Streaming lullabies with a Raspberry Pi Zero
Bedtime Music
When a much-loved stereo bites the dust, a Raspberry Pi Zero fills in.
When my wife was young, she bought what must have been a pretty cool radio, CD, and dual cassette player stereo (Figure 1). The stereo worked well during her youth and her college years, and once we were married, she let the children listen to it.
Eventually, age began to catch up with this venerable system. First the cassette players stopped working, then the CD player would only play intermittently, and finally the tuner just stopped over the holidays.
My children like to listen to music as they are falling asleep, so I set out to look for a replacement. With so much music available on the Internet, I thought their radio could be replaced by a computer, which would offer extra flexibility because I could control it from my laptop. The computer could be scheduled to shutdown after the kids were asleep, rather than staying on all night.
I used this as an opportunity to get the new Raspberry Pi Zero WiFi and build up a small streaming solution that can be controlled from a laptop, tablet, or phone.
The Task
The task was to install Linux on the Pi, connect it to the network, install software for playing streaming music, and create a few scripts to tie everything together.
The solution is a small web browser that serves up a page that lets the children select the music they want to play while they fall asleep (Figure 2). I didn't want to leave anything to chance, so the solution will do more than just stream music. It will stop playing the music after 30 minutes and will play white noise for another 30 minutes after the music ends. Additionally, I wanted the ability to play white noise by itself if necessary.
The first step was to get a list of URLs for streaming sources. The Internet is full of streaming services, depending on the type of music you are interested in. I found a couple of free links from Minnesota Public Radio. The program MPlayer lets you play streams by just passing in the URL; for example:
mplayer http://choral.stream.publicradio.org/choral.mp3
So at this point, I knew where to get the music streams and what software to use to play the stream. I had a computer to play it on and an operating system to run on the computer. The next steps for creating my radio solution were:
- Download the OS
- Install the OS to an SD card
- Configure the Rasp Pi
- Connect a pHAT DAC to the Rasp Pi and configure it
- Install all software
- Configure Apache
- Program the solution using HTML and shell scripting
The first step was to set up the Raspberry Pi.
Setting Up the Pi
Installing the OS on a Raspberry Pi is just copying an operating system image [1] to the SD card using either dd
[2] or one of the programs to simplify the process for users not as comfortable with the command line [3].
Configure the Rasp Pi
I connected my Raspberry Pi to my network and booted it up. Once the SD card was resized, I configured all my personal customizations:
- Connected to my WiFi
- Reset pi user password
- Set hostname
- Set to boot to console
- Set locale and keyboard
- Set time zone
- Enabled SSH
One final thing you should probably also do is add the following line to the crontab
file for the root user:
@reboot /usr/sbin/ntpd -q -g
This line will ensure that the time on the Rasp Pi is updated to the current time from the Internet when it boots up.
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Fedora Asahi 40 Remix Available for Macs with Apple Silicon
If you've been anticipating KDE's Plasma 6 for your Apple Silicon-powered Mac, then you're in luck.
-
Red Hat Adds New Deployment Option for Enterprise Linux Platforms
Red Hat has re-imagined enterprise Linux for an AI future with Image Mode.
-
OSJH and LPI Release 2024 Open Source Pros Job Survey Results
See what open source professionals look for in a new role.
-
Proton 9.0-1 Released to Improve Gaming with Steam
The latest release of Proton 9 adds several improvements and fixes an issue that has been problematic for Linux users.
-
So Long Neofetch and Thanks for the Info
Today is a day that every Linux user who enjoys bragging about their system(s) will mourn, as Neofetch has come to an end.
-
Ubuntu 24.04 Comes with a “Flaw"
If you're thinking you might want to upgrade from your current Ubuntu release to the latest, there's something you might want to consider before doing so.
-
Canonical Releases Ubuntu 24.04
After a brief pause because of the XZ vulnerability, Ubuntu 24.04 is now available for install.
-
Linux Servers Targeted by Akira Ransomware
A group of bad actors who have already extorted $42 million have their sights set on the Linux platform.
-
TUXEDO Computers Unveils Linux Laptop Featuring AMD Ryzen CPU
This latest release is the first laptop to include the new CPU from Ryzen and Linux preinstalled.
-
XZ Gets the All-Clear
The back door xz vulnerability has been officially reverted for Fedora 40 and versions 38 and 39 were never affected.