One of the best gadgets I bought recently is a TonidoPlug, the TonidoPlug is based upon the well known SheevaPlug. The SheevaPlug is a 1000 MHz Marvell CPU combined with 512 MB flash, and 512 MB internal RAM. At the size of roughly two cigarette boxes it makes it an ideal home server using just 5 watt. These great hardware specs are combined with a great software package running on top of it. The package is based on Ubuntu 9.04 and lets you choose to use a variety of services (Torrent Client, Photo Gallery, Jukebox, WebsharePro (remote access to your files), Workspace, Thots, Search, Backup and Explorer). It’s really easy to setup and you can easily expand its capabilities.
Tag: logitech media center
Installing Squeezelite player on a Raspberry Pi
After running Squeezelite for some time, I thought it was time to update my Raspberry Pi to Jessie and start with a clean installation. So I downloaded the Jessie Lite image from the Raspberry Pi project site into my Downloads folder on my Ubuntu machine.
Time to open up a Terminal window and get to work…
In short we will do the following:
- Write Raspbian image to SD card
- Logon to the Raspbian Operating System
- Setup a Wireless connection to your AccessPoint
- Finalize the Raspberry Configuration
- Install rpi-update and update the Raspberry Pi firmware
- Install the Squeezelite player
- Edit the Squeezelite config file to prevent crackles from sound
- Adjust the sound volume of your Raspberry Pi
Write raspbian image to SD card
There is an excellent description on how to install Raspbian, have a look here. I used gparted to remove the old partitions from my SD card. After that I was ready to install a fresh copy Raspbian Jessie Lite.
| cd Downloads/Raspbian dd bs=4M if=./2016-05-27-raspbian-jessie.img of=/dev/sde |
When ready you can connect the Raspberry Pi with the UTP cable to your network and power it up. I used Zenmap to figure out the IP -address of the Raspberry Pi.
Logon to the Rasbian Operating System
$ ssh pi@ip-address
password: raspberry
Setup Wireless a connection to your AccessPoint
I’ve been using the TL-WN725N Wireless-N USB adapter from TP-LINK on all my Raspberry Pi projects. If you want to use WiFi, you need to configure your WPA settings (assuming you use WPA2 on your Access Point).
| sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf |
add following lines:
| network={ ssid=”The_ESSID_from_your_AccesPoint” psk=”Your_WiFi_password” } |
Finalize the Raspberry Configuration
By using the raspi-config script it is easy to configure several things on your Raspberry Pi without digging too much into the OS.
| sudo raspi-config |
– expand filesystem
– change hostname
– change password
You need to reboot the Raspberry Pi to complete the configuration. You can now disconnect the your Pi from the UTP cable. It’s quite likely that your IP address changed during the reboot, so you might need to figure out the new IP address (see above). Logon to the Raspberry Pi again using ssh (also, see above).
Install rpi-update and update the Raspberry Pi firmware
You might want to update the Raspberry Pi firmware, to be able to do that you need to install rpi-update.
| sudo apt-get install rpi-update sudo rpi-update |
Install Squeezelite player
Next thing up, is installing the Squeezelite player and some extra codecs…
| sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get install squeezelite sudo apt-get install libflac-dev |
Edit the squeezelite config file to prevent crackles from sound
The Raspberry Pi is not the fastest computer around, so you need to help it a bit. You can help your Pi by increasing the ALSA buffer size.
| sudo nano /etc/default/squeezelite |
Edit following line:
| # SB_EXTRA_ARGS=”” |
and change it into (be aware of losing the hashtag!):
| SB_EXTRA_ARGS=”-a 180″ |
Adjust the sound volume of your Raspberry Pi
Make sure you have the right audio volume level on your Raspberry Pi. Ensure that the playback level has zero gain => PCM [db gain: 0.00]. Tweak the gain-level by using the arrow keys up and down, in the end you will reach the zero db gain 🙂
| alsamixer |
You can now reboot your Raspberry Pi and enjoy your music!
Suggestions for improving this article are welcome, please let me know and drop me a line .
Upgrading your SqueezeCenter server on Ubuntu
In a previous article I tried to explain the installation of the Squeezebox Server on the Tonido Plug. In this article I’ll try to explain how to perform an upgrade of your existing Squeezecenter Server on Tonido (or Ubuntu as the Tonido Plug is based on Ubuntu 9.04).
What you’re going to do is actually remove the old installation of the Squuezecenter server and install a new copy of the Squuezecenter server.
Prerequisites (what you need to get it working):
- Hardware
- Computer
- TonidoPlug (optionally)
- Internet connection
- Software
- Windows users might need Putty
The first thing you need to do is remove the ‘old’ installation of the Squuezecenter server, by SSH-ing (Windows user might want to use Putty) the following command:
| apt-get purge –yes squeezeboxserver |
Next thing is cleaning up your Ubuntu installation by entering:
| apt-get autoclean |
You might want to update your Ubuntu installation by using the following commands:
| apt-get update apt-get upgrade |
Now you are ready to install the latest version of Squuezecenter server (Check the Squeezebox server version and location, by locating the latest version using your internet browser).
| wget http://downloads.slimdevices.com/SqueezeboxServer_v7.5.3/squeezeboxserver_7.5.3_all.deb dpkg -i squeezeboxserver_7.5.3_all.deb apt-get -f install |
Now your Squeezebox Server should be upgraded, you can check it by locating it in your internet browser
http://YourSqueezeboxServerName:9000/
or
http://YourSqueezeboxServerIpAddress:9000/
If needed you can manually stop or start your Squeezebox Server
| /etc/init.d/squeezeboxserver stop /etc/init.d/squeezeboxserver start |
Suggestions for improving this article are welcome, please let me know and drop me a line !
How to install SoftSqueeze on Ubuntu
Softsqueeze is a software music player developed in Java (allowing it to work on most operating systems) that works with the Squeezebox Server software. Softsqueeze emulates most of the Boom, Duet, Transporter, Squeezebox and Slimp3 hardware music players. It uses a TCP based protocol, allowing it to use across the Internet and through firewalls/NAT routers using ssh tunneling. The software music player supports synchronization with hardware players.
Prerequisites (what you need to get it working):
- Hardware
- Computer running Ubuntu
- SqueezeCenter Server
- Network connection
- Software
- SoftSqueeze
Let’s get started:
Download the java version of SoftSqueeze (the .zip file) from your favourite browser.
Create a folder called SoftSqueeze in your home folder by opening a terminal window (Applications \ Accessories \ Terminal).
| mkdir SoftSqueeze cd SoftSqueeze |
Now unzip the zip file:
| unzip ~/Downloads/softsqueeze_3.8.zip |
Make the JAR file executable:
| sudo chmod +x SoftSqueeze.jar |
Install Sun Java 6 Runtime:
| sudo add-apt-repository “deb http://archive.canonical.com/ lucid partner” sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-fonts |
Make JAR file open with Java:
| java -jar ~/SoftSqueeze/SoftSqueeze.jar |
The only thing left to do in Softsqueeze is to point it to the SqueezeCenter Server and redirect the audio output to “Java Sound Audio Engine”.
Suggestions for improving this article are welcome, please let me know and drop me a line.
Updating Squeezelite on your Raspberry Pi
After running Squeezelite on my Raspberry Pi for a while, I thought it would be time to update Squeezelite to it’s latest version. And this is how I did it…
First you’ll have to login to your Raspberry Pi, you might want to open a terminal and use SSH…
If you don’t have a squeezelite folder, then create one! You can do this by using mkdir in your terminal:
| mkdir squeezelite |
Now go to your squeezelite folder:
| cd squeezelite |
Remove an older version, if it’s there:
| rm ./squeezelite-armv6hf |
Next download the latest version:
| wget http://squeezelite-downloads.googlecode.com/git/squeezelite-armv6hf |
Remove the old version:
| sudo rm /usr/bin/squeezelite-armv6hf |
Copy the latest version to the folder /usr/bin:
| sudo cp squeezelite-armv6hf /usr/bin |
Setting the permissions right:
| sudo chmod a+x /usr/bin/squeezelite-armv6hf |
Reboot If you want, else stop start the service:
| sudo shutdown -r now |
Now you are ready to rock and roll (again) !!!
Suggestions for improving this article are welcome, please let me know and drop me a line .