Request For Comments: Snakeoil 1.2.0 (Gear Isolation)

[agent_kith]

OK. Hit a roadblock while trying to get the latest release of MPD working. MPD 0.21.x now requires a whole new development platform - this means 16.04 LTS can no longer cut it and Snakeoil has to move to 18.04 LTS.

There are obviously ways to work around this, but due to the rapid pace of software development, we need to provide a means for the users to easily migrate, So the focus of Gear Isolation is now going to do that. Plus some new additions I'm planning for.

As I'm still running this website entirely on user donations, budget is an on-going issue and I am forever trying ways to minimise the space I'm gonna use. So the way forward will be so:
 

new features designed for 1.2.0 will be available as activated features in 1.1.x.

This change makes it easy to maintain the codebase - meaning I only have to work on one branch instead of two, and that means I've only be releasing one set of firmware (instead of 2). A new ISO for 1.1.x will also be released based on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, and hopefully that will address the UEFI issues some of you are experiencing.

So, let's get on with business. What new features do you want to see in 1.2.x? Please post here and I'd start building a list.

[Mivera]

I would love to see you test Snakeoil with the latest generation of Intel NUC's. Better yet optimize a version especially for NUC's. Probably the best platform available for Snakeoil. Readily available world wide, 3 year warranty, tiny low noise footprint, fanless cases available, ability to easily power by ultra low noise supply, low price, many different CPU power options. Benefits go on. 


https://ark.intel.com/products/series/12...Processors

There's a good reason why Roon makes their ROCK OS specifically to use on Intel NUC's.

[agent_kith]

Working on moving Snakeoil to 18.0.x LTS branch is tedious! Anyway, while largely untested, this part should be more or less 80% OK now. ATM am working on the new MPD v0.21 which will feature Tidal and Quboz plugins.

Pretty sure Qubuz is not available here in Australia so that is not something I can do. And I don't have a Tidal account either. So it's up to you guys, any of you know how to "reverse enginner" the Tidal token? I assume this is a OAUTH2 token? MPD documention here:
 

Edit: Problem solved I think. Here is a quick article on how to get your token: Link

[agent_kith]

The move to 18.04 LTS is a pain in the arse!

Took a few weeks of fixing stuffs, then a Christmas break, then another week of fixing stuffs. And we finally get the build environment to work properly running again.
 

This build environment is 4x Virtual machines and 1 Pi. It's not easy to get to this stage (9 steps in total)... BTW the first 3 is about building the software, the next 3 is about packaging it into the firmware file, and the third is generating the ISO and Pi Images as a complete install. While it's green on the third stage I havn't finished on moving this to 18.04 tree yet.

And that's not the end of it, after I got the ISO working, we have to test that the firmware and ISO works (that's another 2 VM and 1 Pi). This includes new firmware working on 16.04, old system upgrading to 18.04 (Not going to test if old firmware is going to work on 18.04).

Most of the difficult stuffs is out of the way so hopefully things will go smoother. But I doubt it will be.

My home server only has 32 GB of RAM (that's the max it can go), and Snakeoil development and testing has quickly out grown it. Buying a new server with more RAM is difficult because they're too big to fit the space I have to keep these equipment. Offloading some to Amazon Web Services is going to drain too much of the collected donations.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place with no quick easy solution for now.

But hopefully things'd get by, once everything is running and tested, I can finally work on the new features. e.g. tidal and Quboz support for MPD v21.

Sometime in the next few months I'd also buy a NUC so I can work out the UEFI issues. No idea where to find the space to put that yet, there's a will, so there'd be a way....

[agent_kith]

Yup. Simply cannot catch a break. Not entirely sure why, but somehow managed to delete the wrong RAID partition. And I lost all my virtual machines :cry:. The code is still backed up.

But it looks like it'd be a while before I can get things up and running again.

It's been a miserable last few days really.

[agent_kith]

As I sit here trying to recover it all. Really - things could have been a lot worse.

e.g. This website and everything that goes with it could be gone. Because until a few months ago everything was hosted on this machine that I've just lost. Thanks to generous donations from you guys, the more critical stuffs have been moved to the cloud. Sure the cloud servers I'm currenly using have no backups, and no SLA, but it's a fair compromise given the price.

Been around computers for a long time, this is the first time I had suffered a loss at this castastrophic level. Although I'm pretty tired from sleep deprivation right now, there's also a sense clamness. Obviously snakeoil development will have to wait till all this is working again. Hope I have your patience.

Snakeoil Releases in 2018 was slow - all thanks to various hiccups like this along the road. If you like to help out, please consider becoming a $2 patreon for Snakeoil. Hit the orange button to the right. This means you'd be donating $2 US Dollars to this project every month ($24 USD a year). For less than a cup of coffee (in Australian terms) a month, and with enough support, I can move a lot of this to a good reliable cloud service, and things like this is unlikely to ever happen again.

That is the best way for me to concentrate fully on development, rather than spending 80% of my time trying to figure out what is wrong with my computers. This system has served me well, it has also been running 24/7 non stop for years. Cracks are starting to appear, and they just seem to get bigger and bigger now. :/

Put things simply, if you want to see more Snakeoil releases, hit that orange button to the right and become a patreon.

Update: Fark.. This reminds me.. Paypal/Patreon notification emails is not going to work at this time. Will update once everything is back up and running.

[Bromf]

Bummer start to the year AK......
I empathise as I lost a whole drive last month... A WD 2 Tb that had only been used a dozen times for quarterly backups....out of warranty of course.

So just flicked you a donation to help things along :-)

(and I encourage other users to do the same.!! .....every little helps.....We're getting a top notch software with fantastic support and AK deserves our recognition)

All the best onwards,
Bob.

[agent_kith]

Sorry for the quick post.

6 days since I've deleted the wrong partition, because of a failing disk. And now I've managed to re-build 5 machines. First machine is to store all the source code, and the rest of the 4 machines for development and building the 32 bit and 64 bit stuffs. I'm still 2 VMs away but these remaining two are straight forward - it's basically just a install of the Snakeoil ISO generated by the build machinies.

Now I have backed up a lot of files, the Virtual Machine images unfortunately isn't one of them. Why? Because of the lack of space on my NAS. That is now fixed, went out and purchased 4x 8 TiB HDDs.. That'd give me 24 TiB of storage, on top of the 16 TiB I have running right now.

Wish I don't have to, but it's a problem that can be solved by money, so money I've spend.
 

Hopefully by the end of this week I can finish up the first build with the new MPD.

[agent_kith]

Gee wheez almost a month has flown by. Work on incorporating current release (Blind Testing) updates and future features (Isolation Gear) continues. I have moved some activated features to the free edition now, fixed some bugs, and so on.

Hopefully I can find a few good hours to sit down, plan and implement a new GUI for MPD configuration. This will allow you to easily setup your Quboz and Tidal for MPD v21, as well as other configuration stuffs (e.g. OLED). The way you wouldn't lose your custom configurations when you update the Snakeoil firmware.

As usual, you can always check out the current development progress by tracking the roadmap.

[hkphantomgtr]

Gee wheez almost a month has flown by. Work on incorporating current release (Blind Testing) updates and future features (Isolation Gear) continues. I have moved some activated features to the free edition now, fixed some bugs, and so on.

Hopefully I can find a few good hours to sit down, plan and implement a new GUI for MPD configuration. This will allow you to easily setup your Quboz and Tidal for MPD v21, as well as other configuration stuffs (e.g. OLED). The way you wouldn't lose your custom configurations when you update the Snakeoil firmware.

As usual, you can always check out the current development progress by tracking the roadmap.

Thank you very much!