New Pi Music Server advice appreciated.

[DLD-UK]

I've been using LMS on a WHS 2011 for many years and it has worked well. However, it is time to move on an I'm not quite sure how to proceed with the installation.

I have purchased a Pi 4 8GB, an Argon One M2 case and a 1TB SSD to fit in the case. Everything will be on a wired network with a fixed IP address.

Scanning the forum it appears people recommend PiCorePlayer and I understand why. However, my first question is can it make use of the 8GB and the second question is can it work as a DLNA server as well?

Looking at other options I see Ubuntu 64 bit server is available for the Pi. This I understand does make use of 8GB and would allow me to install LMS and Asset DLNA server.

What do people advise? Is Ubuntu a good way to go?

Next, it is a long time since I have installed/configured LMS. If I take the Ubuntu route are there any up to date instructions and what do people recommend for add-ons etc. When I previously installed LMS add-ons all cost money. Is this still the case?

I'm totally out of date with regard to LMS and have no idea what has happened since the days when I installed it on WHS 2011.

One of the things I would like to do is listen to radio, both BBC and other stations. Although I am in the UK I prefer US radio stations. What is the best way to find these now?

Any advise would be much appreciated.

[d6jg]

I've been using LMS on a WHS 2011 for many years and it has worked well. However, it is time to move on an I'm not quite sure how to proceed with the installation.

I have purchased a Pi 4 8GB, an Argon One M2 case and a 1TB SSD to fit in the case. Everything will be on a wired network with a fixed IP address.

Scanning the forum it appears people recommend PiCorePlayer and I understand why. However, my first question is can it make use of the 8GB and the second question is can it work as a DLNA server as well?

Looking at other options I see Ubuntu 64 bit server is available for the Pi. This I understand does make use of 8GB and would allow me to install LMS and Asset DLNA server.

What do people advise? Is Ubuntu a good way to go?

Next, it is a long time since I have installed/configured LMS. If I take the Ubuntu route are there any up to date instructions and what do people recommend for add-ons etc. When I previously installed LMS add-ons all cost money. Is this still the case?

I'm totally out of date with regard to LMS and have no idea what has happened since the days when I installed it on WHS 2011.

One of the things I would like to do is listen to radio, both BBC and other stations. Although I am in the UK I prefer US radio stations. What is the best way to find these now?

Any advise would be much appreciated.

The first thing to advise is that LMS itself is single threaded so it will never use the whole of CPUs capability and I believe I’m correct in saying that it can only use 3gb RAM out of your 8gb.
That is the running LMS server process.
Any other processes you run eg the Scan and Spotty etc can utilise other parts of the hardware resources.
There is an option to switch on DLNA server interface but frankly it’s more trouble than it’s worth. It has been known to flood your network.

As to LMS
Go for 8.1
Investigate the following plugins
Material
Music & Artist Integration (MAI)
BBC Sounds - the old iPlayer plugin doesn’t now work
UpnpBridge - if you have upnp/dlna devices instead of switching on DLNA
Spotty/Qobuz/Tidal/Deezer if you have any in conjunction with Onlime Music Library Integration

This is all massively easier with piCorePlayer

[d6jg]

And RadioNet plugin for US stations

[Paul Webster]

If you want to install a lot of other things that are not really related to LMS and you know Linux well enough to perform basic commands from a terminal session and can do some basic diagnosis when things go wrong then ... you probably should install Raspberry Pi OS (previously known as Raspbian) or Ubuntu or a flavour that you know works well on the Pi.
The benefit with RPiOS is that you can be confident that it will be up to date with RPI specific things - but it is not always up to date with the latest of 3rd-party stuff so sometimes you have to go and search for things outside the default repos.

My approach has been to run all LMS stuff on a dedicated RPi running pCP and use other RPi systems for other things.

[Paul Webster]

oh - and pretty well all LMS plugins that are available via the LMS offered list are free.

[DLD-UK]

Thanks guys.

When I first set-up LMS on WHS I installed/used something that automatically played music, I think it analysed the music and played it based on bpm or something. My WHS box has died so I can't check out what it was. Any suggestions what this was or what I should use on the Pi to do that?

Also, are there any instructions for setting up LMS on a Pi/Linux? Many years ago I installed quite a few Unix boxes but I am very rusty on commands now. I need to copy music from my Windows PC, does that mean I need to install Samba on the Pi?

[d6jg]

Thanks guys.

When I first set-up LMS on WHS I installed/used something that automatically played music, I think it analysed the music and played it based on bpm or something. My WHS box has died so I can't check out what it was. Any suggestions what this was or what I should use on the Pi to do that?

Also, are there any instructions for setting up LMS on a Pi/Linux? Many years ago I installed quite a few Unix boxes but I am very rusty on commands now. I need to copy music from my Windows PC, does that mean I need to install Samba on the Pi?

1. You are probably referring to MusicIP. It’s still around but there is now something called Don’t Stop Yhe Music built into LMS. Combine this with a plugin called LastMix and it may well suffice without the pain of MusicIP which takes some serious set up.

2. Look in “Linux” for the thread on piCorePlayer Documentation.