Audiolinux Server configurations, Software, Hardware, and Listening Impressions

[hifi25nl]

15/12/2023 NEW AUDIOLINUX RASPERRY Pi4-Pi5 is out!

With new kernel 6.1.64 RT LTO booting in both Pi4 and Pi5
After installation, if you have Pi5, we recommend to install the very last kernel Audiolinux 6.6.6 RT LTO 16k
The new Raspberry is delivered with menu 400 with an incredible list of new features and improvements: Release notes
The default configuration has wifi, bluetooth and all video drivers disabled for the best audio performance. You can enable them in Expert menu
Frequency is set fixed to 2800000. It is a good setting, but you can change it together with a lot of other parameters
Included also a menu for overclocking Pi5 (use with care!)

Nice results of latency, around 4-5 times better than Pi4:

T: 0 (  944) P:98 I:100 C: 600000 Min:      2 Act:    3 Avg:    2 Max:      10
T: 1 (  945) P:98 I:100 C: 600000 Min:      2 Act:    3 Avg:    2 Max:      11
T: 2 (  946) P:98 I:100 C: 600000 Min:      2 Act:    3 Avg:    3 Max:      12
T: 3 (  947) P:98 I:100 C: 599930 Min:      2 Act:    4 Avg:    3 Max:      10

[hifi25nl]

Last day of Christmas offer...

[al2813]

Decided to spend this afternoon trying again audio linux. It's great that this now is 100% professional. Order processed quickly and download link received in 10 minutes. Now would be great to understand how in 2024 the download speed is 100k/b. Tried to download like 10 times and this is failing. Would be nice if this can be resolved. 

[hifi25nl]

It seems that today there is some  problem or maintenance work on dreamhost servers.

 

I have sent you email 

[al2813]

23 minutes ago, hifi25nl said:

It seems that today there is some  problem or maintenance work on dreamhost servers.

 

I have sent you email 

 

You did - amazing response and many many thanks!!!

[EduZ]

Hi guys,

Is someone still having bad experience with the system freezing and not responding, apparently for no reason at all.

This is happening on a new machine installed with the latest version of AL V3

  -> Intel i7 11th, 32GB ram and NVMe 500gb
Newly authenticated Roon, only Tidal and Qobuz logged with small library, with no local files or NAS

I did the basic recomendation, but it wasn't fixed
- Disable Linux Watchdog and Journal and no extreme boot options

 

Thanks for feedback

[MikeO3]

On 1/2/2024 at 4:08 PM, EduZ said:

Hi guys,

Is someone still having bad experience with the system freezing and not responding, apparently for no reason at all.

This is happening on a new machine installed with the latest version of AL V3

  -> Intel i7 11th, 32GB ram and NVMe 500gb
Newly authenticated Roon, only Tidal and Qobuz logged with small library, with no local files or NAS

I did the basic recomendation, but it wasn't fixed
- Disable Linux Watchdog and Journal and no extreme boot options

 

Thanks for feedback

Yes, actually now you mention it my system has been halted twice in the last couple few days. Never happens.

 

I noticed because the fan was 100% (this is a silent media PC) and it was hard hung on the console. The journal file does show two instances of NMI's against CPU's which are rather nasty. I'll keep an eye on it now that I have a clue.

 

i5-13500 64GB

lxqt V3 latest menu which is ramboot mode

 

[hifi25nl]

I have tested Roon today with an updated Audiolinux V3 lxqt (full system update) with last Generic kernel 6.6.9 and default configuration.

Roon version 2.0.1357-1, CPU  AMD Ryzen 5800X

Roon installed as user roon (this will prevent Roon from doing nasty things to the system, since it will not have root permission, good also for security...)

 

A Scott Hamilton album from Qobuz have been playing for 4 hours.

No crash, no problems at all. CPU load was always under 1%, most of time around 0.5%

 

This night I could make another test leaving Roon active all night without playing.

[MikeO3]

On 1/3/2024 at 4:22 PM, MikeO3 said:

Yes, actually now you mention it my system has been halted twice in the last couple few days. Never happens.

 

I noticed because the fan was 100% (this is a silent media PC) and it was hard hung on the console. The journal file does show two instances of NMI's against CPU's which are rather nasty. I'll keep an eye on it now that I have a clue.

 

i5-13500 64GB

lxqt V3 latest menu which is ramboot mode

 

Hung yesterday and then again overnight without any activity. I have reverted back to a previous backup.

[al2813]

On 1/6/2024 at 2:03 PM, MikeO3 said:

Hung yesterday and then again overnight without any activity. I have reverted back to a previous backup.

 

Are you running Roon? 

 

I have the same problem and at the moment my box is off when not used. 

[Meridimac]

On 1/6/2024 at 6:03 AM, MikeO3 said:

Hung yesterday and then again overnight without any activity. I have reverted back to a previous backup.

This is the first morning when Roon wasn’t found dead from inactivity overnight, maybe because I upgraded to headless V3 kernel 6.6.9 yesterday. Since buying AL during the Christmas special I’ve had to leave a playlist running all night or disconnect power to reboot for music the next morning.

 

Piero suggested that Roon goes to sleep after several hours which causes a crash, but it didn’t happen last night.

[hifi25nl]

For me this is a Roon bug.
In Audiolinux hibernate and sleep are disabled and there are no memory leaks.
Maybe Roon was not tested in a system with very up-to-date libraries and
kernel.

Audiolinux is using the application as provided by Roon without modifications and this is not
happening with other audio applications.

 

The only "solution" is to stop Roon when not using it or poweroff the PC,
good also for energy saving.

 

...maybe you should open a support ticket at Roon Labs (hoping they will not give general answers and instead ask for specific information...)

[hifi25nl]

Now listening with LMS (Material Skin) with HQPlayer: Nice combination:

 

[hifi25nl]

This is the configuration:

 

[EduZ]

My AL V3 crashes intermittently, sometimes 30 min after play..  and during play
I opened the ticket to Roon, but no answer yet

As I said before, I have been insisting on it because it really plays so good

[MikeO3]

22 hours ago, al2813 said:

 

Are you running Roon? 

 

I have the same problem and at the moment my box is off when not used. 

Yes, arch version at the time on menu 689 and updated.

22 hours ago, Meridimac said:

This is the first morning when Roon wasn’t found dead from inactivity overnight, maybe because I upgraded to headless V3 kernel 6.6.9 yesterday. Since buying AL during the Christmas special I’ve had to leave a playlist running all night or disconnect power to reboot for music the next morning.

 

Piero suggested that Roon goes to sleep after several hours which causes a crash, but it didn’t happen last night.

I updated everything I could last evening including in app roonserver to 1357. It is still running after 11hrs. Hopefully lots of this 🎧 as I write a technical reports today!

[Meridimac]

7 hours ago, MikeO3 said:

Yes, arch version at the time on menu 689 and updated.

I updated everything I could last evening including in app roonserver to 1357. It is still running after 11hrs. Hopefully lots of this 🎧 as I write a technical reports today!

No more trouble at my house, either, after another 30 hours.

[EduZ]

Guys,
My question is: is anyone using AL V3 version  on a pc like NUC (different from mine i7 11th, 32gb ram) like new 13th gen NUC or Mini PC Gaming GTR7 Pro, AMD Ryzen 9 and it is running fine, no crashes?

Could you recommend me?

I want to keep using it by the sound quality but it's impossible because of the crashes.

[al2813]

I upgraded today to the 5.7.0 version that was posted a week ago. This seems to have solved all issues and the sound quality is also benefiting. So far so good. Will report back. 
 

and by way i dumped Roon and running now as a upnp server. Also had positive effect in my system 

[EduZ]

3 hours ago, al2813 said:

I upgraded today to the 5.7.0 version that was posted a week ago. This seems to have solved all issues and the sound quality is also benefiting. So far so good. Will report back. 
 

and by way i dumped Roon and running now as a upnp server. Also had positive effect in my system 

 

Is this version 5.7.0 the Classic version?
I don't want to leave Roon, if really is not possible use Roon, I think go to another OS.

By this I would like to know which PC the V3 will run good

[al2813]

9 hours ago, EduZ said:

 

Is this version 5.7.0 the Classic version?
I don't want to leave Roon, if really is not possible use Roon, I think go to another OS.

By this I would like to know which PC the V3 will run good

 

Headless version

Roon was running OK (at least for the few hours I ran it on the upgraded box) no worries about that. I decided to change it purely on sound quality. And I use a simple NUC i5 7300U with 12GB of RAM. 

 

 

 

[EduZ]

16 minutes ago, al2813 said:

 

Headless version

Roon was running OK (at least for the few hours I ran it on the upgraded box) no worries about that. I decided to change it purely on sound quality. And I use a simple NUC i5 7300U with 12GB of RAM. 

 

 

 

I did new installation downloaded and keeping as original (Audiolinux original version 5.7.0 / supported TIGERLAKE running GENERIC) with:

- journal and watchdog disable

- roonserver "roon" and squeezelite  installed

just it...

it was running at least 4 hours, but crash again...   now I am unistalled squeezelite, play it again and keeping eyes

 

Should I update to specific model (Tigerlake) or anything else?

[al2813]

10 minutes ago, EduZ said:

I did new installation downloaded and keeping as original (Audiolinux original version 5.7.0 / supported TIGERLAKE running GENERIC) with:

- journal and watchdog disable

- roonserver "roon" and squeezelite  installed

just it...

it was running at least 4 hours, but crash again...   now I am unistalled squeezelite, play it again and keeping eyes

 

Should I update to specific model (Tigerlake) or anything else?

 

I think this needs to go to Piero to answer. Send him a direct email. He responds quite quickly. If the Roon issue is still continuing with 5.7.0 then it's a real shame. In any case as I said I decided to stop Roon at least for now. Roon is the best streamer UI that exists, but has too much digital glare in my setup - at least for now. 

[hifi25nl]

I see that there is a support ticket:

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/roon-freezes-with-arch-linux/261325/10

I think this should be fixed by Roon. I have checked everything and there are not problems on the OS side and I cannot check Roon code, since is closed source.
All other applications are working fine.

[MikeO3]

15 hours ago, al2813 said:

and by way i dumped Roon and running now as a upnp server. Also had positive effect in my system 

What upnp software and library config are you now using?