Snakeoil OS

[markiteight]

Okay, winding back a little from sentiments expressed last night, I've persevered with Snakeoil and got it (sort of) working.

I'm glad to see you're giving it another shot. You've been an asset to this project and I was bummed to see you go.

I have two issues currently: first, although I can get Snakeoil apparently working, I can't get my LSNAS (Win7 plus Asset) recognised. To beat this I installed a second disk onto the Hakai, with music files. This has mounted, and both MPD and LMS can see the files, as can Kazoo. But the second issue is that I can't play them. It may be a DAC problem, as I can't get any blue activity lights going on the Gigaport DAC, only the power one. But the Snakeoil web control app recognises it. I get the same result when I change the disks over to my second Hakai.

Any suggestions?

I'm going to throw this out there as I ran into a similar issue, but I'm nowhere near an expert so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Do you have the unlocked version of Snakeoil? Kazoo is a UPnP controller and requires UPnP software on the server and renderer side. MPD and LMS are not UPnP (so much for the "Universal" in "Universal Plug and Play"). You need the full version to gain the ability to install MinimServer and Upmpdcli via the GUI, in which case the procedure is a dawdle. Alternatively, if you want to stick with MPD you could try a controller app that's compatible. Agent Kith lists several on the Snakeoil site.

[FairPlayMotty]

I do not possess the vocabulary to adequately express how good it sounds.
FairPlayMotty wrote: ↑2019-03-11 01:13
I've changed mounts in the system. You can delete a mount and remount it. There's also a reset button in the Mount Points Configuration section.
Really? I don't see how that's possible. Even Agent Kith said this is doable only via SSH, but will be available in the Snakeoil GUI on later versions.
FairPlayMotty wrote: ↑2019-03-11 01:13
The thing that surprised me a little about your approach was seemingly using one SSD for both the system and the music. I always use one SSD for the system and others for the music.
I'm not sure where you got that idea because I do it the same way you do. I did partition the boot drive to utilize the ~280GB of otherwise wasted space, but I've removed that partition for the time being. I can always add it back later if I need it.

Now it's 06:28 here, I'm in my fifties and not as physically fast as I was a few years or decades ago. Let's address the delete/remount drive issue. The only reason I said I had deleted and remounted drives because I had done so but, just to demonstrate, here is a screenshot of my Hakai Server from a few minutes ago. The two NTFS drives have been removed.

Screenshot_20190312-054856.png

Note the /dev/sdb5 reference at the bottom of the screen - that's one of the NTFS drives removed.

Screenshot_20190312-060255.png

As you will now see, the drives are remounted using different codes. Unless you have to remount a drive I wouldn't recommend it because the control point (in my case HiFi Cast) loses all playlist data and playlists must be reconstructed. The exercise of deleting mounted drives and remounting them took me around ten minutes. If you unplug the drives on the motherboard and plug them back in (I swapped sata sockets) Snakeoil OS prompts you to remount the drives.

[FairPlayMotty]

FairPlayMotty wrote: ↑2019-03-11 01:13
The thing that surprised me a little about your approach was seemingly using one SSD for both the system and the music. I always use one SSD for the system and others for the music.
I'm not sure where you got that idea because I do it the same way you do. I did partition the boot drive to utilize the ~280GB of otherwise wasted space, but I've removed that partition for the time being. I can always add it back later if I need it.

In fairness you didn't do it in the same way I did.

My drive configuration was as follows:

SSD1 - Snakeoil OS
SSD2 - NTFS Music
SSD3 - NTFS Music

What you said in your first posts I believe was that on SSD1 you loaded the Snakeoil OS on one partition and music (Beth Orton etc.) on the other partition. That set off alarm bells for me because I only ever use the first SSD for system files. And the use of two partitions for system and music on SSD1 is why you encountered the Samba issue Kith explained for you. You refer to the space not used by the Snakeoil OS on SSD1 as "wasted space". I prefer to think of it as system safety (280GB of SSD is remarkably cheap these days).

[agent_kith]

Hi everybody. Sorry I'm late.

Apparently enabling LVM during install makes this possible, but I need to learn how. In the mean time I have mounted one of the 600gig drives under /media/music and transferred most of my music onto it. It works...mostly (more on that later).

You can follow the guide here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lvm

When the idea of Snakeoil is conceived, it's thought there'd be 1 SSD, 2 max. So the idea of adding LVM support didn't came up. I'd see if I can add that in a future version soon.

Really? I don't see how that's possible. Even Agent Kith said this is doable only via SSH, but will be available in the Snakeoil GUI on later versions.

SSH is for setting up LVM.. You can modify your existing mount points by clicking on the trash can button (in red).

But unfortunately there's still a problem. Songs play one-at-a-time and they won't start without a little "nudge." In other words, I can load an album, hit play, and nothing happens. If I slide the progress slider and arbitrary distance and let go, the music plays fine. I can then drag the slider back to the beginning of the song and it'll play through to the end of the track, give me a split second burst of the next track, then stop. I have to go back in and repeat the trick with the slider for every song. As you might imagine, this is a PITA. This actually bothers me a lot less than it should. The music is just so damned good it's not really possible to feel annoyed.

This is a weird one. Never encountered this before. What music play back software are you using?

[FairPlayMotty]

Welcome on board Agent Kith!

[FairPlayMotty]

Okay, winding back a little from sentiments expressed last night, I've persevered with Snakeoil and got it (sort of) working.

I have two issues currently: first, although I can get Snakeoil apparently working, I can't get my LSNAS (Win7 plus Asset) recognised. To beat this I installed a second disk onto the Hakai, with music files. This has mounted, and both MPD and LMS can see the files, as can Kazoo. But the second issue is that I can't play them. It may be a DAC problem, as I can't get any blue activity lights going on the Gigaport DAC, only the power one. But the Snakeoil web control app recognises it. I get the same result when I change the disks over to my second Hakai.

Any suggestions?

David, under Alsa Output Devices on the player tab, do you have IN USE: USB AUDIO in red?

[Lego]

Welcome on board Agent Kith!

+1

[David Neel]

David, under Alsa Output Devices on the player tab, do you have IN USE: USB AUDIO in red?

Yes

[tokenbrit]

David, under Alsa Output Devices on the player tab, do you have IN USE: USB AUDIO in red?

Yes

Is the Alsa output volume up for the usb audio channel?

[David Neel]

Is the Alsa output volume up for the usb audio channel?

Set at 100%.

But I notice the Audio State box at the top of that page states that USB Audio "device is closed", despite being In Use lower down the page.

[David Neel]

I've now tried enabling minimserver, both with and without upmpdcli. This enables both BubbleDS and Kazoo to see the music files, but not to play them.
I've tried MPD - the webapp sees the music but can't play it. LMS is the same.
So I'm drawing a blank here.

[tokenbrit]

But I notice the Audio State box at the top of that page states that USB Audio "device is closed", despite being In Use lower down the page.

'Motty's screenshot (top of page 2) shows the same. What does it say, under Alsa Configuration, for the Streaming Mode?

[David Neel]

But I notice the Audio State box at the top of that page states that USB Audio "device is closed", despite being In Use lower down the page.

'Motty's screenshot (top of page 2) shows the same. What does it say, under Alsa Configuration, for the Streaming Mode?

PCM

[tokenbrit]

Any lights on, on the Gigaport HD+? Are you using the USB cable that came with the ESI? Are the connectors all fully home? Do you have another USB cable, or DAC, that you could try? Otherwise, could you try another USB port?

[David Neel]

Any lights on, on the Gigaport HD+? Are you using the USB cable that came with the ESI? Are the connectors all fully home? Do you have another USB cable, or DAC, that you could try? Otherwise, could you try another USB port?

The power light is on, and I've checked the connectors. I've also tried other USB ports and a different USB cable.

Just noticed that the I/O light is showing red, very pale beside the bright blue so I haven't noticed this before. This suggests no input arriving?

[tokenbrit]

Just noticed that the I/O light is showing red, very pale beside the bright blue so I haven't noticed this before.

I think that's just bleed from the bright blue led... mine does the same.
Do you get Pulse Audio installed with SnakeOil, and can you get to it outside of the SnakeOil interface? I seem to recall I had to select the right input, & output of course, before I got music through the DAC. Not sure how to do that in Alsa, but it was straightforward in Pulse, especially as the UI shows the signal when the right source is selected & playing so you'd want to cue up a few songs on your control point to play from Minim via upmpd/MPD and out to the HD+

[David Neel]

Pulse Audio? Previously under Volumio, there was no configuration of the DAC required... I just plugged it in and it played. Can't find mention of it in the instructions.

[tokenbrit]

I don't know then - sorry. I just know vaguely how I got it working in Debian Stretch; I'm not familiar with SnakeOil :/

I understand the frustration - hopefully an Agent will see you soon, and it'll be a simple fix to get music playing.

[David Neel]

I don't know then - sorry. I just know vaguely how I got it working in Debian Stretch; I'm not familiar with SnakeOil :/

I understand the frustration - hopefully an Agent will see you soon, and it'll be a simple fix to get music playing.

Thanks indeed for the help! I didn't try Stretch, so obviously missed out on a lot of fun.... It was similar with Volumio, lots of frustration and huge amount of time wasted before a simple solution arrives.

[markiteight]

Hi everybody. Sorry I'm late.

Welcome to the rabbit hole, Agent Kith!

You can follow the guide here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lvm

Thank you. That guide was very useful for helping me better understand what LVM is and what it does, but when it comes to describing how to implement LVM it still left me in a state of, "but how do I...".
I came across this: https://opensource.com/business/16/9/li ... -guide-lvm with a much more basic step-by-step guide that I can understand well enough to either accomplish what I want or make things be very, very broken. ;-)

SSH is for setting up LVM.. You can modify your existing mount points by clicking on the trash can button (in red).

Hmmm...that's not how it's working for me. Once a drive is mounted, it cannot be unmounted. I click "Add Mount Point" and it expands the "Mount Points Configuration" fields, including the trash can. Clicking the trash can simply removes that instance of Mount Point Configuration. Filling in the fields, clicking "trash" and then clicking save, as per the instructions, doesn't do anything either.

This is a weird one. Never encountered this before. What music play back software are you using?

Linn Kazoo. I tried Linn Kinsky (an older control point that was replaced by Kazoo in 2014-ish) as well with the same results.

It gets weirder. I discovered this new plot thickener this morning. I ripped my personal CD collection to AIFF many years ago and it appears these are the tracks that exhibit this problem. Anything in my collection that isn't AIFF, which includes AAC downloads from iTunes and MP3 files that accumulate over the years, play fine. This is consistent with Kazoo and Kinsky.

I cannot fully express how much I appreciate your help. It's pretty awesome having such thorough support direct from the source!

[FairPlayMotty]

Pulse Audio? Previously under Volumio, there was no configuration of the DAC required... I just plugged it in and it played. Can't find mention of it in the instructions.

David, is your ALSA Output Devices section looking as follows?

Screenshot_20190312-220033.png

[FairPlayMotty]

It gets weirder. I discovered this new plot thickener this morning. I ripped my personal CD collection to AIFF many years ago and it appears these are the tracks that exhibit this problem. Anything in my collection that isn't AIFF, which includes AAC downloads from iTunes and MP3 files that accumulate over the years, play fine. This is consistent with Kazoo and Kinsky.

Have you thought of converting the AIFF files to flac or alac? I have two utilities in the PC world that would do that very easily.

[David Neel]

Pulse Audio? Previously under Volumio, there was no configuration of the DAC required... I just plugged it in and it played. Can't find mention of it in the instructions.

David, is your ALSA Output Devices section looking as follows?

Screenshot_20190312-220033.png

Yes

[markiteight]

Have you thought of converting the AIFF files to flac or alac? I have two utilities in the PC world that would do that very easily.

Yes. But not as a first resort.

[FairPlayMotty]

FairPlayMotty wrote: ↑2019-03-12 23:09
Pulse Audio? Previously under Volumio, there was no configuration of the DAC required... I just plugged it in and it played. Can't find mention of it in the instructions.
David, is your ALSA Output Devices section looking as follows?

Screenshot_20190312-220033.png
Yes

Sounds like a player/renderer issue to me. Have you emailed Agent Kith?