I think that the whole idea of the Linux version has always been for it to be a headless version, meaning without any UI on the device on which Audirvāna is running. Exactly that makes it a very light software which is easy to install on a NAS or network players from other brands (for example Metronome DSAS).
But maybe it is in the works for anytime in the future @Antoine ?
Yes, I have thought of that and it could work for me, if it wasn’t for the log in and log out, each time I change from the Windows version to the Linux, and vice versa.
Right now I’m considering to go back to a Windows installation on my Intel NUC. Last time I had it running with a Windows 11 Pro, Headless, but with a lot of very anoying things like restrictions on RDP, changing to AnyDesk, who suddenly wanted me to pay, even though I shouldn’t because of my simple setup with one-to-one communications, and with Headless tools, that also wanted money for using their programs, which is fair enough.
If I decide to go with this, I will try running the NUC with Windows Server 2022 in a Headless setup. It’s build for this, only running one or two applications, and it’s much easier to disable services and other unnecessary things, which are not used on a music server.
I actually prefer the UI in Windows and I have always my pc near by, so I have allways been using that for playing music, even though the UI on my iPad also is really nice.
However, right now I’m ripping my 1.500 cd’s and for each of them, I sit and optimize metadata and other stuff so that will take some time. When I’m finished ripping, probably in a year or so , I of course only will rip new cd’s coming in to my collection, but for now, I have a lot of cd’s waiting.
I’ve got maybe 10% of my CDs ripped. The rest are a project for some time in the future. (I think I might want to buy a couple of new disc drives beforehand.)
Don’t know what you’re doing for backup - I’ve got a duplicate on site, then use Backblaze for off site backup in case of some disaster that takes down everything on site. (If you want to discuss backups, would suggest a new thread for ease of searching the forums.)
Apart from your preference in UI: my workflow is to rip CDs on my Mac, in this case using XLD. It can read metadata from MusicBrainz. I correct/amend the metadata in a separate tagging program to my liking and then put the files on a NAS. The headless Linux Core version of Audirvana reads the files from the NAS using a SMB share. The remote app is used for selecting albums and playback control.
This is what I did when I had a MacBook with a disc drive. The more recent Macbook lacks a disc drive, so the only ones I have are on my Win/Lin desktop. For CDs I rip on Windows with Exact Audio Copy, convert everything to AIFF with MediaHuman (FLAC would be fine, but back when I started there were Mac apps that didn’t like the format, so I just decided to have everything in AIFF), and if I need to edit metadata I move the files across to the Mac and use Yate. (I have a couple of editing apps on Windows, but I’ve always liked Yate.) Then there’s another lovely Mac app, ChronoSync, that I use to create identical copies of my local music library on external drives attached to the MacBook and desktop, and to back up the library to the cloud (Backblaze).
I could do all this in Linux and might change to that some day, but I’ve grown accustomed to the workflow.