Archphile - An Archlinux Based Audiophile Distribution for Raspberry Pi and Udoo Quad

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Darjus

Member
Joined 2017
Dynobot said:
I have to agree with you, its not 100% yet, very close but things could get a bit clearer and a bit more dynamic.

Mike [Archphile] seems to like cpu affinity and some other settings in his archphile-optimize script. From my experience SBC's don't like to be pushed and need to be ever so slightly nudged with gentle settings. This is to say, the normal brute-force methods have a negative effect.

IMO, Arch Linux sounds better than Debian so these days I've actually been rolling my own Arch Linux. PiCore is pretty good but never seems to have the weight and body that I am looking for. Archphile gives me a pretty good base to work with, so I'm going to play around with the archphile-optimized settings and dig into it a bit more.

Software wise I have MPD, Squeeze and Roon to play with.
Click to expand...

Hi mate,

looks like you have quite a good expertise on Arch Linux and audio, quite a rare combination :) maybe can you give me some hints into how to make faster booting Archphile on RPI3 without compromising the sound? The setup doesn't need to have any visual interface or any network connection, just MPD, MPC terminal commands. MPD will be controlled through Python Serial lib, via USB. So basically I just need to have USB ports for accessing storage, Serial, and Bluetooth dongle, and running MPD and Bluetooth commands.As setup will be in the car it will be really annoying to wait more than 10 seconds for bootup of RPI. For the first steps i could just disable all unneeded packages (MyMPD, Avahi, etc.), but what could be done next? Do you think its possible to reach 5 seconds boot time?
 
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Darjus

Member
Joined 2017
thanks man, that was a nice feature. I am getting these results. Red ones i understand i can disable in my case, green i can launch on demand after bootup. But it doesn't cut that much now loading of all system time around 17s. Is there any other services i could disable? and other tricks to make boot faster?
1.039s dev-mmcblk0p2.device
822ms netctl@archphile\x2dnetwork.service
778ms mpd.service
418ms avahi-daemon.service
408ms bluetooth.service
320ms systemd-logind.service
226ms ldconfig.service
200ms systemd-udev-trigger.service
170ms systemd-remount-fs.service
166ms user@0.service
148ms systemd-sysusers.service
119ms systemd-modules-load.service
114ms systemd-journal-catalog-update.service
112ms kmod-static-nodes.service
104ms sys-kernel-debug.mount
102ms systemd-udevd.service
96ms systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service
76ms tmp.mount
75ms systemd-journal-flush.service
67ms systemd-sysctl.service
57ms systemd-journald.service
47ms boot.mount
47ms dev-mqueue.mount
46ms systemd-random-seed.service
44ms systemd-user-sessions.service
42ms systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service
35ms systemd-rfkill.service
32ms systemd-update-utmp.service
18ms sys-kernel-config.mount
16ms var-log.mount
16ms systemd-update-done.service
 
F

flexus

Member
Joined 2007
Most of these services are important. I would not stop them, maybe move the start process to a later point where its possible. You'd have to alter the systemd unit for that.
You can further do some
Code: 
systemd-analyze critical-chain
There you see the "dependencies" and reasons why the System startup takes that long. On my System for example dhcp takes way too long.
My suggestion is, take a look at the socket activation topic.
 
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JoseM

Member
Joined 2009
all working nicely on an updated rpi4

A few posts ago, there were a lot of users, myself included, who had problems with some additional scripts for archphile...

GIven my recent experience with a rpi4, I thought I could give some updates to this and I could share some happy news that since i started to use a rpi4, updated with the latest eeprom firmware, all is once again well in the world of archphile!

Cut a long story short, I was able to buy a rpi4 2nd hand. I had all sorts of problems with network instability etc, until I decided to see if it had been updated to the latest eeprom. i stumbled my way through an update and was able to update the eeprom and reinstalled archphile with all the previous tweaks that brought all sorts of troubles before.

Then I realised that tuxx had already included the means to updating the rpi4 eeprom firmware on page 39 of the manual! d'oh!

I've let it run for a week now, 24/7, and all has been well.

I have all the tweaks from p38? of this thread, plus all the lights disabled, wifi power management off and it is running beautifully with my oldish pi2design 502DAC HAT.

Message is - if you had problems with rpi4, please check you have latest eeprom firmware - that may be it. I am a happy camper. I also think the rpi4 with a HDD sounds discernably better than a rpi3b+.

On another note, I have tried using a flash drive as well as my HDD and I think the flash drive sounded better than the HDD, and I now hypothesize may be a reasonably competetive alternative SQ wise to a SDD.

How much power does a USB flash drive consume?

I might try one of these in the next few months - SanDisk 512GB Ultra Fit USB 3.0 Flash Drive - and will see how I go.

But wait, I've just had a glance and the 1Tb Samsung SSDs are offered at a good price so might go that way anyway.

Hope this helps anyone interested in archphile. If you ask me archphile+rp4 is the bees knees!
 
J

JoseM

Member
Joined 2009
Archphile site - down?

Last week I was trying to install the mpd-archphile-minimal package on a new SD card with archphile and the script returned errors that indicated the site is down...

I think it is still down today...

just wanted to see if others were finding the same issue?
 
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Dave Bullet

Member
Joined 2002
hi,

I was succesfully using v0.99.73 release with alsaequal and Steve Harris' swh-plugins - specifically the mbeq (Multiband - 15 eq) equaliser.

After re-installing Archphile Corona v1.19, I can get every other swh-plugin to load in alsamixer, except mbeq. I get a "alsamixer cannot load controls: No such file or directory."

I have no idea why - when the mbeq_1197.so object file exists, in the same location as the other modules with same file permissions / ownership.

I've tried as root, mpd and another plain old user. = no luck.

Any ideas?
 
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Dave Bullet

Member
Joined 2002
Dave Bullet said:
hi,

I was succesfully using v0.99.73 release with alsaequal and Steve Harris' swh-plugins - specifically the mbeq (Multiband - 15 eq) equaliser.

After re-installing Archphile Corona v1.19, I can get every other swh-plugin to load in alsamixer, except mbeq. I get a "alsamixer cannot load controls: No such file or directory."

I have no idea why - when the mbeq_1197.so object file exists, in the same location as the other modules with same file permissions / ownership.

I've tried as root, mpd and another plain old user. = no luck.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

I found the answer.

There's a bug somewhere in alsamixer or maybe alsa-lib where a long control name gets truncated - by a single character and when being iterated through can't be found (string compare fails) - so a generic "file not found error" is spat out. it has nothing to do with files or permisisons.

I re-compiled swh-plugins - specifically mbeq_1197.so and shortened the 50Hz bandwidth descriptor. all now good. I think the alsaequal patch that removes the " Playback Volume" constant suffix will also cure this issue... and maybe I didn't rebuild the alsaequal package properly with Mike's patch to remove the constant... in anycase, my "hack" fixed it. If you are interested in alsaequal on Archphile v1.19 (latest) and want to use swh-plugins - specifically the 15 band equaliser - let me know.
 
Y

Yatsushiro

Member
Joined 2016
analog_sa said:
Many thanks for the files Dave!

For some reason the 1.19 refuses to produce booting on a new Rpi4. Corrupt .img? Some weirdness in the new Pi? Both SD card and USB boot media work fine with DietPi.

Anyone has ideas?
Click to expand...
IIRC there is an RPi4 board revision (1.2?) which meant that some software would not boot without an update (Volumio for example).

What is the problem with your RPi3?

In response to your other question, you may wish to have a look at Arylics products, such as this:

https://www.arylic.com/products/up2stream-mini-receiver-board
 
analog_sa

analog_sa

Member
Joined 2002
Yatsushiro said:
IIRC there is an RPi4 board revision (1.2?) which meant that some software would not boot without an update (Volumio for example).
Click to expand...
Thanks! This will stop me from scratching my head.

Nothing wrong with my Rpi3, it is already a part of a dac and the 4 is meant for another. Found something that seems to meet my needs perfectly: rAudio on Github. A breeze to configure as a UpnP renderer with an i2s output. A quick listen left me very optimistic.

Thanks for the arylic tip. When i decide to upgrade the audio in the bathrooms and perhaps the garage it will be my first choice :)
 
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Dimdim

Member
Joined 2008
The other day I found myself wanting to update my Archphile installation.. But then I remembered that if I attempted that I would most likely brake it..

So I thought "what if I took the current Arch Linux ARM image and configured it to function like Archphile?"

After a short while I was done and it looks and sounds at least as good (if not even slightly better) as Archphile.

I highly recommend people try doing that.
 
J

Julf

Member
Joined 2011
Dimdim said:
The other day I found myself wanting to update my Archphile installation.. But then I remembered that if I attempted that I would most likely brake it..

So I thought "what if I took the current Arch Linux ARM image and configured it to function like Archphile?"

After a short while I was done and it looks and sounds at least as good (if not even slightly better) as Archphile.

I highly recommend people try doing that.
Click to expand...
What changes did you make?
 
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