PiKaraoke on Pi5 run as a desktop app

[Jake-pi]

I've been using PiKaraoke for a couple years now, as a home karaoke solution. I think it is great, however once in a while youtube.dl won't update. Usually I can overcome this by manually updating over ssh, but recently before installing this last update it just wouldn't work.

I wanted more from my Pi as well, so I decided to start fresh with a new Pi5 8gb, M.2 hat and 512mb NVMA drive. My idea was to install the latest full desktop version of Rasberry Pi os, install PiKaraoke over that, then create a desktop icon to launch PiKaraoke. It took a little work, but it all works except to shutdown directly from PiKaraoke, I now get back to the desktop and shutdown from there. This setup lets me use my new Pi5 as a computer from my TV for internet, youtube and media playback, and to launch PiKaraoke from the desktop. So far it has been great. I plan to add game emulators to this to really bring this setup around to a complete home entertainment system.

The recent PiKaraoke update v1.2 combined with this new hardware has been nothing short of fantastic. New song downloads used to take 10 - 15 minutes, and I was never sure they were really working. Now new songs only take around 2 min to add, allowing singers to add new songs to the database and que while the singer before them is singing, and have their newly added song come up by the time the singer before them is done. I really like that I can open the controls directly on the splash screen now as well.

Please note, I am no Rasberry Pi expert. I did this by assembling a new Pi, installing on an SD card, using imager from the rasbutan desktop to install on the NVMA, boot to the NVMA and SSH into it to follow the instructions to install PiKaraoke. Then followed a tutorial to make a desktop icon that would run a script to run Pikaraoke.sh from the desktop. You will need to follow the relevant tutorials on your own. I am posting this to inspire some of you to go deeper into this, to get more from your Rasberry Pi hardware. So far I am very pleased with the new Pi5, and the new version of PiKaraoke.

Please note, you do not need the Pi5 to do this, nor the NVMA, it just makes it run faster and probably more reliably. Please do consider using the "buy me a coffee" link to support the creator of PiKaraoke. PiKaraoke is free to use, and was likely started as a hobby project out of the creators personal interest. I believe by supporting creators of projects you like in this way, it motivates them to continue to update and support their projects. This is entirely voluntary, and they are in no way obligated to do so. A small donation as a token of appreciation is also voluntary, but may help to motivate the continued maintenance of this repository.