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(2024/04/14) Configuration status web page updated automatically

Latest change

(2024/07/15) MinimServer 2.2 update 253 has been released

Installing MinimServer 2 on the Raspberry Pi

Note: The installation instructions on this page are for Raspberry Pi users who are using Raspberry Pi OS or Raspbian. If you are using a different version of Linux on your Raspberry Pi, please refer to the Installing MinimServer 2 on Linux page for installation instructions.

Table of contents

Updating an existing MinimServer installation
Installing MinimServer 2 on the Raspberry Pi
Installing Java on the Raspberry Pi
[NEW] Configuring Raspberry Pi OS to use X11 instead of Wayland
Running MinimServer 2 on the Raspberry Pi
Uninstalling MinimServer 2 from the Raspberry Pi
Installing MinimWatch 2 on another computer

Updating an existing MinimServer installation

If you are running MinimServer 2.1 or 2.1.2, the simplest way to update to MinimServer is to use the new "update install." For details, see the Update install section.

Alternatively, you can install MinimServer by following the instructions below.

  1. If you are currently running MinimWatch 0.8, you need to update to MinimWatch 2. See the Installing MinimWatch 2 on another computer section for details.
  2. MinimServer 2 is written in Java and requires Java 8 or later to be installed. See the Installing Java on the Raspberry Pi section for details of how to install Java and/or check that the correct version of Java is installed.
  3. On the MinimServer 2 Downloads page, find the Linux row in the table of MinimServer downloads. For Raspberry Pi OS 32-bit or Raspbian, click the download link for ARM hard float. For Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit, click the download link for ARM 64-bit.
  4. Accept the license and download the archive file to the /home/pi directory on your Raspberry Pi. For Raspberry Pi OS 32-bit or Raspbian, the archive file is . For Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit, the archive file is .

    Note: If you are not running a graphical desktop on your Raspberry Pi, you need to download the archive file using another computer and copy the archive file to the /home/pi directory on your Raspberry Pi.

  5. Open a terminal window from the Raspberry Pi desktop or login via SSH as the 'pi' user.
  6. For Raspberry Pi OS 32-bit or Raspbian, enter the command:
     minimserver/bin/update
    For Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit, enter the command:
     minimserver/bin/update
  7. This stops any MinimServer instances that are currently running, uninstalls the current version of MinimServer, installs MinimServer 2 and migrates your current MinimServer configuration to your new installation of MinimServer 2.
  8. If you have installed multiple MinimServer instances on your Raspberry Pi, you need to run the minimserver/bin/update command for each installed instance.
  9. To start and run MinimServer 2, follow the instructions in the Running MinimServer 2 on the Raspberry Pi section.

Installing MinimServer 2 on the Raspberry Pi

If you have a previous version of MinimServer (0.8.1 or later) already installed, see the section Updating an existing MinimServer installation for details of how to update your existing MinimServer installation.

For a new installation of MinimServer 2 on the Raspberry Pi, do the following:

  1. MinimServer 2 is written in Java and requires Java 8 or later to be installed. See the Installing Java on the Raspberry Pi section for details of how to install Java and/or check that the correct version of Java is installed.
  2. On the MinimServer 2 Downloads page, find the Linux row in the table of MinimServer downloads. For Raspberry Pi OS 32-bit or Raspbian, click the download link for ARM hard float. For Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit, click the download link for ARM 64-bit.
  3. Accept the license and download the archive file to the /home/pi directory on your Raspberry Pi. For Raspberry Pi OS 32-bit or Raspbian, the archive file is . For Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit, the archive file is .

    Note: If you are not running a graphical desktop on your Raspberry Pi, you need to download the archive file using another computer and copy the archive file to the /home/pi directory on your Raspberry Pi.

  4. Open a terminal window from the Raspberry Pi desktop or login via SSH as the 'pi' user.
  5. For Raspberry Pi OS 32-bit or Raspbian, enter the commands:
     cd /home/pi
     tar xf
    For Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit, enter the commands:
     cd /home/pi
     tar xf
  6. Enter the command:
     minimserver/bin/setup
    The setup command asks whether you want to enable desktop integration and/or automatic startup. If you enable desktop integration, a MinimServer launch icon is added to the "Other" category of your applications start menu. If you enable automatic startup, MinimServer is started automatically when the Raspberry Pi is started or rebooted.
  7. [NEW] Important: If you are running Raspberry Pi OS version 12 (bookworm), this uses Wayland as its display protocol by default instead of X11. The MinimServer graphical interface requires X11 to show its tray icon. To configure Raspberry Pi OS to use X11 instead of Wayland, see the section Configuring Raspberry Pi OS to use X11 instead of Wayland.
  8. You're now ready to start MinimServer. If you're running the Raspberry Pi graphical desktop and you have enabled MinimServer desktop integration, click the MinimServer launch icon and wait a few seconds for MinimServer to begin its startup. If you're using a terminal window to run MinimServer, enter the command:
     minimserver/bin/startc
  9. If this is the first time you've started MinimServer, MinimServer needs to set your content directory. This is the directory on the Raspberry Pi that contains your music files. If you have enabled desktop integration, MinimServer shows a file chooser dialog on the desktop and asks you to select a content directory. If you have disabled desktop integration and you have started MinimServer using the minimserver/bin/startc command, MinimServer displays a terminal prompt asking for the content directory, which you need to enter as a Linux-style path. For example, if your music files are in the 'Music' directory under the 'pi' home directory, you should enter the value
     /home/pi/Music
    If you need to add additional content directories, you can do this later.
  10. If you don't select a content directory from the file chooser dialog or terminal prompt, MinimServer 2 uses the Music directory under the 'pi' home directory. If you want to change this or add additional content directories, you can do this later.
  11. When the initial content directory has been selected, MinimServer scans all the music files in all directories under the content directory. Depending on how many music files you have, this might take some time. If you have enabled desktop integration, MinimServer displays a yellow icon with a minim symbol (musical note) in the system tray while this scan is in progress. When the scan has finished successfully, the colour of the minim icon changes to green. If MinimServer startup fails for any reason, the colour of the minim icon changes to red and displays a pop-up message describing the problem. If you have disabled desktop integration, a terminal message is displayed either indicating successful startup or describing a startup problem.
  12. It's a good idea to check the MinimServer log to see if there are any warning or error messages about problems found by MinimServer while scanning your music files. If MinimServer is running on the desktop, right-click on the minim icon and select "Show log". If MinimServer is running as a terminal application, you can see the log output in the file
     /home/pi/minimserver/data/minimserver.log
    or you can use MinimWatch 2 on another computer to check the log. A warning in the log means that MinimServer has found something wrong with a file but has been able to read the file and make it available for browsing and playing. An error in the log means that MinimServer wasn't able to read the file. If you see a message you don't understand, you can get help by creating a new thread in the MinimServer support forum as described on the Support page.
  13. If MinimServer has started successfully, you can use a UPnP control point to browse your music library and select and play music.
  14. If MinimServer is running on the desktop, MinimServer installation is now complete. The Pi desktop minim icon pop-up menu provides a number of selections that you can use to configure and manage MinimServer. For information about these selections, see the Controlling MinimServer using the minim icon section of the User guide.
  15. If MinimServer is running as a terminal application, MinimServer will terminate if the terminal window is closed for any reason. To prevent this happening, use the exit command at the command prompt to exit MinimServer, then enter the command:
     minimserver/bin/startd
    This restarts MinimServer as a daemon background process that will continue to run after the terminal window is closed.
  16. To configure and manage MinimServer 2 when it's running as a daemon background process, you can install MinimWatch 2 either on another computer that's connected to your local network or on the Raspberry Pi. For details of how to do this, see the MinimWatch page. You need to use MinimWatch 2 because the previous version of MinimWatch isn't compatible with MinimServer 2.
  17. To change your current settings for desktop integration and automatic startup, you can run the minimserver/bin/setup command at any time. This command lists your current settings and prompts you to change them. As an alternative to changing settings using interactive prompts, you can specify a single argument to the minimserver/bin/setup command as follows:
     minimserver/bin/setup enable_desktop enables desktop integration
     minimserver/bin/setup disable_desktop disables desktop integration
     minimserver/bin/setup enable_autostart enables automatic startup
     minimserver/bin/setup disable_autostart disables automatic startup
  18. If you have updated from MinimServer 0.8 to MinimServer 2, some of your configuration properties in MinimWatch might be missing or greyed out. To restore any missing properties and enable all features previously available in MinimServer 0.8, select the License tab of the MinimServer configuration page and activate a trial license or full license as described in this section. You might also need to reinstall the MinimStreamer package (see the Installing MinimStreamer section).
  19. If this is a new MinimServer installation, it will be running as MinimServer 2 Starter Edition with limited functionality and some configuration settings disabled (see the Starter Edition page). To use all features and configuration settings of MinimServer 2, you need to activate a trial license or full license as described in this section.
  20. You can run an additional instance of MinimServer on the same Raspberry Pi by extracting another complete copy of the downloaded MinimServer archive file under a under a different parent directory. If you enable both instances for automatic startup using minimserver/bin/setup, both instances are started when you boot the Raspberry Pi. Similarly, the MinimServer launch icon in the applications start menu starts all instances that have been enabled for desktop integration.
  21. Multiple instances don't share any configuration settings. Don't attempt to copy the configuration file (minimserver.config) from one instance to the other because this causes problems when you run the new instance. Instead, you can use MinimServer 2 profiles to export configuration settings from one instance and import these settings into another instance. Both instances can point to the same music library if you wish. Any updates and new releases must be applied separately to both instances. There is no limit to the number of instances you can create in this way.
  22. In MinimServer 2, activating a full license for one MinimServer 2 instance makes this license activation available to any other MinimServer 2 instances that are running on the same Raspberry Pi. For more information, see this section.

Installing Java on the Raspberry Pi

If you have Raspbian Wheezy, Jessie or Stretch, it comes with Java preinstalled. If you have Raspbian Buster or Raspberry Pi OS, you need to install Java by opening a terminal window and typing the command:
 sudo apt install default-jdk
Answer 'y' to the confirmation prompt, wait for apt to do its thing, and you're done!

To make sure Java is installed correctly, open a terminal window and type the command:
 java -version
You should get output similar to the following, probably with a different version number:
 java version "1.8.0_65"
 Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_65-b17)
 Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 25.65-b01, mixed mode)

For MinimServer 2, Java 8 or later is required. If the version of Java that is installed on your Raspberry Pi is lower than Java 8 and you are unable to update to Java 8, please post to the MinimServer forum.

[NEW] Configuring Raspberry Pi OS to use X11 instead of Wayland

If you are running Raspberry Pi OS version 12 (bookworm), this uses Wayland as its display protocol by default instead of X11. The MinimServer graphical interface requires X11 to show its tray icon. If you try to run the MinimServer graphical interface on Wayland, you will see a message "ServerWatch: unable to create tray icon".

To configure Raspberry Pi OS (bookworm) to use X11 instead of Wayland, do the following:

  1. Open a Terminal window and run this command: sudo raspi-config
  2. Select option 6 (Advanced Options) and press Enter
  3. Select option A6 (Wayland) and press Enter
  4. Select option W1 (X11) and press Enter
  5. Reboot the Raspberry Pi

Running MinimServer 2 on the Raspberry Pi

MinimServer 2 is written in Java and requires Java 8 or later to be installed. See the Installing Java on the Raspberry Pi section for details of how to install Java and/or check that the correct version of Java is installed.

If you have enabled MinimServer desktop integration, you can start MinimServer by clicking the MinimServer launch icon in the applications start menu. The minim icon will appear in the desktop system tray and you can use the minim icon pop-up menu to configure and manage MinimServer. See the Controlling MinimServer using the minim icon section for details of the available menu selections. You can stop MinimServer by using the minim icon pop-up menu Exit selection or by using the minim icon pop-up menu Close selection from a remote instance of MinimWatch.

You can also use terminal commands to start, stop and manage MinimServer. The relative paths for the commands and files shown below assume that your current directory is /home/pi.

To start MinimServer 2 as a daemon background process, open a terminal window and use the command:
 minimserver/bin/startd
You can configure and manage the MinimServer daemon process using MinimWatch 2. See the Running MinimWatch section for details.

To start MinimServer 2 as an interactive console application in a terminal window, use the command:
 minimserver/bin/startc
You can configure and manage MinimServer by entering commands from the terminal window. See the Controlling MinimServer using console commands section for details of the available commands. You can stop MinimServer by using the exit command or by closing the terminal window.

Yyou can also send commands to MinimServer 2 (started in any of the above ways) by using command scripting or the Web API. See the Command scripting and Web API sections for details.

To stop all instances of MinimServer 2 (started in any of the above ways), use the command:
 minimserver/bin/stopall
This stops all MinimServer processes that are running on the Raspberry Pi.

You can customize some MinimServer startup options by creating a file named minimstart.conf in the minimserver/etc directory. This file can contain either or both of the following lines:
javaopts = java-options
java = java-command
where java-options is one or more options to be passed to the Java runtime and java-command is a fully-qualified path for the Java launcher command.

For example, the line javaopts = -Xmx1024m sets the Java maximum heap size to 1024 MB. The line java = /opt/myjava/bin/java uses the executable /opt/myjava/bin/java to launch the Java runtime.

Uninstalling MinimServer 2 from the Raspberry Pi

If you have activated a MinimServer 2 full license on this Raspberry Pi, you should deactivate this license before uninstalling MinimServer 2. This frees up the license activation for use on any other devices you have. You don't need to do this if you intend to reinstall MinimServer 2 on the same Raspberry Pi. You won't be able to do this deactivation after MinimServer 2 has been uninstalled.

To deactivate the license, open the MinimServer 2 configuration page by selecting Configure from the pop-up menu of the minim icon (see above). Alternatively, you can type the URL http://x.x.x.x:9790 into the address bar of a web browser, where x.x.x.x is the local IP address of your Raspberry Pi. Select the License tab followed by Deactivate full license and follow the prompts. You need an active internet connection to deactivate the license.

After deactivating your full license (if applicable), do the following:

  1. Open a terminal window from the Raspberry Pi desktop or login via SSH as the 'pi' user.
  2. Enter the command:
     minimserver/bin/uninstall
    This stops any MinimServer instances that are currently running and uninstalls MinimServer.
  3. You'll be asked whether you want to save your MinimServer configuration file. It's a good idea to save your configuration file if there's any chance that you might reinstall MinimServer in the future. If you reinstall MinimServer and run the minimserver/bin/setup command, your saved configuration file will be restored.

Installing MinimWatch 2 on another computer

If you have disabled desktop integration for MinimServer 2, or if you want to be able to configure and manage MinimServer from another computer, you can install and run MinimWatch 2 on another computer that's connected to your local network. The computer that you use to run MinimWatch 2 can be a Windows PC, a Mac or a Linux machine. You need to use MinimWatch 2 because the previous version of MinimWatch isn't compatible with MinimServer 2.

For details of how to install MinimWatch 2, see the MinimWatch page.

Copyright (c) 2012-2024 Simon Nash. All rights reserved.