i second the motion.
New Roon user here, I’m often away from home with a windows laptop, tablet or gaming handheld. I’d like my subscription bucks to go towards arc on windows please, I don’t want to have to use Plex Amp.
Yes, please. I often use Linux on desktop and iOS on mobile. I run my own ROCK node on a NUC.
Running the Roon Windows app via Wine is fine. It does allow me to manage my library, import, and control speaker groups in my home. It takes up a lot of resources, since it’s going through two layers of virtualization with .NET via Mono and running a Windows app via WINE. On my Framework laptop the fan runs constantly and when used on my lap, the heat burns my legs to be honest.
Its playback capabilities don’t shine on the Linux desktop at all. Simple actions like pressing the play/pause media button don’t work properly. This is my biggest complaint. When I run the app on a Mac computer, they work great. (And with the new Mac chips, no fans run at all.)
Running audio through ALSA on Linux is outdated, unfortunately. (This might be why the media shortcut keys don’t work.) Getting pipewire support would be amazing, but even pulseaudio would be a step up, and there are pipewire/pulseaudio compatibility layers already in place.
I realize Linux folks are a niche within this already niche audio community, but having first-class Linux app support would put Roon over the top as the solution I’d recommend to friends and family.
Welcome to the Roon community, @patcoll.
Roon doesn’t use Mono any more. Not on Linux, macOS, or Windows. Mono isn’t needed to run Roon on Wine.
This has been a problem on and off for a couple of years now. Currently, I don’t have an issue with this. However, the app constantly crashes when switching between workspaces on Ubuntu 23.10 (Wayland.) Unfortunately, Roon on Wine isn’t a viable alternative to a native Linux app.
ARC (the subject of this proposal in Feature Suggestions) on the Linux desktop is very low on my list of priorities. Is this where your reply belongs? Maybe this thread is relevant?
1 Like
I’ve run into this with a similar use case where I’m streaming my home Roon library in a remote location. Right now I’m streaming from an iPhone via Arc to a single speaker via Bluetooth but I don’t like occupying my personal phone, so I dug out an old iPhone 6 thinking that it could be a dedicated poor man’s streamer. No luck; Arc is no longer supported on iPhone 6 (which stops at iOS 12.x), so that’s not an option.
I’m streaming into a Klipsch The Three Plus which does have optical in, so I’m considering purchasing a Fiio R7 and running Arc on Android. I’ve wanted a reason to try out the R7 and this solution seems solid to have a dedicated streamer with Arc and work with multiple outputs, but man…it’s hard to stomach $700 just to free up my iPhone and still be able to run Arc. The extra outs are definitely a bonus – I’m not a fan of BT in general – but still spendy just to access my home Roon library.
Any other creative alternatives other than the Fiio R7 to bridge the gap in missing options for Arc?
For sure, it’s a pity that we can not connect to our Roon Server through a Mac or any PC when not at home. If we use a phone, we often have bluetooth as only solution to connect to an amp or speakers, which damage the quality issued from Roon Arc.
I expect soon an update of Roon Desktop for Mac OS enabling to access to our Roon Server remotly.
1 Like
Thanks for your response! It’s genuinely great to find people who are passionate about this.
Ah, interesting. I was looking at Roon Bridge errors, and saw references to mono-threads.c and function:mono_thread_info_current, which made me think that Mono is playing a part somewhere.
I appreciate the link! I’ve voted there as well. The Roon on Wine solution definitely works for managing my library and such. I post and mention my struggles here because it’s really the simple convenience of ARC that I crave with the Linux desktop experience.
While using a Mac with Roon Remote, I have the simple option of playing through the system output. While not a top quality audio experience, the convenient desktop experience means (1) simple play/pause and volume controls work as expected, (2) I can switch between speakers and headphones at will without changing outputs in Roon, (3) because it’s a laptop I can move anywhere in the house and have the same experience.
With Roon Remote on Wine, there’s a need for direct ALSA hardware access. (The WASAPI interfaces have never worked for me.) I’ve found the simplest and most reliable way to accomplish that is to run Roon Bridge, then connect Roon Remote to that. This works! But at the cost of convenience. In general, I’m arguing in favor of convenience for a Linux desktop experience. (Although I did spend some time in ALSA-land and it would be cool if Roon recognized virtual ALSA devices too.)
I believe there’s a solid case to be made for an ARC-like experience for desktop that can provide the convenience of library access and simple playback controls from anywhere. Think the Tidal or Spotify desktop apps. Both are wrappers around web players, if I understand right. I’m listening to 24-bit 48KHz playback in Tidal right now. If you’re prioritizing convenience, then utilizing pulseaudio or pipewire should be less of an issue.
Thanks for listening! I hope something comes of this.
1 Like
Yes, it’s easier to install the native Linux version of Roon Bridge.
That would be logical and necessary, imho.
I’m just bumping this with the hope that Harman will enable running ARC on Apple Silicon Macs through the App Store.
I’m unable to find any technical reason why it would not be compatible at least for basic listening. Of course a fully fledged experience would necessarily be better, but in the meantime, just enabling the download would be a good stopgap.
3 Likes