Snakeoil Gear Isolation Beta Series

[agent_kith]

My earlier attempt was using 16.04 and SnakeOil 1.1.11 and running the 1.2 script

A little more progress when I installed 20.04 LTS and ran 1.2 script.

• There appears to be a problem with mounting the library partitions using NFS; all my music is on NAS
  Error mount: /media/music/dsd: bad option; for several filesystems (e.g. nfs, cifs) you might need a /sbin/mount. helper program.
  
• Tried to use WinSCP to copy music to music/media, but permission denied
  
• Unable to access mympd
  
• Unable to access LMS web player
  

Going back to 16.04/1.1.11 so that I can listen to some music...

Thanks for the feedback.. I really didn't do a good test on this alpha build have I? Will bunker down and fix all these issues before the next release.

[Snoopy8]

Fixed a few installing bugs here and there, and also verified to work on Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04 as well as the latest 20.04 LTS.

You mentioned in the forum announcement about having a few challengers making Gear Isolation work with 16.04 and 18.04. 

My suggestion is to NOT spend time working with 16.04 and 18.04, but get Gear Isolation working with 20.04.  Users can then try Gear Isolation with 20.04. If they do not like it, they can choose to re-install Blind Testing and 16.04 (with an understanding that only bug fixes will done in future).  Having now done it a few times, it is easy to install one or the other.  Important thing is to do a backup (which can be improved further).   

It will make your path forward simpler...

[agent_kith]

You mentioned in the forum announcement about having a few challengers making Gear Isolation work with 16.04 and 18.04. 

My suggestion is to NOT spend time working with 16.04 and 18.04, but get Gear Isolation working with 20.04.  Users can then try Gear Isolation with 20.04. If they do not like it, they can choose to re-install Blind Testing and 16.04 (with an understanding that only bug fixes will done in future).  Having now done it a few times, it is easy to install one or the other.  Important thing is to do a backup (which can be improved further).   

It will make your path forward simpler...

I did consider that, however, will be nice if the installer will work for other distros, e.g. RockyLinux, RHEL, ArchLinux etc... And to do that, will need to re-compile every binary as static.

Having said that, it's nice to have, will continue to give this a crack, and if couldn't get it to work, will just do as you suggested, and make it work on Ubuntu and Pi only.

[agent_kith]

And to do that, will need to re-compile every binary as static.

Finally re-compiled everything and now we have static editions of MPD 0.21.x and 0.22.x!!!

That only took me 2 days to slowly figure out where the problems are, and deriving the compile options/flags to get this working. And then to get the automation scripts to work.

Will work on Squeezelite tomorrow (or Monday?) and hopefully will have another alpha next week if I get static Squeezelite editions working.

It's pretty warm in Perth at the morning, and all this thinking seems to make my head even hotter! (Thinking generates heat? )

[agent_kith]

Alright, here's another release. Sorry it took longer than expected, but there're a lot of things to change from the groud up.

My earlier attempt was using 16.04 and SnakeOil 1.1.11 and running the 1.2 script

A little more progress when I installed 20.04 LTS and ran 1.2 script.

• There appears to be a problem with mounting the library partitions using NFS; all my music is on NAS
  Error mount: /media/music/dsd: bad option; for several filesystems (e.g. nfs, cifs) you might need a /sbin/mount. helper program.
  
• Tried to use WinSCP to copy music to music/media, but permission denied
  
• Unable to access mympd
  
• Unable to access LMS web player
  

Going back to 16.04/1.1.11 so that I can listen to some music...

Hopefully this latest alpha 3 fixed all these issues and more. Let me know how it goes...

[Snoopy8]

Hopefully this latest alpha 3 fixed all these issues and more. Let me know how it goes...

Good start! Thought I'll give a quick feedback, rather than wait for more thorough testing.

Ran script against existing 16.04/1.1.11 system. Only error message in script was not finding temp folder to delete. Had to reboot (should there be a message in install?).

MPD 0.21.25 resumed at current track, sounds normal. Mympd looks different, have not looked in any detail.

Started up LMS 8 and Squezelite R2. Works, but volume at least 20 dB lower. Volume is set at 100% in SnakeOil. LMS Web working.

Other SnakeOil tabs appear normal and OK.
----
Will look more thoroughly and if I have the time tonight, install 20.04 and try it there...

[Valery]

Excellent performance of alpha 3. The sound quality has improved significantly.

---

Please explain, will there be a kernel-rt? Does the native DSD play correctly with the appropriate player settings?

[agent_kith]

Started up LMS 8 and Squezelite R2. Works, but volume at least 20 dB lower. Volume is set at 100% in SnakeOil. LMS Web working.

Ah dang. I may have forgotten to max out the volume in LMS. Can you go to the LMS web interface, and see if you can adjust the volume there? And see if it works? My DAC has no mixer so the volume is always at 100% so I can't really test this.

Other SnakeOil tabs appear normal and OK.
----
Will look more thoroughly and if I have the time tonight, install 20.04 and try it there...

That's a relief. This new installer is taking such a long time to experiment. Getting it to work across 3 distros is really time consuming, the good thing is I only need to do this once and the pace will pick up significantly after this.

To get this far, while still holding my job, I expect it wouldn't happen in 2021! .

[agent_kith]

Excellent performance of alpha 3. The sound quality has improved significantly.

Thanks to Sublime Hifi generously supplying a bare metal server, I have the space (and in the future speed) required to really do the things I want to do.

The reason for the SQ increase is because of some compile tweaks I have done. Squeezelite and MPD are custom compiled, and the current changes take up a bigger footprint (so the firmwares are bigger now). This increased file size is not something I can do back when I was hosting Snakeoil on the cheap VPS I had before.

It's possible now. Having said that, uploading this installer still took me a while because well it's too big! lol.

 

Please explain, will there be a kernel-rt? Does the native DSD play correctly with the appropriate player settings?

Yes, there will be. And it can be tailored made to suit your computer hardware. Diddo native DSD with configuration bitstream setup. Having said that, I havn't had the time to start work on that yet . The idea is:

1. Download a config file from your Snakeoil computer that describes your computer (Network card, wifi, etc)
   
2. Go to this site: https://custom.snakeoil-os.net/
   
3. Enter your email address
   
4. System will verify you are a VIP and tell you how many custom kernels you can build (sort of a credit).
   
5. Upload your config file from step 1
   
6. Specify some other options you like (e.g. kernel version, timer frequency, your DSD bitstream stuffs)
   
7. Submit your settings
   
8. Wait patiently for a email to download your kernel.
   
9. Download the kernel from the link provided by the email
   
10. Upload it to your Snakeoil PC
    
11. Reboot
    
12. Listen, and go back to step 1 and try a different kernel version, or option
    

Note this is my goal, and I'm only 5% complete (Steps 2 to 7 are incomplete). This is the reason why I have added tools to the Snakeoil system, e.g. Nextcloud, mailgun (see some of my previous posts on these).

Sublime's sponsored hardware is for another 10 months or so. Hopefully I can complete all this before the lease is up. And if the sponsorship stops, a lot of this might go away... Right now I think I will need just about AUD$90 a month to keep this up.

Until the sponsorship, incoming is only about $10-$15 a month. So there's a shortfall of $80... And Snakeoil OS Blind Testing (And before) really has the quality/value of $10. As I had to tailor and fit everything so I don't overwhelm the tiny VPS I had (2 CPU, 2 GB RAM, 40GB space).  Right now it can be said we have an injection of Adrenaline (for the next 10 months), and I can really start to fully unleash the power of Snakeoil OS. For the next few months at least.

* Note, this is not a beg for money. Only folks who have donated can see this page, so for the most part normal users are clueless at what Snakeoil can really be like .

[Snoopy8]

Thank you Agent Kith for big leap forward with 1.2 Alpha3.  I am happy enough to continue running 20.04/1.2 Alpha3. :thumbs:

Have done most of my listening with Mpd, but have tested LMS with Tidal, upmpdcli as client and MinimServer.  LMS low volume resolved in web player (should have looked for it!). There are some things to be resolved. 


16.04/1.1.11 to 1.2 Alpha3

• TOP shows load nearly double of 1.1.11, any reason why?  My NUC has plenty in reserve, but for other people with low powered units, this may be a problem.
  
• Text on monitor attached to NUC still saying 1.1.11 (Blind testing).  Showing 1.2.0.3 on Dashboard.
  
• Error message in script, not finding temp folder to delete. Did not recall seeing text to reboot, but required reboot to work
  

Install 20.04 & 1.2 Alpha3

• Not an issue in itself, but installing 20.04 takes some time, especially with the security updates, compared with very trim SnakeOil 16.04
  
• No issues with script, no errors, message to reboot
  
• Have to use ip address to access system, not hostname
  
• Text on monitor attached to NUC not saying anything about SnakeOil
  
• Have separate USB card.  Needed to manually remove hw:0,0 and add hw:1,0 to get ALSA to work
  
• LMS goes through setup procedure including login to mysqueezebox, lots of plugins enabled
  
• Mympd not working
  
• TOP shows significant drop, between 30% to 80% less than 16.04/1.1.11; maybe due to optimised compile and Mympd not running?
  
• CPUSet not installed on restore; but when enabled: No tasks are running in (user), please file a bug report and state the music players you are using.
  

Sound Quality (SQ)
One of my concerns with moving on from 16.04/1.1.11 was SQ.  It had a RT kernel, many years of optimising and setting process priority was not needed.  With 20.04, a generic kernel was being used.  My concerns were unfounded; still not using process priority.  My initial impression was, maybe a slight SQ improvement, but as everyone knows, music memory is not reliable.  I did find MPD 0.22.3 better than 0.21.25, maybe due to the compile optimisation.  Need to listen longer to draw a more definitive answer on SQ, but can say SQ is at least as good.