Thank You MPD — Building a Small Discord Radio on an Old ASUS Laptop

[VardoDalgurak]

Hello MPD community!

I wanted to share a small personal project and thank everyone involved in developing Music Player Daemon.

I'm using an old ASUS laptop with an Intel Celeron N2840, approximately 2 GB RAM and antiX Linux to run a small music station called DJ Murloc / Radio EAF for a private World of Warcraft Discord group.

What I built

MPD is the core of the system. It manages Internet radio streams, local MP3 files and short station announcements.

Our audio pipeline is:

MPD → HTTP stream (port 8000) → mpv → PipeWire virtual audio device → Discord Web.

I also use myMPD for browser-based control, and Bash scripts with cron to schedule short jingles every 5 and 20 minutes.

Mistakes and lessons learned

Service configuration: My local runit startup script referenced a group named mpd, which did not exist on my system. The MPD user belonged to audio. After correcting the script, MPD started successfully.

Linux service management: I initially tried using systemctl without realizing that my antiX installation uses runit.

Continuous streams: I discovered that Internet radio streams behave differently from ordinary MP3 tracks. Inserting announcements required careful queue management and playback transitions.

Troubleshooting: When music stopped reaching Discord, I initially suspected MPD. Eventually, I discovered that the external mpv process had terminated. MPD itself was still working.

Remote management: I learned how to use MPC, SSH, SCP and service supervision to administer the system without a permanently connected display.

These were challenges in my own setup and learning process, not confirmed defects in MPD.

Results

The system successfully plays Internet radio, manages local MP3 files, inserts scheduled announcements and streams audio into a private Discord voice channel.

We are still improving the reliability of the external Discord connection and the automation scripts.

Thank you

This project has taught me a great deal about Linux, audio streaming and process management.

I appreciate the work that goes into developing and maintaining MPD. It has made it possible for me to reuse an old laptop instead of buying expensive radio automation software.

Thank you for making this excellent open-source project available.

Best regards,

DJ Murloc / Radio EAF
Norway

[MaxKellermann]

Why not eliminate mpv from the equation? Why do you use it? Removing it would remove a good amount of complexity (and fragility).

[VardoDalgurak]

Thank you, Max! That's a very good point.

We initially introduced mpv because, as beginners, we found it easier to route MPD's HTTP stream into our PipeWire virtual sink (dj_murloc), which Discord Web uses through a virtual microphone.

At the time, we didn't fully understand that MPD could potentially output directly to PulseAudio/PipeWire.

You're absolutely right that removing mpv would simplify the architecture and eliminate another potential point of failure. We have already experienced interruptions when the mpv process stopped.

Our MPD service currently runs under the mpd user, while PipeWire runs under the desktop user jorge. We would need to handle that access correctly.

Would you recommend MPD's native PipeWire output or its PulseAudio output for this setup?

Thank you for the suggestion and for helping us improve the project. This is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping to receive!

[MaxKellermann]

If you use PipeWire, then use MPD's PipeWire output. Using PulseAudio would only add more complexity by having PipeWire emulate the PulseAudio protocol. Keep it as simple as possible!

[VardoDalgurak]

Thank you, Max!

That makes perfect sense. I appreciate the clarification.

I'll keep the current setup as a fallback until the direct output has been tested successfully.

Thank you again for taking the time to guide us. Your feedback is helping me understand how to build a cleaner and more reliable system.

[VardoDalgurak]

Thanks a lot, Max!

I followed your advice and switched to MPD's native PipeWire output. Everything is working great, including the music and automated jingles on Discord, without needing mpv anymore.

Much simpler setup now! Really appreciate you taking the time to help me out. I learned a lot from this. Thanks again!