Run Spotify on Raspberry Pi

Hardware components:
	Raspberry Pi 3 Model B	×	1
	LeMaker Banana Pro	×	1
	UDOO QUAD	×	1
	PINE64	×	1
	BeagleBoard.org BeagleBone Black	×	1
	Nvidia Jetson TX2	×	1
	Qualcomm DragonBoard 410c	×	1
	Toradex Colibri iMX6	×	1
	Raspberry Pi 2 Model B	×	1

STORY

Today we are writing about the iconic music player Spotify and how to run it on Raspberry Pi 2 and Raspberry Pi 3. Spotify is available on many platforms but not on Raspberry Pi. During the past month we were working hard on the performance tuning of ExaGear Desktop and made it happen! You can even use Spotify Connect on Raspberry Pi and control the music from any of your devices.

In this post we will tell you how to run Spotify on RPi 2 and RPi 3 using ExaGear Desktop which allows to run x86 apps on ARM mini PCs. And you would probably also love to know that with ExaGear Desktop you’ll be able to use more of your favorite apps, like Skype, Telegram and many others, on your Raspberry Pi. Note that currently Spotify for Linux works with Ubuntu 14.04. Below is a simple instruction on how to install guest x86 Ubuntu 14.04 and run Spotify on your RPi 2.

Spotify installation instruction

Install ExaGear Desktop

1. Download ExaGear Desktop archive with installation packages and license key. Open Terminal (command line) and unpack the downloaded archive using the following command:

$ tar -xvzpf exagear-desktop-rpi2.tar.gz

2. Please note that you need to install guest x86 Ubuntu 14.04 image as Spotify can run with the guest Ubuntu only. Therefore run install-exagear.sh script with the following option in a directory with deb packages and one license key:

$ sudo ./install-exagear.sh ubuntu-1404

Launch guest x86 system

3. Enter the guest x86 system by using the following command:

$ exagear
Starting the shell in the guest image /opt/exagear/images/ubuntu-1404lts-wine2g

4. Now you are in x86 environment that can be checked by running the ‘arch’ command:

$ arch
i686

5. It is recommended to update apt-get repositories on the first launch of the guest system:

$ sudo apt-get update

Install Spotify

6. Add the Spotify repository signing key to be able to verify the downloaded packages:

$ sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys BBEBDCB318AD50EC6865090613B00F1FD2C19886

7. Add the Spotify repository:

$ echo deb http://repository.spotify.com stable non-free | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/spotify.list

8. Update list of available packages:

$ sudo apt-get update

9. Install Spotify:

$ sudo apt-get install spotify-client
$ sudo apt-get install libxss1

Run Spotify

Now just run Spotify from the Start menu to play your favorite music

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