Setting up Volumio

Pisound Projects
1

Hey,

You can use pisound with Volumio! Since version 2.129 (25-03-2017), pisound’s module is available by default, so updating to latest version is enough to get Volumio working with pisound! See http://blokas.io/pisound/docs/Example-projects/#network-enabled-hi-fi-player for more info.

Leaving the steps below just for documentation / archiving purposes, in case anyone wants to replicate building pisound’s module on a new distro which uses kernel without pisound’s module included by default.

volumio.png1920×1090 2.21 MB

Steps to build pisound module (not needed if running Volumio version >= 2.129):

  1. Download latest Volumio for Raspberry Pi: https://volumio.org/get-started.
  2. Flash the image to an SD card, as usual.
  3. Boot it.
  4. SSH to volumio@volumio.local (or use the IP directly after @), password is volumio.
  • It may take a while after booting until SSH is ready to receive connections.
  1. Download kernel source code using:
  • volumio kernelsource
  1. The current volumio kernelsource seems to fail before adjusting the kernel version in the sources, but we can fix it up ourselves:
  • sudo nano /usr/src/rpi-linux/include/config/kernel.release
  • Make sure there’s a + at the end of the version, so it looks like so:
    4.4.9-v7+
  • Press ctrl+x, y and enter to save and exit.
  1. Download the pisound driver code:
  • git clone https://github.com/BlokasLabs/pisound
  1. Build and install it:
  • cd pisound/pisound-module sudo make install
  1. Add pisound to Volumio’s DAC selection:
  • sudo nano /volumio/app/plugins/system_controller/i2s_dacs/dacs.json
  • Add a line somewhere in the middle like so:
  • {"id":"pisound","name":"pisound","overlay":"pisound","alsanum":"1","mixer":"","modules":"","script":"","needsreboot":"no"},
  • Note that a comma after this line is necessary, unless it’s the last entry in the scope (before }), if there’s a syntax error in this file, Volumio won’t be able to show playback option in its web interface.
  • Save and exit using ctrl+x, y and enter.
  1. Open http://volumio.local on your PC, go to Settings -> Playback Options.
  2. Enable I2S DAC.
  3. Select ‘pisound’
  4. Click save. As it saves the configuration and starts the card, the MIDI activity LEDs should flash briefly.
  5. Change Mixer Type to ‘Software’.
  6. Done! Thank you! Now you can enjoy using pisound as a network media player!
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4

There’s some great news! pisound’s kernel module got integrated to Volumio version 2.129 (25-03-2017), so the complicated setup above is no longer necessary if using the updated version!

I have updated the original post above to reflect that.

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