Audiolinux Server configurations, Software, Hardware, and Listening Impressions

[sukyung]

I just installed Audiolinux 2.0. At bootup I see:

   

Not sure whether this is a problem.

ram = 16ga , Installed in Optane Memory

[hifi25nl]

Are you sure that you did install the correct way? It seems that UEFI partition is missing. Also you should not see ramroot message. Ramroot is disabled as default. 

[sukyung]

You have activated ramroot.

[hifi25nl]

No, ramroot is not enabled, but you cannot install headless version to 16 GB, as stated on the website.

I will try to make a second 16 GB version 200_16 in the next days.

 

[hifi25nl]

I am just uploading a 16 GB version. Wait at least 30'

Remember that the size of your target drive could be less than 16, even if the manufacturer declare otherwise.

 

HOTFIX only for headless version: please update menu to version 201

[Bricki]

I have got audiolinux 2.0 up and running on my endpoint NUC and so far I'm liking the sound quality change very much.... It seems to be smoother, less forced with more ease and a cleaner sound....and I don't even have ramroot working yet.

 

All I need running on this NUC is roonbridge so I'm going to have to remove all unused applications to try and get ramroot working on my 4gb RAM.

 

Last time I used yaourt to remove roon server and hqplayer.... what can I use with audiolinux 2.0? What commands and syntax do I need to get right to remove all applications except for roon bridge?

[Patatorz]

Hello, just installed the 2.0 on my new setup (Supermicro / Xeon / M2 Samsung 970 evo plus). No problem so far and very smooth. I will deep dive like @Bricki in the sound quality and the different options.

 

Great job Piero !

[hifi25nl]

1 hour ago, Bricki said:

Last time I used yaourt to remove roon server and hqplayer.... what can I use with audiolinux 2.0? What commands and syntax do I need to get right to remove all applications except for roon bridge?

 

The best way is 

pacman -R application-name 

as root

 

If you want also to remove some dependencies:

pamac remove application-name -o

as user. A little dangerous since it could remove too much... best to do before configuring Audiolinux.

[Patatorz]

3 hours ago, Bricki said:

I have got audiolinux 2.0 up and running on my endpoint NUC and so far I'm liking the sound quality change very much.... It seems to be smoother, less forced with more ease and a cleaner sound....and I don't even have ramroot working yet.

 

All I need running on this NUC is roonbridge so I'm going to have to remove all unused applications to try and get ramroot working on my 4gb RAM.

 

Last time I used yaourt to remove roon server and hqplayer.... what can I use with audiolinux 2.0? What commands and syntax do I need to get right to remove all applications except for roon bridge?

 

Hi Bricki, which profile do you use ?

 

BR

[Boomboy]

i cant get mpd installed . i tried in root pacman -S mpd also via the audiolinux menu .. but no luck . i got a few error messages .

@hifi25nl i will send you an email over the weekend 

[lmitche]

Over here, I've got AL2.0 headless running as both a bootable USB stick with Roonbridge and a bootable Optane based Roonserver. There are a bunch of new features, most notably the boot process is much faster. The app pinning function has also been separated from the process of creating isolated cores offering more control. Lastly custom profiles makes SQ tests of various configurations much easier.

 

There are many other new features and improvements, really too numerous to mention. 

 

Piero's hard work is evident throughout the product. I am grateful to Piero for this effort.  Well done!

 

[bodiebill]

5 minutes ago, lmitche said:

Piero's hard work is evident throughout the product. I am grateful to Piero for this effort.  Well done!

 

Agreed! Many thanks, Piero!

[Bricki]

4 hours ago, Patatorz said:

 

Hi Bricki, which profile do you use ?

 

BR

I have been using the auto profile and making my own menu selections back to my favorite settings👍

[Bricki]

7 hours ago, hifi25nl said:

 

The best way is 

pacman -R application-name 

as root

 

If you want also to remove some dependencies:

pamac remove application-name -o

as user. A little dangerous since it could remove too much... best to do before configuring Audiolinux.

I am still struggling to get it small enough to use ramroot on 4gb. I have used pacman to remove hqplayer-embedded, hqplayer-network-audio-daemon and roonserver. Last time this was enough to get ramroot working.

 

Should I start again with the new 16gb image or will that have no impact on the ramroot size?

 

Are there any other installed applications I can delete? I tried airplay but it wasn't found.

 

I also tried to remove dependencies but I think that because I already removed the applications with pacman it didn't work... should I try again with new image and use pamac with the -o option

[hifi25nl]

Try to remove some dependencies left, no necessary to reinstall (a little risky, as I said before)

pamac remove ffmpeg libgmpris rygel adduser-deb shairport-sync -o

(pay attention to what is removing before pressing Y)

 

-> shairport-sync is linux AirPlay

[Bricki]

12 minutes ago, hifi25nl said:

Try to remove some dependencies left, no necessary to reinstall (a little risky, as I said before)

pamac remove ffmpeg libgmpris rygel adduser-deb shairport-sync -o

(pay attention to what is removing before pressing Y)

 

-> shairport-sync is linux AirPlay

Excellent thanks👍... I will try these tonight and let you know tomorrow

[jcn3]

@hifi25nl -- i'm running into an issue with v2.  i use AL with roon server on a nuc 8i5.  the issue is that roon server crashes. it was happening initially when i was trying to restore the roon database, but got around that by not changing any default settings within AL (couldn't import the databse with the "red" profile OR if i updated roon).  by not changing any of the default settings, i was able to restore the database, but roon now crashes after a few seconds of playing a song.

 

i did update the system in this order:

* update AL menu and then rebooted

* update system and then rebooted

* update kernel and then rebooted

 

thoughts?  unfortunately, AL v2 isn't usable for me at this point.

[lmitche]

8 minutes ago, jcn3 said:

@hifi25nl -- i'm running into an issue with v2.  i use AL with roon server on a nuc 8i5.  the issue is that roon server crashes. it was happening initially when i was trying to restore the roon database, but got around that by not changing any default settings within AL (couldn't import the databse with the "red" profile OR if i updated roon).  by not changing any of the default settings, i was able to restore the database, but roon now crashes after a few seconds of playing a song.

 

i did update the system in this order:

* update AL menu and then rebooted

* update system and then rebooted

* update kernel and then rebooted

 

thoughts?  unfortunately, AL v2 isn't usable for me at this point.

Which version of the menu are you running?

 

Menu 2.1 is likely to fix this issue.

 

Larry

[jcn3]

25 minutes ago, lmitche said:

Which version of the menu are you running?

 

Menu 2.1 is likely to fix this issue.

 

Larry

 

first thing i did was update the menu, the system, and the kernel -- so unfortunately menu 2.1 didn't help.

[lmitche]

11 minutes ago, jcn3 said:

 

first thing i did was update the menu, the system, and the kernel -- so unfortunately menu 2.1 didn't help.

What does, $systemctl | grep rtapp, return?

[hifi25nl]

Please

Check memory:

free --giga

Check hard disk space:

df -H 

After check periodically the status of roonserver:

systemctl status roonserver

Be sure that roonserver is the ONLY service enabled:

-> Go to Audio menu, stop all services and re-enable roonserver

 

It could also be the "Roon linux bug" (not yet fully resolved by Roon). Typically is solved restarting  Roon after boot.

 

For further questions contact me at support address. 

 

 

 

[jcn3]

28 minutes ago, hifi25nl said:

Please

Check memory:

free --giga

Check hard disk space:

df -H 

After check periodically the status of roonserver:

systemctl status roonserver

Be sure that roonserver is the ONLY service enabled:

-> Go to Audio menu, stop all services and re-enable roonserver

 

It could also be the "Roon linux bug" (not yet fully resolved by Roon). Typically is solved restarting  Roon after boot.

 

For further questions contact me at support address. 

 

 

 

 

i boot from a 32g usb drive.  nuc has 16g of ram.  here's the memory:

 

 

roon is pretty hosed right now, here's the output from "show audio services".  i get the same after stopping all audio services and restarting roon server.

 

 

here's the output from systemctl status roonserver right after i stopped audio services, restarted roon server, and then played a song (which crashed after 5 sec):

 

 

 

[hifi25nl]

Did you check free hard disk space with df -H?

 

Check also

systemctl status rtapp.timer

It should be disabled

 

You should check also:

networkctl

Systemd network does not like unconfigured interfaces. If possible, if you have more than one network card, disable it in BIOS and disable WiFi

 

Is the output of 

ls -l /var/roon

like this one?
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 13 ago 16.55 RAATServer
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 13 ago 16.55 RoonBridge
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 13 ago 16.32 RoonGoer
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096  2 nov 16.16 RoonServer

 

Note: in general it is recommended to rebuild database from scratch with new installation.

 

I don't have other reports of Roon malfunctioning until now and in my 2 systems Roon is working fine.

 

EDIT: if you have enabled ramroot before, be sure that roon "ramroot service" is disabled

systemctl status roonserver2

 

[jcn3]

35 minutes ago, hifi25nl said:

Did you check free hard disk space with df -H?

 

Check also

systemctl status rtapp.timer

It should be disabled

 

You should check also:

networkctl

Systemd network does not like unconfigured interfaces. If possible, if you have more than one network card, disable it in BIOS and disable WiFi

 

Is the output of 

ls -l /var/roon

like this one?
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 13 ago 16.55 RAATServer
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 13 ago 16.55 RoonBridge
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 13 ago 16.32 RoonGoer
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096  2 nov 16.16 RoonServer

 

Note: in general it is recommended to rebuild database from scratch with new installation.

 

I don't have other reports of Roon malfunctioning until now and in my 2 systems Roon is working fine.

 

EDIT: if you have enabled ramroot before, be sure that roon "ramroot service" is disabled

systemctl status roonserver2

 

 

not running ramroot -- i always do that last when things are sorted out.  it's not reasonable to rebuild the roon database from scratch -- all of the items added to your library from tidal or qobuz will be gone -- not clear why a restore would create a problem.

 

here's df -H

 

here's systemctl status rtapp.timer

 

here's networkctl

 

here's ls -l /var/roon (i'm not running roonbridge)

 

 

[hifi25nl]

As you can see you are out of drive space!

Look at /dev/sda2. 100% use

Like this the system cannot work and you must reinstall because this can produce unrecoverable errors on files.

 

As clearly stated on website: 

6) Launch gparted and extend the ext4 partition until covering the remaining part of the hard disk (this will fix also GPT size errors. note that you will need more than the default size for Roon database)