My Intel 7i7 NUC running ROCK recently died and I am considering replacement options. I have a large library of about 250,000 tracks.
The most powerful NUC that’s ROCK approved is the Asus NUC 13. However there are 2 newer generations, 14 & 15. Since neither 14 or 15 are ROCK approved, I would have to run Roon Server if I went with NUC 15.
I am wondering, how different my Roon experience would be with server as opposed to ROCK. My computer skills are just enough to be dangerous. LOL. I installed ROCK myself, and I was able to restore my database when that was necessary.
I have a friend who is a techie and offered to help me install server on a NUC. So I should be fine in that regard. But I’m concerned about ongoing maintenance, updates, etc. Will server be as user-friendly going forward as ROCK?
There is at least one post suggesting that ROCK does not run on a NUC 15 pro:
However, as the replies to that post appear to support, I believe some success has been had installing ROCK on a NUC 14.
With regard to the experience running Roon Server on a NUC, you do not specify whether you would be using Windows or a linux distro. Either can be made to work.
There are a number of people, myself included, that use DietPi (which, contrary to the implications of the distro name, supports devices other than Raspberry Pi’s - including X86). Dietpi is a cut down distribution based on Debian. See:
The procedure for installing DietPi on a computer is very similar to that of using ROCK. In addition, DietPi has a script (dietpi-software) for installing and uninstalling a number of software packages. When Dietpi on an x86 machine (but not ARM based computers), Roon Server is directly supported by this script and it is thus very easy to install. Just make sure that you download the correct image - Most likely X86-64 for UEFI boot (there is a separate image for BIOS boot - as used by older computers).
There are some aspects of administration on DietPi that are not so straightforward as RoonOS (ROCK). E.g. connecting USB disks and managing SMB client (accessing remote files) and server (providing access to remote computers) - although, again, there are Dietpi scripts available to help.
@Torben_Rick went through the process of migrating to DietPi some nine months back. The thread that he created to solicit some help contains a wealth of useful information. You can find it at:
You should be aware that some of the information early in the thread about the default permissions of the dietpi_userdata folder is out of date and the permissions created on install have been made more ‘Roon friendly’.
Also, I should say that it is not so easy to move between production and early release versions of software. If you feel that this may be important, see the post at:
I’ve got dietpi installed on my new NUC.
Trying to install roon server now.
I’m looking at command prompt dietpi@DietPi:~$
I typed in $ curl -O -L https://download.roonlabs.com/builds/roonserver-installer-linuxx64.sh from the Installing Roon on Linux page.
I then get a command not found message.
Any suggestions? Thank you.
On DietPi, the use of the Roon supplied script (as referenced by the curl command above) is not the recommended way.
Instead, you should run the dietpi-software script as root (“sudo dietpi-software”). This will give you a menu from which you can select ‘Roon Server’ in the list of supported packages and then confirm the install.
You can also install Roon Server directly using
sudo dietpi-software install 154
The Roon Install script will work but it installs RoonServer in a way which, whilst standard for most linux distibutions, is not standard for DietPi. I believe that the problem is that some of the file system locations for database and logging are not the most appropriate for DietPi.
