ANNOUNCE: piCorePlayer 6.0.0

[paul-]

After nearly 8 months in beta, the pCP team is happy to announce the official release of piCorePlayer 6.0.0

Significant changes

pCP 6.1.0

• Kernel 4.19.122
• RPi Firmware May 22, 2020
• Includes support for RPi4B boards, including new v1.2 boards and 8GB Board.
• RPi4B Support runs a 64 bit kernel for full 4GB memory support.
• Support for Merus Amp (This is currently not working, OEM has not been able to figure out why)
• Support for HifiBerry Dac+ ADC Pro
• Support for HifiBerry Dac+HD
• Support for IQaudIO Codec+
• 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)
• Latest Allo USBridgeSig Support.

Interface Changes:

• New pCP web interface themes(Light/Dark)
• Added mirror repository support (Sourceforge)
• 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.
• 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/

Notes

• Adding a file named "netusb" to the boot partition will automatically load/configure net-usb kernel modules.
• Adding wpa_supplicant.conf to the boot partition will automatically enable wifi.

Recommended Upgrade path.

• Download new image and configure from scratch.
• Insitu_update is availiable, and handles most installations. However, downgrading versions will not be possible.

Downloads Can be found: https://www.picoreplayer.org/main_downloads.shtml

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Latest WWW interface version. This is updated by running "Patch Update" from the main menu

piCorePlayer version: 6.1.0
www version: 0009 (note screenshot below might not reflect the newest version)



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RPI4 Bootloader update Support - This will allow you to update your RPI4 bootloader and VL805 chipset firmware. Needs to be done via ssh. If something goes wrong below, and your RPI4 won't boot, here is a link to the RPI Recovery proceedure. https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/

The latest stable firmware from RPI is LATEST: Thu Sep 3 12:11:43 UTC 2020 (1599135103)

open an ssh session

ce
tce-load -w git rpi-vc python3.6                              (You can omit if you already have these)
tce-load -i git rpi-vc python3.6
git clone https://github.com/piCorePlayer/rpi-eeprom.git      (This is a clone from rpi's git, with a few tweaks to the scripts for pcp.)
cd rpi-eeprom
sudo -E ./rpi-eeprom-update -a                                (This will update to the latest "critical" firmware)
pcp rb                                                        (reboot to load the bootloader)

If you would like to load the beta firmare, do this before running rpi-eeprom-update

export FIRMWARE_RELEASE_STATUS=beta

This this is a flash process if something goes wrong, make sure you are aware of rpi's recovery process.....https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/

Command output should look similar to this

tc@Pi4-1G-Test:/mnt/mmcblk0p2/tce/rpi-eeprom$ sudo -E ./rpi-eeprom-update -a
[ INFO ] Mounting /mnt/mmcblk0p1...
rpi-vc.tcz: OK
BCM2711 detected
BOOTLOADER: up-to-date
CURRENT: Thu Apr 16 17:11:26 UTC 2020 (1587057086)
 LATEST: Thu Apr 16 17:11:26 UTC 2020 (1587057086)
 FW DIR: /mnt/mmcblk0p2/tce/rpi-eeprom/firmware/critical
VL805: up-to-date
CURRENT: 000137ad
 LATEST: 000137ad

[carsten_h]

An insitu update of a Pi 4B and a Pi 3B+ from RC1 worked without any problem!

Thank you for your great work!

[ian_heys]

Big fan here:

2 x 4B Server/Players IQ Audio DAC+ updated
2 x 3B Players IQ Audio DAC+ updated
1 x 3B Player/Streamer IQ Audio Codec+

All updated without issue.

Thanks everyone.

[tcb]

Thank you for the update.

My main wired player (Pi 3 Model B+) with HIFIBerry is working well.

My other PI (Pi 3 Model B V1.2) with Edimax EW-7811UTC AC600 adaptor is no longer detecting my 5GHz WIFI. It was working with 5.0. I changed by router from band 104 to band 44 and it then picked it up.

[rincage]

Just to let you know that I upgraded to v6 today. Using an 8GB card and it no longer loses output settings for the Cirrus Logic card I use. Am very happy!

[mcduman]

what a fantastic shave !!

congratulations for 6.0.0.

i clean installed every single beta (and rc1) and enjoyed the ride immensely. one of the perfect pieces of software for music that i am aware of.

[carsten_h]

A few hours later I have to say that my Pi 3B+ is restarting suddendly when hearing radio. Sometimes after reboot it is working again, but sometimes there is no Wifi connection. On this Pi Squeezelite, Jivelite, Bluetooth and Wifi are activated and attached are a Hifiberry DAC+ Pro and a 7“ display.
The LMS server is running on the Pi 4.

[Supertramp]

[QUOTE=After nearly 8 months in beta, the pCP team is happy to announce the official release of piCorePlayer 6.0.0[/QUOTE]

Congratulations to Paul and the team.

I did the insitu_update from rc1, which worked excellent. Then I did a clean installation from scratch, which worked excellent as well.

Many thanks!!!

[pputzer]

I upgraded to 6.0.0-RT via a new install. I've noticed quite a bit of instability with this build (as opposed to 5.0.0-beta7 I'd been running before, also with the RT kernel). One area is when setting larger output buffers like 500 MB for Squeezelite: playback does not work at all with this setting and there were some strange errror messages about "rcu_preempt" in the kernel log). The other situation is even more strange: the player just lost all network access while idling and needed power cycling.

I know that RT kernels are experimental, but from my limited exploration, they are much more unstable than in previous pCP releases.

[paul-]

Unfortunately, there is nobody working on the pi RT kernel. All I can do is apply the mainline RT patches.....they apply cleanly most of the time. I don’t have much time to even do testing for that kernel, of my 10 players running today, none are using that version.