Whoa-k, it’s been a while…
So, I’ve got a Raspberry Pi Model B (256 MB RAM), on which I’m running Arch Linux ARM. I’ve come to really dig Arch even since installing it on an old ThinkPad X31.
I’m writing this because I fell in to some trouble with getting pianobar cleanly installed on my current setup and I figured I’d document it.
Firstly, I’d like to mention this SparkFun tutorial on getting Arch running on your Pi: DOOM on your Pi. It’s a very good tutorial!
So, to use the sound device, you need the device driver installed! Check if it’s installed by running the commands:
lsmod | grep snd_bcm2835
If you don’t see any output, you’ll need to install the driver:
sudo modprobe snd_bcm2835
To make sure it gets loaded on subsequent boots, let’s add a file to the /etc/modules-load.d/ folder:
sudo nano /etc/modules-load.d/snd_bcm2835.conf
This file really only needs one line, but we’ll add a simple comment:
#Load 'snd_bcm2835' at boot snd_bcm2835
Here is some more info on loading kernel modules in Arch: Kernel Modules: Loading
With the sound driver installed, the next part was getting the sound out over the HDMI port. To do this you must edit the /boot/config.txt file:
sudo nano /boot/config.txt
Uncomment the line hdmi_drive=2. This tells the Pi that you’re not just using a DVI monitor, so you’d like sound as well. For a little more detail see this post and also this elinux.org wiki page.
Now, we want to tell the ALSA driver to explicitly send sound output over the HDMI port with the command:
sudo amixer cset numid=3 2
That last number, 2, is one of three options in this command. 0 is for auto-detect, 1 is the analog output, and 2 is for HDMI. More details here, under “Check if proper audio output is selected.”
NOTE: As of this writing, this command WILL NOT WORK AS EXPECTED on the latest Raspian image (2012-10-28-wheezy-raspbian) because the audio is set up differently in Raspian now. Raspian is using PulseAudio and cset=3 corresponds to ‘Master Playback Volume’, not ‘PCM Playback Route.’ This command will effectively turn your sound off because you’re setting the volume to 2.
Install git & libao, then download pianobar from the AUR into a new directory:
sudo pacman -S git libao mkdir ~/builds cd ~/builds wget http://bit.ly/Q8YXfm
Unpack the tarball:
tar xzvf cd ~/builds/pianobar-git
Modify the PKGBUILD file by changing the arch=('i686' 'x86_64') line to arch=('armv6h').
nano ~/builds/pianobar-git/PKGBUILD
Install the package:
sudo pacman -U XXX.pkg.tar.xz
Finally, you’ll want to create an /etc/libao.conf file:
nano /etc/libao.conf
Add these lines to the file:
default_driver=alsa dev=default
Following this article, but substituing dev=hw:0,0 for dev=hw:1,3 didn’t do it, so I tried what I found here and it seemed to do the trick! (dev=default as stated above)
, and some neighborly advice, to get it firing correctly, and with the ability to play chords!