Even though the content usually resides on your hard disc mpd can fetch it from other devices, e.g. a NAS on your LAN, or even from (web radio stations on) the internet. The list of your favourite stations boils down to a simple playlist containing their urls, switching stations is the same as skipping to the next song in the playlist of your favourite artists.
Most stations use MP3 or AAC streams which are easily handled by the version of mpd available in the repository of your Linux distribution, even though that version might be a little dated.
HLS streams - as deployed by the BBC for example - are a little trickier. In order to get to the music various playlists have to be downloaded and parsed, and every 10 seconds or so, the next chunk has to be downloaded from another url. ffmpeg (or its fork avconv) can handle this overhead but even though ffmpeg is compiled into most version of mpd installed from repositories, trying to open an HLS stream will not work.
The current (Feb. 2017) repository version of mpd is 0.19.1. You can check the decoder plugins:
$ ./mpd --version
Music Player Daemon 0.19.1
...
Decoders plugins:
...
[ffmpeg] 16sv 3g2 3gp 4xm …
The solution to remedy this situation is already in the source code – perhaps a little hidden. You will have to compile mpd as described below.
However, I did install the version from the repository first. It comes with some system integration like start and stop scripts for the boot process, setting up of an mpd user account on the Raspberry, etc. I've modified the scripts in a few places to point them to the freshly compiled mpd version.
As we have to compile it anyway, let's us the newest version from the mpc homepage.
(The following steps have been tested with mpc 0.20.4 on a Raspberry Pi 3.
In the description below change the version number accordingly.)
Start by installing the required libraries:
sudo apt-get install g++ \
libmad0-dev libmpg123-dev libid3tag0-dev \
libflac-dev libvorbis-dev libopus-dev \
libadplug-dev libaudiofile-dev libsndfile1-dev libfaad-dev \
libfluidsynth-dev libgme-dev libmikmod2-dev libmodplug-dev \
libmpcdec-dev libwavpack-dev libwildmidi-dev \
libsidplay2-dev libsidutils-dev libresid-builder-dev \
libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev \
libmp3lame-dev \
libsamplerate0-dev libsoxr-dev \
libbz2-dev libcdio-paranoia-dev libiso9660-dev libmms-dev \
libzzip-dev \
libcurl4-gnutls-dev libyajl-dev libexpat-dev \
libasound2-dev libao-dev libjack-jackd2-dev libopenal-dev \
libpulse-dev libroar-dev libshout3-dev \
libmpdclient-dev \
libnfs-dev libsmbclient-dev \
libupnp-dev \
libavahi-client-dev \
libsqlite3-dev \
libsystemd-daemon-dev libwrap0-dev \
libcppunit-dev xmlto \
libboost-dev \
libicu-dev
Download the source code:
wget https://www.musicpd.org/download/mpd/0.20/mpd-0.20.4.tar.xz
You might want to check the GPG signature:
wget https://www.musicpd.org/download/mpd/0.20/mpd-0.20.4.tar.xz.sig
gpg --verify mpd-0.20.4.tar.xz.sig
Unpack the archive:
tar xvfJ mpd-0.20.4.tar.xz
cd mpd-0.20.4
./configure
Now to the special magic. The ./configure utility has scanned the system environment and has written its findings into configure.h. Open that file with an editor. You should be able to find the following line:
#define ENABLE_FFMPEG 1
This means that the ffmpeg libraries have been detected and will be used.
Now add the following line and save the file:
#define HAVE_FFMPEG 1
This line will change the fallback decoder in src/decoder/DecoderThread.cxx from “mad” to “ffmpeg”. ffmpeg can handle m3u8 playlists typically used by HLS while mad can not.
Now start the build process with
make
and if there are no errors install mpd:
sudo make install
On the Raspberry this new version is stored in /usr/local/bin while the original version still remains in /usr/bin.
Confirm the version of the new file:
$ /usr/local/bin/mpd --version
Music Player Daemon 0.20.4
Additional changes
The following changes of the initial mpd install are necessary to get the new version running on the Raspberry Pi.Raspberry uses systemd. There is a control file for the mpd service that needs to be changed:
sudo nano /lib/systemd/system/mpd.service
change:
ExecStart=/usr/bin/mpd --no-daemon $MPDCONF
to the new location:
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/mpd --no-daemon $MPDCONF
Keep in mind that this change might be overwritten if the repository version of mpd is being updated later on... which doesn't happen that often.
Uncomment the following line in /etc/default/mpd. This will define the variable MPDCONF.
MPDCONF=/etc/mpd.conf
Let us change some settings in mpd configuration file /etc/mpd.conf
sudo nano /etc/mpd.conf
In the default configuration mpd and its client must run on the same machine. In order to allow access via the network change:
bind_to_address "localhost"
to
bind_to_address "any"
For convenience I've changed my music_directory to a place where I can more easily add music files. Keep in mind that his folder needs to be world readable so that mpd running as user “mpd” can access it.
music_directory "/home/pi/Music"
Now we have to tell the system to read the new configuration and restart the mpd service.
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo service mpd restart
Check the status of the service:
sudo service mpd status
Unrelated problem
In my first attempts mpd froze after playing the first title. Someone suggested to remove pulseaudio... and it worked.sudo apt-get remove pulseaudio
sudo reboot
Links
- https://www.musicpd.org/doc/user/install_source.html
- https://www.musicpd.org/download.html
- https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-systemctl-to-manage-systemd-services-and-units
