[Pkg-mpd-maintainers] Bug#958179: create user-friendly startup configuration

[Florian Schlichting]

Hi Eduard and Francois,

I agree that README.Debian is a mess. What keeps me from fixing it is
that I'm unsure how people are using (or intend to use) mpd.

Historically, the package has shipped a lot of infrastructure for
running as a system service, and I think having mpd run on a headless
box somewhere on the home network and being able to control one's music
remotely is one of its big appeals.

However I feel most users would probably be served better by deleting all
of that infrastructure and configuring mpd to run from their user
session, just like their pulseaudio, which in my understanding is the
proper way to solve the permissions problem that Eduard mentions.

This assumes that "most users" start on a default Gnome desktop with
pulseaudio, but then some people prefer to use JACK oder ALSA with dmix
or want to run several instances of mpd or don't use systemd or do use
systemd but haven't heard of socket activation etc, and there's your
mess.

Can we do sensible things for all of these use cases, or should we try
to do less but have that work out of the box? And what's the default use
case to be?

Confused,
Florian


On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 02:12:53PM +0200, Eduard Bloch wrote:
> Package: mpd
> Version: 0.21.20-1
> Severity: wishlist
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I have used mpd like 10 years ago and it was quite okay back then. I
> wanted to revive it, and I failed.
> It seems that:
> 
> a) is no longer capable of auto-detecting an ALSA device. I get errors
> like "Failed to open ALSA device (default)"
> 
> b) when I change the config to use pulse audio, it fails. The reported
> error is not helpful, mentioning some permission problem. Maybe
> README.Debian should explain in detail what this is about?
> 
> In the end it looks like it runs as a separate user without permissions.
> And README.Debian talks around that fact but not saying clearly what's
> up. Then it suggests to clone the config to $HOME in varios ways and
> investigate how to start it.
> 
> I am sorry, but for me those instructions look just messy. There should
> be some kind of script for initial setup which the user just runs and it
> asks "do you want to use it in your Desktop session?" and if not then it
> should clearly communicate how to modify permissions to make the audio
> output accessible.
> 
> Best regards,
> Eduard.
> 
> }
> 
> /etc/mpd.conf changed:
> music_directory		"/data/wdblue_partition5/audio"
> playlist_directory		"/var/lib/mpd/playlists"
> db_file			"/var/lib/mpd/tag_cache"
> log_file			"/var/log/mpd/mpd.log"
> pid_file			"/run/mpd/pid"
> state_file			"/var/lib/mpd/state"
> sticker_file                   "/var/lib/mpd/sticker.sql"
> user				"mpd"
> bind_to_address		"localhost"
> input {
>         plugin "curl"
> }
> input {
>         enabled    "no"
>         plugin     "qobuz"
> }
> input {
>         enabled      "no"
>         plugin       "tidal"
> }
> decoder {
>         plugin                  "hybrid_dsd"
>         enabled                 "no"
> }
> audio_output {
> 	type		"alsa"
> 	name		"My ALSA Device"
> }
> filesystem_charset		"UTF-8"
> 
> 
> -- no debconf information
> 
> --
> <abi> hat hier wer ne arm und schnell zeit n paket zu bauen?
> <mellum> abi: hast du gerade "arm" und "schnell" in einem Satz benutzt?

On Sun, Sep 06, 2020 at 12:09:29PM -0700, Francois Marier wrote:
> Not a solution to the issue you raised, but in case that helps, I've
> documented my own setup here:
> 
>   https://feeding.cloud.geek.nz/posts/home-music-server-with-mpd/
> 
> Francois
> 
> -- 
> https://fmarier.org/
> 
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