Audiophile Linux v3.1 is released
June 29, 2015
AP Linux v4 install instructions
April 16, 2017
Hi folks. It’s been a while. I know you all been wondering what’s happening with AP-Linux. The good news is new version of AP-Linux is in the works. Since last version, many new hardware devices and chipsets came out. Like Intel’s Skylake and Kaby Lake (6th and 7th generation) processors and we want to make sure that AP-Linux can work on new hardware. These new processors have one significant advantage for us who want the best possible sound from our PC’s. Lower power consumption and lower TDP (Thermal Design Power). TDP represents the average power, in watts, the processor dissipates when operating at Base Frequency with all cores active under high-complexity workload. In other words, less heat, no need for fan on CPU heatsinks.
You can now build a silent PC with no moving parts more easier. My latest build consists of Intel’s Skylake i3-6300T 3.30GHz CPU with only 35W TDP. Coupled with excellent Noctua NH-D9L (50$) CPU cooler with removed fan, my average CPU temperature is around 32 C. Also good thing to mention is that this heat sink fits perfectly in 3U media PC case. And for the temperature, how this CPU compare with normal PC? For example my work laptop is around 55 C average.
Pretty good I would say. Will the new version be as good as v3.1? We’ll see. There are many factors involved. The good news is that after short stop, real-time kernel development is on the main road map again. Companies like Google, Intel and IBM are supporting the project. That means nice future for Linux audio.
My new Audiophile Linux system consists of:
- Intel Skylake i3-6300T 3.30GHz CPU
- Noctua NH-D9L CPU heatsink
- ASUS Maximus VIII Hero/Alpha Intel Z170 DDR4 ATX Motherboard
- Corsair 8GB DDR4-2400 MEMORY
- Corsair RM650i power supply
- Fractal Design Node 605 Case
- Samsung 850 M.2 1 TB SSD for music
- Western Digital Red 3TB HDD for backup
- 120GB SSD drive for operating system
And I have added one more thing to my PC. JCAT USB PCI card. The card eliminates noise interference from PC and greatly improve sound. Especially if you use external battery power supply.
If you wish to buy this card, AP Linux users will have special 25% discount until 31.12.2016. Send us an email on info@ap-linux.com and you will receive your special discount code…
Specification:
– audiophile USB Audio output for USB DACs & USB-to-S/PDIF converters
– ultra low noise design for high definition audio playback
– ultra low noise linear regulators and high quality filters designed to eliminate noise interferences from PC
– Femto Clock Technology (Crystek CCHD-957) lowers jitter below measurable levels
– uDP720201 NEC controller
– high durability gold plated USB 3.0 connectors from Amphenol
– two USB 3.0 connectors supporting Low Speed (1.5 Mbps), Full-Speed (12 Mbps), Hi-Speed (480 Mbps) and Super-Speed (5 Gbps) data rates
– 5V PSU can be supplied from computer PSU via LP4 connector or from an external PSU via 2.1/5mm center positive DC jack connector (the 100W linear power supply recommended for best SQ)
– both full-size and low-profile PCI-e brackets included
49 Comments
Hello! Very interested in this. I was looking into trying v3, but if a new version is ‘just around the corner’, I could wait for it.
Any insight into the timeframe for the new version? A few days? Weeks? Months still?
Thanks for the hard work.
Best regards,
Rafa.
Not this month.
Will it be possible to install on an Intel atom with 2 GB hdd and 2 GB ram?
If it’s 64bit version, it should be. But this all depends on the rest of the hardware.
If the hardware doesn’t support Linux, then it would not be possible. You should always
check this before buying. For example I always check online to see if there are some
problems with Linux.
Hi, can I give this New Version a go with my pink Faun I2S Card?, Any News about compatability last months, you were testing this I can remember..
Kind regards,
I have the card and I’ve been trying to get it work but for now without success. This card uses CMI8888 chip
which doesn’t have support in the Linux kernel. Until someone writes the module (driver) for CMI8888, it’s
not going to work on any Linux system.
Hi, I was afraid this was the problem, but I heard Pink Faun do have a music server on Linux wich uses their i2s bridge..?
Hope someone Will write the source code..
Thanks,
William
If they have their server on Linux, they would give me the module (driver). But this is not the case. There are some other cards that have CMI8888 chip so maybe someone writes the module in the near future.
OK, so I’ll Stay on w2012 with audiophile optimizer then, and wait for Linux fans to Discovery this great I2s bridge, .. thanks!
Is there any news about the Pink Faun I2S card and AP Linux?
I would love to try AP Linux but only with the I2S card.
I sure hope someone can accomplish this, since I’d love to use the PF card to my DAC via I2S!
PF I2S Bridge works under WTF-play project (based on Gentoo) via snd-hda-intel module.
Will it be possible to stream music from tidal.com.? It would be a neat feature.
Will the new version come with any new software? I have been wanting to use Audacity but I don’t know enough about Arch to make it work prior to installation.
You will be able to install Audacity without any problem.
Hello, I have a question.
Will this new version come with DSD Native support?
Thanks in advance 😉
Yes
when will the new aplinux?
I want to listen to Tidal, Spotify, run a CD in the CD ROM player and listen to the WAV files on a NAS, is all that possible ?
Yes
I love the current version. Honestly to me, its the best sounding distro till date. Glad you decided to work to release a new version. I have a request. PLEASE PROVIDE a SINGLE BOOTABLE ISO THIS TIME(DOESN’T MATTER IF IT IS NOT A LIVE CD), it would be a lot easier and convenient for those who already have an OS installed and want to keep it side by side. PLEASE mlerota. 🙂
It will be a single boot image. CD or USB. And you will be able to use other operating systems on the same disk.
Maybe use http://www.linux-live.org/ to compile a bootable ISO[this project looks promising]. I’m almost a noob in linux administration. I’m sure you’ll be able to do it 🙂
I will follow these posts, perhaps build a small ITX pc to try the new version, and see how it compares with my current setup (Windows 2012R2 with audiophile optimizer and I2S bridge)
Kind regards,
William
Can’t wait to try this new AP Linux!!! Today I bought a small AMD quad core itx board to experiment with it.
I am very excited about this new version. will donate once I have this running on my skylake U based cpu! thanks you for making this.
Hello! I have the Pink Faun I2S Bridge and it works perfectly under WTF-play project v0.51 (based on Gentoo). Check alsamixer for MUTE after boot.
Hello,
Good to hear there is a new version…
I have tried to get AP-Linux working twice (last 2 versions) but never managed to get it going in combination with a NAS with the music stored on it. Also i could not save the replay gain settings… (could be me).
I know it is possible, i could not manage to get it together… (noob level on my side towards linux is high i guess)
Sadly… because to my ears AP-Linux sounds very very good!
I hope the new version will be a bit more easy to configure. In that case i will move from Daphile (i can manage that 🙂 to AP-Linux immediately!
Nice news! Still have 3.0 on my barebone for home listening and 3.1 on my little Acer for headphone and out of home listening – some are good, AP Linux is best.
Hope you check mpd for m4a(and maybe some other fileformats).
What’s about mqa? Real fine sound with Tidal Masters(software decoding).
Ok the software decoder seems to be non-free, but pass-through to DAC with mqa decoding should be possible.
Big Thankx for your effort!
Hi,
Thanks in advance for the new version. Does it has any big change in audio clarity compared to previous versions? i mean fine tuned again for more crystal clear audio again?? when its due for release?
Very excited for this new version! I have a 6th gen intel laptop that i will be using with Schiit Wyrd and Jotunheim dac/amp. I can’t wait for the difference this OS will make over windows 10.
Also looking forward to the new version.
Sorry if this was already posted, but I have a question regarding 3.1 and new version of AP-Linux as I consider CPUs: How many CPU cores are used by both of these versions?
Many thanks.
Hyper-Threading is disabled in new version. I don’t remember what was in 3.1. But if you are not sure,
you can disable Hyper-Threading in BIOS and act as one CPU core. So the answer is one in new version.
Thanks. I may stick with 3.1 to test out on the Minnowboard Turbot, which has a dual core Intel 1.46 gig chip. DXD and DSD128 play great on my netbook dedicated to music, which uses a single core Intel N450 at 1.66GHz; music always plays flawlessly, although graphics can lag a little when switching albums.
good news, it’s nice to hear that ap linux is an alive project!
Hello
First, thank you very much for your work. I use AP Linux since 2 years and I really like it.
Will the new version support PCM to DSD conversion and upsampling ? (something like HQ player?)
There’s no point of doing this. You won’t get any improvements. Once is PCM, it’s PCM.
Is the new ap-linux support DTS-Wave (Surround Sound)?
Looking forward to it. Thanks.
Sorry for this annoying question.
Do you have some informations about a scheduled release date for the new ap-linux ?
Pretty soon. 🙂
Marko,
I’m just about done putting my silent HDPlex music server together. My question is should I wait for the new distro or just install the 3.1. I am less than a week out.
Best Regards,
Getting close for release?
If I catch some spare time this weekend, it may go public.
Nice – you are my audio-hero!
Very nice !
I puchased my first dac (a AUDIOPHONICS U-SABRE) and i’m impatient to try it with this new version. Hope it will works.
Thanks for your work (“merci beaucoup” in french.)
I install v3.1 on Mac Mini 5,1 sound pretty good, I prefer headless control from mobile or tablet device instread of sitting down in front of monitor and keyboard and select music file to play the music like Rune Audio , Volumio
New to Arch Linux. Some experience loading and troubleshooting telephony based Red Hat. Problem arose after loading new distro of AP-Linux getting my TP-Link N900 wireless pci card to be work. I bought the card without researching it thoroughly. I think I need to download and install Atheros ath9k to make it work. This is the output when following the wireless install commands.
# mount -o remount.rw /
# wpa_passphrased NETGEAR-5G password >> /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
# wpa_supplicant -B -D wext -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument input/output control
ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument
# lspci -vnn | grep Wireless
01:00.0 Network controller [0200]: Qualcomm Atheros AR93xx Wireless Network Adaptoer [168c:0030] (rev 01)
# rfkill list
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
Can someone give me a hand on what path I should take to resolve this issue. Barring that, is there an PCI or USB wireless card out there that has proven to be PnP with Arch Linux? Preferably one that supports USB 3.0 and 802.11 ac.
Thanks,
Michael
Maybe this helps:
$ su
muser
mount -o remount,rw /
wpa_passphrase SSIDNAME Password >> /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
#!/bin/bash (only if you make an executable file, it start’s wlan)
wpa_supplicant -B -Dnl80211 -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
dhcpcd wlan0