Adding HQPlayer download directory as a repository?

Audio Gear Talk HQ Player
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I recently built a new i9 music server to run DSD 512 EC modulators and am happily listening to HQPlayer Embedded on it. Given my almost complete lack of knowledge of Linux I was surprised that I managed to:

  • install Ubuntu server;
  • install Jussi’s low-latency kernel;
  • install nVidia driver;
  • Allocate a static IP address on router and server (this was far more clunky than I expected)
  • install dependencies and latest HQPlayer Embedded;
  • install dependencies and RoonServer (easy install script);
  • clone a hard drive containing 6TB of music to a new SSD (overnight job using dd);
  • mount the music drives (all SSD now);
  • restore a Roon database backup;

all without troubling the experts on this forum. (@RBM : stop laughing René it’s true !)

However, in the grand tradition of not leaving well enough alone, I am wondering whether we can add the HQPlayer download directory for Embedded as a repository and then just use apt update when Jussi releases new versions.

Anyone tried this ?

What’s the worst thing that could happen if I do it ?

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Curious , isn’t it enough to do on the router alone , just selecting the right device via MAC address?

I know it is easy with my Asus router but maybe not others

Then reboot device

Or am I missing half the problem/solution?

image

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Bring this up at the next meeting with @ipeverywhere . I think he wrote a script to auto-update embedded that he might share.

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As I understand it you can reserve a static IP address on the router within its DHCP range and that will prevent it assigning that address to any other device. But if you want to force the server to use a static IP address without making a DHCP request, then you have to edit your Netplan file. This can mean a faster startup.

Also, that is a fair approximation of my usual Linux adventures.

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It won’t work that simple way, since the directory structure on my server is not package repository. All the metadata is missing, so it won’t be recognized as a repository.

If I would create a package repository (early days of Embedded, there was RPM repository), sure people would get easy updates. But it would move everybody very quickly to a new version and without nice way of going back in versions either. So I’m a bit cautious about such for multiple reasons.

So far, I’ve seen more gradual update progress as better way.

apt will just start complaining that it cannot fetch metadata.

Faster startup and less risk of hqplayerd service getting started before the IP has been assigned. For systemd-networkd there’s a dependency systemd-networkd-wait-online.service, but netplan doesn’t seem to properly support such things. DHCP runs asynchronously parallel to the startup, so it doesn’t slow down the overall system startup much, but HQPlayer for example cannot be started before IP has been assigned. And if it is started before, some functionality will be broken.

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Thanks @jussi_laako . Would it be possible or practical to have a repository for those who want easy updates to latest version and the current directory structure as well, for those who prefer older version or who want to rollback ?