Project with PeppyMeter/PeppySpectrum Screensaver Plugin for VOLUMIO

Volumio Development
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Step3: install peppyalsa

What peppy alsa is exactly doing you find here:
https://github.com/project-owner/peppyalsa.doc/wiki

The Volumio version 2.882, 2.906 had a little bug. The installation of build essentials run into an error. The build essentials are needed to compile the source.
A workaround for this problem with a little script to install the dependencies find here:
Cannot install build-essential package
But you don’t need anymore this separate script. The peppyalsa installer have included it now.

You don’t run manually all the steps, An install script is attached, that’s all follow steps do for you.
what’s the script doing:

cd /home/volumio

git clone https://github.com/project-owner/peppyalsa.git
pushd peppyalsa
sudo apt-get -y install build-essential autoconf automake libtool libasound2-dev libfftw3-dev
aclocal && libtoolize
autoconf && automake --add-missing
./configure && make
sudo make install
popd

This create a directory peppyalsa in /home/volumio and compile the source and install it.

Buster works with a separat asound.conf file thats included in an existing /etc/asound.conf ( modular alsa) no changes in asound.conf and mpd.conf are needed.

The MPD must be configure to use peppyalsa with an additional output device (mpd_peppyalsa). Thats the best way that the original output stream is not changed and reformated to PCM, when DSD is used. Therefore a second entrypoint in asound.conf for the sound output is available (mpd_alsa) VOLUMIO used a template file, thats copied if the sound card or mixer type is changed.

/volumio/app/plugins/music_service/mpd/mpd.conf.tmpl

this section is added:

audio_output {
        enabled     "yes"
        type        "alsa"
        name      "mpd_peppyalsa"
        device     "mpd_peppyalsa"
        dop         "yes"
        mixer_type  "none"
        format      "44100:16:2"
}

After reboot please check if the mpd.conf in /etc have an additional section with the mpd_peppyalsa as output device.

As output card for PeppyMeter is a dummy device needed.
The install script add this entry to /etc/modules-load.d/modules.conf and set the index of last card in file: /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

The MPD user needs rights to write the name pipe /tmp/myfifo, therefore it’s better to create the name pipe at startup with the correct rights.

mkfifo -m 646 /tmp/myfifo

Check if peppyalsa now working with the little tool: peppyalsa-client
start it in a console

/home/volumio/peppyalsa/src/peppyalsa-client

and play a song. If it running with meters all is ok.

image

if not, check in /tmp/ if both name pipes created. myfifo (created on startup) and myfifosa with a running peppyalsa (don’t forget to press refresh directory on winscp)

image

Step 4: install PeppyMeter

the complete documentation of PeppyMeter you can find here:
https://github.com/project-owner/PeppyMeter.doc/wiki

The next script install PeppyMeter and the modifications to use the meters as screensaver.

The first thing to do is to copy PeppyMeter as git clone and the modifications with startscript to /home/volumio/PeppyMeter

cd /home/volumio
git clone https://github.com/project-owner/PeppyMeter.git
pushd Install_peppy
cp -R -f PeppyMeterChanges/* /home/volumio/PeppyMeter/
sudo chmod +x /home/volumio/PeppyMeter/run_peppymeter.sh
popd

at next, python3 with pygame will be installed and some dependencies for the new VOLUMIO interaction:

sudo apt-get install python3-pip
sudo apt-get install python3-pygame
sudo python3 -m pip install socketIO-client
sudo apt install libjpeg-dev zlib1g-dev
sudo python3 -m pip install cairosvg

To check all dependencies are install successfully start python3 with:

python3

and run the command inside the python interpreter:

import pygame
from socketIO_client import SocketIO
import cairosvg
from PIL import Image

If no error showing up all is ok. Exit from python with

quit()
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