# Diary of Beets on ARM (Odroid-HC4, Armbian)

**URL:** <https://discourse.beets.io/t/diary-of-beets-on-arm-odroid-hc4-armbian/1993>\
**Category:** Show and Tell\
**Created:** [January 18, 2022, 5:04am UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/diary-of-beets-on-arm-odroid-hc4-armbian/1993 "2022-01-18T05:04:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![RollingStar](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/rollingstar/32/728_2.png) [@RollingStar](https://discourse.beets.io/u/RollingStar)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 5:04am UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/diary-of-beets-on-arm-odroid-hc4-armbian/1993/1 "2022-01-18T05:04:10Z")

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I got a sorta NAS device which is arm based. I’m also getting ready for my third, and I hope against hope final, beets database. (Reason for that is for another thread.)

I’m starting ‘from scratch’ on a new platform, which _seems_ like it will work. I will document my progress until it becomes clear I should switch back to x86.

So far (from root, bad habit) :

```auto
sudo apt install python3-pip python3-setuptools
pip3 install wheel
pip3 install -U beets
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/pip pip /usr/bin/pip3 1
pip install git+https://github.com/x1ppy/freezetag

```

Pip install on its own failed, probably for armbian related reasons of not including the above tools by default.

beets installed without wheel, but it did note an error. I installed wheel to be safe. As python experts know, the pip version of beets is far more current than whatever is in the Debian / Armbian repo.

[https://beets.readthedocs.io/en/latest/faq.html#upgrade-to-the-latest-version-of-beets](https://beets.readthedocs.io/en/latest/faq.html#upgrade-to-the-latest-version-of-beets)

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**Author:** ![RollingStar](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/rollingstar/32/728_2.png) [@RollingStar](https://discourse.beets.io/u/RollingStar)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2022, 3:03pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/diary-of-beets-on-arm-odroid-hc4-armbian/1993/2 "2022-07-06T15:03:24Z")

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I will be moving to [linuxserver.io](http://linuxserver.io) container, managed by portainer. More info as I work.

> [@Docker / Container benefits?](https://discourse.beets.io/t/docker-container-benefits/2019):
>
> Thinking of moving to a container for my main / ‘production’ beets instance. In theory it will be easier to move it between servers / devices, and allow it to play nice with other stuff on my NAS (similar to a python virtualenv). Anyone have thoughts? Anyone using it currently? Looks like linuxserver is the only one actively supported. Configuration looks simple enough:

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**Author:** ![RollingStar](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/rollingstar/32/728_2.png) [@RollingStar](https://discourse.beets.io/u/RollingStar)\
**Post date:** [October 29, 2022, 5:10pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/diary-of-beets-on-arm-odroid-hc4-armbian/1993/3 "2022-10-29T17:10:22Z")

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Mapped a volume with my music so the container can see it. Used a “bind” which has security issues, but at least I did it read only.

```auto
apk add git
python3 -m pip install git+https://github.com/JOJ0/beets-dirfields
# make the beets config point to a file I control with Samba
rm /config/config.yaml
ln --symbolic /blk/black/mysys/beets_config.yaml /config/config.yaml

```

> **[Saving additional information on import · Discussion #4212 · beetbox/beets](https://github.com/beetbox/beets/discussions/4212)**
>
> I'd like to achieve the following on import: Keep record of the path of the original file was residing in before moving into beets folder structure (import: copy: yes is set) The reason why I&#...

Annoyances:

Don’t want to maintain my own container, so I have to rerun the above commands on every fresh boot. Ideally the container will have months of uptime once it’s all set up. So nbd hopefully.

Need to reset my docker shell every time I restart the container. The ID changes so I can’t just say ` docker exec -it 8f2563ef7b1d /bin/bash` every time. Portainer has a web shell.

edit: perf is starting to be an issue even with a 4 album library. I suspect it’s the slow 25MBps usb port I have my music on. I’m noticing this with calliope.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RollingStar](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/rollingstar/32/728_2.png) [@RollingStar](https://discourse.beets.io/u/RollingStar)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2023, 3:39am UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/diary-of-beets-on-arm-odroid-hc4-armbian/1993/4 "2023-01-14T03:39:23Z")

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Sorry for the bumps- can’t edit old posts. I think there’s a way to compile edits to a container so I don’t have to keep rerunning this. A project for another day.

alpine linux container instructions

```auto
# install dependencies to compile C code on ARM/alpine
# all but git are used for calliope and its dependency on splitstream
apk add git gcc musl-dev python3-dev libc-dev
python3 -m pip install git+https://github.com/JOJ0/beets-dirfields calliope-music m3u8

# make the beets config point to a file I control with Samba
rm /config/config.yaml
ln --symbolic /blk/black/mysys/beet/beets_config.yaml /config/config.yaml

```

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**Author:** ![fracai](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/fracai/32/652_2.png) [@fracai](https://discourse.beets.io/u/fracai)\
**Post date:** [September 17, 2023, 3:39pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/diary-of-beets-on-arm-odroid-hc4-armbian/1993/5 "2023-09-17T15:39:46Z")

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I know this is old, I hate to bump a zombie, and you’ve probably overcome all of this by now, but I wanted to point out a few Docker tips.

First, part of the “[linuxserver.io](http://linuxserver.io) way” is that they support creating custom scripts that run every time the container is restarted.  
Docker is meant to not maintain state, but with something like beets where you want to install additional plugins this means having to maintain your own child image. Instead, [ls.io](http://ls.io) has those custom scripts. So you could put those above commands in a script and place it under `/custom-cont-init.d`.  
See [Customizing our Containers | LinuxServer.io](https://linuxserver.io/custom) for more info.

You can also then use the container for development by specifying the beets branch or commit that you want to install. Just be careful about the order you run the commands. I had an issue where I thought I was installing my beets branch, but that was being removed and the latest release was being installed because a later plugin was re-installing beets as a dependency.

If you have a lot of dependencies or ones that require lengthy compilation, it probably is indeed better to inherit from the [ls.io](http://ls.io) image and maintain your changes that way.

As for the ID changing, you can name the container when it starts with `--name beets`, to avoid having to find the new hash every time.

I also like to use docker-compose to configure containers as it’s a nice way to keep track of how the containers were started and makes it a bit easier to specify what paths are mounted for things like the configuration, database, import and music directories, etc.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RollingStar](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.beets.io/rollingstar/32/728_2.png) [@RollingStar](https://discourse.beets.io/u/RollingStar)\
**Post date:** [May 18, 2024, 8:56pm UTC](https://discourse.beets.io/t/diary-of-beets-on-arm-odroid-hc4-armbian/1993/6 "2024-05-18T20:56:28Z")

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for any googlers etc: [Diary of Beets on ARM - Docker Container, Alpine Linux, Odroid-HC4 · beetbox/beets · Discussion #4910 · GitHub](https://github.com/beetbox/beets/discussions/4910)