PeppyMeter4Volumio.doc

This repo keeps notes about changes needed to run PeppyMeter on Volumio.

Welcome community collaborations.

Goals

Immediate term

• Keep track of all changes needed to have PeppyMeter running on the HW described below.
• Make changes needed to my PeppyMeter fork.
• Create pull requests to the PeppyMeter root.

Long term

TBD

Hardware Description

• Raspberry Pi
• Raspberry Pi official 7" touch screen

Volumio

• Burn and install Volumio, tested version: volumio-2.853-2020-11-20-pi
• Install and enable Touch Display plugin.
• Enable SSH by going to volmio.local/dev
• SSH to volumio@volumio.local, password is the same as the login.
• Install the packages needed: apt-get install python3 python3-pygame kbd cron vim
  • Note 1: kbd is the package for openvt that runs the PeppyMeter script.
  • Note 2: vim is optional.
  • Note 3: cron is the package for running PeppyMeter automatically after reboot (see "Run the meters" section below for details.)

PeppyMeter

• Check out the source repos:

git clone https://github.com/project-owner/peppyalsa
git clone https://github.com/ocean1598/PeppyMeter
git clone https://github.com/ocean1598/PeppyMeter4Volumio.doc

• Follow steps to install Peppy ALSA driver: https://github.com/project-owner/peppyalsa.doc/wiki

(Note all credits to the original PeppyMeter repo https://github.com/project-owner/PeppyMeter, and https://github.com/project-owner/PeppyMeter.doc/wiki has all the details.)

Configuration Changes

Volumio

Use the files in this repo:

• copy /etc/asound.conf
• update /etc/mpd.conf
• update /volumio/app/plugins/music_service/mpd/mpd.conf.tmpl Note The following configurations are for the headphone. Others need to change accordingly.

PeppyMeter

/home/volumio/PeppyMeter

Option 1: Manual changes

• config.txt
  • change screen.size = large
  • change pipe.name = /tmp/myfifo
  • chagne the SDL section as below

[sdl.env]
framebuffer.device = /dev/fb0
mouse.device = /dev/input/event0
mouse.driver = TSLIB
video.driver = directfb
video.display = :0

• peppymeter.py => remove DOUBLEBUF
  • self.util.PYGAME_SCREEN = pygame.display.set_mode((screen_w, screen_h))

Option 2: Patch method

• cd ~/PeppyMeter
• patch -t < ~/PeppyMeter4Volumio.doc/patch002.diff (If you check out the upstream, use patch001.diff instead.)

Reboot

Any method to reboot.

Run the meters

Set up automatic way

Once it's setup, the meter will automatically show up once the music starts playing by mpd.

• Check out this project git clone https://github.com/ocean1598/PeppyMeter4Volumio.doc

• Copy the shell scripts to /home/volumio/PeppyMeter.

• sudo crontab -e to an entry that runs every minute: * * * * * /home/volumio/PeppyMeter/peppy_cron.sh

  This script first simply checks if mpd has created /tmp/myfifo, if not, exits. Then it checks if there is already a PeppyMeter instance running, if yes, exits. Then it'll start the PeppyMeter; meanwhile PeppyMeter has a signleton check to make sure there is only one instance running.

Manual way

• After reboot, play some music.
• Double check if /tmp/myfifo exists, if not, create it: mkfifo /tmp/myfifo then reboot again.
• Go to /home/volumio/PeppyMeter folder
• sudo openvt -s python3 peppymeter.py

Resume back to Volumio UI

The Volumio UI is on virtual terminal #2. The PeppyMeter UI is on #4, where #3 is used for PeppyMeter text output. Hence one can flip the display among them by using chvt command. There is no need to stop the PeppyMeter process. The only caveat is that switching back to PeppyMeter UI doesn't show the full meter, just the moving needle. It seems the background image got wiped out. Therefore, unless the meter redraws itself after something, the only way to get the full meter back is when "random" is choosen and the next meter shows up.

• switch to Vulmio UI: sudo chvt 2
• switch to PeppyMeter UI: sudo chvt 4
• switch to PeppyMeter text output: sudo chvt 3

NOTE fconsole can report which console is currently active on the LCD display

Tips

• kill the meter: stop_peppy.sh or sudo kill -9 $(ps aux | grep peppymeter | grep root | awk '{ print $2 }')