Aopen Chromebase Mini with Alpine Linux, Squeezelite and Jivelite

[Patricia P]

I doubt that would come into play here.



Agree.



Sounds right up his alley! Here's a pic of a decidedly non-electronic engineer solution, though it's working pretty well, haha. A magnet and a strategically bent tine from a kitchen fork.

That's very quick and convenient and clever!

I took the plug out of the extension block and plugged it into a mains with switch. On turning on the switch the CB turned on also. So it turns on with a switched socket.

[sodface]

So it turns on with a switched socket.

Ah, ok good, so problem solved then.

[sodface]

The lack of a battery for the internal real time clock in the chromebase was irritating for the one I have mounted in my Jeep. I didn't want to always have to connect to my hotspot in order to have the clock be correct. I thought I was going to be able to set it via the USB GPS antenna but that proved to be buggy and unreliable.

I figured out how to connect an external real time clock module (with a battery) to the unused HDMI port. Here's a pic of the test setup. I need to get rid of the bread board and come up with a good way to package it up but I think all the configuration is sorted.

See a more detailed write up here:

http://www.sodface.com/tech/alpine-chromebase-rtc/

[sodface]

Another thing I've been messing with for the Chromebase in the Jeep is adding a clock to the now playing screen. I find the jivelite lua stuff to be a little confusing but I managed to rearrange the 1280x800 HD skin to move the volume slider to the middle, make it wider, then add a clock in the bottom right corner. I originally thought I would just add the clock in the middle of the transport controls since it was just empty space, but it would just screw up the display of everything to the right of it no matter what I did. Making it the last item on the right is the only layout I've managed to have display correctly. Maybe it looks ok?

[sodface]

Alpine 3.17.0 was released today and I updated the aopen-veyron files:

http://sodface.com/repo/index/cb/aopen-veyron

Added kernel 5.15.79 and updated the USB boot img and install files for Alpine 3.17.0.

If you currently have a chromebase running off my install script / packages and you upgrade to Alpine 3.17.0, you might see a couple issues:

1. Something changed with the font paths because xlunch fails to start without changing to absolute paths.
2. You'll need to update squeezelite (but that should get upgraded during the Alpine upgrade as long as you still have my repo added)

To fix xlunch, download

http://sodface.com/repo/cb/aopen-veyron/setup-cb.tar.gz

and pull the dot-xinitrc file out of it and replace the .xinitrc file in /home/cb.

If you reload using the setup-cb.sh script, that will already be fixed and I also switched to pipewire for audio.

[sodface]

I'm not sure why I've never tested bluetooth on the chromebase mini, except generally I've had a dislike for bluetooth. I get the convenience of it, when it works well. I've been testing with pipewire which is working great with squeezelite / alsa and so decided to test bluetooth tonight. The Alpine wiki is pretty good for pipewire config, including bluetooth.

Pretty painless and it works well both ways, as a source and a sink. Tested playing to a JBL Flip 5 speaker and tested playing from my Moto G Android phone (which is ancient now). This will be a nice option for the Jeep. Currently I'm putting my phone in wifi hotspot mode and connecting from the chromebase to my phone and then using LMS with Spotty etc. as normal. Adding bluetooth sink might be useful, especially for passengers that want to just use their phone and their own playlists. Of course the Jivelite display and Spotty integration makes for a nicer experience. Does anyone know of a linux client that will display now playing info from the bluetooth source as well as maybe providing transport controls?

[sodface]

A few posts back in this thread I posted about adding an external real time clock (rtc) using the HDMI port. My breadboard prototype worked fine but I wondered aloud how I might package it up...

Please forgive my soldering, which I only do like once a year on average, and also the photography, the final assembly really doesn't look that bad in person (or maybe the camera is better than my naked eye!). Looking at the assy pic, it looks like there might be a small void on the negative pin. I'll check it out tomorrow and try to get some better pics in better light. I oriented the rtc module the wrong way in the middle pic, obviously the holes go at the top. It's mounted on the opposite side of the board from the battery in the final pic. The one pic I have of that side is too bad to post.

[sodface]

Happy New Year's Eve squeezebox community! I'm still messing around with the chrombase mini (wife: why don't you marry that thing?!) and I just uploaded revised setup and usb boot images. I haven't updated the guide yet but you should still be able to follow it as-is, just the screenshots and gesture actions are a little off.

Major changes are:

- Switch to pipewire
- Add bluetooth functions
- Replace firefox with chromium
- Add clock to menu screen
- Upgrade to kernel 5.15.85

I replaced the terminal icon with the bluetooth icon. To open terminal, do a two finger swipe down on the right hand side of the menu screen. As much as I hated to replace firefox with chromium, chromium launches much faster and is more responsive generally.

[sodface]

I moved apartments mid January and it's been a slow process to get spun up again working on the Chromebase. I bought a bunch of these thinking that my brother might be interested and that I would use a few of them too. If I'm honest, I think my brother isn't interested and neither is my wife. They both seem to prefer a bluetooth speaker and and the spotify app on their phone. Kind of demoralizing. I'm still using one in my Jeep and I'll keep a couple for my own use, but if anyone in the continental US is interested in one and would actually use it PM me and I'll ship you one on my dime. I'd appreciate it if you'd try my image at least once and provide some feedback but of course you would be free to do whatever you want with it. Not sure exactly how many I want to give away, but anyway, PM me.

[Patricia P]

sodface the CB is sitting on my armchair table, unplugged. If the Touch stops working, it will step into the breach, and will look and sound very good for a USB DAC. But until then it's been an interesting project, that is going to be stored away.

Thanks for the work you have put into the project, it has its purpose in my house.

I want a USB cloned image in alpine. If you could you create one based on the current kernel with squeezelite and the programs above it would be really appreciated.

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=4M

Will this work?

[sodface]

sodfaceBut until then it's been an interesting project, that is going to be stored away.

et tu, Patricia??

Thanks for the work you have put into the project, it has its purpose in my house.

No problem, a bit of kludge, but functional.

I want a USB cloned image in alpine. If you could you create one based on the current kernel with squeezelite and the programs above it would be really appreciated.

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=4M

Will this work?

If you mean clone what you have configured now, I think it would be more like:

dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 of=/dev/sdb bs=4M

Where "if" is the internal emmc, you'll need to check /dev to verify it's mmcblk0 or mmcblk1 because it seems to vary from reload to reload, and "of" is your USB stick, but I haven't tested this.