Media Console v2

A Qt6/QML touchscreen kiosk for a hi-fi music system. Runs on a Raspberry Pi mounted near the stereo and controls an Onkyo receiver over eISCP, plays CDs and a FLAC library locally via ALSA, and shows Spotify/streaming metadata.

Target platform: Raspberry Pi OS Trixie (aarch64)

• Onkyo receiver control over eISCP (volume, input selection, power, mute)
• CD playback with error correction via libcdio-paranoia and async MusicBrainz/CDDB metadata lookup
• FLAC library playback with SQLite-backed library database and hierarchical browse
• Spotify and streaming service metadata display
• GPIO hardware controls: volume encoder, input selector, reed switch
• DDC/CI display brightness and screen timeout
• REST HTTP API for remote control
• Kiosk deployment via systemd on Raspberry Pi OS

cmake >= 3.16
ninja-build
pkg-config
clang-format
clang-tidy   # optional, enables static analysis during build

Qt 6.8+ is required. Install via the Qt Online Installer or your distro's package manager if Qt 6.8 is available.

Required Qt modules: Core, Gui, Quick, Qml, Network, Sql, Concurrent, NetworkAuth Optional: Qt6::HttpServer (enables the REST API; not available on all platforms)

sudo apt-get install \
    libasound2-dev \
    libcdio-dev \
    libcdio-paranoia-dev \
    libcdio-cdda2 \
    libdiscid-dev \
    libsndfile1-dev \
    libsamplerate0-dev \
    libtag1-dev \
    libgpiod-dev \
    ddcutil

Subsystems with missing libraries are automatically disabled at configure time — the build will still succeed without them.

cmake -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build

CMake will report which subsystems are enabled based on what it finds:

-- CD subsystem: enabled (libcdio + libdiscid found)
-- FLAC library: enabled (libsndfile + libsamplerate + taglib found)
-- GPIO subsystem: enabled (libgpiodcxx found)
-- HTTP API server: enabled (Qt6::HttpServer found)
-- DDC/CI display: enabled (ddcutil found at /usr/bin/ddcutil)

cmake --build build --target test
# or
cd build && ctest --output-on-failure

The app reads ~/.config/MediaConsole/media-console.conf (INI format) on startup.

[receiver]
host=192.168.1.100   # IP address of Onkyo receiver
port=60128           # eISCP port (default: 60128)

[audio]
device=hw:2,0        # ALSA device for local playback

[display]
dim_timeout_sec=300    # Seconds of inactivity before dimming
off_timeout_sec=1200   # Seconds before screen off
dim_brightness=25      # Brightness percentage when dimmed (0–100)

[api]
port=8080            # HTTP API port

[library]
root=/media/flac     # Root directory of FLAC music library

A default config is created automatically by the kiosk installer if none exists.

Install the binary, then run the kiosk installer as root:

sudo cmake --build build --target install   # installs to /usr/local/bin/media-console
sudo ./deploy/install-kiosk.sh

The installer:

• Installs and enables the systemd service
• Configures auto-login on tty1
• Disables screen blanking
• Creates a default config if one doesn't exist

sudo systemctl start media-console   # start now
journalctl -u media-console -f       # view logs
sudo systemctl status media-console  # check status

To uninstall:

sudo ./deploy/uninstall-kiosk.sh