Raspberry PI and NDX

Chris,

Its a 30 day trial, not 3 (well, at least mine is at 29 days to go) - but if you completely uninstall - delete .dBpoweramp directory - then it seems to reset.  But of course you need to rescan etc

Given the rate the beta is iterating, I'd hope they would be in a position to do a fully stable release pretty quickly - there's not many bugs being raised that I can see.  [Well, not bugs in Asset - though  I've fallen foul of a few random Unix OS side effects when updating via apt-get.  That could be the combination of my NAS and its Cifs implementation, though]  But then I don't know what criteria they use... 

Slioch,

It's probably picked up that I originally installed the 1st beta around the 15th November. I'll try the full delete and reinstall tomorrow when it expires or it's back to the noisy laptop as a server!

Many thanks

Chris

On expiry of the trial period it continues to work but with limited functionality........like the free version of the one for Windows.

Chris

Hi Simon

Do you have any pi configuration tweaks to get the best sound/integration with Naim NDX. Picked up one of these yesterday, just waiting for asset to finish scanning and will be intrigued to hear how it compares to Minimserver (if any).

Could you please make any suggestions in basic term, as until last night id never used linux.

Regards Graeme

Foxman, no tweaks are required - or at least I have not applied any. Use the Model B, use the latest version of Raspbian, mount the NAS shares as CIFS (Windows) shares and you are away  -and it looks like you have already done that.

Simon

Thanks Simon, will sit back and have a listen and mess around with the config. Cheers

Hi,

There is an Overclocking option in the Raspberry Config, if you want/need to extract further performance from this device. From the raspi-config menu I selected the Turbo mode. It does come with some health warnings, but seems to work for me. See http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/tag/overclocking & http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Ra..._Quick_Install_Guide.

I am running mine without any peripherals attached and have a USB 5v PSU rather than reusing a phone charger, which can vary in output voltage and current, I believe.

You may need to have run the updates (sudo apt-get update, sudo apt-get upgrade, sudo rpi-update) however be aware that the latest Kernel does introduce a change in the CIFs mount entry in your fstab - see http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/sh...r-Raspberry-pi/page7 & http://www.raspberrypi.org/php...amp;p=476374#p476374 

The other change, I have seen, is if you are running the Raspberry Pi 'headless' i.e. with no monitor attached, and just making a SSH connection to it, and then using Putty as a command tool, you could change the default memory allocation, giving the CPU more of the available memory from the GPU, as you aren't using any of the graphics processing. This should improve the CPU performance, but I haven't tried this yet, as I am away for Christmas, but back to Dublin tomorrow.

Have fun.

Simon (currently in Newbold-on-Stour)

Yes had a look at the overclocking, but to be honest for this use i didn't think it would be much use so left alone.

getting the cifs mount did take some time to get working correctly. Im sure if you know linux it makes perfect sense, but to me its all gobledegook.

What i would like to be able to do is whilst using Putty send the output to the HDMI port, so what i get on my putty screen also appears on my tv screen

by the way does any one know the answer to the "what's good in soup" question over at raspberrypi.org

Regards Graeme

Hi, But if you have a screen attached to your Pi, you are running a command shell, so don't need you make a remote SSH connection with a Putty session.

My Unix is a little out-of-date, given I was put through a SVR4 Unix SysAdmin course, when I worked for ICL in the early 90's, as a Graduate Engineer. But know enough to into trouble, but there's a couple of Engineers at work I can get to help me if I get stuck.

Thanks,

Simon.

Now that all you tech guys have got this sorted, you do realise that the great unwashed will be interested, myself being one of them

My son was bought a PI kit by his grandfather and has no interest in it at all (wants everything NOW) it is a B unit Maplin kit with P/S etc. Is it relatively straight forward for a novice?

I am currently Synology 212+ to NDX using synology's media server, its pretty good but I would like to try full res transcode to WAV and have a "folder" per artist actually working.

I have read around and checked out Mr Spoon's responses on DBpoweramp, and the beta seems stable enough for someone like me to jump in.

Any other major advantages of Asset? I note someone was up and running in about an hour but a weekend would suit me fine.

A really silly question is how it physically connects ? any help? 

The only thing I worry about is "code" never done it since my BASIC on the ZX81 many years ago.

i will obviously check out the PI site to get started, but any other pointers on this, I am a Mac user btw.

Any other bits I need other than a case, ps, mouse, monitor/tv, as I will be ordering case today.

Hope you don't mind this, and the next million daft questions as I think this is a great little product/solution.

Thanks

Maccaa

Hi Maccaa

It took me about 4 - 5 hours to get from a new pi to Asset up and running, and i had never used Linux before.

Do a bit of research online first and im sure you'll be fine. Hardest bit i found was getting the NAS mounted correctly. But i think most of the questions have been asked over on Spoons site.

As for how it connects. Ethernet. Once you've given the pi an IP address you can use something like Putty to connect to it, which is a free download, from another PC, which means you can then disconnect the Keyboard, Monitor and mouse from it.

Just one thing to note, i have as yet not been able to get the NAS drive to go into sleep mode as it does when running Synology "Media Server". So it means the NAS is running 24/7, so im not using the pi until i can resolve this.

One other thing, have a look at Minimserver. I actually prefer this and does the same job as Asset and Media Server. It does look like its complicated to set up but its actually a doddle with really good support over at there site.

Anyway Good luck and enjoy playing.

Oh just one other thing if you run DSM 3.2 build 1955 on your NAS the transcode flac to wav works correctly. The only drawback is that the album artwork is very low res, which is the main reason i moved away from Media Server.

Regards Graeme

Hi maccaa,

Yes setting up and configuring Asset on the Raspberry Pi has been pretty straight forward and rewarding, as the Asset UPnP server is a better dedicated music-only product than Twonky Server or the ReadyDNLA product provided with my ReadyNAS Duo NAS. It does take a little time to research the necessary steps, taking information from a number of sources, web-sites and forum sites (but isn't that part of the fun!)

In terms of setup, these are the steps I followed:

1. Connect a screen, Keyboard, mouse, ethernet and then Power for the initial 'switch on' with the NOOBS (New Out of the Box Software) on a SD Card - see http://www.raspberrypi.org/wp-...start-guide-v2_1.pdf for how to format and image the SD Card if not provided in the kit.

2. Select Rasbian as the operating system for the Raspberry PI. The O/S loader will then install and write the boot partition on the SD Card, which then serves as the device's storage.

3. Once you have the basic O/S, you can log in as user: pi with password: raspberry, then run the build-in Configuration, with 'sudo raspi-config'

4. If you want to run the Raspberry PI as a 'headless' device, with no screen or keyboard/mouse attached, so it can be placed next to your NAS, out of the way, you will need to enable SSH in the Advanced options of the Config menu. It will also be easier to give the Raspberry PI a static IP address on your network. See http://www.raspberryshake.com/...pistatic-ip-address/ for the instructions on this.

5. Check you can SSH into the Pi, from your regular machine. On a PC I use WinSCP and then launch a Putty session. I believe there is something similar on the Mac (as MAC OS is Unix underneath). Once you have this, you can disconnect the screen, keyboard/mouse, and if necessary relocate the Pi to where-ever you NAS lives (loft, back room, under-the-stairs, garage, etc.) as you can connect & manage it remotely now.

6. If you are going to run in the headless mode, you can give the CPU more memory, which is shared with the GPU (graphics processor) as with no screen to drive this won't be doing anything. In the raspi-config menu, go to the Advanced options and select 'Memory Split' and give the GPU the minimum RAM option of 16MB.

7. I also enabled the Turbo overclocking mode - in the raspi-config select 'Overclock' and select the Turbo preconfigured setting.

That's the basic Pi configuration. Now to install Asset - this is documented on http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/sh...PnP-for-Raspberry-pi.

The steps are basically:

1. Download and install Asset onto the Pi. Launch Asset and ensure the configuration interface is presented a web-oage at http://<your PI's static IP address':45537. Asset should also now be visible in n-Stream in the UPnP servers selection. Just with no content scanned.

2. Set Asset to start automatically in the crontab and test by rebooting 'sudo reboot' that it restarts and serves the configuration web-page.

3. Then create a mount directory for your NAS, so that the Pi can see and read the music files stored on your NAS - this is outlined in a post on page 2 see http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/sh...r-Raspberry-pi/page2 

4. However use the mount command with the 'sec=ntlm' option e.g. '//192.168.1.3/media /home/pi/nas cifs guest,_netdev,sec=ntlm 0 0' as per my post http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/sh...r-Raspberry-pi/page7 as later versions of the operating system kernel require this option to make the mount. This is probably the trickest part of the overall configuration. However once you have the mount working, in WinSCP the contents of the nas directory (/home/pi/nas) will show the directory structure on your NAS.

5. In the Asset configuration menu, in the Watched folders box, type /home/pi/nas/Music (given that my music files are in the directory Music in the media folder on my NAS.

If I had made the mount command

//192.168.1.3/media/Music /home/pi/nas cifs guest,_netdev,sec=ntlm 0 0

then this would just be /home/pi/nas, as the mount point to the NAS is one directory down in the folder structure.

Playlist directory will be same, but I use Playlists in n-Stream.

Asset should now start scanning the folders and building its database from the metadata.

Additional configuration settings for Asset are described in http://dbpoweramp.com/asset-whs-manual.html

I hope these steps are useful and if so, I might put together a 'Configuring Asset UPnP on a Raspberry Pi as a dedicated music server with a NAS' document/guide with screen shots etc.

Enjoy!

Simon (back in Dublin)

Graeme, Simon, Thank you, two fantastic and very comprehensive responses, I really appreciate it.

Graeme, my current DSM build is 4.3-3776, unfortunately the NAS was too new for the 3.2 build with the "working" transcoding. 

Simon (back in Dublin) thank you and a step by step may help the many future questions that arise on this little device.

Thanks both again, and I shall be playing, hopefully, this weekend.

The unwashed appreciate your support

maccaa

Hi Graeme,

I was monitoring my NAS while away from home for Christmas, and my NAS's drives on my ReadyNAS Duo, were correctly 'spinning down', which are set to sleep after 10 minutes of no activity. So the 'folder monitor' function in Asset for Raspberry Pi can operate without disk activity, probably doing the check from cache (I have upgrade my Duo with 1GB RAM).

Have you tried unselecting the 'Detect & Catalog New tracks' options and see if this enables your NAS to enter sleep mode?

The ReadyNAS Duo doesn't have a sleep mode for the whole device after no activity, but a forced powerdown and rewaken at set times, which doesn't suit. The power consumption of a NAS with sleeping disks is minimal, so I am happy with that.

I have installed the iStat package on both the Raspberry Pi and the Duo NAS, so I can monitor the CPU load, memory usage, I/O levels, etc. on the iPad - see http://www.jamescochran.org/20...tat-on-raspberry-pi/ for the instructions on how to load iStat on the Raspberry Pi and nice to see be able to see/monitor the devices during playback, and when performing backup and other admin functions.

Enjoy

Simon.

Hi Simon

No i have not tried that. I think i just presumed it is to do with the pi keeping the mount permanently active and stopping the NAS going into its normal sleep mode.

I will give this a try tomorrow.

Many thanks

Graeme

Just to let you know you can downgrade your NAS.

The DSM package can be downloaded here

http://usdl.synology.com/downl...Station/DSM3.2/1955/

Login to your diskstation using admin and go to the control panel. Select Terminal and enable SSH or telnet depending on what you're using. Disable "Media Server".

Run your Terminal app from utilities.
At the command line, type in: ssh root@yourDiskstationIP (i use telnet on windows pc)
it will then ask you to enter your password.

"MAKE SURE YOU LOGIN AS ROOT AND NOT ADMIN"

You should then come to something like
Diskstation>

at this point, type in: vi /etc.defaults/VERSION

you will see something like:
majorversion="4"
minorversion="0"
buildphase="0"
buildnumber="2219"
builddate="2012/**/**" (sorry I can't remember the exact date)

press "i" to make changes
change it to
majorversion="3"
minorversion="2"
buildphase="0"
buildnumber="1922"
builddate="2011/09/04"
after that press ESC and save it by typing :wq

This is the version before the 1955. The idea is to change to a version before 1955.

Now log in back into your diskstation as admin, doesn't matter if it still shows DSM 4.0. Go to system info, your DSM should now be DSM3.2-1922.

Go to control panel and click on DSM Update. Select Manual update and select the .pat file you downloaded earlier. and click OK. that's it. Once it's done you should be back to 3.2-1955.

These are the instructions i use quite often whenever i want to mess about with newer versions of DSM. Not had any issues with down grading, just make sure you disable "Media Server" when doing so.

Graeme

Graeme, thank you for that, I spent a lot of time about 6 months ago trying to find all that info on downgrading firmware but failed, I appreciate it. I will keep this in mind and on file, just in case.

Am currently formatting a new 8GB SD card (£2) tesco's no expense spared ;0

And have downloaded latest NOOBS to go on........ wish me luck

Is it possible to create your own views within Asset, or a sort order. 

Using Asset on the Raspberry Pi is certainly better than Twonky Server on my ReadyNAS Duo NAS. In terms of Metadata management of the Album Artist tag, Compilations, Album Artwork etc.

However the only issue I am experiencing is trying to transcode 24/192 and 24/176.4 files to WAV.

The ND5 buffer doesn't get to 100% during replay, and every minute or so, is down to 0% and the music drops out for a few seconds, but it struggles to be served. It works fine for 24/96 and below.

Now looking at iStat during replay of these files, the Pi's CPU load is 20% (load average under 5), with some free RAM and no Swap file being used. I/O to the ND5 is about 1MB/s (so 8 Mbit/s or so) and this is easily served by the NAS, which is just idling with a 1% CPU usage and the 1MB/s to the Pi. All devices are connected to a GIgabit switch, with a throughput capability of 16Gb/s.

The non-transcoded FLAC files play perfectly.

So where is the bottleneck? Is it just a hardware limitation of the Pi?

I do have the NAS configured for Jumbo frames support, so the MTU is 7936.

Any else got experience of transcoding 24/192 files and what network settings do they have.

Thanks,

Simon.

Hey Simon,

How did you handle compilations and albums with guest artists in Asset?  I have Asset on a Mac Mini, with pretty much the same functionality as the PC Version, and I suspect Pi! I have ripped with XLD to AIFF and is working awesome, using n-Stream with the ND5 XS, except compilations, and as I say, albums with guests specified in metadata - it splits the album up separate while viewing Artist/Album...

I have even specified, in check box of metadata that it is a compilation, to no avail.  I know in Twonky, you can specify a separate directory for comps and it tags then as various.  Please advise if you have worked this out!

Dave

Hi Dave,

I didn't have to do anything to get Compilations working properly. I came from a Logitech LMS past, which handled the Compilation=1 tag properly and grouped them in a separate directory, as iTunes does.

So in Asset's Advanced Search menu, I just select Compilations, click through the 'Yes' and they are all listed by Compilation Album name, mostly with a Album Artist entry of Various Artists.

The Twonky Server version I was using was 6.0.38 on my ReadyNAS Duo, as version 7 hadn't been ported to the older SPARC platform. In this version Album Artist and the Compilation Tag was handled.

Albums with guests specified in metadata, is more of the Contributing Artists with Main Artists setting, which are:

Contributing Artists with Main Artists  typically audio tracks might include featured artists (multiple artists), normally contributing artists are searched through Advanced Search >> Contributing Artist, with this option checked these 2nd artists are added to the main Artist browse.

BTW I have pulled together a Configuration Guide for Asset UPnP on the Raspberry Pi, in a step-by-step approach, does anyone know how I can post a PDF document to this forum? Moderators?

Thanks,

Simon.

Oh, and by the way - am thinking bottleneck probably the Pi I would think - I have same set up except NAS is qnap and obviously Pi vs MAC, but your NAS CPU is not being taxed!  Just opinion...  Try switching Pi out for Laptop, PC or something with Asset on it - just for shts n giggles, quick test, then you can at leased concentrate on that puzzle!

Dave

Thanks simon - I will fiddle with it - interested to see PDF if we can figure out how to post!

thanks

Dave

Hi Simon

Yes, I do the FLAC to WAV conversion on the Pi. I have no problem with 192 or 176 files. The buffer takes about a second to fill and then stays full.

I have done nothing to the network settings; I am using the default values. It's a wired network with all the pieces plugged in to a switch.

Chris

Simon, good write up. One thing I would add, as it is (was?) slightly mis leading on the Spoon site. Make sure you run Asset as a regular user and not Root. That is if you use crontab to automatically start Asset, do not configure crontab with the 'sudo' prefix command, run it  as you so you are the owner of the Asset processes.

The config files should be in your own home directory and not root. Asset puts the files in your own home directory the first time you run it as you.

Also the point about NASes sleeping. I think I remember reading that Asset on Unix has to periodically scan the directories every hour, as it has no way of seeing if media has changed otherwise. So if you unselect autodetect in the config, your NAS should sleep, but you will need to manually tell Asset to scan if there is new media.

BTW thoroughly recommend running in headless mode if using as a upnp server. You can free up memory and let more CPU time remain for database searching and transcoding. The former is helpful for large collections when you are doing more complex searches. If you run 'free -h' you can see how much memory is currently assigned on your Pi for none graphics use,  mine was set up with 438Mbytes. Google can tell how to change it if you need.

Simon