Very glad to see you're happy with the results!

It's like this: some people are perfectly capable of using, say, an iPod or mp3 player. They'll happily flip around a television remote on a smart TV. However, when faced with a tablet or even a Windows PC they start to get angry really fast. Instead of saying 'that didn't work, let's think about it a bit' they seem to get into a 'that didn't work, let's do stuff at random to get deeper in the shit' frame of mind.

My FIL is typical. I've seen him sitting at his laptop clicking away (no such thing as a single click. He learned double-click so uses it everywhere) as his laptop opens program after program and stores away actions to complete, draining every last ounce of memory and performance until nothing is working. Still he clicks, because obviously 'something will work' eventually. Then, he slams the lid and stamps off to do something else. 

Mrs WilliamA is not nearly as bad as that, but she is easily frustrated by computers in general, and I don't want her getting fed up because she can't turn 'the record player' on. She may get the hang of AnyDesk which is on her laptop, in which case that's fine.

I am, indeed :)
 

You've just described ~90% of the tech users I typically encounter. Actually most are far more competent on Office, twitter, facebook (etc) than I'll ever be, so I give 'em that.

Oh god, the double clicking when it's not needed. All the time at work

"why did it open 4 windows?"
"because you're double clicking when you shouldn't be, and the system is slow, which you know, but you double clicked twice"

Him: it looks like it's stuck
Me: you don't need to double-click when the cursor turns into a hand with a pointy finger - usually
Him: oh, really?
Me: and some other times as well
Him: oh, right. I'll have to look for that
Him: click click
Computer: dies (stage left)

Very nice indeed.

Well, very last thing to do I hope (with the hardware anyway) was to put antennas onto my M.2 Intel 9260 wifi card and install it instead of the USB thing I was using.

Dear God! Is there any reason at all that they make MHF4 connectors so damn nearly impossible to fit? They are seriously tiny, made of incredibly thin, soft metal, lacking in a nice positive click if you do eventually fit the buggers. Lining the little fuckers up needs three hands and a magnifying glass. Then you need nerves of steel, because you have to push really, really hard - preferably with something like a flat screwdriver blade. For the first few goes I was nowhere near and I was beginning to think I'd bought the wrong bloody antennas again. Then I examined the fittings with a jeweller's lens and I could see that they should fit together (after some micro-surgery to reshape the bits I'd squished with previous attempts). 

All done.

They are pretty shit to attach. And they're pretty much one time only.

That's good to know as I will likely try to avoid them.

This snippet isn't necessarily about a music player, but it could be. I know there are a few of teh people who play with the Raspberry Pi* sometimes. My son was running a Plex server from his laptop which wasn't especially convenient. He has an early Pi which definitely can't run Plex successfully, but was wondering whether the Pi4 was up to the task. He's been pretty low of late, so, being a kind dad I thought a little project might at least cheer him up a bit, so I bought him all the bits to give it a try.

Turns out that it works a treat. 

I'd read all kinds of reports that it runs hot when it idles, reaches horrific temperatures under load and can't manage really heavy lifting such as video transcoding. I know that recent firmware changes have tried to address the temperature issues, but again, reports I've seen have said that the difference is substantial, but maybe not enough to safely use the Pi4 for demanding roles. However, I did invest in one of these coolers to give him the best chance. I still thought it would have problems, especially doing something like streaming to a remote client.

It idles in the mid 30s Centigrade. I can direct stream from it at 1080P to my phone across t'web (he lives about 50 miles away) and it's incredibly smooth. Transcoding to 720P or lower is also perfectly acceptable without stutters of any kind. Temperatures when transcoding/streaming sit comfortably in the low 50s. That's better than my water-cooled desktop manages when transcoding.

So if you're wondering whether it's worthing trying the Pi4 for something demanding, there you go.

*I thought that suggesting teh peeps sometimes play with Raspberry Pis was taking the Pis a little.

So, how is the music player after a good number of months?
Still using it as you had envisioned?
Does the wife use it?
 

On an audio-related note, I've been taking zoom calls on my pc + cell phone, because my mic & headphone inputs are at the back of my own-build pc and my generic 'house brand' headset doesn't have a long enuf cord to reach ... long story even longer, I borrowed MrsD.s logitech usb headset, which has an improbably long cord (and apparently also has a built-in sound card in a lumpy bit on the cord), plugged it in, faffed around with sound settings in Fedora, and looks like that's going to work. It will get its first road text this afternoon.

How come this thread has 1286 views? What. The. Fuck.  8-O

Yes - still use it most days. My wife can use it - it isn't difficult - but she prefers not too. This is odd since about a third of the music on there is stuff she's bought. She's quite happy to listen and does ask me to put it on.  I've put a second cable to the aux input on the amp so she can attach her ipod straight to it.

It's set up in the worst possible place in the sitting room: pointing across an extension with plasterboard over block-work. On the left is either nothing (outside) or glass because of the bi-fold windows and on the right is a sitting room. Because of this the bass is a bit bloated and I've had to tone it down by stuffing the reflex ports (nj).

Otherwise great. 

my wife maddens me, I rig up nice interfaces so you can search and select and whatnot, she just wants my old iPod plugged into a portable speaker and anything else is not it.

it Just Works™

I should read back, but what are you using to control it?
What software for playback?

One of many projects on my mind, but I'm planning on making my front room into some sort of music listening room. No TV, comfy chair or two. Reasonable audio system.

I've got a Pi DAC that I may use. Have played with Volumio in the past, but was never sold on it. Also had a quick look at reasonable sized touchscreen, not ridiculously expensive.

Or I just go for bluetooth and using my phone or tablet  (erm)

You thought about using one of the derivatives of Kodi? You could just use it for a local collection of files and play it through that if you wanted to keep it all offline.

I've got a few Pis setup in the house as media centres on OSMC and libreelec, albeit connected to a screen in some way. But if you're wanting to do it headless, for the control you could setup a tablet/phone as a remote.

Yeah, I use Kodi/Libreelec/Coreelec on a day-to-day basis so it's definitely an option.

Was wondering if there's something a bit more music based, but Kodi could well be the easiest and most consistent option.