For a general reference and community support, there is a thread on CA forum on setting up the HQP on Linux (It has been started a while ago, first half of it is probably not relevant anymore): How To Install HQPlayer Embedded On Ubuntu - Software - Audiophile Style
With two SSD’s, easiest is Win11 on the first and Ubuntu is on the second without modifications on the boot sectors. As such the default boot will always be Win11, it will never see Linux drive, only in management console. To boot linux on MSI MB you will hit F11 (it will give you BIOS boot menu to select the boot). This is the simpliest option, downside - on system reboot you always go into windows.
Alternative option is rather more complex having GRUB manager defining the OS load sequence, possible.
For Ubuntu Server installation you will need to “burn” Ubuntu USB stick (I normally use rufus for this)
Rufus: Index of /downloads
Ubuntu Server ISO (24.04.xx recommended for today): Get Ubuntu Server | Download | Ubuntu
The installation procedure for the server is rather simple in several steps following on the screen instructions. ChatGPT in paid mode can already guide you through every single step and answer specific questions reasonably good. It may as well do in “free” mode, but I don’t trust it too much, it’s more for the check/safe rail type of things… Don’t forget to install SSH (will be asked during the installation), the disk set up step is the most sensitive one - make sure you are not killing your Win11 disk !
When you install the server OS the further customisation is simple. This script will give you nVidia drivers version 580 with CUDA drivers and latest HQP Embedded, it may not be correct in the near future due to the changes of drivers or packages. You need to replace $USER$ $PASSWORD$ with a user and password you desire for managing HQP remotely via its web interface.
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade
sudo apt install nvidia-headless-580-server nvidia-utils-580-server
sudo reboot now
wget https://www.sonarnerd.net/src/noble/libgmpris_2.2.1-12_amd64.deb
wget https://signalyst.com/bins/hqplayerd/noble/hqplayerd_5.16.0-44_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i libgmpris_2.2.1-12_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i hqplayerd_5.16.0-44_amd64.deb
sudo apt install -f
sudo hqplayerd -s $USER$ $PASSWORD$
sudo systemctl enable hqplayerd
sudo systemctl start hqplayerd
sudo reboot now
You need to figure out your server IP address. With above sequence you will get the server up and running. To connect to HQPlayer on your network with any browser - you enter HQPlayer IP address and the port will be 8088, it will look smth like: 192.168.1.115:8088 for example… 192.168.1.xxx is for quite a lot of default router setups, but may as well be different for you.
For your hardware setup I would recommend to set multicore=“1” in HQPlayer config file, the quickest is like this (check how to use nano editor):
sudo nano /etc/hqplayer/hqplayerd.xml
sudo systemctl restart hqplayerd
If you don’t know how to check an IP address for Linux server, in console mode ifconfig utility will help.
Personally, once HQPlayer Server is set up, I touch my server physically very very very rarely.
For remote management from iPad I use paid version of: TERMINUS Client for iPad
For remote management from Windows PC I use Putty: PuTTY: latest release (0.83)
This may help you kick start your wonderful build !
PS: What is the motherboard finaly ?
