BETA: piCorePlayer6.0.0 - PI4 support

[paul-]

Updated: Feb 24, 2020 Short and sweet announcement, but for those that have a new PI4 and want to use pCP......Only an image is offered, as we had to increase partition sizes to accommodate the PI4 firmware/kernels. One image still supports all rpi boards.....

Latest Release Candidate

Latest AudioCore RC. <——For tweakers.

pCP 6.0.0-rc1

• Kernel: 4.19.105
• RPi Firmware: Feb 20, 2020
• Add RPI4B v1.2 to detected boards
• Corrections to web interface for alsaequal/streamer selecting output
• Issue with booting from USB Sticks on Pi3's is resolved.

pCP 6.0.0-b9 (Obsolete)

• Kernel: 4.19.102
• RPi Firmware: Feb 7, 2020
• Support for HifiBerry Dac+ ADC Pro
• Support for HifiBerry Dac+HD
• Support for LED control on Hifiberry DAC+ based boards.
• Added driver for Google voiceBonnet v2 (sound driver only)
• Support for rtl8188fu (Sometimes marketed as 8188eus)
• Updated to v2 USB ethernet driver for Allo USBridgeSig
• Many changes to the Bluetooth support (Update bluetooth extension if doing insitu_updates)
• Alsaequal now supports Bluetooth devices. Settings can be changed only when device is connected, but settings are retained.
• Reduced image sizes by using new multi initrd boot.
• Web pages are now in an extension (No longer in /home/tc/www) For faster boots,backups and easier www updates.
• NOTE: pcp_startup.sh is now in /usr/local/etc/init.d/

Known issues:

• Boot from USB on pi3 devices is not working with dual initrd. Waiting for feedback from RPi.

pCP 6.0.0-b7(Obsolete)

• PI4 Only: Removed 32bit PI4 kernel, 64bit PI4 kernel is the only one available.
• All other PI's use the 32bit kernel as before.
• Added support for mirror repo. (Select at bottom of web page)
• Fix a few web page issues.
• Insitu Upgrade available.

pCP 6.0.0-b6(Obsolete)

• Kernel 4.19.80
• RPi Firmware 2019/10/29
• Boot from USB for Pi devices that support it should work now (Not on PI4 yet). You will need to manually increase the waitusb= parameter in cmdline.txt so that your USB stick is detected. I have to use waitusb=5 on my sticks.
• Fixed Allo DigiOne driver. (https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/issues/3296)
• Improved Allo USBridgeSig support. Burn the image and boot it.
• Simplification of the pCP modes. There is now just a "Player" and "Player/Server" mode. There is still a beta mode, but that is really beta stuff.
• Updated to Squeezelite 1198.
• alsa updated, so now the list of output devices show hw: and plughw:
• Removed the DSD binary option. The regular Binary supports DOP/full DSD now.

For those running a 6.0.0 beta, insitu update to Beta6 is availiable. Although, I would only try from Beta 4 or 5.

pCP 6.0.0-b5(Obsolete)

• Kernel 4.19.75
• RPi Firmware 2019/09/24
• Updated ASIX ax88179_178a driver for Allo USBrigeSig support.

pCP 6.0.0-b4 (Obsolete)

• Kernel 4.19.73
• RPi Firmware 2019/09/20
• Pi4 64 bit kernel support
• New pCP web interface themes(Light/Dark)
• Completely new Bluetooth integration. Support multiple device playback, and input from your phone.
• Depreciated wiringPi, squeezelite now uses a simple gpio library.

pCP 6.0.0-b1 (Obsolete)

• Kernel 4.19.57
• RPi Firmware 2019/07/05
• Not many other changes.........

RPI4 Bootloader update process can be found here: https://forums.slimdevices.com/showt...l=1#post951108

[Man in a van]

Starting with this now. Thanks Team

I have had to make a few atemtps to connect to my Qnap NAS shared file, but got there in the end.

I just had vers=3 in the options box in my working pCP on a rpi1B and that connected fine.

On the rpi4B (4gb ram) I tried several times with different permutations before finally connecting.

Whilst playing I tried resyncing my rpi1B and now can't get that to connect .....sigh

A reboot on the rpi1B takes nearly 3 mins

Oh well!

ronnie

[paul-]

The little options a lot seem to forget, I might need to make that a required field. Or bite the bullet and add nfs and cifs tools. I’m working on ideas to make settings transfer easier.

A 1B is like a turtle compared to the 4B.

[mcduman]

The little options a lot seem to forget, I might need to make that a required field. Or bite the bullet and add nfs and cifs tools. I’m working on ideas to make settings transfer easier.

A 1B is like a turtle compared to the 4B.

the field to change password has vanished in this version otherwise life is good.

[sbp]

the field to change password has vanished in this version otherwise life is good.

Please select "beta mode" then you will see a "Security option" which is a new option on the "main" page.
Here you can change password - among other things.

[Greg Erskine]

hi Man in a van,

BTW: This is a BETA pCP6.0.0 thread.

What do you have in your config backup? It should be small. If its big enough to trigger warning messages there is a problem. This will slow down boots!

Look at the "diagnostics" log. [Main Page ] > [Dignostics] > [Logs], select "diagnostics" scroll down to "Backup mydata"

regards
Greg

[Man in a van]

The little options a lot seem to forget, I might need to make that a required field. Or bite the bullet and add nfs and cifs tools. I’m working on ideas to make settings transfer easier.

A 1B is like a turtle compared to the 4B.

got the beast off its back by leaving the "options" box blank

[Man in a van]

Starting with this now. Thanks Team

I have had to make a few atemtps to connect to my Qnap NAS shared file, but got there in the end.

I just had vers=3 in the options box in my working pCP on a rpi1B and that connected fine.

On the rpi4B (4gb ram) I tried several times with different permutations before finally connecting.

Whilst playing I tried resyncing my rpi1B and now can't get that to connect .....sigh

A reboot on the rpi1B takes nearly 3 mins

Oh well!

ronnie

I came back to the beta this morning with a fresh download and new image.

I installed LMS and again tried to connect to my NAS.

NAS is a Qnap121 TS with my small library in a shared NFS file called Squeezebox and with access permissions granted.

I again spent 30/45 minutes (seems like hours) before I got a connection.

I tried all the permutations I could think of, (several times) they all failed.

INFO] mount -v -t nfs -o addr=192.168.1.21,nolock,vers=3.0 192.168.1.21:"/Squeezebox" /mnt/Music

[ERROR] Disk Mount Error, Try to Reboot.

and

[INFO] mount -v -t nfs -o addr=192.168.1.21,nolock, 192.168.1.21:"/Squeezebox" /mnt/Music

[ERROR] Disk Mount Error, Try to Reboot.

Reboots in between each failure.

Finally had success with yet another attempt, which had failed previosly







I offer this for information only, maybe there is something wrong with my network.

I should add that I run LMS on the Rasbian Buster Desktop OS and have no problem connect to the same folder on the NAS (until they mess something up again)

ronnie

[paul-]

The difference between pCP and Raspbian is a crap load of mount helpers. So you have to know all of the correct options. Take a look at dmesg you will definitely see some error messages. The kernel will default to vers=3, but it will still complain if you don’t specify. If the same mount line works occasionally, then you need to look at your NAS too. I run a synology nas with NFS and have zero problems.

[chill]

Thanks for this beta. Just back from a weekend away so I've been giving it a try. I've installed it on a 4GB RPi4, and it all seems to be working very nicely. It's running LMS, with my music on an SSD, and it's also running three players: a USB DAC (via a user command on the tweaks page), a Bluetooth speaker (via the main Squeezelite tab), and an Airplay speaker via Philippe's Airplay Bridge. The first thing I've noticed is that the sync between these three players is excellent, even without any adjustment. Only time will tell whether this is consistent, but with my 3B+ running the same setup I found I had variable sync issues with the bluetooth speaker - it often had to be tweaked by 100-250ms or so. I'd be surprised if those sync issues were due to the 3B+ not being powerful enough, so I suspect this is just 'beginners luck' with the RPi4.

The pCP web interface and the LMS interface both seem to be noticeably snappier than on the 3B+.

I have a very small heatsink on the RPi4, and I noticed the temperature nudge over 70 degrees while I was installing plugins and scanning my music library, but most of the time it's sitting around 60 degrees. That's without a case but with a hat-type PCB severely limiting airflow around the heatsink.

I had a few mis-steps, I think caused by leaving my 3B+ running so that I had an easy reference to set up the RPi4. This meant that both RPis were creating players with the same names and I had two instances of LMS on my network. Since sorting all of that out I haven't spotted anything that doesn't work, but I haven't tried all my normal plugins yet, and I haven't tried LIRC yet. So far so good though.