Q: What is Snakeoil?
A: It’s a Ubuntu Server distro tweaked to give the highest sound quality for my home system. Some of the features include (but not limited to!):
- Easy to use
- High performance, low latency custom kernel (RealTime) specially tweaked for a better sound
- Custom complied players (e.g. mpd, squeezelite and xmms) with most bells and whistles removed to give that magical performance. (Most players shipped with Snakeoil will only support the following formats: WAV, FLAC and DFF/DSF)
- Headless operation. Remotely install (with the familiar Ubiquity installer) and configure everything from another networked machine
- Unnecessary device drivers and system services are disabled
- Web pages with good contrast and big clear fonts
- Additial tweaks for registered users
- and more
Q: What are the system requirements?
A: A mini-ITX (mITX) board with a Atom processor is highly recommended, but there is also a generic 386 ISO that should work with most motherboards. Please refer to the
manual (Hardware Requirements Chapter. Remember to click on βmoreβ to see the contents).
Q: I see a register tab, isn’t Snakeoil free?
A: Snakeoil is free to use and modify for personal use. You are not allowed to re-distribute the contents for profit. For 99.9% of the people out there, the normal version of Snakeoil is all that you need.
Registering do not improve the sound quality. It only makes it easier for you to use Linux without learning the βhow". And it gives me more motivation to improve this software.
These following features will be enabled via the web interface when you enter your activation code:
- More than 1 mount points in the music tab (i.e. you can use > 1 SSD/HDD)
- More than 1 audio device in the hardware tab (who really needs more than 1 DAC?)
- Option to turn on/off LMS in the software tab (not an issue for 99.9% of the population)
- Additional Snakeoil tab with snake oil features! (For people who don’t want to waste time learning a new OS)
