Z83 mini PC

    Quote from infoalter

    Can anyone please explain for us that are not so tech-experts

    what steps are needed to replace the installed windows with Libreelec

    It used to be that you created a bootable USB stick using the Libreelec USB SD Creater tool. On first boot using the created stick it asked you where you wanted to install your Libreelec on your computer. After that it should simply boot to your installed LE system.

    How to install LibreELEC on HTPC - A lightweight Kodi operating system


    That's how I have always done it in the past, but things might have changed since there is a move towards running off USB/SD recently.

    Shoog

    Ah... i was afraid that normal procedure would not work and would brick the box ...i dont remember where i have read this, so i never gave it a try hahahahaha

    Many thanks for reply, i will try later :)

    Quote from infoalter

    Ah... i was afraid that normal procedure would not work and would brick the box ...i dont remember where i have read this, so i never gave it a try hahahahaha

    Many thanks for reply, i will try later :)

    I can't guarantee that it wont brick this box.
    The issue is that the build really should be tailored to the specific box components, which is usually done via the bios reporting to the kernel - but these boxes have very specific unique bios's which might mean that things simply aren't detected. I am about to get an Atomic Pi with the same chip in it. I will be using the preinstalled Ubuntu as my base and simply running the Kodi as an app within Linux. There is a whole raft of scripts to load the specific drivers needed for the board so I simply wont risk a generic Kernel missing hardware support and leaving me with a semi-functional box.
    These chips are more like ARM chips that need a specific device tree to access all hardware.

    There is a way to create a bootable USB stick with the Libreelec OS on it for generic boxes (its a few extra steps), which allows you to run everything off the USB stick and leave your native OS intact. It might be a good idea to try this as a way of testing hardware functionality before doing a full install.

    LibreELEC 8.2.0 live USB how-to with Kodi Krypton 17.5

    Again I cannot tell you if this technique still works on x86 boxes.


    Shoog

    To create a USB stick installation just type "run" on first boot of the installer image (or select the grub menu entry on EFI32 devices).

    Okay, so I reinstalled Windows on mine for now. If it's any consolation to anyone who is thinking of testing, Windows automatically recognised the licence key that is presumably somewhere in the BIOS, so I didn't need to use a licence key of my own - may be of concern if you don't have one.

    I will install on a USB stick for further testing.