Raspberry PI + Raspbian + Squeezeslave

Christian M. Schmid,
,

I am not going to waste too many words this time, instead I am just posting the commands required to get squeezeslave run as deamon on a Raspbian Raspberry Pi.

  1. Download and untar latest Squeezslave for your Raspberry from https://code.google.com/p/squeezeslave/. As of today this can be done via 
    wget https://squeezeslave.googlecode.com/files/squeezeslave-1.3-390-armhf-lnx32.tar.gz
tar -zxvf squeezeslave-1.3-390-armhf-lnx32.tar.gz
  2. Move everything into the right places 
    sudo mkdir /usr/local/squeezeslave
sudo mv squeezeslave /usr/local/squeezeslave
sudo chown root:root /usr/local/squeezeslave/squeezeslave
sudo ln -s /usr/local/squeezeslave/squeezeslave /usr/local/bin/squeezeslave

    From here on you should already be able to run squeezeslave via

    squeezeslave -o 0 YOURSERVER
  3. To run squeezeslave as a deamon and at the system start you’ll need to add this file and get it to the right place. 
    wget https://blog.chschmid.com/media/squeezeslave
sudo mv squeezeslave /etc/init.d
sudo chown root:root /etc/init.d/squeezeslave
sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/squeezeslave
sudo update-rc.d squeezeslave defaults
  4. Now all that is left is to create a config file 
    sudo joe /etc/default/squeezeslave

    with the following content:

    SSMAC="xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx"
SBSHOST= YOURSERVER
SSOPTIONS="-o 0"

    Obviously you want to configure it to work with your server and add the MAC address which you find under HWaddr using

    ifconfig
  5. You can now either reboot your machine or start the service manually 
    sudo service squeezeslave start

Another problem is that the Raspbian by default boots at a rather low audio volume. This can be fixed by

  1. setting the volume with the command line mixer 
    sudo apt-get install alsa-utils
alsamixer
  2. and storing the settings 
    sudo alsactl store

The Life of My New Pi

Christian M. Schmid,
, ,

Sorry to disappoint some of you: This is not about the great movie that I watched on an airplane on my way to Seattle just recently. This post is about my newest gadget. I just could not resist getting myself a Raspberry Pi, which is a low power (low power as in low electrical power but also as in low computational power) credit-card-sized single-board ARM computer. Meet my new toy:

wpid-20130707_184802.jpg

I did also buy

  • a transparent case,
  • an 8GB SD card,
  • and a micro USB charger as power supply.

If you order all of this stuff online you should be able to get it for around 50-60 €. – When it comes to the Raspberry Pi (RPi) low power also means inexpensive.

What I did not expect: I had it up and running in about 10-15 minutes. Raspbian was the obvious choice for me as Ubuntu user. After

  1. downloading the Raspbian image from http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads
  2. extracting it via the terminal
    unzip 2013-05-25-wheezy-raspbian.zip
  3. copying it to the SD card via the terminal
    sudo dd bs=4M if=2013-05-25-wheezy-raspbian.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 && sudo sync
  4. plugging the SD card into the RPi and connecting the power supply / monitor / keyboard,

I could configure the RPi using the built in Raspbian tool. Again, 10-15 minutes + maybe 10 extra minutes for the first time configuration, absolutely hassle-free, and you’ll be greeted by the familiar Linux login. – I was impressed.

Now the obvious question that most people are likely to ask is: “What are you going to do with it” and I am guilty as charged. More often than not I do buy those gadgets without even knowing what I would need or use them for, just for the fun of playing around with them. With the RPi it’s quite similar tough I have two applications in mind, with one of them up and running already:

  1. RPi as music streaming device
  2. RPi as “bedroom light server”

2. will be a more elaborate project, which I am going to talk about some other day, 1. is more obvious. The thing is I am running a home server (Ubuntu 12.04 on some low power AMD E-350 hardware) which (amongst others) acts as Logitech Media Server for a Logitech Squeezbox Radio and a Logitech Squeezebox Touch. I do really love both devices and the whole Squeezebox concept. It lets you stream music from a local server as well as from Internet radio stations, synchronize multiple players, control everything via PCs / smartphones / tablets and much more.

Both pieces of hardware that I did get from Logitech were not cheap, but are worth every penny (or Euro cent in my case). Moreover all software, both the server and the client side, is cross-platform and open-source. This is probably mainly due to the fact that Squeezebox was not invented by Logitech but by Slimdevices which was later acquired by Logitech. Anyway, Logitech managed to ruin one of the most promising competitors in the audio streaming market and in 2012 announced that they would discontinue the Squeezebox line in favor of a new, over-priced and crappy product line with less features. No worries, I will stop complaining about Logitech’s completely crackbrained decision, because there is a solution: The RPi can stand in as perfect Squeezebox streaming device replacement!

In a later post I am going to explain how to configure the whole thing to run when the RPi starts up. For now (again from a terminal) it is just as easy as

  • wget https://squeezeslave.googlecode.com/files/squeezeslave-1.3-390-armhf-lnx32.tar.gz
  • tar -zxvf squeezeslave-1.3-390-armhf-lnx32.tar.gz
  • ./squeezeslave -o 0 -M “test.log” 192.168.1.200

That’s all that is needed to turn your RPi into a Squeezebox client in under 30 minutes and the beginning of the life of my new Raspberry Pi …

IEEE – 4 months later

Christian M. Schmid,

I have been volunteering as IEEE Region 8 Student Representative for almost 4 months (or 118 days to be exact) now. While there are even more than 4 months to go, I guess this is the perfect time to reflect on the experience I’ve had so far.

What’s my reflection based on? Basically it comes down to about 20 online meetings or conference calls, 2335 received e-mails, 509 sent e-mails, and two face-to-face meetings. Wow, it has never occurred to me before: This makes an impressive 20 e-mails received per day and 4.3 outgoing e-mails per day.

Whatever way you look at these numbers: at the end of the day it does not come down to numbers but the people I’ve interacted with and the things we have achieved. And this is where the my experience ranges from “Well, hello???” to “Wow!!!”.

When thinking about some of the support we have received from staff (fighting for database access for over two month, ect.), about the way some volunteers seem to understand committee work being about going to nice places + eating and drinking, … it’s more like “Well, hello???”

But then again, socializing is a part of working in such an international and intercultural group. Especially in Region 8 it is an inevitable means for learning to understand each other.

When thinking about the great activities that IEEE volunteers have organized all over the world since the beginning of this year, all I can come up with is: “Wow”. From congresses, job fairs, to field trips, soft skill training, competitions, humanitarian projects … The list could go on almost endlessly. And then there is also the scientific progress made in some of IEEE’s societies – simply awesome.

I am not the “everything is perfect” kind of guy. Neither am I the “everything is bad” kind of person. And for all that is great and all that is bad about IEEE there is one, maybe the most important essence that I’d like to share with you:

I do believe in IEEE Student Activities

… maybe even more so than before I started my term.

IEEE is all about the volunteers and the people behind it, so thanks to all of you who help enriching the experience for our members! I won’t start listing names, because this would only bring the danger of missing anyone. But still: Thank you all!

I am IEEE (Region 8 Student Representative)

Christian M. Schmid,

You know how so many of us are asking who or what they are? Answering this question isn’t really easy, but if there’s one aspect about myself that I am absolutely sure about, it’s this: I am an engineer. I like building stuff and I like using mathematics, physics and technology.

Whatever hobby or job you have: There are probably associations for your very field. One of these associations for technology believers like myself is IEEE. You can google it, it’s basically a platform for technology-related people and companies. Never heard of IEEE before? Well, chances are you are using IEEE technologies like wifi in this very moment!

So I am an IEEE member (as are 400000 others on this planet) and I’ve tried to push IEEE forward in our local university student community and our “local” Austrian IEEE community for the last couple of years. The whole thing got even bigger for me now. Starting 1st of January 2013 I’ve been appointed as the IEEE Region 8 Student Representative, which means my job now is to represent 17000 students from Africa, Europe and the Middle East.

I don’t know how the whole thing is going to work out, but trust me, I’ll give my very best! – And of course I am not alone, we’re a great team. Starting with Pablo from Spain who’s the chair and Elias Nassar from Lebanon as past chair to David Dias (Portugal), Famia (Greece) and Piotr (Poland) – they are all great and motivated team members! – I’ll keep you posted about the great ideas they have, for now I’ll leave you with a video about why others have joined IEEE

Welcome to 2013

Christian M. Schmid,

Looks like the world has not come to an end on December 21st 2012. With all of the end-of-the-world attitude gone we can not totally focus on 2013! So welcome to all of you who’ve survived New Year’s Eve.

I guess my party was much like yours, eating, drinking, celebrating with friends, watching fireworks. What was a little special for me this year was that the organist of our church invited me to play some trombone / organ tunes that he had composed for me back in 2008. Here’s one of the songs

It’s part of a collection of tunes which he calls “Kleine Partita” – Little Suite. While most of the songs are quite sad, I hope that your new year 2013 will be a happy one! I wish you, your family and friends all the best and I hope we’ll meet again to share some happy hours together!

Getting Ready for Christmas

Christian M. Schmid,

Advent season has picked up full momentum already. The advent wreath and my new melodica + some christmas tunes did get me into the right mood.

And here’s one of the tunes that I played. I recorded it with my cellphone mic:

What do you do to get yourself into Christmas gear?

My Problem With Tablets

Christian M. Schmid,
,

I’ve really been struggling with the question of whether I should get myself a tablet or not. Everybody is talking about them and many people want one. iPads, Surfaces, Ice Cream Sandwiches, Jelly Beans, you-name-them. Having earned a hundred bucks by publishing my own Android app, I finally decided to give it a try. It’s funny how I do understand now, why I was struggling so hard in the first place. But more on that later.

So what did I get: That one’s obvious – a 32GB Nexus 7. It’s got enough horsepower, it’s reasonably priced and software updates are to be expected at least for the next 18 months + I know how to write programs for Android, so I can come up with my own software (Maybe I’ll even write tablet optimized apps someday).

But – you might have guessed that there is going to be a big BUT somewhere – I have one really essential problem with this tablet, which I guess applies to a lot if not to most of the tablets out there. – It even took me to get one to understand this fundamental problem. And here it goes: Tablets and the software they come with right now are designed for content consumption rather than for content creation.

They are perfect for watching movies on the go, for listening to music, for surfing the web, gaming and a lot of other things that involve consuming content. – I did not add reading e-books to the list, because from my own experience I find e-ink e-book readers much more suitable for this purpose. Tablets are also great tools for small tasks, like managing your calendar, reading emails, giving a short reply to e-mails, WiFi calls, as metronome, tuner or for getting public transport information. But truth be told, so are most of today’s smartphones.

However when it comes to me wanting to actively create content, like designing a new T-shirt, writing an article, recording some music, writing sheet music, creating software, designing websites, managing my music and e-book libraries, creating presentations or even just printing stuff, they become pretty much useless or badly broken crutches at most. They suck horribly when compared to the fully featured Linux PC that I am sitting in front of right now.

This realization inevitably brings new questions. Why are these things not possible on a tablet? Would it be possible to implement such software for tablets, given the UI constraints? Would we use these kinds of software? You could say: “Well that’s just not what it was made for” But then: Do the tablet companies see them as sole consumption devices that we should not use for more? And ultimately: Do tablets have a negative impact on society, as they get more and more of us into consumption rather than into creation mode?

What do you think?

Spotlight: Panzerballett

Christian M. Schmid,
, ,

“Wellness-Death-Jazz” is printed in large letters across the T-shirts of some loyal fans who are head-banging right next to me. It is also what the guys on stage say their musical style is. Let me introduce to you: Panzerballett.

Oddly enough the head-bangers are not the only distinct group that the audience is composed of. There are also those of us who are apparently enjoying the musical fireworks in a more introverted way and who start clapping after each solo, as etiquette dictates. Even without hearing the music, just by looking at the audience, you can tell that Wikipedia is absolutely right by calling their music Jazz-Metal. But then of course you should hear their music!

Seemingly effortless they pump monstrous, rhythmically complex metal and jazz inspired themes, riffs and solos into the auditorium. What can I say: THEY ROCK! They’ve almost made me a heavy metal convert. And the best thing: they ask you to try this at home. From the shop on their website you can get transcriptions (thanks Waschtl for pointing this out to me ;) ), T-Shirts and also their new album CD Tank Goodness.

I am glad they played at the Kulturzentrum Hof in Linz and that I had a chance to be at their concert. And of course I got myself a copy of their brand new album.

Maintenance and Repairs

Christian M. Schmid,
,

Today was all about maintenance and repair. It started with me mounting the winter tires. Austrian laws require your car to be equipped with winter tires from November 1st in case of ice or snow, which starting with November is to be expected any time.

And lo and behold, we saw our first snow just hours after I had mounted the winter tires! – The perfect weather to go swimming and do some body maintenance.

That’s just one of the good things about visiting my parents on weekends: They have this great but underrated resort nearby: The Welldorado. Well it’s not as big or luxurious as the huge ones, but on Saturdays there is always enough space in the sports pool for doing some lanes. An hour later or so, I was heading back to Linz. At first I wanted to practice piano, but then I decided to stick to the day’s main theme.

My electric piano is a Yamaha S90 ES, which I really like for it’s great piano voices and all the other things that you can do with it. However it is 7 years old now and some keys started to get sticky and the key response began to become uneven. So I decided to open it up and do some cleaning.

You can actually take out every single key to clean or replace it. What is interesting is that the keys did not get sticky because of me or anybody else pouring something over the keyboard (although not aware of me doing so, I had thought that this was the reason). The real source was exuberant grease that Yamaha had used and that had started to creep between the keys. Anyway now the piano plays as smooth as on the very first day!

All in all not much revolutionary happened today. I mainly spent with maintaining and repairing some of my tools. – But this is important, because they are the things that might help me do more exciting stuff someday!

48

Christian M. Schmid,

The very first 48 hours of this week. Congratulations to all of us who’ve made it that far.

Just a quick update from my side (all times are CET military time)

Monday 10/22/2012

7:00 – 9:00: Preparation of the presentation for our lab meeting

9:00 – 12:00: Lab meeting. Due to the NDA we are all bound to, just a quick, innocent photo of the new EM simulation setup that we think of buying

12:00 – 12:30 Lunch

12:30 – 18:00 CST simulations

18:00 – 19:00 Quick run + shower. You can see my track here http://www.sports-tracker.com/#/workout/chschmid/3o0ipvuvhlftmuql

19:00 – 20:00 Driving to Wels

20:00 – 22:00 Musikverein Thalheim Big Band Rehearsal: People have often asked me why they don’t read about negative things in my blog. So here’s one: I simply hate this Musikverein Thalheim Big Band Project. If you want my honest opinion about it: there’s no musical value in it and for me it is just a pure waste of time. Why do I not just quit it: Because it is also a social obligation. Here a photo shot from my perspective behind the piano

22:20 – 23:00 Driving back to Linz

Tuesday 10/23/2012

8:00 – 17:00 Work as usual (CST, reading papers, discussing problems, lunch … )

17:00 – 18:00 Going home, showering, commuting.

18:00 – 19:30 Dancing lessons. Please don’t tell her, but I am really grateful that Andrea insisted on taking this dancing class that we go to once a week! – It is really precious quality time that we spend together!

20:00 – 20:30 Reviewing some IEEE public relations articles + sending some e-mails.

20:30 – 22:30 Mechatroniker Stammtisch @ KHG Kellerbar. This is where you meet all the Mechatronics undergrads and a great place for recruiting new members for our research group as well as for the IEEE Student Branch. It is really good to see that there are so many motivated engineering students at JKU! Thank you guys, you’ve made my day.

23:00 – ? Blogging

I’ll log off now, time to go to bed, let’s build a new radar system tomorrow!