Volumio 3 Buster Beta Testing?
Moving to Volumio 3 Buster means, we can finally leave Debian jessie behind and instead build Volumio images based on Debian Buster.
Volumio has used Debian jessie for over 6 years, it is not the team’s intention to wait another 6 years before moving to a next Debian version.
Together with the move to Buster, the build system has also been completely overhauled and will be a great help to move platforms more quickly in the future.
As some of you have already noticed, early versions of the new Volumio 3 were already used for specific testing purposes.
Today we are pleased to announce the official start of a public Volumio 3 Buster Beta test programme.
The dev team has been preparing the software for quite some time now and is ready for feedback from a wider user circle.
Even though Volumio 3 does seem very stable on tested platforms, please be aware, that this is not production software yet.
The beta testing phase is meant to help us test the robustness and remove as many bugs as possible and complete missing components.
The ultimate goal is to release the most stable version to the public.
What will be in it?
We will start with image versions for the Raspberry PI, Asus Tinkerboard and the x86 PC platform.
With x86 we are introducing a version for the x86-64 architecture, we will now have true 64bit support.
We have decided to drop support for i386 (32bit) and it will not be part of beta testing.
Why no community portings?
They are planned, but there are not enough resources to support all boards and platforms at the same time.
Therefore our focus will be on the main three officially released and supported platforms.
Rest assured, most of the community portings have already been prepared and are up and running.
When support effort has eased a little and we have time for them, we’ll add the portings, one after the other.
Who can join us?
We are calling for interested testers, who know their way round Volumio and have reasonable linux skills.
They are expected to report errors and missing parts and after their initial bug report we may ask them to do specific testing or logging.
For that, testers not only need to know how to use Volumio, but also be able to produce a Volumio log, to use a terminal, ssh, execute basic linux commands, perhaps use an editor and find their way round the filesystem.
Of course, anyone else interested is invited to download and try out the new software version.
Please understand, it is in everybodys interest that beta testing goes smoothly and devs can concentrate on fixing issues.
Because of that, there is no room for help and guidance with the basics.
What are the rules for testers?
Testers accept that the software is betaware, meaning there will be bugs.
It could crash or otherwise totally misbehave, not likely at this stage, but not impossible.
With difficult issues, a tester may need to repeat flashing an image to properly log/ identify issues or perform extra tests.
We ask testers NOT to install additional software at this stage, especially not to try to manually adding plugins or other componenets seen from one of the other 2 platforms.
Whenever someone feels something is missing, just report it and we will add it in a next version or explain why it is missing (or not availabe yet).
Testers also accept they have to post a bug report with enough information the volumio team can act on.
It is absolutely necessary that the report contains:
- the exact board you are testing with
- the exact image version you are testing with
- a recap of its configuration, incl. peripherals (DACs, disk etc.)
- whenever possible, the URL of the logfile you created with the log function from the dev page
Board and configuration data gathering is fairly simple with PI and Tinkerboard.
For x86 it is a little more complicated, but to help with it, we have added two tools.
“lspci” and “inxi -Fxxxz” should give the team enough info to start with, but (in case inxi does not) the brand and model of the PC may help as well.
The two command only deliver configuration data, so please do not forget to supply log data as well.
Where are the beta images?
For RPi images, click here
For Asus Tinkerboard images, click here
For x86 images, click here
Where do we report
We have set up a specific sub-category “Volumio Beta Testing” in the “Volumio Development” section.
There is a separate thread for each beta platform.
Link
There is also a Discord channel from today on: https://discord.gg/hwrsNh8TmN
This is not meant as a replacement for reporting, but it is strongly advised to use it for a general discussion and as a follow-up chnannel with devs after reporting bugs or improvement suggestions.
Happy testing!!
