Snakeoil Forums

(29-May-2016, 09:37 PM)Leonard Wrote: [ -> ]Ok, I did that already. Tnx!

Try and download 64 bit ISO again (same link) and see if the latest edition fixed it... A bit hard to confirm on my side as the interface renaming doesn't happen in my setup, but I hope the latest ISO will work for you.

Installed 64 bit Snakeoil on my primary system, and gotta say I'm absolutely loving it - Running Squeezelite 1.6.4-test with a remote LMS. The music is so engaging .

Found a weird bug though, the Squeezelite output thread don't seem to honour the -r 99 parameter when starting from the web server, i.e. the output thread is not running to the new priority. I'd see if I can fix that.

Thank you Agent Kith for the awesome release! I just downloaded your latest ISO with the network fix, and was able to use the Option "Snake Oil From RAM". The clock source used previously with my installation on SSD was "HPET"; but with the RAM option, my clock source is changed to "TSC". The TSC is the preferred clocksource between the two counters, as it is the fastest one. Is that true?
I gotta say I can tell right away that there is a noticeable improvement to the timbre and timing in the audio; i don't know whether it's the OS in RAM or TSC clock source. Maybe that's a direction for the future to offload the OS away from the SSD into RAM?
By the way, I'm using the MPD (dsd-rt) player. Keep up the great work!

(30-May-2016, 04:16 PM)Jhya Wrote: [ -> ]Thank you Agent Kith for the awesome release! I just downloaded your latest ISO with the network fix, and was able to use the Option "Snake Oil From RAM". The clock source used previously with my installation on SSD was "HPET"; but with the RAM option, my clock source is changed to "TSC". The TSC is the preferred clocksource between the two counters, as it is the fastest one. Is that true?

It depends I think. TSC is short for timestamp counter, which is really a number that will keep on incrementing, and then overflow back and repeat. While HPET is a countdown timer.

HPET supposedly has lower overheads to setup, but with multi-core processor TSC is better. When running LiveCD, I'm letting the OS choose the timer to use (could also be acpi_pm I think, which is an incrementing counter also I think). Only when installed do I force it to HPET, but you can change it in the snakeoil tab.

How each timer works really depends on the overall system, and it's still something I'm trying to understand and work out systematically. Different kernels just seem to behave differently with different timers, to such an extent I can no longer be sure if it's real or if I am imaginging it.

(30-May-2016, 04:16 PM)Jhya Wrote: [ -> ]I gotta say I can tell right away that there is a noticeable improvement to the timbre and timing in the audio; i don't know whether it's the OS in RAM or TSC clock source. Maybe that's a direction for the future to offload the OS away from the SSD into RAM?

Certainly something to consider for the future. The problem is still needs persistent storage, and that is still gonna be a local USB stick or a SSD.

But as it is, Snakeoil is really barebones, if you look at the memory footprint, e.g. mine:
you'd see it hardly uses anything at all, and the HDD activity light never turns on.. so after about 5 minutes of running, everything you need from the OS is already cached, and it's not really reading off any OS files any more.

Having no SSD is still good though, as it's one less electronics device to power.
 

(30-May-2016, 04:16 PM)Jhya Wrote: [ -> ]By the way, I'm using the MPD (dsd-rt) player. Keep up the great work!

Thanks. And great choice as a player. Are you doing native DSD by any chance?

PS: Good to actually see somebody from USA using Snakeoil. I have no idea that word is seen so negatively in the US, but it's too late for me to change the name now  .

(30-May-2016, 12:53 PM)agent_kith Wrote: [ -> ]Try and download 64 bit ISO again (same link) and see if the latest edition fixed it... A bit hard to confirm on my side as the interface renaming doesn't happen in my setup, but I hope the latest ISO will work for you.

Tnx!!!
Network problem has been solved on my system with the new ISO version :-)

(01-Jun-2016, 07:11 PM)Leonard Wrote: [ -> ]

(30-May-2016, 12:53 PM)agent_kith Wrote: [ -> ]Try and download 64 bit ISO again (same link) and see if the latest edition fixed it... A bit hard to confirm on my side as the interface renaming doesn't happen in my setup, but I hope the latest ISO will work for you.

Tnx!!!
Network problem has been solved on my system with the new ISO version :-)

Thanks for confirming the issue is fixed.. The casper scripts was done back in the days CD/DVD are used to install Ubuntu, don't need to eject media when everybody ae using USB sticks these days. (Just have to remember to remove the USB stick after clicking reset.)

(30-May-2016, 04:40 PM)agent_kith Wrote: [ -> ]But as it is, Snakeoil is really barebones, if you look at the memory footprint, e.g. mine:

Code:

MemTotal: 4031068 kB
MemFree: 3906520 kB
Cached: 63764 kB

you'd see it hardly uses anything at all, and the HDD activity light never turns on.. so after about 5 minutes of running, everything you need from the OS is already cached, and it's not really reading off any OS files any more.

Having no SSD is still good though, as it's one less electronics device to power.
 

(30-May-2016, 04:16 PM)Jhya Wrote: [ -> ]By the way, I'm using the MPD (dsd-rt) player. Keep up the great work!

Thanks. And great choice as a player. Are you doing native DSD by any chance?

PS: Good to actually see somebody from USA using Snakeoil. I have no idea that word is seen so negatively in the US, but it's too late for me to change the name now  .

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I would love to try the snake oil tab to test the source clocks, but I can't find it on the main page.

I just checked my memory usage, it actually cached to almost full using OS in RAM, but no apparant degradation in sound quality or performance:
 MemoryMemTotal: 8143620 kB
MemFree: 65492 kB
Cached: 7728320 kB
Is that normal?

I'm wondering if I can turn off the GUI after I load the LiveCD to RAM, maybe there's some performance to be gained from that too... Also, how would I save my settings to the LiveCD and install some players, so that I wouldn't need to input my settings again after reboot?
A better question is, would I be able to load into RAM my SSD installation of the OS? That will be awesome, since I will not need a USB drive anymore! And I can make the SSD the media drive with the OS offloaded separately into RAM.

I'm not using DSD, just normal FLAC and APE music sources. I have tried MPD v17, but that one doesn't support APE files. v19 and Git Version works with APE and sound good too. But I like the new dsd-rt player the best.

(03-Jun-2016, 02:59 PM)Jhya Wrote: [ -> ]Thank you for the detailed explanation. I would love to try the snake oil tab to test the source clocks, but I can't find it on the main page.

I have sent you a PM.
 

(03-Jun-2016, 02:59 PM)Jhya Wrote: [ -> ]I just checked my memory usage, it actually cached to almost full using OS in RAM, but no apparant degradation in sound quality or performance:
 MemoryMemTotal: 8143620 kB
MemFree: 65492 kB
Cached: 7728320 kB
Is that normal?

It's ok, a reason why some system builders recommend buying computers with a lot of RAM. If the system requires it, the computer will free up cache space and let the program use it anyway.
 

(03-Jun-2016, 02:59 PM)Jhya Wrote: [ -> ]I'm wondering if I can turn off the GUI after I load the LiveCD to RAM, maybe there's some performance to be gained from that too... Also, how would I save my settings to the LiveCD and install some players, so that I wouldn't need to input my settings again after reboot?

No GUI is in the todo list. You have two options with booting off a USB.

1. Set up another partition on the USB stick and label it casper-rw. Then modify /boot/grub.cfg and use the 2nd boot option as default
   
2. Install Snakeoil on to another USB, and then use that to boot up.
   

Right now with option 1, GUI will still load, but that will be fixed in the future. With option 2 the OS is always running in text mode. Graphical players will be started from a VNC session.

 

(03-Jun-2016, 02:59 PM)Jhya Wrote: [ -> ]A better question is, would I be able to load into RAM my SSD installation of the OS? That will be awesome, since I will not need a USB drive anymore! And I can make the SSD the media drive with the OS offloaded separately into RAM.

That is possible I think, but I havn't set it up yet. Boot OS into RAM will work if you are using persistent mode.
 

(03-Jun-2016, 02:59 PM)Jhya Wrote: [ -> ]I'm not using DSD, just normal FLAC and APE music sources. I have tried MPD v17, but that one doesn't support APE files. v19 and Git Version works with APE and sound good too. But I like the new dsd-rt player the best.

Nice.

Apologies, AK, I posted an issue about this version on your support thread, rather than here as perhaps I should have done!

- r.

Hi Agent Kith

I have a problem with version Cryo and last firmware:  I have 3 usb disks, one for the OS (8 Go) and two for the cdthèque.
At each reboot the order (sda, sdb and sdc) of the disks change and I have to re-scan my music (more than 22000 files).
What can I do ?

Thank's

Pierre

(07-Aug-2016, 11:37 PM)Pierre Wrote: [ -> ]Hi Agent Kith

I have a problem with version Cryo and last firmware:  I have 3 usb disks, one for the OS (8 Go) and two for the cdthèque.
At each reboot the order (sda, sdb and sdc) of the disks change and I have to re-scan my music (more than 22000 files).
What can I do ?

This will be tricky, for USB it's best to use the UUID method and not the device block method in the webapp. I'd see if I can find a good solution for that in the web app in a future release.

But until then, you'd have to manually mount the partitions in the /etc/fstab file. Hopefully I'd be able to write a quick howto on this later today (approx 12 hours from time of this post). Will let you know when it's done.