Set up and install Volumio

1 Prepare your microSD card

Double-click the .img.zip file you downloaded from the Volumio website to open it in Archive Manager. Click Extract and save the image file to the same directory as the downloaded file. Now insert an unused microSD (4GB or larger) card into your PC. Open the Disks utility, select your card and click the hamburger-like icon. Choose ‘Restore Disk Image…’.

2 Install Volumio

Click the None button to browse for and select your image file. You’ll receive a warning about the disk image being smaller than the target device – don’t worry, Volumio will expand the partition during setup. Click Start Restoring… followed by Restore. Enter your user password, then sit back and wait for the image to be written to the card. Once complete, safely eject the card.

3 Set up Volumio

Once complete, verify the volumes are set up correctly: a small 64MB FAT32 bootable partition, plus a 2.4GB volumio Ext4 volume followed by a 300MB volumio_data Ext4 volume, with the rest of the drive given over to (for now) free space. Safely eject the card again, then insert it into your Raspberry Pi and switch the power on. Wait for around 6-10 minutes while it’s set up and the free space allocated.

4 Set up connection

If your Pi is going to connect wirelessly to your network, you’ll need to first connect to its own internal Wi-Fi network via another wireless device or computer. Open the device’s network properties: Settings>Network>Wireless in Ubuntu – and connect to the Volumio Wi-Fi network – use the password ‘volumio2’. Now open your browser and go to http://volumio.local to set things up.

5 Navigate first-run wizard

A six-step wizard helps you get things up and running. First, select your language and click Next. Give your device a unique name (in most cases ‘Volumio’ will be sufficient unless you have multiple devices set up) and click Next again. Next, choose your output device. Flick the I2S DAC switch to Yes, then select it from the list and click Next again.

6 Complete setup

Now connect Volumio to your Wi-Fi network. Select your network from the list and click Connect. Enter its password (ignore the warning about insecure connections – we can fix this later). Click Next. You’ll be prompted to set the path to your music collection – click ‘Add New Drive’ to do so (see main text for advice). Finish by clicking Next>Done. Reconnect your PC or device to the main network.