Help me figure out a Raspberry Pi interface

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I'm thinking I'd like to build a Raspberry Pi device with a 7in touchscreen for my home stereo, to stream music.

2 key things:

1. I don't have Spotify premium. Is the only way to have Spotify without premium using Chromium on Raspbian, in this way:
How to listen to Spotify on the Raspberry Pi - The Pi

2. Related question, I'd like to have quick access to BBC Radio 1, which streams on their website. Would the best way involve using a browser window for this too? (There is an Android app)

3. Would it be worthwhile to have a Raspbian/Max2Play/Rune audio/Pi Musicbox multiboot involving 2 or more? Which ones?
 
I have used:
MPD - can do streaming audio or local files. Has remote interface (see below)
R-Pi - headless, does the audio processing
USB pro audio interface - these will also have a good quality analog input as well as DACs
10" Android tablet - I use this in lieu of a monitor on the Pi. It runs the remote interface for MPD

Why have a tethered interface when all you need is to control the audio? Instead look for a player or system with remote interface capability. The tablet is just another WiFi connected device on my network, and it connects to the MPD instance running on the Pi. You can control content and playback volume, and can do this from whereever you have WiFi coverage. If the phone rings and you are in another room you can quickly mute the audio to answer the call instead of having to run back to the stereo system.
 
If you want a remote interface, then I think that the picoreplayer OS and a separate Logitech Media Server box is a great solution. Picoreplayer has a touchscreen interface that can be installed on the Pi, but it also offers complete headless control from ios, Android, and PCs.

I originally thought that LMS and PiCorePlayer were going to be ridiculous overkill for what I wanted, but after trying it out, I'm a convert. The full client-server model is just so flexible that whatever you want to do is already built in. Heck, I use it in my office so that I can control playback from my computer on the system on the other side of the room.

Personally, I plan to use a cheap tablet for the UI and keep the Pi just as a headless streamer, but the touchscreen is a reasonable solution if you've already got one. My research found that an old android tablet for $30 is much cheaper than the RPi touchscreen and a case that can hold it.

There are LMS plugins for Spotify, but they do require you to have premium. You aren't going to get free Spotify on anything but the browser or PC apps.

BBC Radio 1 is in the internet radio directory of LMS already.

-Neil N0FN
 
I know picoreplayer supports a tidal app. So if you had tidal, you just just a pi/dac setup, and then something to control it with, phone, laptop or a pad.

I don't have spotify, so not sure if there is something on picoreplayer that supports spotify.

The nice thing about pcp and some of these other solutions is they are free, so you can download to a pi and try them out, and see if they work for you.

Everyone is different, so it's hard to judge a user interface without trying it.

I wrote this up when I was trying out different stuff, and I didn't finish it all, but it should help you get started
pi software

I ended up never doing the multi os stuff. In the end, I setup the pi for airplay, and that works for my family.
If it for my, I would setup for PCP. I have a pi running as a LMS server so I can run pcp whenever I want to.

BTW, there are other choices like volumio and moode
 
I haven't heard of running a grub-like linux bootloader to select between different OSes on a Raspberry Pi, but it's all open source software, so anything is possible.

Certainly switching SD cards is the most common way to boot alternate OSes on an RPi.

-Neil N0FN
 
You can dual/multi boot anything on a pi
multi boot

I do need to admit that I gave up on multi boot and not sure how accurate that page is.
The basic stuff is fine, and I remember getting far enough to prove that it would work in my mind, but got sidetracked and stopped working on it.
It was easier to use multiple sd cards, and just swap them out.
 
I was looking into multiboot loader BerryBoot, but apparently PCP isn't compatible with multibooting.

I guess I'll trial & error the other media OSes and see which one I like.

I remember looking at berryboot, but didn't use it, don't remember why now.

If you look at my page starting at more info and on, it describes how to boot into different OS's. In one spot I say it didn't work with pcp, but I don't remember exactly what I tried.
This is all for headless operation, if you have a monitor and keyboard its easy to reboot into something else.
You need to be able to do a mount, copy and reboot command, and I don't remember what pcp supports, I know its limited but those are pretty basic commands.

Randy
 
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