Setup Balena OS

This guide will show you how to setup and install Balena OS for your JustBoom HAT or pHAT.

Before you start.

Balena OS has been tested with:

• JustBoom Amp HAT
• JustBoom DAC HAT
• JustBoom Digi HAT
• JustBoom Amp Zero
• JustBoom DAC Zero
• JustBoom Digi Zero

Note that the player can also be used with many of the audio cards already present on the market like iQaudio, HiFiBerry, Allo and others.

Section 1 – Setup the Raspberry Pi

Step 1 – Head over to https://dashboard.balena-cloud.com/login and either login to your Balena account or create an account by clicking the sign up link. Balena OS is free to use.

Step 2 – Create an application, selecting the correct device type for your Raspberry Pi as well as giving your application a name

Step 3 – Add a device to the application, enabling you to download the OS

Step 4 – Flash the downloaded OS to your SD card with balenaEtcher

Step 5 – Power up the Pi and check it’s online in the dashboard

Section 2 – Deploy your application

Step 1 – Install the balena CLI tools

Step 2 – Login with balena login

Step 3 – Download https://github.com/balenalabs/balena-sound project and from the project directory run balena push <appName> where <appName> is the name you gave your balenaCloud application in the first step.

Section 3 – DAC Configuration

If you are using a DAC board, you will need to make a couple of changes to the device configuration in the balenaCloud dashboard.

• Disable the on-board audio by editing the existing RESIN_HOST_CONFIG_dtparam variable to set ”audio=off”.
• Add an additional custom configuration variable called BALENA_HOST_CONFIG_dtoverlay.Select one of the following values based on which audio card you have:
  • JustBoom Amp, Amp Zero, DAC and DAC Zero – justboom-dac
  • JustBoom Digi and Digi Zero – justboom-digi

After the application has pushed and the device has downloaded the latest changes you’re ready to go!