yes (short answer with at least 10 characters)
For the benefit of @michael_lundy:
Incidentally, only the X86 versions of DietPi support RoonServer because that is the only linux build made available by Roon. The ARM devices employed by Raspberry Pi and other similar SBC’s are not considered powerful enough (by Roon - not DietPi).
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Is based in Debian and it has an installation manager which makes adding removing programs easy.
Also, keep in mind Linux uses DoP, so you might not get native dsd playback if yhat matters. Depends on other things at that point including the actual.DAC.
If you’re already comfortable with command-line system management, or you really want to figure all that stuff out, then Ubuntu is a good way to keep using your current hardware. If you just want to get your core machine going and then ignore it after that (my preference 
) then ROCK might be a better solution. It’ll run on any Intel machine, not just the approved NUCs. Not sure about DietPi - never used it - but that could be another way to replace Windows with a single-purpose low-maintenance OS. I like ROCK because it’s zero maintenance.
If you have a demanding Roon environment then it makes sense I guess to re-use the powerful machine you have. But I don’t think the OS you pick to run the Server software will affect the machine’s ability to get the job done. So maybe it’s better to just use the OS you’re already comfortable with. Does it really matter if your Windows 10 machine is no longer supported by Microsoft? If you’re not using it for email or Internet browsing, seems like the chances of some un-patched vulnerability biting you are pretty low. But that’s just my view - maybe I’m a reckless cowboy. Your risk tolerance might be different.
When I followed those instructions, it seemed to work until I typed in the chmod command. At that point I received a message back that said “chmod: cannot access ‘roonserver-installer-linuxx64.sh’: no such file or directory”
I’ve tried to include a copy of the terminal information to show what is happening but I get an error message saying I can only have two links in a post. Other than the download link in the curl command I don’t know what the other links are.
Good to know, thanks. I have two other Windows 10 Pro machines I can experiment with. Before switching to ROON I used JRiver which I never could figure out how to get it to serve multiple systems at the same time so each system had it’s own computer with it’s own copy of the music library. Once I switched to ROON and got comfortable enough with it to stop using JRiver, I pulled all the computers out of the other systems, They have just been sitting on a shelf since.
I didn’t realize that. Good to know. The DAC in my main music system, a PS Audio DirectStream DAC MK2, is capable of handling native DSD up to 256. The other DACs vary from DSD over DOP to only PCM.
Something else to check out.
Thanks
Since I have two other Windows 10 computers to experiment with I can do one with the x64 version of DietPi and one with ROCK.
It’s a good thing I got started on this a year ahead of time.
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Sounds like either your current working directory is not the directory where the roonserver file is, or there is some inconsistency with the file names.
The installer shell script is in the Downloads folder. I can see that with the GUI. What I can’t seem to do is switch to that directory (the ls command shows the download directory but the cd command says it doesn’t exist) to run the commands directly or how to configure the chmod command to tell it the shell script is in the downloads directory.
Also, I’ve worked through that command line tutorial three times and it doesn’t answer the above question.
Please post your terminal session verbatim. You can select the whole thing with the mouse and rightclick to copy
When I try to do that I receive this message:
An error occurred: Sorry, new users can only put 2 links in a post.
I figured out what I was doing wrong when attempting to change the directory. I was using a lowercase “d” for downloads instead of the upper case “D”. when I corrected this I was able to switch the directory and successfully run both the chmod and the sudo ./roonserver… commands.
I now have the message “All Done! RoonServer should be running on your machine now.”
Just one more little hiccup, I can’t figure out how to actually run ROON.
From my home directory, when I type $ whereis roon, all I get is
Roon:
mike…: $
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What do you mean, the message says Roon should be running. Now you connect to it with Roon remote and set the new service up, point it towards music etc.
Linux only runs Roonserver, not the graphical client. As mentioned you need to run Roon on another PC to attach to the server
OK That works. I can start Roon on a tablet, enable the DAC connected to the Linux machine and play music from the Roon Core that is on the Windows 10 machine.
When I installed Roon Server on a second Windows machine that was on the same network, the first time Roon was started it asked if I wanted the machine to be a core or not. That didn’t happen with this machine. It was just running as an endpoint.
How do I go about making the Linux machine the core?
In the app go to Settings > General > Disconnect, then you will have a choice of the Roon servers that it can find
Great, Thanks.
As a test, I turned the Windows machine with the core off, then opened Roon with the tablet. It asked if I wanted to connect to a different core and found the new server setup on the Linux machine, so good to go.
The next server setup will be the DietPi x64 setup on one of the other Windows machines but that is going to take a back seat for awhile. In addition to my day job, I have to catch up on some speaker builds that I’m behind on.
Thanks a lot to everybody who has helped me figure this out and getting Roon up and running on the Linux machine.
Mike
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Ahoy, Michael. It’s been a while since I’ve installed Roon Core on a Linux box. My current Core is a ROCK running on a NUC that I purchased from System 76.
Several things are important.
First, use the shell script to download and install Roon Core on Linux. The shell script will pull the latest image and do the right thing with it. This will work even in VMs.
Second, don’t try to install the ROCK image. It only has the drivers needed for the NUC. Per Roon, ROCK won’t play on a VM.
Third, ensure that you satisfy the package prerequisites. If you don’t, the installer will stop and tell you that a library was missing. That’s your clue that the codec libraries are not present. Go back and verify that the added packages have indeed been added.
Fourth, you didn’t mention which flavor of Linux you were using. I’d recommend Debian or Ubuntu. Ubuntu has been taken with containers lately. Too many versions. I’d recommend Debian Download Debian as they have good instructions and no commercial aspirations.
Fifth, If you are repurposing an old machine, verify that it meets memory requirements. If not, buy a new Nucleus. Harmon has given new life to Nucleus. The newly announced Nucleus is perfectly adequate and priced advantageously relative to ASROCK NUC or 4x4 BOX. Harmon/Roon has done good here. Bravo Zulu on removing audiophile nonsense and making a sensible product of Nucleus.
Sixth, Roon is happiest if the library is on a directly attached disk. I use an SDD (Crucial 2.5). Disk speed is important to database searching. Extra memory allows a bigger buffer cache which will also speed library searching.
The machine speed is less important. But Roon stages Tidal and Qobuz program material before distribution to the endpoint. The entire track or playlist is downloaded to the Core and the tracks sent to the endpoints. The endpoints likely stage for reproduction. Roon would keep playing through a Cox fade. Roon boffins got the architecture right.
Both Linux, Ubuntu 20.4, and ROON are up and running on the spare machine. It’s a Dell XPS with a Core i7-7700 quad core/8 thread processor running at 4.2 GHz with 32GB DDR4 RAM, a 500GB drive that had the Windows 10 Pro OS, and two storage drives, one has 1TB and the other 2TB.
The machine that currently has the ROON core is a Dell Precision Workstationwith a Xeon E5-1620v3 processor running at 3.5GHz with 32GB of DDR4 ECC Ram, a 250GB SSD for the Windows 10 Pro OS and programs and a 4TB SSD for the music files.
Even though the i7 machine is newer and scores about 24% better on benchmark tests, the Xeon machine will eventually be converted to Ubuntu and hold the ROON core like it does now. Before converting the Xeon machine to Linux, I will switch the ROON core to the i7 machine and work with it to make sure I am comfortable with it running on Ubuntu. Once I’m satisfied, I will convert the Xeon machinr to Ubuntu, install ROON, and switch the core back.
One might ask that if the i7 machine is newer and performs better, why switch back to the Xeon machine. That comes down to the purpose of the processors. The Xeon is a server/workstation processor with ECC RAM while the i7 is a desktop processor with non-ECC RAM. Since the music server is on 24 hours a day sometimes for a week or more at a time, using a server rated machine makes more sense to me. Plus, I’ve been using the Xeon machine as the music server for the past 4 or 5 years without any problem.
As for experimenting with DietPi or Rock on the other machines, that isn’t going to happen. When I pulled them out of storage, I realized they were older than I thought as they had Windows 7 stickers and I couldn’t get them to boot so, after removing the hard drives, they got recycled.