Roon on Vortexbox

[dyohn]

I installed Roon Core on the Vortexbox platform and find it works well. I like it more than LMS and the player is more stable and easier to use than Squeezelite. Plus the meta data is fantastic. If anyone is interested here is how I did it:

Stop and disable squeezeserver:

systemctl stop squeezeboxserver
systemctl disable squeezeboxserver

One dependency is missing to install Roon so you need to run this::

dnf -y install cifs-utils

Roon Linux installer:

curl -O http://download.roonlabs.com/builds/...er-linuxx64.sh
chmod +x roonserver-installer-linuxx64.sh
sudo ./roonserver-installer-linuxx64.sh

Allow it to install, then

reboot

After reboot, using the web GUI from another machine, make sure your Vortexbox player is set up properly.

You will need to install at least one Roon player on a device on your network. From this player, connect to the Roon core now resident in your Vortexbox. Go to Settings-Storage and make sure the path is set to the Music-Flac folder in Vortexbox. In Settings-Setup make sure "Enable Squeezebox Support" is turned to "yes." Then go to Settings-Audio and the name you gave the Vortexbox Squeezelite player will appear. Enable it as an endpoint. It will take a few minutes for Roon to scan your library (depending on how large it is.) It will find all audio files on Vortexbox and playback no matter the format or the sample rates.

I know that some on this forum have in the past said disparaging things about Roon because of its cost, but I find it a much better solution than LMS, and the Sonic Orbiter Roon Ready player sounds better with Roon than it does with Squeezelite. At least it does to me.

[EricJ]

I have several Vortexbox's setup and I'm considering this but haven't bought into Roon yet because of the cost. I have a couple of questions:
Are you using the Vortexbox as both Roon core and the player (ie a direct connection from the VB to a Dac) and if so does it work well, or do you use a separate device into a Dac ?
Did you need to increase the RAM (and how much) in the Vortexbox ?
thanks,

[dyohn]

I have several Vortexbox's setup and I'm considering this but haven't bought into Roon yet because of the cost. I have a couple of questions:
Are you using the Vortexbox as both Roon core and the player (ie a direct connection from the VB to a Dac) and if so does it work well, or do you use a separate device into a Dac ?
Did you need to increase the RAM (and how much) in the Vortexbox ?
thanks,

Both. I have several separate players on the network and I use the VB as both server and player, and there are no issues. Indeed, the Squeezelite player in VB uses more system resources than the Roon core according to the TOP command output screen. Roon recommends 4Gb system memory. If you do use Roon only one core can exist on your network.

FYI my VB runs on a system I built with an Athlon 5350 and 8Gb RAM.

[agillis]

For Roon Server it's a good idea to have at least an i3 processor and 4GB+ or RAM.

Roon is a bargain for what it does.

[Transporter]

Speaking of Roon, could the Forum get some feedback from those running Roon Server on their Vortexbox? One of my main questions would be, how does Roon integrate with a whole house system of multiple Slim Devices units (Transporter, 3 Touch, Boom, Baby) and a USB DAC?

[dyohn]

Speaking of Roon, could the Forum get some feedback from those running Roon Server on their Vortexbox? One of my main questions would be, how does Roon integrate with a whole house system of multiple Slim Devices units (Transporter, 3 Touch, Boom, Baby) and a USB DAC?

I have never used that function but Roon supports synchronized playback among multiple end points, and it is fully compatible with Squeeze-player devices. All the playback devices you wish to sync must be of the same type, and in your case it should work since they are all Squeeze devices. You cannot sync a Squeeze device and a RAAT player, however.

[Transporter]

I have never used that function but Roon supports synchronized playback among multiple end points, and it is fully compatible with Squeeze-player devices. All the playback devices you wish to sync must be of the same type, and in your case it should work since they are all Squeeze devices. You cannot sync a Squeeze device and a RAAT player, however.

Thanks for that information as it answered one of my questions even though that wasn't what I was trying to ask. I normally don't sync my players (last two times was son's engagement party and a friend's surprise birthday party at our home so the same music was playing outside and in every room). Just wanted to know if Roon liked all the Slim Devices Players plus could Roon handle multiple different streams so the kids can be listening to 80s and 90s music out by the pool while the Better Half listens to Easy Listening in the office while I have Classical playing on the Transporter in the Home Theater room.

Any other thoughts or experiences with Roon on a Vortexbox? Anybody know if there is a limit to the size of music library Roon can handle?

[paltomare]

Thanks for that information as it answered one of my questions even though that wasn't what I was trying to ask. I normally don't sync my players (last two times was son's engagement party and a friend's surprise birthday party at our home so the same music was playing outside and in every room). Just wanted to know if Roon liked all the Slim Devices Players plus could Roon handle multiple different streams so the kids can be listening to 80s and 90s music out by the pool while the Better Half listens to Easy Listening in the office while I have Classical playing on the Transporter in the Home Theater room.

Any other thoughts or experiences with Roon on a Vortexbox? Anybody know if there is a limit to the size of music library Roon can handle?

I do not have Roon running on my VBA, but I do have it running on a Win10 box on the same network as my VBA running LMS. I have not experienced the LMS/Roon conflict users have warned about. I am able to use Roon with my SBTouch but not with my SB2. The only issue with Roon/SBT is that the display does not always show the Now Playing screen. Roon does allow me to listen to a separate stream on the SBT while listening to other connected devices. The SB2 would not connect to Roon at all.

[dyohn]

I don't know about working with different types of Squeeze devices, perhaps that's a question for the Roon forum? I can answer that Roon proper has no library files size limit.

[agillis]

Any other thoughts or experiences with Roon on a Vortexbox? Anybody know if there is a limit to the size of music library Roon can handle?

If your VortexBox is powerful enough it should be fine. Roon can paly an unlimited number of different streams to an unlimited number of devices. There is no limit on your library. This is great for Sonos users that were stuck at 65K tracks.

A lot of customs that have my standard ATOM based VortexBox (not powerful enough for Roon) are using a sonicTransporter i5 to add Roon Server to their VortexBox

https://www.smallgreencomputer.com/collections/audio-server/products/sonictransporter-i5

[Transporter]

Nice units Andrew!

[drp101]

I have been running a VB1000b since buying it in late 2012. I'm experimenting with Roon now running from another computer on the network. I don't know what processor is in the VortexBox, but I assume it is an ATOM. Is that correct? Thanks for the help!

[agillis]

Yes most of the VortexBoxs I sold have ATOM processors. You need a fast processor and an SSD for Roon to work.

[drp101]

Thanks for the info. Much appreciated! The VB has been a champ. Gave it to my wife for a gift along with a promise to rip her CD library. I think she would say it has been a pretty darn good gift. Thanks for the nice product!

[SCompRacer]

dyohn, thanks for the how to! I installed Roon on my Signature Sonore server today. It has a 2.7ghz I5 with 8gb of ram. I had upgraded the MB with an 80GB SSD for Vortexbox 2.4

If/when Roon server is updated, would it be the same process?