I’ve been using Roon Core on Ubuntu on my mini PC (GMKtec NucBox5/N5105/8GB/128GB) for the past two years without any problems, and I completely missed the fact that ROCK is now UEFI compatible, so I replaced it with ROCK this weekend.
It boots up fast, and Roon ARC is working fine.
It’s easier and better than Ubuntu+Roon Core.
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Strangely, I’ve gone the other way - at least in part.
I was running RoonOS (as installed by ROCK) on my NUC11TNHi7 until about a month ago when I changed over to DietPi (Debian based linux).
I did this primarily because:
- It allows me to monitor temperatures and memory usage which I can’t do with RoonOS
- It allows me to configure scheduled tasks to keep the OS (not just Roon Server) up to date.
- It supports later versions of SMB so the network share used to manage the media library (not the Roon Database) is username and password protected.
When I was using Ubuntu + RoonCore, I could check CPU usage (always around 20% even with DSP turned on), see CPU temperature, update OS updates whenever notified, and do many other things, which was interesting at first, but it became somewhat bothersome and I chose the easier way. 
My NUC is tucked away in my lounge and is generally inaccessable. When using RoonOS, I had to periodically (once every three months or so) pull the NUC out and visually inspect it for dust and debris that may be interfering with the cooling and then remove that dust.
Now that I use DietPi, I have found that the processor package temperature generally runs at about 7 Celsius above ambiant (when the server is idle) and so now I hope to be able to use this knowledge to tell me when I need to clean the NUC without having to remove it first. This should make things a lot easier.
For example, when the processor starts to run at, say, 12-15 degrees above ambient, then it may be due for a clean.
Of course, I’ve yet to see how well this will work because I had to remove the NUC to install DietPi, and, whilst it was removed, I gave it a good clean so it has not yet got dusty enough for me to test.
My mini PC is in the storage room where the equipment that collects the power and network for the house is located, so it has been installed for 2 years and dust has hardly been a problem. I do clean the amp in the living room regularly as the fans do indeed get dirty with dust.
When installing ROCK, I blew the inside of the mini PC with an air duster and found very little dust.
There are many ways to run Roon Core depending on where it is installed.
did you noticed any difference in performance?
may i ask how big your library is?
I have noticed no difference in performance whatsoever when moving from RoonOS to Dietpi.
My library is small by the standards of many on this forum so my experience when using focus tools will necessarily by different to that of people with larger libraries. However, global search performs well for the most part (‘the the’ search results in ~3 seconds, for example).
I have found it invaluable since switching to debug what is going with Roon at times. With Rock you’re blind to anything it’s doing. Also having more than one service on a pc more than capable of handing it make sense than one app and having another pc to run everything else. I don’t believe Rock is any more efficient and certainly in my case not more reliable. Also have more control over Tailscale or other choice of vpn for remote access.
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have roon currently running on as a native synology package on a xpenology with i7 and 16gb ram, with only roon and the musicfiles on the 500gb ssd, 2.5".
And its pretty slow. takes seconds to load the tracks of a big playlist or filtered track view.
In Synologys Taskmanager, i see that roon only uses 2-3gb ram.
so i thought i give it a try on a linux VM.
i also have just 6,4k tracks.
did you have your musicfiles on a seperate drive as the os?
and may i ask why you choose “DietPi” ?
OK. I originally installed ROCK with a 256GB Nvme OS drive and a 1TB SATA drive for internal library storage.
However, after an upgrade to my desktop computer I had a 2TB Nvme drive available. I decided to take the opportunity to try Roon on Linux risk free by removing the two drives in the NUC and installing just the 2TB drive and then installing Dietpi on that so, if any problems arose I could easily go back to ROCK.
As a consequence, I have OS and library all on the same drive with about 1.8TB available for library storage.
I choose Dietpi for the following reasons:
- I already had experience with it since I use it on Raspberry Pis to provide three Roon Endpoints around the house.
- It is very easy to administer for someone like me who, whilst not completely inexperienced, is nevertheless not intimately familiar with Linux. There are menu driven scripts to do almost all of the common administrative tasks.
- At least two other people on the forum were reporting a good experience using Dietpi.
Since moving to Dietpi, I have decided that its advantages far outweigh the downsides.
The downsides:
- Not so easy (but not impossible) to move between production and early access builds of DietPi (I created a thread on this issue - the best solution can be found at Roon Server Early Access on DietPi X86 - #3 by MichaIng).
- The OS does not get automatically updated although it is easy to arrange for package updates to be done automatically overnight if you wish. The OS, itself, is updated by using the ‘dietpi-update’ script. The ‘message of the day’ displayed whenever you log in using a terminal tells you when an update is available.
- Administration is done using a command line terminal (I use putty on my Windows computers to manage all of my Dietpi installations). If you are not comfortable with a command line interface this may be significant although, for the most part, it is not a big issue because of the supplied dietpi scripts.
Advantages:
- There are many more tools for monitoring what is going with on on the server should any issues arise (including temperature monitoring - although some have reported issues with that).
- Other services (e.g. Plex, LMS, Tailscale and a host of others) can be run on the same server with simple installation and configuration using the dietpi-software script.
- Regular maintenance tasks (like package updates) can be automated so that they do not get forgotten.
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Hi Wade,
I found your setup with DietPi really interesting, especially the idea of monitoring temperature to plan maintenance—makes a lot of sense.
btw:
Just tried Roon as a Docker container with Linux and Roon. The difference in performance has been huge—tracks and playlists load way faster now.
I take it that this is in comparison to running directly on the Synology.
That being the case, I must say that I am at a Los to explain the performance improvement.
It should also be noted that Running Roon Server in a VM is not a configuration supported by Roon, presumably because of all of the issues that can arise around the configuration of the VM itself.