The OS was built from scratch–we didn’t strip down something pre-existing, nor did we use something off-the-shelf like Yocto.
We have been doing this kind of thing for many years. Sooloos appliances were built the same way. OS’s built this way are much more manageable and much lighter weight. We have good, efficient processes for managing this sort of thing. It was less of an investment for us than it would have been for most people trying to do the same thing.
The main motivation is not easing installation/support issues. That’s just a nice side effect.
You’ll notice that we like to keep some parity between the technologies we offer to partners and those that we offer to the community. One example–Roon Ready + Roon Bridge. Partners get some lower level tools for building RAAT devices that enables further customization, but they are substantially the same.
The Roon API is also part of this. There’s no “secret” API for partners. And we made sure that Roon Bridge + Roon API has no feature gaps when compared to the SDK we give to Roon Ready partners. The DIY solutions are less turnkey, that’s all–once set up, the user experience is the same. Synchronized volume control, convenience switching, metadata displays at the playback device, etc.
Like those examples, ROCK is the community-facing version of RoonOS.
RoonOS is bigger than ROCK. One example: Merging’s NADAC player (released at CES in January) is RoonOS based too. They won’t be the last.
There’s more to this too, but not all of it is something we’re ready to talk about yet…
The installer asks two questions: Which drive to install on, and “are you sure you want to wipe it?”. It’s easier than installing Windows.
Troubleshooting is MUCH EASIER because we have a variety of NUC models in-house and can match the setup where a problem occurs exactly.
There’s also a parallel to our handling of audio gear here–the Roon Ready and Roon Tested programs are powerful in part because they give us access to the gear. We put a lot of effort into building these relationships, convincing companies to let hardware samples live with us long term, and actually working with them during QA, and support.
If someone has an issue with a product that we have in house, we plug the gear together and find out what’s up. Reproducible bugs get fixed. Difficult remote troubleshooting situations with hardware we’ve never seen have a lower hit rate.
Maintenance is easy too. RoonOS uses the same update mechanism as all of our products–updates can be confirmed from any Roon control point just like Roon/Roon Server/Roon Bridge updates. The update system totally re-flashes the OS, just like a firmware update in an appliance–so it is not very error prone, and also discourages tampering (since the next update will blow that away). We have efficient processes for rebuilding the system to pick up updates to kernel, libraries, etc.
We’re not limited to 6th gen NUCs. Other NUCs work too. We intend to keep RoonOS up to date over time.
I wouldn’t put a NUC in a critical listening environment, but there’s nothing wrong with using one as a core so long as it’s isolated properly.
The NUC is just another data transmission device in a long line of data transmission devices (going all the way back to your Router, ISP, CDN’s, TIDAL, etc). Its clocks don’t matter unless you use local S/PDIF or HDMI outputs. Mechanical noise doesn’t matter if you stick it in a closet away from the listening environment.
Isolating audio gear from RFI/EMI is important regardless of anything else. This is why high quality power supplies and tools for filtering/isolating ethernet, USB, and line power make a difference.
Implicit in that is the idea that you’re isolating your clean audio environment from the outside. You know–all of the stuff running at your neighbor’s house. The refrigerator. The air conditioners. The wall-warts plugged in throughout your home. They’re all wired to the same place in the end. Inside the electrical box in your basement are a few big copper bars that connect everything together…
There is no harm in putting the NUC “outside” with the refrigerator and A/C, and it’s a lot cheaper/easier than optimizing it for membership in the listening room. The place for isolation is wherever the power and ethernet lines enter your listening environment. On the other side of that boundary there are un-controllable elements much more significant than a NUC.
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In closing…
Running Roon as an appliance is a great experience–regardless of whether you buy an expensive hardware product or bring your own hardware and use ROCK.
ROCK is a way to enable our users to have a Roon appliance experience without paying for an expensive piece of hardware, just as Roon Bridge provides RAAT without requiring the purchase of a Roon Ready device.
Roon is expensive. Part of the implicit contract of making a premium product is that we need to continue to add value and improve the experience. This is one of the dimensions on which we are doing that.