Got rid of all appliance versions of the software - pure OS + apps now - have you done the same?

[vmartell (Berlin Papel)]

I have always thought it was a given - lots of IT products have a user interface, but they allow you to drop into the command line, at least for service, sometimes to expose even more functionality. From Cisco with IOS to Volumio allowing access over simple ssh - that makes sense to me, best of both worlds.

However, there is trend to hide more and more functionality/configurability from the user. From the perennial example of Apple, to even the GNOME people in the Linux world, and yes, to come back to the subject, Roon - WITH A CAVEAT, of course, please READ fully!

When I started with Roon, picking ROCK seemed like the way to go. Again, I ASSUMED the best of both worlds. Was a little disappointed when I found out it was a closed appliance -no ssh! I already had done the setup and I liked features like exposing the data drives without me doing any work and just slapping a CD in order to rip it, then have it appear in the Roon library, so I stuck with it.

Recently, the box that was running the ROCK crashed. And the data drive disappeared. Without ssh/cli to diagnose, had to get the drive from the system. Sure enough, on mounting in another system, found the drive needed some ntfs fix. Did that, mounted fine in other system, put it back on the ROCK - NOTHING. Still refused to mount. What else could I do? After rebooting a couple of times (because what else?) had to take the plunge.

Got rid of ROCK, installed Ubuntu Server 24.04, minimal. Installed Roon Server, drive mounted perfectly with no issues. Shared the drive, back in business. As good as before, except for the CD ripping, but to be fair, the feature was making me go lazy with my tagging, accepting whatever Roon found, which, lots of times is not to my liking.

Same with Ropieee. While the actual Roon bridge was still fully working and could be updated, no complaints, the actual Ropieee platform was re-architected, making it necessary to re-install if you wanted to update. Guess what? No more ssh. Gravitating towards looking for the best of both worlds, I actually installed Volumio, using their Roon bridge plugin, enabled ssh.

Then I thought, why?

Long story short, got rid of Ropieee in all my endpoints too. I this point I am now running Rasp pi OS based (as opposed to the ROCK and Ropieee appliances) endpoints and x86 Ubuntu 24.04 server. The endpoints have nothing on them but just what is needed for Roon. They expose no other audio interfaces, like hdmi and their internal interface. No clutter! Same with the Roon server. Nothing not needed. Because strangely, while disallowing serviceability those appliances seemed to expose all that. BT enabled, internal interfaces enabled etc.

And this is why I asked you to not jump the gun! VERY Happy that Roon gives you the option, appliances or hard core techie. Sure, middle ground would have been better, but at least, it’s there. ROON - PLEASE NEVER TAKE AWAY THAT OPTION. PLEASE NEVER NEVER EVER GO TO AN “ONLY APPLIANCES” PHILOSOPHY!

So all of this, just to ask the group

1. Have you done the same? Started with appliances, moved to Big Boy stuff?

2. Have you gone the other way around? Tired of relative complexity, tired of having to maintain? (or unable!)

3. What do you do when things break? What do you feel about the level of support provided here? Has Roon being effective helping you with problems in closed off appliances?

4. I shudder to think of owning a Nucleus! How is it serviced? Have you had to send it back? Is there a service backdoor to avoid that?

Just making conversation here - very curious.

[Geoff_Coupe]

I went from Roon on Windows to ROCK 8 years ago and have never looked back. No regrets - it works for me. Oh, and I use two instances of Ropieee too, one for a networked endpoint connected via USB to a DAC and one for a display. Also never considered moving away from it.

[vmartell (Berlin Papel)]

Ah displays - that’s the one thing Ropieee has for - that touch interface thing they do is definitely cool.

[vmartell (Berlin Papel)]

One more thing I forgot (which is probably good as the post was long) - with appliances only, we wouldn’t be getting threads like “Mac Mini M1 is useless as a server” !

With great power comes responsibility. And yes, those of us that are tech oriented forget that a lot of people want stuff to JUST WORK. And that thread was about Roon ON A MAC - supposedly the non-plus-ultra of user friendliness! So much they have no manuals included. Linux is a dicer proposition in that regard.

[CrystalGipsy (Resisting the flow!)]

Moved from ROCK nearly a year ago and don’t regret it. Still use Ropieee though but only as controller and display.

[David_Snyder]

I’ve done the reverse: I use ROCK (with no local storage) but never warmed up to RoPieee. Instead, I mostly use Roon Ready certified audio devices (WiiM and FiiO). Where I still have some Raspberry Pi endpoints, I’ve switched from DietPi to either AudioLinux or minimal Raspberry Pi OS with an easy-install of Roon Bridge.

I’ve never had problems with any of my ROCK builds, but if I ever did, I’d just reinstall (replacing the NVMe SSD if the old one fails) and restore from my last database backup. Music storage is either on a Synology NAS or from streaming services.

Same recovery process for DIY endpoints: re-flash, install Roon Bridge, and move on with life.

Edit: but I can appreciate @vmartell 's situation. Especially with local storage, not being able to troubleshoot basic stuff can be annoying. A few times, I observed the fans running harder than normal in my i7 NUC. Would have been nice to be able to login see what was driving up CPU usage. Nothing terribly interesting in the logs, so I just rebooted it.

[CrystalGipsy (Resisting the flow!)]

Never had a problem with Rock itself , it’s Roon that’s the problem as you can’t diagnose what it’s doing on Rock when it decides to have a fit. With monitoring it managed to see the same behaviour I got on Rock using a different Os and can see Roon Appliance process running riot with the cpu. Then looking at logs for same periods I can see Roons metadata services running and this is the cause. When that stops all returns to normal. This has been on two different pcs. This has been useful in giving support more details as to root of the problem which many are experiencing.

[David_Snyder]

@CrystalGipsy

This has been useful in giving support more details as to root of the problem which many are experiencing.

That’s pretty cool. Thanks for doing this.

[kneville (Coffee tastes like music)]

I use a Mac and Apple devices for most of my Rooning because it’s the platform I’m most comfortable troubleshooting and navigating. I have access to all the tools I need when something or another isn’t behaving exactly the way it should. I run an instance of DietPi on a Linux VM alongside my Roon server so that I can use Roon extensions, but that’s as close as a I get to a Raspberry Pi. No ROCK here.

Perhaps if I was going with an appliance-based approach those something or others would never arise, but this is where I’ve landed and it works for me.

I enjoy the tinkering, but I don’t use Roon in order to engage in the tinkering, I use it to listen to music. I’m appreciative of the options Roon allows, may it long continue!

[vmartell (Berlin Papel)]

HAHA!

Please do tell - as you can see from my posts, while I like the product, I am constantly on the fence. I have said that if anything of the things that Roon does that I disagree with actually keeps me from listening, will drop Roon. Hasn’t happened yet so here I am still a user, still satisfied, if not 100% happy.

So curious what those in the dissent position think!

[vmartell (Berlin Papel)]

@kneville

I use a Mac and Apple devices for most of my Rooning because it’s the platform I’m most comfortable troubleshooting and navigating. I have access to all the tools I need when something or another isn’t behaving exactly the way it should. I run an instance of DietPi on a Linux VM alongside my Roon server so that I can use Roon extensions, but that’s as close as a I get to a Raspberry Pi. No ROCK here.

Perhaps if I was going with an appliance-based approach those something or others would never arise, but this is where I’ve landed and it works for me.

I enjoy the tinkering, but I don’t use Roon in order to engage in the tinkering, I use it to listen to music. I’m appreciative of the options Roon allows, may it long continue!

You have a great point is that for us techies, that is important, whereas for most people is not. And sometimes that is so important that will actually delay a listening section.

Full confession. I never truly paid attention to the Pi as platform for development. To me it WAS only a means to an end. Mostly for audio, first with Rune, then Volumio, then Roon. Only recently have been getting more into it just STARTING to develop some real knowledge on it. BUT that is the thing. While I have heard of DietPi, only recently actually stopped and research it. Now I am itching to redo my endpoints as DietPi nodes instead of Rasp Pi OS. And yes, if the itch is big enough, it will delay the listening session!

It’s the tinkering the main thing? Not on purpose! But given the flexibility I love that I can do it. Hence my plea to Roon (and I will repeat it) PLEASE NEVER GO APPLIANCE ONLY!

[SandsOfArrakis (The Spice Must Flow)]

Bought a WiiM Mini to stream Spotify to my old hifi. That’s how my hobby started.

Started upgrading my hifi the last 3 years and I have arrived at the point that I am happy with what I have.

Cambridge Audio hifi in the living room with a now almost year old and well opened up set of JBL speakers. And a really nice office setup.

Split between them 3 streamers. A Cambridge CXN V2, a Bluesound Node X and a WiiM Ultra.

After several Mac’s I am now running my Roon Server on a Lenovo laptop running on Linux. It serves both my home and ARC.

Unless something breaks down this is my setup going forward.

[Grasshopper (\m/)]

@anon15113244

Nurturing a digital library may appeal to some folks, but for me I don’t want to. Just drop the files in for Roon to do its job. Minimal intervention is fine.

Rock and the CD Ripper function just works as intended. If I decided to turn Roon on again it’ll be Rock and not DietPi running Roon Server.

I really want to stick to physical media at home and Arc for our of the house. Arc tends to have a few issues for me. Although it seems better currently.

Or I could just use a streaming service for out of the house use.

Yet to be decided, but less tinkering means more focussed listening.

I’ve never used the ROCK CD ripping function but do I understand correctly that it is a case of accepting the metadata automatically detected, there is no manual selection to choose a correct version or pressing?
For sure, Roon is more forgiving of poor metadata than anything I’ve used before, ie Guns 'N Roses, Guns 'n Roses, will both be assimilated whereas LMS will show two different artists.

For streaming your own music, if you have ripped your collection anyway, look at Symfonium playing from something like Google Drive or another cloud server, it requires nothing installed at home just an app on your phone.
Really good app and sound for outside listening with little maintenance, it just watches your shared folders for music.

At home, if you enjoy physical media, it seems you’re sorted. I like LMS above everything else personally, but metadata needs to be good, the rewards are good though, great sound and it will just work. Whilst you can integrate streaming services, it’s not trying to do what Roon does.

[SandsOfArrakis (The Spice Must Flow)]

I have already ripped my CD’s in the past. I only buy digital these days.

It is my Roon Server only as I am using either my NUC or iPad to control Roon.

And it connects to Ethernet. USB Ethernet adapter. To a switch…

[Grasshopper (\m/)]

Thanks, that’s interesting.
If you’re using Roon only and want a simple ripping solution, it’s a good solution IMO, but for me with my OCD ensuring the bar code in the metadata matches the CD and it reflects the correct pressing, not so much.
I like ripping to a single flac file + cue as well for archiving, it’s how I did it years ago and how I still add CDs to my digital archive, LMS and Symfonium works with them fine but for Roon I need to export them to tracks if I want to use them as there’s no cue support.

[Anthony_B (Tony)]

@anon15113244

Yes, if a match is found it adds it to the database, not the album.

This was always a job half done when it comes to the Roon ripping feature. Why doesn’t it run an overnight process to add the metadata to the files and finish the job?

[Dirk_De_Taey]

To make sure users will not be able to use the data with another music player.
Just holding customers tight to their chests.

[Geoff_Coupe]

If that were the case, Roon Labs wouldn’t have implemented the Export function that explicitly writes out basic metadata and creates folders with album titles so that you can use the exported album folders with other players.

[Anthony_B (Tony)]

And given what has happened to Roon since that feature was released it is more important than ever to keep your files/metadata in the best possible shape such that they can be used with other servers and players.

[SandsOfArrakis (The Spice Must Flow)]

This is the output dbPoweramp created here. Ripped on my MacBook. Now on my Roon Server with a full back up of my music library on my big media drive on my Windows NUC. I believe this beats the CD-Ripped-(Date) → trackX.flac what your screenshot shows.

JRiver with which I do all my tagging stuff.