Hi @danny
Hope you and the Roon team are well.
I think some might have concerns over Roon support for NUCs for the future ahead. As the link suggests, the NUC isn’t dying so I guess the support is still there?
Have a great WE 
As others have pointed out, the Intel NUC reference design is what is going away, but others will pick up the mantel - it’s too popular of an option.
What Roon needs to do, @danny , is not just passively let this all happen without making a statement. Roon has a whole page on how to set up ROCK with a lot of recommended Intel NUC machines.
It’s important to get out in front of this now and:
- Produce a page on their site that acknowledge the change in strategy from Intel
- Install test a number of NUC-based machines from other vendors to make sure they install correctly and all the features work
- Put up a page of supported/tested machines down to the model number, RAM size, etc
These things ideally need to be done within the next few weeks, or sales will quite realistically suffer. I’m speaking as an established CTO, btw - this is a massive, massive deal for a small company like Roon that lives and dies on it’s partnerships.
When it comes to the market: Perception is reality.
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Then you are also aware of embargos and information we aren’t allowed to state until they state it first.
The way around this is to reiterate what others say who arent subject to the rules of partnerships – which is why you saw me reiterate someone else’s words right now.
We will make a statement when we can.
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Gotcha. That’s good to hear that you folks are on top of it - silence speaks volumes.
Intel has already disclosed 3 days ago that they are stepping away from the NUC business, so not quite sure which embargo you might be referring to - but I’ll assume there’s another entity involved to which we’re not privy.
Thanks for the response @danny
Well, I have nothing to report on Intel decision…
but what everyone wants to know is what’s coming… I happen to have a good answer there, but the parties involved are not ready for me to spill the news.
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Thank you for your reply, @danny. I figured there would be an ultimate plan. The ROCK on nuc option is so good that I didn’t expect it to go away for good. I love what you all do and am comfortable that there will be a plan when my current nuc finally bites the dust.
Mike
Again: gotcha.
Thanks for the responses.
Reiterating that article above, NUC is going anywhere. Additionally, there are many mini-pc manufacturers out there.
Intel got us into this business years ago, but other manufacturers are always knocking on our door to have us promote their mini-PC boxes too.
The NUC was a no-brainer because of the high-quality boxes they make. But there are others out there. We’ll say more when we can.
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As far as I know, and unless something changed, the core doesn’t run as a service, so it needs a logon session to start. You can use autologon to work around this
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You’re absolutely correct - Roon Core on Windows does not run as a service, but requires a user login. Thus, headless Windows PCs require autologon for Roon Server to start.
Maybe a good way to approach this for Roon is to offer image with some lightweight linux distro and docker container to run Roon server. It would be less dependat of the OS and you could run other services in other containers if needed.
I’m running Roon Core on a $250 BeelinkMini PC. The fact that there are so many variations of the Mini PCs cheaper than the Intel NUC is pretty much why Intel is getting out of the NUC business. Intel wasn’t trying to sell computers they were marketing and promoting the idea that the Mini PC could replace a full sized PC. Mission accomplished.
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This is the worst news I’ve heard on the PC market in quite a while, I’m really sad about this - NUCs have been my go-to machine for over a decade now, and I’ve currently got 6 of them… so sad that they made this decision 
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No worries there, The NUC line is not dying, just moving away from Intel as Danny stated and alluded to in the article I posted.
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Ah, let’s hope so, I really do hope it’s not the end … NUC machines are so amazing, I hope that the concept lives on via other manufacturers, let’s see what happens
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Alternatives have been around the entire time, see mini PCs by Asus and Gigabyte. However, many of them started in the 2010s going more the AMD CPU route due to Intel’s chip prices.
Intel is old technology, I’m surprised they are still in business. For years ARM is where it’s at. I remember discussing ARM with other technologists over 6 years ago.
Gosh, if I only had your prescience, I’d have sold all my Intel shares. DAMN, I’m 6 years behind the curve, please don’t tell the wife.
.sjb
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Yes we all know that, but you miss the point, it does not help those that want to run ROON as an appliance, run on a silent box that is headless and requires no OS patching or updating.
Hopefully ROCK2 will arrive and support a wider hardware platform…
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I’m not missing the point, I’m just saying there is no real reason to want ROCK. You can run generic Linux or Windows on a silent, headless box. As for no patching or updating, you can disable all that - and set yourself up for disaster.