RuneUI on (non-smart) TV

hansh64

Hi,

Would it be possible to install a minimal light-weight graphical environment with a light-weight browser, autostart and show the RuneAudio web interface on my Panasonic full HD plasma TV, which is connected to my RPi2 over HDMI? (And maybe control it over CEC, or is that too much to ask...

)

Thanks!

Hans.

BayleeWylie

It might work, but I think it would use too much system ressources. I think it would be better and simpler to let the Pi with RuneAudio alone and have another one (or any other computer) with any OS that has a graphical environnement and web browsing ability connected to your TV.

hondagx35

Hi Hans,

or is that too much to ask...

No it isn't.
You can try my RP2 image with local browser.
#2868129

This also works with a monitor / TV connected to HDMI.
You only have to adapt the resolution / scaling to fit your needs.
I can post a short howto if you run into problems.

Frank.

hondagx35

Hi BayleeWylie,

the Pi2 has absolutely no problem with this.
The only things you have to consider are:
- do not use X11 (use framebuffer instead)
- use a light weight browser like midori

Frank

BayleeWylie

hondagx35 wroteHi BayleeWylie,

the Pi2 has absolutely no problem with this.
The only things you have to consider are:
- do not use X11
- use a light weight browser like midori

Frank

Yeah I thought X11 was inevitable to use graphical UI applications like a web browser, that's why I thought it wasn't a good idea at first.

hondagx35

Hi,

(And maybe control it over CEC, or is that too much to ask... )

I made some tests with libcec installed on top of my image.
It works and it recognizes the commands from the tv remote.

Next i have to find a way to control rune (mpd) this way.

Frank

hansh64

Hi Frank,

Just installed your midori image and it works! Thanks for that! I now see what's playing on my TV.

I also managed to get the scaling right using the "disable-overscan=1" option in /boot/config.txt. Initial resolution was OK for my TV (1920x1080p). And I updated the /root/.local/share/midori/styles/local-styles.css file and updated RuneUI with the gitpull button on the dev page.

Just a couple of questions:
1. Is it necessary to update the kernel? Using:

pacman -Sy --force raspberrypi-firmware-bootloader linux-raspberrypi

as mentioned in your other post or is it not recommended? If I am not mistaken you already use a newer kernel than the one in the original 0.3b image?
2. Within midori, is it possible to enlarge the cover art picture and also enlarge the font of artist/song/album? There is a lot of "unused" space on the screen and I won't use the TV to adjust setting on other pages of the RuneUI. I will use my PC or phone to do that.
3. Not really a question at this time but controlling play, stop, pause, next, previous over CEC would be great...!
4. Are there any other files I should update/upgrade other than the ones already mentioned?

Anyway, now I have configured all settings to my need, I am going to copy this image back to my "dualboot" Rune/OE SD card.

Last but not least I want you to know RuneAudio is the best platform for playing music! It outperforms (audible!) any other solution for RPi, including Volumio, OpenElec, OSMC and PiMusicBox just to mention a few.

Thanks again!

Hans.

hondagx35

Hi Hans,

1. Is it necessary to update the kernel? Using:

No it is not necessary. And i would not do it, if all your connected devices (DAC, TV) work as expected.

2. Within midori, is it possible to enlarge the cover art picture and also enlarge the font of artist/song/album? There is a lot of "unused" space on the screen and I won't use the TV to adjust setting on other pages of the RuneUI. I will use my PC or phone to do that.

This is one of the great features midori offers.
You can tweak the local appearance by editing the file /root/.local/share/midori/styles/local-styles.css.
Search for

    
#currentartist, #currentalbum {
        font-size: 24px !important;
}
#currentsong {
        font-size: 24px !important;
}

and change the size in pixels.

But i think it would be better to get the overall scaling right.
Search the file /root/.config/midori/config:

[settings]
default-encoding=ISO-8859-1
enforce-96-dpi=true
enable-developer-extras=true
enable-site-specific-quirks=true
enable-javascript=true
default-charset=ISO-8859-1
last-window-width=800
last-window-height=480
last-panel-position=523
last-panel-page=5
location-entry-search=
toolbar-items=Back,Forward,ReloadStop,Location,Search,
find-while-typing=true
zoom-level=0.775678
middle-click-opens-selection=false
homepage=http://localhost
tabhome=about:dial
download-folder=/home/army
http-proxy=127.0.0.1:8118
maximum-cache-size=50
maximum-history-age=0
load-on-startup=MIDORI_STARTUP_HOMEPAGE
proxy-type=MIDORI_PROXY_NONE
user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux) AppleWebKit/538.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/18.0.1025.133 Safari/538.15 Midori/0.5
user-stylesheet-uri=file:///root/.local/share/midori/styles/local-styles.css

[extensions]
libaddons.so=true

and experiment with "zoom-level=0.775678"
You have to restart after each change.
Easier is it to connect a keyboard to your Pi and modify the zoom factor with STRG+ and STRG-.
The zoom-level will be saved automatically in /root/.config/midori/config.

: local-browser.jpg (1.9 MiB) Viewed 2599 times

3. Not really a question at this time but controlling play, stop, pause, next, previous over CEC would be great...!

I'm working on this.

4. Are there any other files I should update/upgrade other than the ones already mentioned?

Last but not least I want you to know RuneAudio is the best platform for playing music! It outperforms (audible!) any other solution for RPi, including Volumio, OpenElec, OSMC and PiMusicBox just to mention a few.

Great to hear, thanks.

Frank

hansh64

Hi Frank,

Connecting a keyboard was good just for current session and wasn't saved with reboot, but "zoom-level=1.7" did the trick!

Thanks!

Hans.

hansh64

Hi Frank,

Your image with Midori works just fine, except compared with the original RuneAudio 0.3b image (kernel 3.18) I can hear occasional plops in the sound when playing hires audio (24/96 and 24/192). Playing 16/44.1 and 24/88.2 sounds OK. Upgrade kernel as mentioned earlier in this post didn't make any difference. Strange thing is that the RuneUI doesn't recognize the new kernel, but shows kernel 4.1.12, see included image:

: Screenshot from 2016-02-16 12-52-16.png (23.38 KiB) Viewed 2508 times

uname -a however shows:

[root@runeaudio ~]# uname -a
Linux runeaudio 4.1.17-2-ARCH #1 SMP Tue Feb 9 18:37:19 MST 2016 armv7l GNU/Linux

Is there any way to tweak this image any further? Increasing audio buffer size and buffer before play in the RuneUI MPD-settings doesn't make any difference.

I am using my RPi2 hardwired (100 Mbps) to my internal network, music located on NFSv4 "share" on Linux server, which also serves full HD video to OpenElec on the same RPi2 without any performance problems.

Thanks!
Hans.

hondagx35

Hi Hans,

but shows kernel 4.1.12, see included image:

The text is "hard coded", so it doesn't change.

I can hear occasional plops in the sound when playing hires audio (24/96 and 24/192).

What sound output (HDMI, I2S or USB) do you use?

With my Hifiberry DAC + (I2S) i have absolutely no problems.

Frank

hansh64

Hi Frank,

Sorry I forgot to mention that: I am using USB audio!

Edit: tried to increase Rsize and Wsize to 524288, added some other NFS parameters and tried to play the files concerned from USB stick (FAT32 formatted) but still some occasional "plops".

Maybe some kernel parameters should be altered (took a look at the orion_optimize.sh script)? As said before the original RuneAudio 0.3b didn't cause these plops.

Thanks,
Hans.

hansh64

Hi Frank,

Just for experimenting I run mpd (standard from repo) on a 11-year old Dell Latitude D610 laptop, single core Pentium Mobile (max 1.7 GHz, ondemand running only at 800 MHz) with minimal (headless) ArchLinux (32-bits, latest) and standard (not realtime) kernel. I use the USB 2.0 ports on the docking station as the laptop itself only has 1.1. With this configuration I detect no plops anymore with HD-audio.

Maybe the plopping on my RPi2 has anything to do with kernel parameters (latency etc.)? Using original RA 0.3b still has some (although less) plopping problem but produces slightly better sound (more body).

(Will also try Lenovo T410 laptop with Fedora Workstation 23 and everything else loaded (Gnome, etc.)).

Thanks!

Hans.

hondagx35

Hi Hans,

thank you for the report.

I will do some testing, butI have to get a usb dac first.

Frank

hansh64

Hi Frank,

Did some "cheating" by experimenting with Moode. I found out that the plops were completely gone, however I noticed that the basic installation of Moode uses the RPi2 at the maximum frequency (900 MHz by using force_turbo=1) and uses a larger default buffer size for MPD (audio_buffer_size "4096"). Applying both settings to the original RA 0.3b config made the last occasional plops disappear!

Next few days I will also experiment with these settings on the image you last sent me (with the Midori browser).

Did you get your hands on an USB DAC already?

Greetz,
Hans.

hondagx35

Hi Hans,

many thanks for reporting your results here.

As it does not harm i will implement this (force_turbo=1) in the new image.

Yes i made some tests with a really cheap USB DAC.
I did not recognize any plops while playing, skipping or changing songs.

BTW: A new image for the RP3 will be available soon.
This image will also work with RP2 (local browser included).

Frank

PeteB

Hi Hans,

Can you please explain what you are doing in case I can use it...

hansh64 wrote...the basic installation of Moode uses the RPi2 at the maximum frequency (900 MHz by using force_turbo=1) and uses a larger default buffer size for MPD (audio_buffer_size "4096"). Applying both settings to the original RA 0.3b config made the last occasional plops disappear!...

Is your frequency lower than 900 while playing, and does force_turbo increase it, or does it just set the frequency to 900 all the time?

I use an app called RaspiCheck to look at what the Pi 2 is doing, and it looks like the CPU frequency goes up from 600 while idle to 900 MHz while playing, so I don't think force_turbo will change that?

Thanks.

edit: I should also add that the RaspiCheck app reports less than 10% system load while playing a 24/96 flac, from a USB flash drive, to an external dac over USB 2 (not comparing to my DAC+)

hansh64

Hi Pete,

With force_turbo=1 the frequency is set on my RPi2 to 900 MHz, both when playing or idle. When omitting this setting the RPi is set to the ondemand governor, which means CPU frequency can fluctuate between 600 and 900 MHz based on system load. However, playing with the ondemand governor with hires FLAC files (24/192) (so force_turbo=1 remarked out of the config.txt) does not increase CPU frequency and CPU load doesn't go beyond 7% or 8% in my case. I play my FLAC files from a NFSv4 connected server (2006 hardware! 3.0 MHz Pentium 4).

Maybe staying at 600 MHz might be the cause for the occasional plops when playing these hires files requires more CPU for a fraction of a second than the ondemand governor can respond to.

In my case force_turbo=1 did the trick!

Greetz,
Hans.

PeteB

Thanks Hans, good to know. I thought the Pi would work at the higher operating frequency while the playback continued. Obviously not, and I can't get a continuous reading of that from the RaspiCheck app, cool as it may be.

Regards,

Pete