[Guide] Install Squeezelite on Volumio (RaspPi)

WHY? :open_mouth: :astonished: :unamused: :confused:
erm… why not?? Its nice to have multiple ways of playback on 1 already fantastic player… I am always switching between MPD, Airplay (shairport) and Squeezelite…

HOW…
Follow along, no compiling required…

Make a temp dir in /root/temp

cd /root mkdir temp cd temp

Download precompiled Squeezelite Binary from GoogleCode

wget http://squeezelite.googlecode.com/files/squeezelite-armv6hf

Download the Startup Script

wget http://www.gerrelt.nl/RaspberryPi/squeezelitehf.sh

Give proper perms and a new home to Squeezelite and Squeezelite Start Script

mv squeezelite-armv6hf /usr/bin
chmod u+x /usr/bin/squeezelite-armv6hf

mv squeezelitehf.sh /etc/init.d/squeezelite
chmod u+x /etc/init.d/squeezelite

Make Squeezelite start on Startup

cd /etc/init.d/
update-rc.d squeezelite defaults

Configuring Squeezelite Soundcard (leave it to default - we do not want to assign a specific interface, this is already done at the ALSA level in Volumio)

sudo nano /etc/init.d/squeezelite

Make sure any line beginning with SL_SOUNDCARD is commented out like this

#SL_SOUNDCARD="sysdefault:CARD=ALSA"

Start Squeezelite

/etc/init.d/squeezelite start

Cleanup (optional)

cd ~ rm -rf /root/temp

No Sound or playback through MPD?
Sometimes MPD has a little heart attack and cannot playback if you are using multiple players.
See: mpd-fix-failed-to-open-alsa-device-hw-0-0-device-busy-t670.html

Sit back, grab cup of tea and slurp away to your fav tunes :mrgreen:

Tnx for this tutorial, when i get home i will try to install it on my system. Mainly the easy radio functions on squeezebox are something i realy miss in volumio. Question does squeezelite run stable? i used to have a dedicated squeezelite system but it always needed to reboot the system after ±2 day’s

Tnx

Grz Jesse

Hi Jesse,
I have found Squeezelite to be more stable than MPD. No random hangups etc… I was using the picoreplayer previously and loved it. Its nice to have the option to switch between them.

Hi Dakku, since i have 2 systems running in my network how can i change the name of the squeezlite machine install so that i can use 2 different names?

tnx

Hi,

Ofcourse you can change the name to whatever you like. I am using the default startup script from Volumio, its in /etc/init.d/shairport

here is the content of /etc/init.d/shairport

#! /bin/sh
# /etc/init.d/shairport
#
NAME="Volumio"
 
case "$1" in
  start)
    /usr/local/bin/shairport -d -a "$NAME" -b 95
    ;;
  stop)
    killall shairport
    ;;
  *)
    echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/shairport {start|stop}"
    exit 1
    ;;
esac
 
exit 0

Edit the script

nano /etc/init.d/shairport

Change

NAME="My-New-Name"

Great! Many thanks for this tutorial. At the moment there’s flac playing with 192/24 nearly without any pops etc. :smiley:

A question: How do I control playing music? At the moment I’m controlling via Squeezeboxserver on my NAS (nas:9001). Is there another way more direct from my Laptop? TIA

Let’s give SqueezePlay a chance…

Hi. I am happy to hear you are also trying it out. Let me know how you think the sound quality compares to MPD :slight_smile:

I tend to mostly use the iPad and Galaxy S4 to control my music playback and use this official app on the ipad
itunes.apple.com/gb/app/logitec … 02899?mt=8

and for android, i use this official app:
play.google.com/store/apps/deta … e&hl=en_GB

Yesterday i tried installing but things went wrong i got a very distorted sound on my mpad and no sound on squeezelite. I think i made a mistake on this step i didn’t put # before SL_SOUNDCARD=“sysdefault:CARD=ALSA” :blush:

Also i got a message when the system was overwriting some shairport files? is this normal?

Later this evening i will try again, hopefully with better luck i would love the idea of having one system for volume, airplay and squeezebox

As controllers for ipad these are my favorites, they are well worth the money

my favorite remote on ipad is
squeezepad.com/

though ipeng has a new version that also looks like a killer remote

penguinlovesmusic.de/2013/12/11/ … g-ipeng-7/

Yes you need to comment out the soundcard bit, this is basically binding the interface to squeezelite, which means MPD and others will not have access to it. It is better to send music to “default”, which automatically is your DAC - I think Volumio tinkers the ALSA settings to make it happen automatically.

All in all, Squeezelite is rock solid in my opinion.

I don’t trust my ears, I would trust the sourcecode only, but I’m not a coding nerd. :wink:
The advantage of Squeezebox vs. mpd is IMHO the better handling of more than one device.

Wow - this is the best of both worlds…Will try and post results :slight_smile:

To me the squeezelite sounds better on Volumio as compared to Squeezelite on Pogo plug .
MPD vs squeezeite - its a toss up - cant really make my mind. :confused:

out of interest, if both players are chucking bits at the DAC, what would make them sound different?
Graham

MPD seems to sound a LITTLE louder therefore many would think it sounds a little “clearer” and has better quality! I have been doing some blind listening and I have to say I cannot tell any difference in quality (apart from very slight volume difference).

There are a number of other things I also prefer in Squuezelite :smiley: But I guess its good have numerous playback options.

For starters, the power supply. Also, vortex box runs Fedora 20 - not sure if that some color to the sound.

Hi,
Does this work for the Volumio (BBB) ?

Ah not quite the question i was asking as we were discussing mpd v squeezelite on the same hardware and os.
Graham

Thx for this great tip Dakku, finaly got the time to experiment some more and got everything working ok. I must admit squeezebox sounds sublime verry difficult to say better than Volumio but surly as good. now i can use both systems and there is another xtra i noticed that when i use airplay and squeezebox at once shiarport doenst chrash so this is a big plus at parties where everyboddy is trying to play a mix of airplay (youtube mostly) and my home database

Love it tnx Jesse

So I got this installed but now on Volumio the sound is distorted.

When I try to play squeezelite I am not getting any sound from my setup but see it playing through the web and on my phone.

I am using a raspPi with a HiFimeDIY Sabre U2 Asynchronous USB DAC which works fine with just Volumio.