shairport-sync VS DietPi

It's worth noting that shairport-sync exists. Perhaps it could be made easy by knitting some functions together?

You want SnapCast. You'd run snapserver on your Linux box and snapclient on your Pi's. Snapserver has support for Airplay (via shairport-sync) and Spotify (via librespot). I recommend using MPD for your music library, as I don't think PlexAmp can output audio in a way that's useful for snapserver.

I use shairport-sync for airplay (https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync), complete instructions via: https://blog.adena.dev/blog/apple-airplay-on-raspberry-pi-in-7-easy-steps

If you’re interested, you might be able to get Airplay 1 & 2 support by running shairport-sync on your pi.

The plan is to run shairport-sync on the Omega 2 and have audio output to a 2x50w class d amplifier board.

To replace it, I've purchased in-ceiling speakers and a Control 4 Amp (C4-16AMP3-B) which I can control via the network. I plan on using shareport-sync for AirPlay and librespot for spotify as the sources to play music. 90% of the use for my whole home audio is for music.

ShairPort-Sync allows my Mac to listen for a AirPlay with multiple instances available, each pointing to different settings as per this GitHub Issue, which would allow me in theory to run multiple AirPort plugs and output each to an Alexa. Rarely would I ever need to have them playing all at once, and at this point I don't really care about maintaining pure audio quality or latency. I just need to be able to get out of my office and move to the kitchen, then back to my office without needing to spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to move what I was listening to on my iPad into my Echo Show

The benefit of the Pi is the open source software, in particular I use https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync in order to turn it into an AirPlay 2 receiver, which I can stream to using my phone or laptop. It's my main way of sending audio to my hifi setup.

The only option I know of would be to use multiple raspberry pi’s running Shairport-Sync. I’ve been using the airplay 2 version for about a year and it works great. You might be able to build a server and run multiple instances of shairport with multiple audio cards. https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync

So, after looking around, I realised that just like the Nest Hub 2nd gen, the Nest Audio also has a (sort of) exposed debug USB port. And these devices are (originally) running Linux. Since the Nest Hub 2nd gen has been jailbroken, I'm hoping that I can do the same on the Nest Audio, with a singular purpose: to inject a ShairPlay service, which would run parallel to the Chromecast services, which would allow me to use them as native AirPlay2 speakers.

DietPi is a lightweight Debian based Linux distribution for SBCs and server systems, with the option to install desktop environments, too. It ships as minimal image but allows to install complete and ready-to-use software stacks with a set of console based shell dialogs and scripts.

The source code is hosted on GitHub: https://github.com/MichaIng/DietPi

That's a good point, but the array of devices supported by the DietPi team is extensive: https://dietpi.com/

Before someone starts the usual yadda yadda about the RPi biger community, the OS not having long time support etc. I would repeat one more time: do not rely on board vendor supplied images; this is valid for pretty much all boards. Just go to Armbian or DietPi pages and you'll almost certainly find one or more images that work on your board and forums to discuss about them with very knowledgeable people.

https://www.armbian.com/download/

https://dietpi.com/#download

Those projects are well worth a contribution, as they don't have a giant like Broadcom behind them.

> bananapi do a lot of boards but their software story has been a bit poor

This is quite common with other board manufacturers too. I'd rather suggest to ignore completely their cobbled together distros, often also tainted by proprietary modifications, that become unmaintained in a few years, and see if they're among the many supported by Armbian or DietPi.

https://www.armbian.com/download/

https://dietpi.com/#download

The full release notes can be found at: https://dietpi.com/docs/releases/v8_25/

RPi OS = diet pi https://dietpi.com/ - initial config via text file - SDcard burning out partially mitigated as writes log files to ram then flushes to SDcard reducing write cycles

You could also try very minimalistic distros like TwisterUI or DietPi which are most known for their use in the RasprebbyPi / SBC computers but which also have editions for desktop / laptop.