I got a few new Raspberry Pi(s) with 4GB RAM. I used them as a full scale desktop for some time, and was happy with the performance.

I used to run the Ubiquity controller for the home network in a full-size desktop. Looking at the performance of this RPI model, I thought of moving it out to this machine.

I am using Debian Buster based image here. The first step is to create a new source list file at /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubnt.list

deb https://www.ubnt.com/downloads/unifi/debian unifi5 ubiquiti

Then, install the software, and also openjdk-8-jdk, remember that the controller works only with that particular version of Java.

apt-get update
apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk unifi

We will also have to update the JAVE_HOME variable in /usr/lib/unifi/bin/unifi.init file.

JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-armhf/

Then, we can enable and start the service.

systemctl enable unifi
systemctl start unifi

I had one Raspberry Pi3 in my home office (actually it was missing for few months). Found it two nights back, and decided to put it in use. Best part is the on-board WiFi. This means I can put it anywhere in the house, and still access it. I generally use Raspbian on my Pi(s), so did the same this time too. After booting from a fresh SD card, did the following to install Music Player Daemon.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
$ sudo apt-get install mpd
$ sudo systemctl enable mpd
$ sudo systemctl start mpd

This got MPD running on the system, the default location of the songs directory is /var/lib/mpd/music. You can setup the location in /etc/mpd.conf file. But this time when ever I changed a song, the service stopped. I had to restart the service. After poking around for sometime, I found that I have to uncomment the following from the mpd.conf file.

device "hw:0,0"

I also changed the value of mixer_type to software, that enables volume control from the software. After a restart everything worked as planned. I have MPD clients on my phone (and also even on Anwesha's phone, and on mother-in-law's tablet), and also on laptop.

The above is the screenshot of the client on phone. On my Fedora laptop I installed a new client called cantata.

$ sudo dnf install cantata

If you have any tips on MPD, or on similar setups, feel free to comment, or drop a note on twitter/mail. Happy music everyone.