Contributor II

Sonos Controller Installed In Linux OS

Forum|Forum|10 months ago
November 22, 2025
21 replies
2194 views

Hi. I’m curious if anyone out there has any current experience successfully installing the Sonos Controller in a Linux based OS, specifically Zorin. I say “current” because almost every thing I’ve found on this subject is from some years ago, so just looking for something hopefully a bit more current.

I have an old W10 laptop converted to Zorin OS, Zorin because it’s the most Windows like, they say. When it was running W10 I could run the Sonos Controller and I play music through our Sonos ARC. I’d like to be able to do that with Zorin if possible. With the Zorin OS I’ve been able to a point in the installation process where it almost completes the installation but but fails with the following:

Any thoughts, comments or questions would be appreciated.

Thank you.

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R

Rickkkk

Lyricist III

Hi grwren.

I regularly use both the Windows Sonos desktop controller running under wine on Linux as well as several native Linux apps.

Hi Rickkk and thanks for the response. I’m glad to hear that you that you were able to get the Sonos desktop controller working in both Windows and Linux but unfortunately after a number of unsuccessful attempts I had no luck with Linux (Zorin). I checked out the web app mentioned by Pools-3015 and it works well enough plus there is also the iphone and ipad apps. Also it does appear that Sonos is cutting development and support for the desktop controller in favor of the web app so it just made sense to me.

Thanks again.

Hi grwren,

Apologies for my late reply - I don’t log in here very often. From what I gather from your reply, your Sonos hardware is recent enough for you to use the web app, which will work on most browsers, irrespective of the operating system. That’s good news.

If ever you decide to explore using the Windows version of the Sonos controller on linux (using Wine) and require assistance - let me know and I’d be glad to help. Same goes for the native linux apps I mentioned earlier.

Cheers,

RIck

Stanley_4

Grand Maestro

I used to use the native apps, replaced them with the web controller and it is far less effort.

R

Rickkkk

Lyricist III

I used to use the native apps, replaced them with the web controller and it is far less effort.

When the Sonos web app came out, I was also hoping to use it, however I soon discovered (to my surprise and disappointment) that it is incompatible with S1-only Sonos devices, of which my systems are primarily composed … So, alas, I am still using both the S1 Windows app on linux under Wine and also the native linux apps. Perhaps one day Sonos will render the web app backward-compatible with all of its classes of hardware …

Cheers,

Rick

melvimbe

I used to use the native apps, replaced them with the web controller and it is far less effort.

When the Sonos web app came out, I was also hoping to use it, however I soon discovered (to my surprise and disappointment) that it is incompatible with S1-only Sonos devices, of which my systems are primarily composed … So, alas, I am still using both the S1 Windows app on linux under Wine and also the native linux apps. Perhaps one day Sonos will render the web app backward-compatible with all of its classes of hardware …

Cheers,

Rick

I’m not sure why lack of support for S1 on the web app would be surprising. Sonos has always stated that S1 would not get any new features.

Danny

R

Rickkkk

Lyricist III

I used to use the native apps, replaced them with the web controller and it is far less effort.

When the Sonos web app came out, I was also hoping to use it, however I soon discovered (to my surprise and disappointment) that it is incompatible with S1-only Sonos devices, of which my systems are primarily composed … So, alas, I am still using both the S1 Windows app on linux under Wine and also the native linux apps. Perhaps one day Sonos will render the web app backward-compatible with all of its classes of hardware …

Cheers,

Rick

I’m not sure why lack of support for S1 on the web app would be surprising. Sonos has always stated that S1 would not get any new features.

Hey Danny,

I suppose that compatibility between the web app and S1 hardware *could* be considered a “new feature”, although I myself don’t consider it to be. I see it more as using a different access method to control all existing features of my device. The native linux apps I have mentioned earlier have no restriction concerning the hardware version of the Sonos device (Gen 1, 2 … S1 or S2 … whatever) … they just work and offer all the functionality of the Sonos controller apps. I find it odd that Sonos has found it necessary for the S1/S2 split when it comes to compatibility with their controller software ….

Cheers,

Rick

melvimbe

I used to use the native apps, replaced them with the web controller and it is far less effort.

When the Sonos web app came out, I was also hoping to use it, however I soon discovered (to my surprise and disappointment) that it is incompatible with S1-only Sonos devices, of which my systems are primarily composed … So, alas, I am still using both the S1 Windows app on linux under Wine and also the native linux apps. Perhaps one day Sonos will render the web app backward-compatible with all of its classes of hardware …

Cheers,

Rick

I’m not sure why lack of support for S1 on the web app would be surprising. Sonos has always stated that S1 would not get any new features.

Hey Danny,

I suppose that compatibility between the web app and S1 hardware *could* be considered a “new feature”, although I myself don’t consider it to be. I see it more as using a different access method to control all existing features of my device. The native linux apps I have mentioned earlier have no restriction concerning the hardware version of the Sonos device (Gen 1, 2 … S1 or S2 … whatever) … they just work and offer all the functionality of the Sonos controller apps. I find it odd that Sonos has found it necessary for the S1/S2 split when it comes to compatibility with their controller software ….

Cheers,

Rick

S1 and S2 software are not the same. There is no reason to think that a controller built and tested for S2 would automatically work for S1. And there is no reason to think Sonos would spend time accommodating the controller to work with S1 when the specifically committed to not doing this.

Even if the possibly that certain features of the web app were compatible with S1 without any effort from Sonos at this point, I would expect them to block any S1 access just to avoid any illusion that it is supported, and the headache involved from S1 users looking for support, and repercussions from any future changes that may or may not work with S1.

Danny

controlav

Lead Maestro

S1 and S2 software are not the same. There is no reason to think that a controller built and tested for S2 would automatically work for S1. And there is no reason to think Sonos would spend time accommodating the controller to work with S1 when the specifically committed to not doing this.

Even if the possibly that certain features of the web app were compatible with S1 without any effort from Sonos at this point, I would expect them to block any S1 access just to avoid any illusion that it is supported, and the headache involved from S1 users looking for support, and repercussions from any future changes that may or may not work with S1.

S1 and S2 at the upup-api level are almost the same, that’s why many third party apps easily work on both.

However the web app needs the players to run a lot more code and new web apis, and S1 players only have the very earliest api set (1.18) whereas S2 devices run 3.4 currently. Sonos gave up with the web api on S1 devices long ago.

Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.

G

grwrenAuthor

Contributor II

Hi grwren.

I regularly use both the Windows Sonos desktop controller running under wine on Linux as well as several native Linux apps.

Hi Rickkk and thanks for the response. I’m glad to hear that you that you were able to get the Sonos desktop controller working in both Windows and Linux but unfortunately after a number of unsuccessful attempts I had no luck with Linux (Zorin). I checked out the web app mentioned by Pools-3015 and it works well enough plus there is also the iphone and ipad apps. Also it does appear that Sonos is cutting development and support for the desktop controller in favor of the web app so it just made sense to me.

Thanks again.

Hi grwren,

Apologies for my late reply - I don’t log in here very often. From what I gather from your reply, your Sonos hardware is recent enough for you to use the web app, which will work on most browsers, irrespective of the operating system. That’s good news.

If ever you decide to explore using the Windows version of the Sonos controller on linux (using Wine) and require assistance - let me know and I’d be glad to help. Same goes for the native linux apps I mentioned earlier.

Cheers,

RIck

Thanks Rickkkk, no problem about being late, and thanks to all others who have joined in this discussion, it’s appreciated. However, as for my part, I’m going to back out of this because as it turns out the iphone and ipad Sonos app is so simple and works so well I just simply don’t use the Sonos controller on my W11 laptop that much nor would I likely use it that much on my Linux laptop, even if I could get it to work!

So with that, thank you all very much for your help, I’m out.

R

Rickkkk

Lyricist III

S1 and S2 software are not the same. There is no reason to think that a controller built and tested for S2 would automatically work for S1. And there is no reason to think Sonos would spend time accommodating the controller to work with S1 when the specifically committed to not doing this.

Even if the possibly that certain features of the web app were compatible with S1 without any effort from Sonos at this point, I would expect them to block any S1 access just to avoid any illusion that it is supported, and the headache involved from S1 users looking for support, and repercussions from any future changes that may or may not work with S1.

S1 and S2 at the upup-api level are almost the same, that’s why many third party apps easily work on both.

However the web app needs the players to run a lot more code and new web apis, and S1 players only have the very earliest api set (1.18) whereas S2 devices run 3.4 currently. Sonos gave up with the web api on S1 devices long ago.

Thanks for this clear and concise explanation, controlav.

Cheers,

Rick

A

agtilden2

Trending Lyricist I

Great explanation - but the reason S1 gets stranded isn’t the speakers, it’s because Sonos is loading up all the smarts into the firmware. This is the same problem you have with a “smart” TV. Software and hardware move on different cadences. Nobody wants to keep reflashing devices. If you keep the TV comparison going the solution was to move the controller functionality into cheap dongles like Roku, Google Streamer, Apple TV, etc. This way you break the link between hardware and the software lifecycle.

You can see the same benefit by splitting this function for Sonos. At the UPnP layer a player is literally a MediaRenderer. So if you have a spare cpu in your closet you can drop a server and it becomes the point of indirection. This is what I’m doing with MiSonos and it works great. I have an S1 system at one house and an S2 in another and I use the same application to control both of them.

Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.

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