[PROBLEM] Raspberry Pi availability

[JohnG]

It's a little frustrating...

I've been playing with Moode Audio for nearly a year.  I've convinced myself it's robust and that I'd be very happy to switch from my LMS based system.

the problem - which I presume everyone else has experienced too, is the non-availability of Pi's?

The news that RS have stopped making RaspberryPi's in the UK hasn't helped - all I can see are £100+ kits etc... it almost makes going down say the Sonos route seem viable!

I'm not sure if there is anything practical to do?

• it seems to me the PI 4 (with separate busses and Ethernet) is the way to go for good quality audio. (and for a viable controller screen)
  
• would Moode Audio run on any of the other fruity variants?
  

but would like to hear people's thoughts about how to get a multi-moodeaudio setup actually up and running

[TheOldPresbyope]

@JohnG

There's several answers ( ).

Since the stand-alone moOde player is built on Raspberry Pi OS, the first answer is, does RaspiOS boot and run on the fruity variant in question? If yes, then it might take little effort to port moOde to it as well.

The second answer is, if the SBC in question is ARM-based but RaspiOS doesn't boot, there is a chance a Franken-moOde can be created for it. By this I mean, it is likely that the moOde code could be melded with the OS that will boot (often a customized Armbian build), configured by hand, and the result play via USB DACs. Examples of this include a hardy soul (sadly, I don't recall their handle) achieved this with a BananaPi board some years ago as did I with a SolidRun CuBox-i4Pro also some years ago (these both were done back in the days when only the diy-audio.com forum thread existed and moOde was in relative infancy).

Much more recently, I brought up a moOde player 8.1.2 on a Libre Computer Le Potato SBC. In this case, I was able to take advantage of the Libre effort to modify RaspiOS to boot either on a Pi or on their foreign architecture. Again, it's a Franken-moOde---configure by hand and play only via USB DAC.

In principle, one could rip into Tim's code for configuring moOde and generalize it so other SBCs could be supported. In practice this approach runs into several snags. For one, there's a variety of boards out there marketed as Pi-killers but each lives in its own ecosphere with little commonality. For another, there are very few (typically 0 or 1) moOde developers with any of those boards so it's hard to develop/test/support extensions for them. For another, the whole DAC HAT problem looms large: can the boards work with the SBC's GPIO? can the Raspberry Pi dtoverlays work with the SBC and its OS? (Note that many vendors claim they can mount a RPi HAT but is this true specifically for i2s HATs?)

Just my 2-cents worth.

Regards,
Kent

[eldar]

I'm eyeing Orange Pi 5 because I'm a bit unhappy how long my RPi 4b based player takes to boot into a Spotify Connect streamer (I'm using SD card though). Orange Pi 5 has a faster chip and also a built-in NVMe M.2 slot - really a very nice board. I wonder how much of an effort will it take to port Moode there. They also make available Debian 11 server image, so might be a matter of building all dependencies and Moode itself. There will be issues with maintenance of course given that devs won't have the board.

[TheOldPresbyope]

I'm eyeing Orange Pi 5 because I'm a bit unhappy how long my RPi 4b based player takes to boot into a Spotify Connect streamer (I'm using SD card though). Orange Pi 5 has a faster chip and also a built-in NVMe M.2 slot - really a very nice board. I wonder how much of an effort will it take to port Moode there. They also make available Debian 11 server image, so might be a matter of building all dependencies and Moode itself. There will be issues with maintenance of course given that devs won't have the board.

My first supervisor used to respond to off-the-beaten-track ideas from us new hires with “sounds like a fun project; let me know when you’re done.” 

All the code needed to build moOde starting from raw RaspiOS is available in the GitHub repo.

Regards,
Kent

[Tim Curtis]

I'm eyeing Orange Pi 5 because I'm a bit unhappy how long my RPi 4b based player takes to boot into a Spotify Connect streamer (I'm using SD card though). Orange Pi 5 has a faster chip and also a built-in NVMe M.2 slot - really a very nice board. I wonder how much of an effort will it take to port Moode there. They also make available Debian 11 server image, so might be a matter of building all dependencies and Moode itself. There will be issues with maintenance of course given that devs won't have the board.

Reboot and post the startup log. If there is a bottleneck in moOde startup it might show in the log.

Code:

moodeutl -l

[ovizii]

I'm also very interested in any options for Raspberry PIs which can run Raspbian for the very same reasons. Will follow this thread :-)

[Lamprey]

I'm eyeing Orange Pi 5 because I'm a bit unhappy how long my RPi 4b based player takes to boot into a Spotify Connect streamer (I'm using SD card though). Orange Pi 5 has a faster chip and also a built-in NVMe M.2 slot - really a very nice board. I wonder how much of an effort will it take to port Moode there. They also make available Debian 11 server image, so might be a matter of building all dependencies and Moode itself. There will be issues with maintenance of course given that devs won't have the board.

Are you using the built in audio out?

Unfortunatly, the Orange Pi 5 isn't compatable with HiFiBerry DACs that connect via the GPIO. But, if there are other similar alternatives that would work, I'd love to use an OPi 5, assuming it isn't to painfull to get MoOde setup. 

[DRONE7]

While we all await the arrival (re-arrival ?) of our beloved Raspberry Pi I am finding some odd boards that may (or may not) be fun to tinker with.

Today's find is a used lattepanda v.1 (for peanuts) that has integral arduino bus and breakouts.

May be useful as a MoOde controller or even a stuttering VM as it runs Windows 10. Or a WRT router on steroids ? will have to play a little.

https://www.lattepanda.com/lattepanda-v1

suggestions welcomed.

[Tim Curtis]

Official Dec 2022 Supply chain update from Raspberry Pi Ltd.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/supply-...good-news/

Just a reminder that ALL products that use trailing edge chips are affected by the "chip shortage" situation. It's particularly bad for high demand products like Automobiles and Raspberry Pi's.

For some insight into what caused the shortage check out the Asianometry Channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJrOuBkYCMQ