DLNA renderer on Raspberry Pi

I had to struggle a bit over silly issues to get this working, so documenting it for others. Tried on Linux raspberrypi 4.14.90-v7+ #1183 SMP Fri Dec 21 14:03:50 GMT 2018 armv7l GNU/Linux. Even minor version changes can make this guide irrelevant, so use at your own risk.

Install alsa, pulseaudio

      # apt-get install alsa-base alsa-oss alsa-utils alsa-tools mpg123
      # apt-get install libasound2 libasound2-plugins alsa-oss
      # aplay sample.wav
      # apt-get install pulseaudio pulseaudio-utils

Start pulseaudio as systemd service

As of 2018/12/31, pulseaudio on Debian is expected to run as ordinary users and does not have a start script to run at boot time. It is important that pulseaudio and gmediarender run as daemons as the same or compatible users. Here is a systemd script I used.

      [Unit]
      Description=Pulseaudio sound server
      After=avahi-daemon.service network.target

      [Service]
      ExecStart=/usr/bin/pulseaudio --system --disallow-exit --disallow-module-loading
      ExecReload=/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID

      [Install]
      WantedBy=multi-user.target

Write the above into /etc/systemd/system/pulseaudio.service and issue these commands to enable start at boot.

      # systemctl enable pulseaudio.service
      # systemctl start pulseaudio.service

Remember to add designated user (pi) to group pulse-access in /etc/group. Test playing some audio files. If ssh-ing into the Pi, remember to disable X-forwarding.

      $ paplay sample.wav
      $ paplay sample.mp3

Install gmediarender and start at boot as user pi

First install gstreamer and gmediarender.

      # apt-get install gstreamer1.0-alsa gstreamer1.0-plugins-base gstreamer1.0-plugins-good gmediarender

In /etc/default/gmediarender, set ENABLED=1. Configure gmediarender to use pulseaudio using gconf. Enable the service and test it.

      # systemctl enable gmediarender.service
      # systemctl start gmediarender.service
      # /usr/bin/gmediarender -f Test --logfile /dev/stdout

Control which port (HDMI or analog) is used to send out audio

See instructions here or here on how to switch between HDMI and analog outputs without depending on autodetect.

References