• 2 min read

Raspberry Pi + MPD + Last.fm + wifi

Hi,
There are plenty of preconfigured packs for Raspberry Pi with MPD and Last.fm like RuneAudio for example.
I used RuneAudio for some time, but I had problems with connecting RPi through wifi (device was connected, but I was unable to ping that IP from mikrotik). Wifi card is TP-LINK TL-WN725N that normally should work out of the box with RPi. There were also problems with web-gui...
I decided that it should be much easier to install and configure everything by hand on Raspbian.
I chose Raspbian but You can choose other OS for RPi like Arch Linux ARM

Pros & cons

Pros of that solution:

no gui -> less resources used

wifi works without issues

you can update Your device like normal OS and have more control

Cons of that solution:

You need to do something Yourself (but it could be also pros :P)

How to achieve it:

It is not 1:1 HOWTO but if somebody will need additional information I can provide it. For example there is no info how to set static IP or how to use putty from windows to connect by ssh to Linux box.

  1. Download Raspbian and install it to your sd card https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspbian_lite_latest
  1. Connect RPi to monitor (using hdmi), attach wifi card, keyboard and boot it.
  2. Default username is "pi" with password "raspberry". You should change it. I suggest to change also root password sudo passwd and enable root ssh access for easier access edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config and set PermitRootLogin yes.
  3. Edit /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf with nano or vi and add ssid, password and Your country code. Next ifdown wlan0, ifup wlan0 and that's it. You can disconnect monitor and keyboard.
  4. Run raspi-config for easier change of password, hostname, locale settings, default audio output etc:

Raspi-config

  1. Run commands: apt-get update, apt-get upgrade and reboot. Upgrade will take a while. Go for some coffee or tea.
  2. You need to mount music folder on every reboot. crontab -e and add:
    @reboot (sleep 30; /bin/mount -t cifs //server/share /media/music -o user=user,pass=pass,dom=domain,ro)&
  1. Now You can install mpd: apt-get install mpd mpdscribble
  2. Last.fm support: edit /etc/mpdscribble.conf and insert you login and password.
  3. Edit /etc/mpd.conf and set it like below (of course do not delete other settings :P):
user "root"
#to avoid permissions problems
bind_to_address "any"
music_directory "/media/music"
#point it to location where you have Your music mounted
audio_output {
    type            "alsa"
    name            "My ALSA Device"
}

It is easy :).

My small update regarding spotify and possible solutions.

Written by Wojtek Gustowski