Interest for an archlinux based Roon Bridge solution

Audio Gear Talk Raspberry Pi
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I’ve been running DietPi for many months now. Works perfectly and I’m very happy with it.

Except last week where I could not get the new version of Roon applied, which resulted in me wrecking the image (for whatever reason). I was not able to reinstall DietPi, so in the end (I desperately needed my music :wink: ) I installed archlinux (the installation process is somewhat less easy than DietPi :wink: ) so that at least I could listen to music again.

However, now that it’s running I’m actually looking into the possibility to create an Archlinux based image for RPI3 that does only do one thing: run RoonBridge. The other thing I’m looking into is building a Linux kernel with all the xmos usb patches applied (as they are not merged upstream yet) so my Wyred4Sound DAC can do native DSD.

Now I’m wondering: should I leave this my ‘weekend project’ or are there more people over here possibly interested?

oh. And to be clear: I’m still a big DietPi fan, so this is not about me being unhappy with that.

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A man’s got to tinker. :slight_smile:

Good luck – I’ll be happy to try things once you’ve made progress.

Not sure how the Pi’s shared networking/USB bus will hold up under higher DSD rates though – maybe the Odroid C2 is a better device to toy with? And be prepared for the requests for audio HAT overlays… :wink:

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Count me in and would love to see the usb patches applied so I can do native DSD with my Bryston BDA-3 and OPPO DAC.

I had mentioned this to Dan/DietPi, but I think he has other priorities on his plate.

Thanks

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Yeah I can imagine. Biggest challenge right now is the time it takes to build a kernel, as this takes place in a container emulating ARM. So this could take ages potentially :wink:

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No hurriy… We’ll check back in later tonight. :wink:

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I know enough Linux to get by, a little dangerous, and no idea what it takes to compile a kernel, but thanks for the effort!

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At least give him a couple of days… :slight_smile:

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Ok quick update. My system is still building the kernel, started this morning. So this is not gonna work, as my main desktop system shuts down in the evening…

So i need to shift this to another machine which means this will take a while.

However, I’m not gonna give up as I want native DSD for my DAC.

Keep you guys posted!

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HI @RBM and @Govnah.

Got stuff running, including a rebuild kernel with most XMOS patches applied. What it offers right now is very basic:

  • wired only
  • DCHP only
  • USB dacs only
  • RAM only (everything done with tmpfs)

on the plus side: this requires no config what-so-ever, just plug-and-play.

Big question is where to go from here. For my purposes it works perfectly fine, but I can imagine it requires some additional stuff to make it useful for others…

I do own a Hifiberry Digi+, so that one I could add rather easily I guess. Would be great if this thingie would remain ‘zero-config’.

Ah well. So far it has been fun! (except the frustrating part of building a kernel for the ARM architecture)