v0.1.4 (pre-release beta testing) [Updated: 15 May 2016]

[agent_kith]

I only have the USB stick containing the Snakeoil software in the streamer during start-up. As soon as it has started and is playing I remove the USB stick to avoid getting any noise/pollution from it. So far this worked fine (except that I couldn't switch players, but that has not been an issue for me).

As there is no USB stick attached there is also no way the streamer can update the log.

That could be the issue. While the OS (SquashFS partition) itself is written to and read from RAM, the persistent partition (casper-rw) isn't. Removing the USB probably causes some I/O error and then crashed it (e.g. when LMS is trying to update or read it's database). What you may want is to create another RAM disk and call it casper-rw and sync but that may be too troublesome.

Have you considered PxE booting before? I.e. have your Network ROM boot up a OS that's stored on a remote computer (e.g. a NAS). This way you have not SSD or USB, and it's just the network reading files off a remote NAS (and the most frequenctly accesses files are cached locally)..

Something like this (Video of PxE booting Audiophile Linux back in the day).

[Leonard]

Yes I was expecting that. But it everything was working ok in version 1.3 from what I remember.
Surely I have considered PXE booting but not sure if I have enough knowledge and time to get it working as it looks quite complicated.   I would love to have this option though as this would solve multiple problems at once!
What were your experiences with Audiophile Linux running from RAM?
 
I have tried the new firmware version 0.1.4 20160526 you created. Tnx!!!
The problem with the playlist got worse. Now I am not able to switch tracks within a playlist anymore in squeezelite while in the previous version I was unable to build a new playlist. Of course I understand that you haven’t designed Snakeoil to run form RAM like I do, so I am probably the only one facing this issue. However have you tried the way I did (USB + casper-rw) yourself and compared the sound with a setup on SSD?  Very curious what your findings will be!

Another questioni: What do you mean with " Filename has a new string, i686 for 32 bit firmware, and x86_64 for 64bit (Added: 26 May 2016) ". Are there 2 different versions available for download? I only see the i686 version.
 

PS wouldn’t it be better to start a new tread for every new beta firmware version so the discussion is limited to that specific version? This will also make it easier to download previous versions of the software for comparison.

[agent_kith]

Yes I was expecting that. But it everything was working ok in version 1.3 from what I remember.
Surely I have considered PXE booting but not sure if I have enough knowledge and time to get it working as it looks quite complicated.   I would love to have this option though as this would solve multiple problems at once!

That is in my todo list, not sure how to do it easily just yet.

 

What were your experiences with Audiophile Linux running from RAM?

It's ok I guess. I prefer Snakeoil .

 

I have tried the new firmware version 0.1.4 20160526 you created. Tnx!!!
The problem with the playlist got worse. Now I am not able to switch tracks within a playlist anymore in squeezelite while in the previous version I was unable to build a new playlist. Of course I understand that you haven’t designed Snakeoil to run form RAM like I do, so I am probably the only one facing this issue.

Not a lot of people are using Snakeoil at the moment, so that's probably why nobody else have this issue. Do you have a folder call playlists in /media/?

 

However have you tried the way I did (USB + casper-rw) yourself and compared the sound with a setup on SSD?  Very curious what your findings will be!

Not yet, once I have cleared all the todo list I'd start looking into this more earnestly, sorry for the delay.

Another questioni: What do you mean with " Filename has a new string, i686 for 32 bit firmware, and x86_64 for 64bit (Added: 26 May 2016) ". Are there 2 different versions available for download? I only see the i686 version.

I'm working on a 64 bit version of Snakeoil atm. hence have to make sure Snakeoil will not allow you to install 32 bit fw onto a 64 bit system and vice versa.

 

PS wouldn’t it be better to start a new tread for every new beta firmware version so the discussion is limited to that specific version? This will also make it easier to download previous versions of the software for comparison.

At the moment I only have 1GB of web storage, so have to do it this way. The beta firmwares are mostly unstable anyway so removing them with updated versions is good in a way as it stops the problem of fragmentation.

And there are not enough Snakeoil users to use seperate threads really.

Do agree it's messy though, will see if I can make it cleaner in the future.

[Leonard]

Have you considered PxE booting before? I.e. have your Network ROM boot up a OS that's stored on a remote computer (e.g. a NAS). This way you have not SSD or USB, and it's just the network reading files off a remote NAS (and the most frequenctly accesses files are cached locally)..

Have been able to implement PXE booting on my network using my Synology NAS.

At this moment it's only quite basic. Just running live CD's like Xubuntu and Clonezilla without any persistent memory. I will try to get that working as well, but that will be far more complicated I guess. If you have any documentation available to accomplish this that would be very helpful.