on my Sonic Transporter i7 DSP first. I am thinking about buying/building a Xeon test system of some sort.  I am having a hard time picking a direction.  I am sort of holding until I can pick one of the new network switches.  

 

I am not sure where to point my energy on the server/network side of things.  Looking for a direction that will help. 

[bobfa]

So here is an interesting idea.  From: https://silentpc.com/fanless-pcs

 

There is a  Xeon Server chip model:  https://silentpc.com/fanless-pcs/fanless-xeon-server

 

This is just a starting place for an idea.  There are a lot more silent PC system ideas out there. 

[bobfa]

Help with configuration of AL on a NUC to run Roon Server.

 

I have an i7NUC in the intel supplied case.  I have 16GB of RAM and a spare M.2 SSD. I have a NAS that I will keep the music on as there is about 4TB of it to manage!  I have an HDPLEX 200 Linear supply on the way to run both the NAS and the Server.  

 

I want to compare this to my Sonic Transporter i7 DSP running the stock OS and then build AL for the ST to compare against.

 

I know that Roon wants the boot and database on a fast drive. E.G. SSD. I do not know how big the database and caches get. I have 60K tracks in my main music store.

 

Where do you folks think I should start?  

 

Bob

 

 

[bobfa]

24 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

Hi Bob,

 

First of all, if you want to know the size of your Roon DB, just look at he size of the Database folder on your current Roon Core. The location of this folder is dictated by OS - see https://kb.roonlabs.com/Database_Location

 

Assuming the database is a reasonable size of under 4GB, say, the simplest option is to use the default Audiolinux Roon locations, which will put the database in the root partition (specifically in /var/roon), which will get loaded into RAM in ramroot mode. This is fine, and should fit easily on a 16GB machine. Make sure you do what @ray-dude suggested, and expand your root partition. On the other hand, keep in mind that any changes you make to your library will vanish on next boot, unless you:

1. either diligently remember to do ramsave every time you change anything, or
2. put the database on a persistent storage.

For 2, one option would be to put a 32GB Intel Optane NVMe SSD into the M2 slot. This does require a bit of script editing, as you have to edit fstab to mount the SSD automatically on boot, and tell the "start Roon Server" script to use a different location (on the Optane SSD) as the Roon database location. This isn't for Linux novices.

 

Hope this helps.

Rajiv,

 

Thanks for the note. 

 

Running Roon in RAM is interesting.  I was thinking of a chron job to "ramsave" a couple of times a day.!  I will run this step by step with the music on my NAS and see where it goes vs my Sonic Transporter. I have to finish building the new USB stick when I am fresh in the AM.  

 

Then maybe AL on the Sonic Transporter although it only has 8GB of RAM and the BIOS is not as management friendly as the NUCs are.   

 

I have to round out the server side with a TLS switch (someday UpTone Audio) and updated power supply (HDPLEX 200) which are both on order.   I hope that this is helpful to the community.  I do not want to go over ground that is settled.

 

Bob

 

 

[bobfa]

6 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Why would you have entire Optane just for the database and not running the OS from there?

Because we think that it might sound different.  Reasonably easy to test.  A 32GB optane M.2 NVME card is $62 on Amazon.  I am going to first run in RAM and then try the Optane.  Then I will try it as a single box solution. 

 

I have two NUCs and a Sonic Transporter. Right now my systems design is Roon Server bridged to a 7i7 NUC running Roon Bridge and AL in RAM.  

The other combinations will be pretty easy to setup over time. 

 

I am getting Roon Core up on my second NUC running AL in RAM and then I can test a couple of combinations.  Still need switch in the system.

[bobfa]

9 minutes ago, lmitche said:

My servers all ram boot the AL OS from a 32gb Optane stick. This is especially fast with Optanes crazy sequential read speeds.

 

At startup the Roon scripts are pointed to an Optane based Roonserver software and database in a separate optane partition. This way any database or software update is stored in non volatile memory. Everything else runs in ram. Music is either fed from a nas or external usb disk.

 

For the traffic generated by roon, optane is ideal as it is the fastest nonvolatile memory available for short bursty traffic.

 

We could debate why a ram disk based OS sounds better then a demand paged OS all day long. For most of us it just does, and we don't know why.

 

With AL it is trivial to test this one way or another just by turning ramboot on or off at boot when the yes or no question  is asked so people can have at it.

 

I still prefer zero nonvolatile storage in the endpoint, so the Usb stick boot and remove method or iscsi boot from server is preferred. Unfortunately Iscsi over wifi is unavailable, so the latter only works with wired connections. 

So do you put two Optane m.2 drives in the system Roon Server system?  

[bobfa]

48 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

No need, Bob. One 32GB Optane m.2 SSD is plenty to store your AL OS, and your Roon DB.

 

It does take some steps to boot from Optane. You have to create / and /boot partitions and dd over the contents from the USB disk.

 

Maybe @hifi25nl would publish a procedure to do so?

I am going to order an Optane NVME SSD stick today and will work with (pay for as needed) @hifi25nl to help.  I have AL setup with Roon server right now.  I will run this on my NUC7i7BNH for now and if it works out as a test then decide if I need to build one of the other boards in a fanless case.

[bobfa]

8 minutes ago, gsquared said:

 

Maybe bad blocks. I hope I don't have to start over because my Roon DB is on that and I have a lot of playlists, tags, etc that I don't want to have to recreate.

 

I installed a second usb stick and booted from it and ran fdisk -l and both USB sticks are visible. But my main stick will not boot. So it may very well be corrupted. I am going to see if I can access my Roon DB files and copy them over to the working usb stick. Then install an Optane stick and copy the Roon files there so I can minimize the risk of losing all of my Roon stuff going forward.

Gsquared,

Are going to boot off of the Octane stick and run from RAM?   It would be cool if you could document the steps for that so others can duplicate the process.  

 

Bob

[bobfa]

1 minute ago, gsquared said:

 

I think I will continue to boot from a usb stick but have my roon db stored on the Optane stick. So it will probably boot to ram from the usb stick, then have some script that saves my roon db to the Optane stick. I'm not entirely sure it this is correct, but once I figure it out, I'll document it for sure.

That is great then others can more simply play with that config. 

 

[bobfa]

@hifi25nl Any ideas?

 

😕I am back working on bridging.  I have the 7i7 NUC in the Akasa case and I have the NUC network interface and a Microsoft USB network interface.  When setup without bridging the two interfaces seem ok:

 

NOTE that this is with both network cables connected to the router.

 

audiolinux@FairRoon ~]$ networkctl

IDX LINK             TYPE               OPERATIONAL SETUP     

  1 lo               loopback           carrier     unmanaged

  2 enp0s31f6        ether              routable    configured

  3 enp0s20f0u4      ether              routable    configured

 

 

But when I run the bridge script in the AudioLinux menu the bridge never comes up all the way.

 

SOOO 

 

I build a new USB stick with 0.9. updated the menu to 091 and tried again.  I get the following after I run the menu item to bridge the networks

 

 

 

networkctl

IDX LINK             TYPE               OPERATIONAL SETUP     

  1 lo               loopback           carrier     unmanaged

  2 enp0s31f6        ether              routable    configured

  3 enp0s20f0u4      ether              routable    configured

  4 bridge0          bridge             no-carrier  configuring

 

 

Now If I move the second network cable to only connect to my endpoint things look like this

 

networkctl

IDX LINK             TYPE               OPERATIONAL SETUP     

  1 lo               loopback           carrier     unmanaged

  2 enp0s31f6        ether              routable    configured

  3 enp0s20f0u4      ether              degraded    configuring

  4 bridge0          bridge             no-carrier  configuring

 

When I reboot I get this:

 

networkctl

IDX LINK             TYPE               OPERATIONAL SETUP     

  1 lo               loopback           carrier     unmanaged

  2 bridge0          bridge             no-carrier  configuring

  3 enp0s31f6        ether              routable    configured

 

The second adapter disappears.

 

I am stuck. I am going to reboot one more time and then try the older Apple USB to ethernet adapter.

 

 

 

Bob

 

 

 

[bobfa]

I moved my best NUC back into the endpoint role.  I will setup my other NUC and try this again.  I may have missed something.  Piero creates something different.  I will grab them when I test.  

 

At least this is almost painless!

 

 

[bobfa]

I am getting:

 

networkctl

IDX LINK             TYPE               OPERATIONAL SETUP     

  1 lo               loopback           carrier     unmanaged

  2 eno1             ether              routable    configured

  3 enp0s20f0u3      ether              no-carrier  configuring

  4 wlp58s0          wlan               off         unmanaged

  5 bridge0          bridge             no-carrier  configuring

 

 

All of the files in systemd/network look good and were built with the 091 menu.  I restarted the networkd. I will reboot and check again

 

[bobfa]

 

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   34 Jan 20 22:06 bridge0.netdev

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   41 Jan 20 22:06 bridge0.network

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   38 Jan 20 22:06 eno1.network

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   45 Jan 20 22:06 enp0s20f0u3.network

 

[bobfa]

Sorry.....

[bobfa]

Could AC power phasing be a part of the differences?  I have not personally paid attention to this.  

[bobfa]

3 hours ago, lmitche said:

Actually it is much simpler. You have the endpoint right, it's 5ghz wireless to the extender. Now draw a solid line(wired cat6) to the server from the extender. A laptop also connects wirelessly for control purposes. Lastly a second 5ghz radio runs to the router on the first floor for internet.

 

That's it. I have no switch.

 

 

3

Is there not an ethernet switch in the extender?  Ethernet to WiFi

[bobfa]

That is a good question that I do not think is well answered yet.  Storage options are an interested experimental project.

 

For number 1 it is pretty simple to test a couple of configurations.  I have not done that yet. Soon!

For number 2 the test is much more complex.  Pick the motherboard you want to test....  PCIe card. Disk drive, WHEW!

For number 3 there appear to be more folks doing this.  I had one experience 2 years ago that my NAS might have been worse than the internal storage on the server I was using at the time.  

 

The testing of #1 VS  #3 is on my work plan over the next few weeks.  I am not sure how I will conduct it yet.  I have a weird feeling about NAS and networking disk storage with the listening I have done with a modified switch in my network on the Sever —> NAA   vs Server —> Switch —> NAA

[bobfa]

8 hours ago, Ben-M said:

I wanted to ask in here first before starting my own thread for an AudioLinux Server. 

 

You are headed down a fun path.  Do not stress there is a lot of help out here.  There is an AL server thread that may cover what you need.  Sometimes it is hard to find stuff around here. I have gotten "lost" a couple of times.

 

[bobfa]

33 minutes ago, bibo01 said:

A little while ago therewastalks about having, together with RAM AL OS on USB stick, a M2 NVMe for saving Roon database.

To be honest, I am not sure if people were talking about Intel Optane...I am a little bit confused about different technologies: Optane, M2 SSD, M2 NVMe, ecc.

Anyhow, what is the solution agreed upon? Would it work for AMD based too? Any particular model?

Thanks 

Many of us have been using Optane for boot and database storage on audio servers.  I have been testing it in two servers that I built.   I am also looking at it for storage in endpoints where we have been using USB sticks.  The goal there is to see if there is an audible difference to eliminate the USB stick reboot issue.  Most of the testing done so far appears to support that running AL in RAM improves audio quality.

 

From the little research I had time to do there are AMD boards that can use Optane as storage but not as hard drive cache. 

 

 I did a little blog post about this stuff.  Thanks for the idea!  I am behind on these.

 

 

[bobfa]

17 hours ago, bibo01 said:

Thanks for your reply. I just read your blog post.

You mention Optane's low latency benefits. Are they only achievable on Intel based systems?

In this NVMe SSD round-up it seems that Optane is slower in terms of writes/reads. 

To use Optane in an AMD system, as you say, as storage only, does it still make sense with a USB loaded RAM OS?

BTW, the AMD motherboard I am looking at for compatibility is Supermicro H11DSi.  

I don't want to get too far off subject here.  I boot my server off of Optane into RAM.  I have no experience with AMD motherboards, but in this application the Optane is not being used and  drive acceleration system, it is used to boot and in my case Roon library.

[bobfa]

I think we have learned a lot from the discussions here.  Lets keep the technical stuff going.  The more people who have these systems to listen to and experiment with the better the community will be.  

 

Larry has been here a very long time and has contributed a lot to AS.  There are a lot of ways to bring more folks into this little corner of our world.  

 

We have had some folks get too wound up around here lately.  Let's try to slow down just a bit.

 

 

[bobfa]

1 hour ago, mourip said:

Yesterday I commandeered one of my Roon endpoints to make an AL based Roon Core server. I booted to ramroot from the disk-less box and hooked up an external USB drive with a copy of my library on it. It sounds good but I do not have enough time on it to determine if it beats my current Win10/AO Core server.

 

Question: How do I access the drive to copy additional music to it. If I remember correctly AL has a shared folder but I cannot remember how to browse to it.

 

Thanks!

Sftp

[bobfa]

9 hours ago, Boomboy said:

Last weekend I isolated 2 cores in AL . Glad I did . I also just finished putting the board inside the akasa case . I gave the front panel a cs bath to remove the black anno to match my other components.  Liking the look .. loving the sound !

Looks nice but the spikes on the wood make me cringe!!

[bobfa]

9 hours ago, Boomboy said:

Last weekend I isolated 2 cores in AL . Glad I did . I also just finished putting the board inside the akasa case . I gave the front panel a cs bath to remove the black anno to match my other components.  Liking the look .. loving the sound !

Looks nice but the spikes on the wood make me cringe!!