Logitech Duet

[miklorsmith]

Sorry about the troubles Rich, I've been fighting similar problems with similar frustration.  I feel your pain.

Update with my setup - not Duet per se, but a viable alternative:

I'm running SC7 on my main computer.  I was trying to run SC on my networked laptop and it was causing me fits.  At the Slimdevices forum I asked the problem and one fellow suggested instead of trying to build an Escher-looking network to just point the internet browser to the main computer's SC address.  It's working brilliantly and I really like the full-sized laptop screen for browsing my big collection.

The best part is this path uses what most of us already have.  Even if you don't, a decent used laptop can be had for a couple hundred bucks.

I don't have all the bugs worked out yet.  The .cue thing isn't perfect but can be worked around and there is a solution there, I just need to find it.  But, it's a very slick system for very little capital.

[ik632]

So you just typed http://computer'sip:9000 and it worked for you right? I know Windows does name resolution but I never trust it. Seeing my network has Win, Linux, and Unix all living together I stick with static IP addresses for the things like routers, server, access points, and SB3. The other things that get to have dynamic addresses are the laptops and computers which are just accessing things.

My network is as follows:

cable modem - router - vonage
                              - wireless router - FreeNAS/SlimNAS server
                              - main desktop
                              - NSLU2 (NAS)

The SB3 connects wirelessly to the wireless router which is connected directly to the server. Any audio traffic is routed through the built in switch in the wireless router. This stays off the rest of the network where I usually have higher bandwidth (vonage, NAS, desktop, etc).

[miklorsmith]

Yep, that's the ticket!  The beauty is that if your laptop is linked to the main box you're good to go.  If you make changes in the rest of the network, no problemo as long as you can access the internet through the main gateway.  Compared with how I was trying to do it, this is way slicker.  I don't have to set up shared directories, I don't have to scan the music folder in the laptop, and any future changes should affect the audio setup as long as I can access the internet.

In fact, I set up SC as my Firefox homepage!   

[richidoo]

Carl came over tonight to check out some new tubes and he fixed the Duet system. I put it back on the PC, downloaded todays nightly and he did all the updates, in the right order on SB, Jive, etc. Then it worked. Still a little slow from NAS, but same speed as it was with SB3. YAY!! Thanks Carl!!

[Carlman]

I don't feel like I did anything special... but it appears to be working similar but slower than my setup... I do think the whole slim setup likes to have everything on one machine so it doesn't have to make so many hops for all the requests/commands to successfully get the music to stream and react to your commands.  I have everything on wireless which I thought might cause some lag but who knows.

Given that it seems to work better on 1 machine, I plan on using a nice PC for SlimCenter and my music server.  It has a 3G processor and 2G of RAM.  I will be using the slim devices as convenience/fun/background listening in the rest of the house and then access the music from a silent PC running Foobar in the 'reference room'. 

-C

[miklorsmith]

I think the "running on one machine" comment is sage, Carl.  That matches my experience and makes a lot of sense.  Further, it seems there is a lot of flexibility done this way, without undue complexity.

[bpape]

Agreed.  I've always found having everything on 1 box works best.  You can still point a browser from another machine to the interface as your home page that way.

Bryan

[Carlman]

The only downside is that SC 7.x requires a machine with more memory and power than previous versions... I could run SlimServer on an old box w/ a 1G processor and 256M or RAM w/ no problem.... and still use VNC viewer to access it on my network.  It still 'works' but it's really slloooowwww now... I'm hoping the new machine will help.  I'll know soon.
-C

[miklorsmith]

It's all part of the grand conspiracy of planned obsolescence.  It doesn't matter if your old stuff is "perfectly good", we'll ensure that changes.  How about Vista?   

My laptop connected to my main machine, which is *pretty fast*, is pretty zippy.  It's not instantaneous but is pretty impressive.

[bpape]

Yeah- the old one would run on pretty much anything.  I haven't played with the new one yet but even the old one was much better on a single box.  I have no idea if it's the CPU or RAM that it's wanting.  RAM is so cheap these days though - doesn't make a lot of sense not to put in a couple Gig.

Bryan

[richidoo]

I think the "running on one machine" comment is sage, Carl. 

Actually I thought it was kind of ecru, or maybe fuschia?  Khaki? 

The problem seems to be that I wasn't forcing updates on SB or remote, just updating SC7. All three have corresponding firmware and need to be updated. Maybe if I read the online docs it might have said that. RTFM! Carl has been wrestling with SC7/Jive for a month or more as beta tester and got the technique down for making it update. Maybe write a sticky Carl, on how to do the updates, could be useful.

It is still working great! Miracle!!! It choked a couple times during the day almost giving me a heart attack, but it was only when the PC was put in standby or someone logged in to a diferent profile. I have set the SC7 to run as a service, but that doesn't seem to be working like a real "service". If the PC is running and logged in, then it is working flawlessly, with slight delay on navigating due to remote data, but it is comparable to the old SB3 response. Good job Carl! Yoo da mang!

I have high hopes for a dedicated SC box, always on, quiet, running SC7 in non-Windows flavor, like linux. No upside down pyramid shaped software architecture to screw it up. With a fast processor and nothing else to do but listen for my thumb command it should be as fast as the network will allow? Shouldawouldacoulda  But the laptop is a great idea too that would allow me to record radio programs with minimal fuss. But most of the time I would just work on the laptop instead of listening. 

[miklorsmith]

We don't do fuchsia, Rich.  That's like a girly red color I think.  Khaki maybe, better than taupe I guess. 

With the laptop, you could be working and listening to music and pop off your application long enough to switch things up, then back to work!  I like the dedicated remote idea too though, nothing to seriously screw up (once they've got it dialed in).

[richidoo]

Carl, how do you force the Squeezebox (DAC) to upgrade? And what order do the upgrades apply? The remote jumps right in quick, so I hope it should be first?

I wanna try switching back to the NAS as server. Then switch back to PC to learn how to do it. When I pick new "music source" the remote updates automatically. But how to make the SB update too?

I was screwing around and  switched to NAS from perfectly fine PC version, kinda by accident, but maybe providence since it would be cool to use the NAS if possible. Maybe upgrading everything correctly would make that work as well as PC version. I can upgrade the mem on NAS to 1G from 256 which might make it behave better. I know I will regret this...

There is a selection in the menu "Network upgrade," which now says "there is software available to upgrade this remote."  I think I don't want that because it is coming direct from slim, and is too new for the static infrant version of SC7, right?
Thanks.

[richidoo]

Well, more ups and downs. A couple days ago I typed in a couple song choices in rapid fire and the server crashed. I couldn't get it going again. But tonight I had some time and fooled with it. I loaded the latest nightly, it all came to life leading me to wonder what happened to the previous install?    Then I went into the settings window to pitter around  in there. I shut down 90% of the plugins and the speed of the webinterface tripled at least. Then I shut off flac conversion on the server and send it to squeezebox for conversion. It wasn't set that way on the last update. I heard buffer stuttering so I knew to check server decoding. But I have never heard it happen with server running on a PC though. Everything seems to be working now. I will try reloading the server right away if it crashes again.

[Carlman]

I wish I had a 'how-to' written but so far I've done it done by intuition.  Glad it's working for you!  I'll see if I can get a chance to do the update tonight and document the main steps.... no promises.
-C