I should clarify what “Roon OS” is, since everyone is asking questions that seem to be revolving around what they think this thing is.
First, it is going to be renamed to “Roon Optimized Core Kit”, as it will not be a typical operating system.
This is is what it offers (and what it doesn’t offer):
- it is completely free ($0)
- it is an alternative to Windows/MacOS/Ubuntu/Arch/etc…
- it runs Roon (The stock Linux RoonServer to be exact), but does not come with a Roon membership. You need to bring that yourself.
- it is an extremely lightweight Linux-based operating system. Much more on the scale of an embedded machine than a desktop or server operating system.
- it is a turn-key image with all required pieces to make a Linux based Roon appliance without any prior knowledge of Roon or Linux
- it should be near silent or completely silent, depending on hardware
- it runs on a few hardware configurations that are easy to purchase worldwide, reliable, and perform at a level at which we think provides a good Roon experience for libraries of various sizes, taking into account future enhancements (to the best of our abilities).
- any hardware configurations not sanctioned (owned, built-for, and tested) by the Roon Labs team are unsupported, and although they may work, they may also stop working at any time due to updates.
- it will auto-update in an experience similar to Roon, integrated fully into the Roon Remotes’ Settings->About page.
- it will provide a web browser based configuration for networking setup, factory reset, power/reboot, etc…
- it will not be able to run additional software, nor will it support any customizations or modifications to the operating system
- it has beta level support for some WiFi chipsets, including the one built into the 6th generation NUCs.
- it has support for multiple USB based ethernet adapters, plus the built-in ethernet.
- it supports the NUC5 and NUC6 Core i3 and i5 series machines, with 1 internal m.2 SSD (64GB or larger)) and 4GB (or more) of RAM. No additional internal drives are supported.
- it uses some of the M.2 SSD for the environment and Roon, but the rest is for Roon’s databases. You can not store music on this SSD.
- it can use your existing USB hard drives and NAS for music storage, and you can migrate your Roon databases over to it. Filesystems supported: EXT2/3/4 VFAT/FAT32/FAT16/EXFAT NTFS HFSPLUS HFS and it can mount SMB shares.
- it exposes your USB drives as an SMB share (micro-NAS!)
- Roon 1.3 supports a new filebrowser and backup system (for you Roon database, not the actual music content) that works well with truly headless appliances
- It supports USB and the built-in NUC audio outputs – in exclusive mode.
If you ask more specific questions, I will update this list and delete your question to keep this thread more focused.
I know this meets some of your needs, and others are going to be disappointed by the limitations. Those people can run their own Linux based distribution and do anything they want.