I’ve been using Pi’s since day 1 (I had the first Pi in Australia!). I’m totally fine with everything computer-wise - SSH’ing, networking, setting up things via command line.
I’ve been using Pi’s for HiFi for a long time now, and have been using a Raspian installation with Roon installed. I’m having a few issues with it dropping out occasionally. I’m using the Pi USB out, and a WiFi dongle, so I’m guessing it’s a USB bus issue. I’ve got a USB hat on order, but while I wait I was thinking of trying RoPieee.
What I can’t find anywhere is whether there are any benefits beyond ease of use and setup? If I’m running an up to date install of Raspian and Roon, and have no interest in screens or IR remotes, is there any reason to give RoPieee a shot?
At a time when I was facing a very steep learning curve, it was quite a relief to have one kit that “just worked”.
The only negative that I can think of is that Ropieee will not handle some Roon extensions. Otherwise, like @bearFNF said, autoupdates, zero hassle, works.
I don’t think Ropieee offers an expert Linux user anything other than the fact that this is built from the ground up for this purpose. That said, it is simple and quick to try so give it a go and feed back.
One other practical benefit of RoPieee is that the cost of re-flashing and configuring is nearly zero, so if a microSD card (or the filesystem) fails for some reason, starting over is easy and quick. And even though DietPi and Raspian are simple to maintain, RoPieee is easier yet.
Personally, I could not live without the screens, so we are a committed RoPieee household.
Main benefit is probably custom kernel builds that include the latest native DSD-over-USB device support (typically in the form of additional USB vendorid/productid entries for XMOS-based DACs). These updates tend to take some time to make it to mainline kernels. This may or may not be an issue for you depending on what DAC you are connecting to the RPi.
