Hi
I’ve got this all working nicely now and I use it as a source for my way too expensive hifi and am quite happy with the SQ. Certainly very comparable to Daphile which I ran before but now with extra added Roon goodness, so I thought I’d share my experience
The advantage of this particular approach is that the linux box can be fairly low spec and housed in a HTPC type enclosure so it looks like a piece of ‘proper’ hifi with a low partner annoyance factor
I have a fanless mini-ITX board with 32GB RAM (too much really) and a 60GB mini-SATA drive all plugged in to an external DC power supply, so totally silent. Network is wired via a ‘plug into a mains socket type’ wireless extender. You can get WiFi working directly with the appropriate dongle but in my experience it’s a right pfaff and a bit flaky especially if (when) it falls over
You only need a monitor and keyboard for the installation and then it runs headless with only power, network and USB to DAC plugged in
Normal caveats apply, YMMV etc etc
I used Debian 8 and you need the ‘netinst’ version. Grab the appropriate ISO from Debian (the amd64 version in most cases is the one you want) and make a bootable CD or USB. My particular mobo won’t boot off USB directly so I had to use a USB-CD drive but it matters not either way
You get to the Debian splash screen and choose Install (first option). The installer is text only but is very straightforward to use. Tab moves you around the screen, Spacebar selects or deselects options and Enter is the equivalent of OK
During the install you have to choose all the usual stuff - hostname, locale, root password, username and password etc. For the domain question most people just use WORKGROUP (which is the Windows default), but I’m not sure it matters. When it comes to the installation options just select SSH Server and System Utilities. Make sure everything else is unchecked (spacebar). When it’s all done remove the CD/USB and reboot
You get to a command prompt and login using root and the password you chose during install
Then install ALSA
$ apt-get install alsa-base alsa-utils
Then you need to install the RoonBridge
You can try using curl as per the instructions in the KB
$ apt-get install curl
$ curl -O http://download.roonlabs.com/builds/roonbridge-installer-linuxx64.sh
$ chmod +x roonbridge-installer-linuxx64.sh
$ ./roonbridge-installer-linuxx64.sh (don’t need sudo as you are root)
But that didn’t work for me as I wasn’t downloading the shell script properly ! When I ran the script I got a ‘file not found HTML’ type error and when I opened the script in nano it was just a bunch of HTML junk !!
No idea why, so plan B
Download the installer in the normal way to your Mac or Linux machine and check it is correct if you want (open it in a text editor) and then scp it to your new machine
On the Roon machine itself run
$ ifconfig -a
and note the IP of the connection (usually eth0). It will 192.168.x.x in the overwhelming majority of cases
Then on a Terminal on your Mac or Linux box
$ scp /path/to/the/download your_username@192.168.x.x:/home/your_username
You should be asked for your password (the user one, not root one) and the file is uploaded
On the Roon box
$ cd /home/your_username
$ ls
You should get
$ roonbridge-installer-linuxx64.sh
Then just do the same as above
$ chmod +x roonbridge-installer-linuxx64.sh
$ ./roonbridge-installer-linuxx64.sh
and it should all install fine
If you are Windows only (!) then I think there is an app called PuTTY or similar that works the same way as the Terminal in Unix based OS’s so try that
Unplug the monitor etc, put your new box on the hifi rack connected to your DAC and the network and then configure from your Roon control point in the usual way
Sit back and enjoy !!