We may have winner here in the realm of a compact and very affordable SBC that can run Roon Core as a server. Can be configured withtraditional Intel processor too, so binaries exist. (I have to look into whether roon binaries run on an Atom processor)
I saw those. They announced another that i was thinking of pre ordering: Edge2 Pro
This was 2018. Itās now 2022, and ARM processors have come a long, long way since then. In terms of cores, speed and the amount of RAM they can support. I would like to at least experiment with a copy of roon core and see if it will run. Would a linux-based Rock image load on an ARM SBC without a lot of tinkering? Or, is that simply out of the question (hardware wise)? Various new implementation of the latest Rock chip may hold some promise - as mentioned above.
I have a life-time subscription and was wondering if I could get a 2nd free copy for 30 days to play with on an experimental platform. At a minimum, inquiring minds may find it a useful exercise.
No, ROCK is built for x64.
As for RoonServer on Linux/ARM, that project is something we plan to undertake (there is no timeline, donāt bother asking). We have it working on MAC OS + Apple Silicon, but not Linux + random ARM chips.
Transfer your current license to the new core once you have it running. You can always transfer it back.
Thx for the update.
There are actually a few RK3588S boards now. They are said to be a good deal fasterć2x - 3xć~ish than a RPi 4. I have to imagine someone in Roon Labs has experimented with a build that runs the server/core on it; but dunno, maybe not if some core libraries are tied to intel silicon only.
I posted this earlier in the thread, does the Khadas VIM4 suit?
Is the M.2 slot fast enough?
8 cores.
It certainly is Way better than the Broadcom processor used in RPis and I believe comparable in performance to the NUC I use presently for my Core; correction, the VIM4 benchmarks at 75% to the proc in my i5 NUC7.
I was only saying that the RK3588 / RK3588S based SBCs are even faster than that in the VIM, while still quite affordable. And most if not all natively have M.2 NVME SSD support with the screw mount right on the sbc; i see the socket but didnt see that screw to mount a nvme ssd on the vim. (I learned the M.2 socket faces out and one needs to purchase a daughter board to use it)
So only saying i believe the RK3588/S brings the price/performance to a level where running the core on it more than makes sense; with 50% better multithreaded benchmark performance than the NUC7 I use presently for my Roon Server
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Just an FYIā¦ Check this outā¦ interesting to watch.
Today I just purchased a Celeron based NUC clone (4 cores, 4 threads, no turbo) that isnt quite as fast as my many year old i5 NUC7 (2 cores, 4 thread w/turbo) ā¦ For $150! (with discount plus instant coupon on Amazon). And this has 8gigs of ram and a 256meg ssd. Where i paid more than double that for the bare bones NUC.
Didnt need it, but couldnt pass up the deal. Wow. So much for running the Roon Core on inexpensive ARM chips. Lol.
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Looking forward to hearing how this works in practice - are you going to spin up a ROCK and run it through its real world paces?
Also, would love to see part number / link.
Thanks!
Been asked many times; and answered
https://community.roonlabs.com/t/roon-server-on-arm-platform-answered-no/40980/12?u=ged_hickman1
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Dear Mr. Danny;
Iām genuinely having trouble comprehending such an authoritative attitude.
Shouldnāt users be granted greater freedom of choice?
That is, unless there are certain key functions that, from Roon Labsā perspective, cannot be implemented in the ARM environment?
We arenāt anti-ARM ā we love ARM. We support ARM in both RoonServer on MacOS and RoonBridge on many ARM devices.
We donāt think there are normal Linux ARM-based machines out there that are suitable for running RoonServer.
Thank you for your response. I respect your position but I find it hard to agree with it.
Especially since my current installation of Roon Server successfully runs on old Mac hardware which is less powerful than my new Raspberry Pi4 B 8GB. In addition, currently used cloud technologies should reduce the demand for computing power.
Plus, on this RPi it works productively (without overheating device without a fan): foobar2000, JRiver MC and Audirvana - of course without demanding DSP and oversampling; so why not Roon Server.
So if you can, why not (in good faith but without any guarantees and support). I am convinced that the result would be additional licenses sold - I certainly would buy!
I believe this is incorrect. The Raspberry Pi doesnāt come close to an old Intel i3 processor in terms of performance, especially single thread performance. The CPU benchmark is around 900, which isnāt close to an ancient (below Roon spec) AMD Turion I ceased using about seven years ago.
Whilst weāre seeing some Linux workloads, there is limited OS and software support.
Iām still using Roon under Intel Atom. And it works fine.
An you can take Orange Pi 5B which is must faster than Raspberri Pi.
And i donāt think that Apple M1 with same architecture much faster than it. And Roon works on M1.
I am very sorry that you question the credibility of my post.
This Intel is almost 10% worse than this ARM.
Please refer to these pages:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/966vs4297/Intel-Core2-Duo-P7350-vs-BCM2711
P.S.
Windows is installed on both and performance was tested with āPassMark PerformanceTestā
Best regards.
All I can say is that the relevant Passmark for the RPi 4 is significantly lower than that required to run Roon Server. Simply put, the RPi is great running something like Roon Bridge, but cannot cope with Roon Server.
Raspberry Pi: 852 / 607
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=BCM2711&id=4297
2013 MacBook (i3): 2249 / 1710
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i3-3225+%40+3.30GHz&id=1474
8th Gen NUC (i3) - recommended spec for small to medium library: 3610 / 1920
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i3-8130U+%40+2.20GHz&id=3225
Moreover, note that single thread performance (second number) is critical, too.
It seems like Iāve found myself dealing with a tough negotiatorā¦ 
But to the point - I only state the fact that it works properly also on Core 2 Duo.
Would you kindly refrain from prolonging our dispute? I am currently awaiting a response from the person I am actually corresponding with.
Thank you.