Volumio PC

[Kannan]

For those who do not want to take the Raspberry-pi, ALLO sparky etc route with Volumio, can simply use a laptop or PC.
Any old one will do. Even a vintage one will outdo a RAPI or Sparky in terms of hardware.

I am trying it on my old Dell laptop with Intel Core2Duo processor, 4GB RAM and 250GB HDD.
No issues so far and everything works seamlessly.

Advantages:
1. Far superior hardware configuration.
2. Boot from a reasonable large capacity hard disk which can also be used as a source for your music files. No need of USB drives, NAS, external storage etc.
3. It is an exact replica of Volumio, so you get all its features
4. The laptop screen becomes the display, or you can use it headless aswell from any other laptop
5. Extremely fast library management due to better hardware resources.
6. Simple to copy music files over the network as the music folder of Volumio hard disk appears in network share in windows.
6. Volumio is one of the best and most popular linux audiophile distros.
7. No optimization like booting from Windows as Volumio is a dedicated audiophile specific operating system.

Disadvantages:
Hardware comparability. Will usually not be a problem with older machines.

How to write:
For guys good in linux, you can use the terminal from an existing Volumio install.

For guys like me:
A simple and easy method is to have a working PC or laptop with windows.
The hard disk you want to boot Volumio from should be connected to the USB port, so you will need a external SATA-to-USB enclosure.

How to:
Download Etcher to your PC/laptop.
Download the latest VolumioX86/x64 image
Connect your HARD disk to the USB port.
Run Etcher and follow instructions to select the Volumio image and the destination disk (USB hard disk)
Enable 'unsafe' mode under setting in etcher (you will find setting icon on the top right corner)
Now burn the image to your destination drive.
That's it.
Now remove the hard drive from the enclosure and put it into the PC/laptop where you want to run Volumio.

Enjoy a audiophile music OS on your old laptop. Integrate it as a source into your setup. You can connect it to your DAC etc....

 

[VSTEREO]

Very interesting

Have been using Volumio (with PI) for many years and one disadvantage of Volumio is its library management. If PC/Laptop provides good library management, its worth trying.

Thank you, Sir !

 

[Kannan]

Very interesting

Have been using Volumio (with PI) for many years and one disadvantage of Volumio is its library management. If PC/Laptop provides good library management, its worth trying.

Thank you, Sir !

Took 10 minutes to scan 30000 files.
Biggest advantage is, you can have it on the boot disk itself

This 30000 I am talking about HDD connected to USB port

 

[Kannan_madhu]

I think price wise it will be much expensive comparing to pi options . which one will be better a entry level usb dac or a entry level i2s dac .

 

[Kannan]

I think price wise it will be much expensive comparing to pi options . which one will be better a entry level usb dac or a entry level i2s dac .

This is just another solution as pi still has some performance issues.
Nowadays you can pick up a decent laptop for under 5k, many of us still have old working laptops which can be put to use.
Also some might already have a setup and maybe looking for a computer based solution.

 

[vinaymoturi]

i tried with pen drive but not working

 

[Kannan]

i tried with pen drive but not working

Working fine with pen drive. Tried just now. No issues.

 

[haisaikat]

Congratulations Kannan. Did you compare a-b with a pi? Also what is the feeding mechanism to your dac? Usb?

A few points for remembering, I use rpi3 which is pretty fast and although I do not have 30k files but I agree the bigger the library gets bulkier it becomes for the hardwares of pi. Rest network share option to drop files is also available on RPI too. But two things to keep in mind and also why RPI based options gainsed popularity beyond price are
1. The cpu is fanless, hence gets rid of fans generation noise (pcm noise) and infecting data bus
2. PSU, it's easier to get linear psu for a small scale board like RPI, the importance of clean power is stressed and backed by OEM manufacturers too nowadays as you will see companies like Allo are coming up with newer models of SBC and hats that have separate power sources.
3. If your dac does not have usb, getting audiophile grade precision hardwares for other output types are easier on pi in my opinion.

 

[vinaymoturi]

remove hard disk with windows installation and tried. Now its working thank you.

Is there anyway to add internal hard disk to library

 

[Kannan]

remove hard disk with windows installation and tried. Now its working thank you.

Is there anyway to add internal hard disk to library

it will also work with internal hard disk in the laptop. All you need to do is, enter the BIOS and set the 1st boot device as your USB drive.
Normally Volumio automatically mounts all USB drives.
You just need to do a scan under My Music menu

 

[lifewater]

it will also work with internal hard disk in the laptop. All you need to do is, enter the BIOS and set the 1st boot device as your USB drive.
Normally Volumio automatically mounts all USB drives.
You just need to do a scan under My Music menu

Hi Kannan, did that and it keeps repeating "No Bootable Device". Followed all your instructions to the dot but have failed and am too frustrated now. It seems my Daphile PC is the one to stick to.... PC hardware config is Intel ATOM board with 2 GIG of DDR3 RAM

 

[Kannan]

Hi Kannan, did that and it keeps repeating "No Bootable Device". Followed all your instructions to the dot but have failed and am too frustrated now. It seems my Daphile PC is the one to stick to.... PC hardware config is Intel ATOM board with 2 GIG of DDR3 RAM

ok...I really don't know why, but if I find time, I will do a video and append it.

 

[vinaymoturi]

Try changing boot device in Bios

 

[hifitoaster]

Can you compare the sound quality of pi vs pc at the end? The only reason, I thought people tried the volumio on pi was because it didnt had a fan, and the DAC is i2s which fixes the USB port's noise issues. By noise its not a loud audible noise but the fanless pcs should be having a darker background. But its just a thought,I can be completely ignorant about what you just tried. Try comparing at the end, if PC is as good, then its good that, a used laptop is really cheap.

My portable USB dac - JDS C5D sounds slightly better on a Android Tab vs a windows 10 laptop (Lenovo i7 QM, 12GB, Hybrid HDD - runs quite 90 percent of the time)

 

[MaSh]

I used Pi for almost a year with various Distros. However, once I switched to a Windows 7 based PC running Foobar for my local content and Amazon Music/ iTunes for streaming, I never looked back. Tried both with the same DAC, Cables and speakers.

A PC in my opinion is a lot more flexible with content playing be it Music, Movies and acting as a small scale NAS for mobiles and tablets on the same network. The last bit is where the Pi really struggled, although that was expected.

MaSh

 

[lifewater]

Try changing boot device in Bios

Did but with no luck..

 

[lifewater]

Seems I have found the solution. VOLUMIO for PC will not work in motherboards not supporting UEFI BIOS. Basically the old motherboards be it i3 based or i5 based, in motherboards with UEFI, it boots up perfectly so if you have a old PC/Laptop, it might not work. Now what is UEFI ?? it is "Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is a specification for a software program that connects a computer's firmware to its operating system (OS). UEFI is expected to eventually replace BIOS. Like BIOS, UEFI is installed at the time of manufacturing and is the first program that runs when a computer is turned on. " ....

Regards,

Lifewater

 

[hifitoaster]

I used Pi for almost a year with various Distros. However, once I switched to a Windows 7 based PC running Foobar for my local content and Amazon Music/ iTunes for streaming, I never looked back. Tried both with the same DAC, Cables and speakers.

A PC in my opinion is a lot more flexible with content playing be it Music, Movies and acting as a small scale NAS for mobiles and tablets on the same network. The last bit is where the Pi really struggled, although that was expected.

MaSh

So if you already have a PC, and a USB DAC, a Pi Is not needed, right?

 

[Kannan]

Seems I have found the solution. VOLUMIO for PC will not work in motherboards not supporting UEFI BIOS.
Regards, Lifewater

Not so. It works on all types of BIOS. It works fine on my Dell Inspiron 6400 with legacy bios

 

[MaSh]

So if you already have a PC, and a USB DAC, a Pi Is not needed, right?

Yes that's correct.