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"It turns out that nothing really runs well on a 32-bit x86 machine anymore, including major Linux distributions and web browsers." Not true. The EeePC 701 net

"It turns out that nothing really runs well on a 32-bit x86 machine anymore, including major Linux distributions and web browsers." Not true. The EeePC 701 netbook is a really minimal underpowered machine, still it will run small Linux distros just fine (it was actually sold with Linux in the first place). If you want a music player that you can control from another room, you can do that by installing a very small distro such as the x86 Alpine Linux image (https://alpinelinux.org/downloads/ https://alpinelinux.org/downloads/) then the mpd daemon (https://www.musicpd.org/ https://www.musicpd.org/ - it's in standard repositories install it with "apk add mpd" from root shell) which can work headless, therefore requiring very few resources, then a suitable control app for your phone or tablet (search for mpd control app), so that you can do pretty much everything through your home WiFi from any room, basement, backyard, etc. Should you experience noises, cracks, hum and static when connecting the netbook to an amplifier and to a mains adapter, that is a common problem of ground loops and not of that particular netbook, that will be easily solved by adding a small audio transformer in between.

woodruffw 4y ago
I'll grant that I hadn't tried installing Alpine -- I tried a few different Debian/Ubuntu variants and ran into the same handful of issues (including a few installers failing completely.) That being said, MPD is not a good solution for my particular use case: I have family and friends that come over regularly, and they want to play music. None of them are technical and are easily dissuades by anything that doesn't immediately work with AirPlay or another UPnP-style setup.
- softwarebeware 4y ago
  MPD works great for non-tech-savvy friends over, you just need to install a web-based client and they can point their smartphone browser to it. To make it even easier for friends and family, I set up a dynamic DNS with a friendly URL like myjukebox.duckdns.org that points to the 192.168.xxx.xxx address where this is hosted. Mopidy (https://mopidy.com/ https://mopidy.com/) as the MPD server with Iris (https://mopidy.com/ext/iris/ https://mopidy.com/ext/iris/) as the client is a good setup for this. Even the tech-illiterate can get along with it.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    > MPD works great for non-tech-savvy friends over, you just need to install a web-based client and they can point their smartphone browser to it. There are different standards for this: my non-technical friends could probably browse to a local website on their smartphones. My parents would forget how to do it each time, and would be annoyed that it doesn't look like Spotify or Apple Music. As it is, everybody on my network is able to auto-discover the Pi using their phone or computer's native AirPlay/DLNA support and play music using their application of choice (meaning my server, their own MPD server, Spotify, whatever). That kind of flexibility was a necessity for my case.
    - softwarebeware 4y ago
      Doesn't that have the drawback, though, that you aren't able to share the playlist? My biggest complaint about Airplay (and also Bluetooth) is that someone might put their music on but when I want to put "my" music on I can't because they're paired to the given speakers. The MPD approach is far better because each person's client view is a shared view of a single playlist. People can all add or update that playlist together.
      - woodruffw 4y ago
        This is definitely true -- there's no shared playlist state, as far as I can tell, with this setup. I think HiFiBerryOS supports MPD, but I haven't looked too closely into it. At least for my purposes, this isn't too big of a drawback: HiFiBerryOS seems to take a "FIFO" approach, so taking over control just involves playing over AirPlay and booting the last person off. Someone could of course do that do me, but that's what social etiquette is for :-)
- leni536 4y ago
  > I tried a few different Debian/Ubuntu variants and ran into the same handful of issues (including a few installers failing completely.) Did that include plain Debian?
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    Yep. I think the problem with plain Debian happened when the base install momentarily exceeded the available disk space (probably while decompressing packages during install). I didn't bother debugging it further.
iquerno 4y ago
International banking systems still rely on mainframes that don't even support time sharing! I'm sure an x86 rack would blow the socks off of the guy who has been maintaining the COBOL clusters by himself for 30 years. On another note, my EeePC still seems to work as well some old 32 bit Thinkpads I've seen recently. It actually doesn't have overheating problems like modern laptops do and I can simply replace the ram, network card, pcmcia slots if I needed to. We need to stop x86 discrimination :c
- ElectricalUnion 4y ago
  > International banking systems still rely on mainframes that don't even support time sharing! [citation needed]
  - iquerno 4y ago
    I think I mixed up this information with the fact that DOD is still running a cluster of IBM Series/1s to administer the US nuclear force. (pretty sure there's no time sharing). Definitely more interesting than international banking ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Automated_Command_and_Control_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Automated_Command_an...
RosanaAnaDana 4y ago
The eee line were gems.
Spooky23 4y ago
Another approach is to get a used thin client instead of a netbook. You can get a HP t630 or similar wyse with a AMD SoC for <$100. Much better build quality than a cheap consumer device.
reaperducer 4y ago
The EeePC 701 netbook is a really minimal underpowered machine, still it will run small Linux distros just fine Really? I brought mine to be recycled about six months ago because I couldn't find a distro that would work on it anymore. I tried at least a dozen over two days, all of which claimed they were minimalist, and some that specifically claimed they would work on an eeePC 701. None did. All the information making this claim is very outdated, and even the minimalist installations have moved on so that they no longer work on a 701. Some wouldn't boot; the rest were unusable or unstable. The only thing that still worked on the machine was the image that it shipped with, but the Firefox was so anemic, it could barely show any web sites, and certainly none with fancy JavaScript.
- tuatoru 4y ago
  Yeah, no, it won't work well as a desktop machine, but it's OK for networky things. File or print server. Sound server. Gateway for your homebrew IoT wireless network. Data logger for your electronics workbench.
- squarefoot 4y ago
  > Really? I brought mine to be recycled about six months ago because I couldn't find a distro that would work on it anymore. Yes, it's really low powered, and storage is minimal so it can't run even base installs of most known distros. That's why I suggested Alpine; it is aimed primarily at virtual machines (where less is better), but it installs fine on real iron and can be extended up to the point it becomes a full desktop, although still much smaller than the equivalents due to most software being rebuilt against musl therefore being lot smaller than libc. The 701 will probably be too small even for a Alpine based desktop, but the OP needed a music player, which seems doable to me.

woodruffw 4y ago

I'll grant that I hadn't tried installing Alpine -- I tried a few different Debian/Ubuntu variants and ran into the same handful of issues (including a few installers failing completely.) That being said, MPD is not a good solution for my particular use case: I have family and friends that come over regularly, and they want to play music. None of them are technical and are easily dissuades by anything that doesn't immediately work with AirPlay or another UPnP-style setup.

softwarebeware 4y ago
MPD works great for non-tech-savvy friends over, you just need to install a web-based client and they can point their smartphone browser to it. To make it even easier for friends and family, I set up a dynamic DNS with a friendly URL like myjukebox.duckdns.org that points to the 192.168.xxx.xxx address where this is hosted. Mopidy (https://mopidy.com/ https://mopidy.com/) as the MPD server with Iris (https://mopidy.com/ext/iris/ https://mopidy.com/ext/iris/) as the client is a good setup for this. Even the tech-illiterate can get along with it.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  > MPD works great for non-tech-savvy friends over, you just need to install a web-based client and they can point their smartphone browser to it. There are different standards for this: my non-technical friends could probably browse to a local website on their smartphones. My parents would forget how to do it each time, and would be annoyed that it doesn't look like Spotify or Apple Music. As it is, everybody on my network is able to auto-discover the Pi using their phone or computer's native AirPlay/DLNA support and play music using their application of choice (meaning my server, their own MPD server, Spotify, whatever). That kind of flexibility was a necessity for my case.
  - softwarebeware 4y ago
    Doesn't that have the drawback, though, that you aren't able to share the playlist? My biggest complaint about Airplay (and also Bluetooth) is that someone might put their music on but when I want to put "my" music on I can't because they're paired to the given speakers. The MPD approach is far better because each person's client view is a shared view of a single playlist. People can all add or update that playlist together.
    - woodruffw 4y ago
      This is definitely true -- there's no shared playlist state, as far as I can tell, with this setup. I think HiFiBerryOS supports MPD, but I haven't looked too closely into it. At least for my purposes, this isn't too big of a drawback: HiFiBerryOS seems to take a "FIFO" approach, so taking over control just involves playing over AirPlay and booting the last person off. Someone could of course do that do me, but that's what social etiquette is for :-)
leni536 4y ago
> I tried a few different Debian/Ubuntu variants and ran into the same handful of issues (including a few installers failing completely.) Did that include plain Debian?
- woodruffw 4y ago
  Yep. I think the problem with plain Debian happened when the base install momentarily exceeded the available disk space (probably while decompressing packages during install). I didn't bother debugging it further.

iquerno 4y ago

International banking systems still rely on mainframes that don't even support time sharing! I'm sure an x86 rack would blow the socks off of the guy who has been maintaining the COBOL clusters by himself for 30 years. On another note, my EeePC still seems to work as well some old 32 bit Thinkpads I've seen recently. It actually doesn't have overheating problems like modern laptops do and I can simply replace the ram, network card, pcmcia slots if I needed to. We need to stop x86 discrimination :c

ElectricalUnion 4y ago
> International banking systems still rely on mainframes that don't even support time sharing! [citation needed]
- iquerno 4y ago
  I think I mixed up this information with the fact that DOD is still running a cluster of IBM Series/1s to administer the US nuclear force. (pretty sure there's no time sharing). Definitely more interesting than international banking ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Automated_Command_and_Control_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Automated_Command_an...

RosanaAnaDana 4y ago

The eee line were gems.

Spooky23 4y ago

Another approach is to get a used thin client instead of a netbook. You can get a HP t630 or similar wyse with a AMD SoC for <$100. Much better build quality than a cheap consumer device.

reaperducer 4y ago

The EeePC 701 netbook is a really minimal underpowered machine, still it will run small Linux distros just fine Really? I brought mine to be recycled about six months ago because I couldn't find a distro that would work on it anymore. I tried at least a dozen over two days, all of which claimed they were minimalist, and some that specifically claimed they would work on an eeePC 701. None did. All the information making this claim is very outdated, and even the minimalist installations have moved on so that they no longer work on a 701. Some wouldn't boot; the rest were unusable or unstable. The only thing that still worked on the machine was the image that it shipped with, but the Firefox was so anemic, it could barely show any web sites, and certainly none with fancy JavaScript.

tuatoru 4y ago
Yeah, no, it won't work well as a desktop machine, but it's OK for networky things. File or print server. Sound server. Gateway for your homebrew IoT wireless network. Data logger for your electronics workbench.
squarefoot 4y ago
> Really? I brought mine to be recycled about six months ago because I couldn't find a distro that would work on it anymore. Yes, it's really low powered, and storage is minimal so it can't run even base installs of most known distros. That's why I suggested Alpine; it is aimed primarily at virtual machines (where less is better), but it installs fine on real iron and can be extended up to the point it becomes a full desktop, although still much smaller than the equivalents due to most software being rebuilt against musl therefore being lot smaller than libc. The 701 will probably be too small even for a Alpine based desktop, but the OP needed a music player, which seems doable to me.