@balbes150 LE images with Kodi-19 for S9xxx

    Hi how did you create a backup of emmc, I have two boxes of Tronsmart 905s one with Android and the other loaded in emmc Kodi 17.6 201801228:2 Kernel:Linux 3.14.

    What I intend to achieve are:

    1, Upgrade LE Kodi 17.6 to Kodi 19, I am wondering if the tar file will work and how do I go about doing this?

    2, Load the Android with dual booth LE SD Card

    But first I want backup these two boxes before I start playing around before I brick any of the box.

    Thanks

    • Official Post

    If you boot any of the mainline kernel "box" images, the contents of emmc can be backed up with 'dd' but this is slow and requires an SD card (or USB) larger than the emmc size to store the image. At least with S905 devices the emmc sizes are typically 8-16GB only so that's not such a big deal.

    NB: LE does not support update of legacy OS installs to the LE10 codebase, a clean install is required. If the Amlogic 3.14 kernel is detected during update we abort, and if you manually override the compat check the box will (guaranteed 100%) end up in a broken boot state.

    • Official Post
    Quote from e123enitan1

    But first I want backup these two boxes before I start playing around before I brick any of the box.

    Creating a full eMMC backup is easy. Deploy the latest LE system from this theme (or Armbian) on any good media (SD card or USB media). The size of the media (SD card or USB flash drive) is selected depending on the EMMC data filling. For example, to create a full compressed copy of eMMC standard Android, media size of 8 GB is sufficient. Start the system on the TV box and in the LE settings menu, select work with eMMC and create a copy. The copy creation procedure starts, and the system shuts down automatically when it is complete. Depending on the parameters of the data size and speed of the media where the backup is being copied, the time may take approximately 5 to 40 minutes. After creating a copy, it is recommended to save the copy file in a safe place (PC, NAS, additional USB flash drive, etc.). The created copy file is located in the directory (/storage/backup/ddbr). When using Armbian with DE, the DDBR utility is used to create a copy (select the compressed copy option). Ease of using Armbian to create a copy, you can clearly see the entire process of creating a copy with progress indicators, and after creating a copy, you can immediately launch the browser from Armbian and place a copy on a shared resource. The copy in Armbian is located in the directory (/ddbr).

    Quote from chewitt

    NB: LE does not support update of legacy OS installs to the LE10 codebase, a clean install is required. If the Amlogic 3.14 kernel is detected during update we abort, and if you manually override the compat check the box will (guaranteed 100%) end up in a broken boot state.

    I hope that at least the configuration of the various plugins can be copied over (I'd hate to have to reconfigure oscam/pcsc/tvheadend from scratch).

    BTW, what's the status of the availink drivers? I see some progress in their github but they seem to be using a different distribution as a test bed.

    • Official Post

    The boot arrangements for legacy and mainline kernels are completely different so attempting updates is just asking for a pile of support issues, so a forced reinstall is the best option. It's no problem to backup and restore Kodi data between versions as that doesn't change much, although if the backup contains binary add-ons you'll see a list of add-on "fail to start" errors until newer versions are downloaded and updated. That's nothing new though, it's the same as any LE major-version update.

    The main idea we've asked the Availink folks to grasp is; if they develop something that works on the Amlogic 4.9 kernel today they will be screwed in the future when Amlogic bumps to 4.19 (or god forbid, something newer) and they will never get it upstream to the mainline kernel as it won't follow kernel APIs and coding standards. However if they create a driver that runs on the mainline kernel today, they will be free to add whatever hacks are needed to backport it onto Amlogic bsp kernels (as no rules apply there). That's been understood, and we also persuaded them to relicense the driver under GPLv2 instead of something proprietary and restrictive.

    So things are progressing and I'm able to compile the Availink demod (or an earlier version, I didn't rebase on it for a while) but it's still early stage and only one of several components needed for DVB support. Work also needs to be done on the tuner drivers that are used with their demo, which exist in various forms (not all have good prevenance for license and future upstreaming) but these needed to be deconstructed and adapted into independent modular drivers; the Amlogic kernel compiles them into a single monolithic blob, which is meh. Then the major missing piece is a new V4L2 demux; the mainline kernel has a completely different DRM architecture so we cannot repurpose code from the Amlogic kernel. And finally if we get that done, it should all be describable from device tree so that different tuner/demod combos work without special compiling. The availink folks are not completely sold on the whole story yet, but if we can at least get their demod and tuners to build alongside a new demod, the rest can take time.

    Quote from balbes150

    Creating a full eMMC backup is easy. Deploy the latest LE system from this theme (or Armbian) on any good media (SD card or USB media). The size of the media (SD card or USB flash drive) is selected depending on the EMMC data filling. For example, to create a full compressed copy of eMMC standard Android, media size of 8 GB is sufficient. Start the system on the TV box and in the LE settings menu, select work with eMMC and create a copy. The copy creation procedure starts, and the system shuts down automatically when it is complete. Depending on the parameters of the data size and speed of the media where the backup is being copied, the time may take approximately 5 to 40 minutes. After creating a copy, it is recommended to save the copy file in a safe place (PC, NAS, additional USB flash drive, etc.). The created copy file is located in the directory (/storage/backup/ddbr). When using Armbian with DE, the DDBR utility is used to create a copy (select the compressed copy option). Ease of using Armbian to create a copy, you can clearly see the entire process of creating a copy with progress indicators, and after creating a copy, you can immediately launch the browser from Armbian and place a copy on a shared resource. The copy in Armbian is located in the directory (/ddbr).

    I burned this build into SD 32gb as follows:

    I downloaded this image "LibreELEC-ARMv8.arm-9.80-devel-20200617130046-569f834-amlg12.img"

    Then burned into SD

    Then Open DTB>Amlogic

    Then copied " meson-gxbb-vega-s95-meta"

    Then opened uEvn

    Then pasted FDT=/dtb/amlogic/meson-gxbb-vega-s95-meta.dtb

    Then removed SD from PC and insert into Box reboot, LE is not created for the SD drive

    I am not sure if I have missed a step, one thing that came to mind is the universal boot, do I need to update my android box first Uboot or the system does it by itself

    Here are the flies in the folder

    # Name Size Last Modified
    1 .android_secure 12/31/2014 11:17:48 PM
    2 Android 12/31/2014 11:17:48 PM
    3
    KERNEL
    		28805 KB 6/17/2020 1:14:08 PM
    4 KERNEL.md5 1 KB 6/17/2020 1:14:08 PM
    5 LOST.DIR 12/31/2014 11:17:48 PM
    6
    SYSTEM
    		137540 KB 6/17/2020 1:14:08 PM
    7 SYSTEM.md5 1 KB 6/17/2020 1:14:08 PM
    8 aml_autoscript 1 KB 6/17/2020 1:14:06 PM
    9 android_disable.sh 1 KB 6/17/2020 1:14:06 PM
    10 android_enable.sh 1 KB 6/17/2020 1:14:06 PM
    11 boot-c2.scr 1 KB 6/17/2020 1:14:06 PM
    12 boot-emmc.scr 1 KB 6/17/2020 1:14:06 PM
    13 boot.ini 1 KB 6/17/2020 1:14:06 PM
    14 boot.scr 1 KB 6/17/2020 1:14:06 PM
    15 ddbr-backup.sh 2 KB 6/17/2020 1:14:06 PM
    16 ddbr-restore.sh 2 KB 6/17/2020 1:14:06 PM
    17 dtb 6/17/2020 1:14:06 PM
    18
    emmc_autoscript
    		1 KB 6/17/2020 1:14:06 PM
    19 install2emmc.sh 4 KB 6/17/2020 1:14:06 PM
    20 s905_autoscript 2 KB 6/17/2020 1:14:06 PM
    21 u-boot.sd 694 KB 6/17/2020 1:14:06 PM
    22 u-boot.usb 694 KB 6/17/2020 1:14:06 PM
    23 uEnv.txt 1 KB 6/18/2020 5:02:16 PM


    Please help I qm ding to have LE 9 at lease working on SD drive.

    Edited once, last by e123enitan1 (June 19, 2020 at 5:00 AM).

    Quote from chewitt

    The boot arrangements for legacy and mainline kernels are completely different so attempting updates is just asking for a pile of support issues, so a forced reinstall is the best option. It's no problem to backup and restore Kodi data between versions as that doesn't change much, although if the backup contains binary add-ons you'll see a list of add-on "fail to start" errors until newer versions are downloaded and updated. That's nothing new though, it's the same as any LE major-version update.

    The main idea we've asked the Availink folks to grasp is; if they develop something that works on the Amlogic 4.9 kernel today they will be screwed in the future when Amlogic bumps to 4.19 (or god forbid, something newer) and they will never get it upstream to the mainline kernel as it won't follow kernel APIs and coding standards. However if they create a driver that runs on the mainline kernel today, they will be free to add whatever hacks are needed to backport it onto Amlogic bsp kernels (as no rules apply there). That's been understood, and we also persuaded them to relicense the driver under GPLv2 instead of something proprietary and restrictive.

    So things are progressing and I'm able to compile the Availink demod (or an earlier version, I didn't rebase on it for a while) but it's still early stage and only one of several components needed for DVB support. Work also needs to be done on the tuner drivers that are used with their demo, which exist in various forms (not all have good prevenance for license and future upstreaming) but these needed to be deconstructed and adapted into independent modular drivers; the Amlogic kernel compiles them into a single monolithic blob, which is meh. Then the major missing piece is a new V4L2 demux; the mainline kernel has a completely different DRM architecture so we cannot repurpose code from the Amlogic kernel. And finally if we get that done, it should all be describable from device tree so that different tuner/demod combos work without special compiling. The availink folks are not completely sold on the whole story yet, but if we can at least get their demod and tuners to build alongside a new demod, the rest can take tifme.

    Thanks for this lengthy write up, it appear that this require a significant efforts to make this happen. That said, I simply wish to wipe off old LE from emmc then install a fresh LE 9.

    Could you please write a simple guide in a logical fashion for newbies like my self. often the installation guides are descriptive not easy to follow for some like me.

    Thanks

    Hi.

    Latest version ,amlogic not work for me

    LibreELEC (community) devel - xxxx

    and rebboting every 1 minutes

    I see that the uEnv structure (.txt no .ini) and entry have changed

    version of this post Test LibreELEC images with KODI-19 for S9xxx

    it worked properly now, it doesn't work anymore

    (I checked the latest version and wanted to return to the previous version but none work)

    Quote from balbes150

    Error in this. This is for s905x2\s922 chips. You need amlgx (s905x\s912) or amlgxbb (recommended for s905).

    For s905\s905x\s912, you only need to configure the DTB, and you don't need to add or change anything.


    Hi Babels, Among the listed DTB, I tried these five, in each occasion, the system write some scripts, but when it try to reboot, it get stuck at Libreelec Logo, hence it not launch to Kodi.

    Code
    meson-gxbb-vega-s95-meta.dtb
meson-gxbb-vega-s95-pro.dtb
meson-gxbb-vega-s95-telos.dtb
meson-gxbb-wetek-hub.dtb
meson-gxbb-wetek-play2.dtb

    Thanks

    • Official Post

    Restore the regular firmware and perform a clean multi-boot activation. Right now, there is a piece of shits in your system that interferes with the normal operation of LE.


    Quote from e123enitan1

    Among the listed DTB, I tried these five, in each occasion, the system write some scripts, but when it try to reboot, it get stuck at Libreelec Logo, hence it not launch to Kodi.

    You need a clean installation in a clean system. This means that you need to restore the clean regular Android firmware to eMMC and activate a new multi-boot.

    "Restore the regular firmware and perform a clean multi-boot activation. Right now, there is a piece of shits in your system that interferes with the normal operation of LE."


    What do you mean s...t i have android 8.1 (installed 2 days ago using (USB_Burning_Tool) and libreelec on sd & pendrive card (which ones?)

    should I upload new firmware during each LE test?

    Hi all, please, somebody can help me, i have libreelec build:

    LibreELEC-ARMv8.aarch64-9.80-devel-20200618115642-45c5f94-amlgx

    don´t have addons via libreelec add-ons

    "could not connect to repository"

    in old versions is same error

    my box is KI Plus S905

    for your attention thanks...!

    Quote from Jerry

    "Restore the regular firmware and perform a clean multi-boot activation. Right now, there is a piece of shits in your system that interferes with the normal operation of LE."


    What do you mean s...t i have android 8.1 (installed 2 days ago using (USB_Burning_Tool) and libreelec on sd & pendrive card (which ones?)

    should I upload new firmware during each LE test?

    Hi Jerry, could please write a simple guide for the restore of firmware And perform a clean multi-boot, I don't know how perform these two processes.

    Thanks