@balbes150 LE images with Kodi-19 for S9xxx

    • Official Post

    LE master branch held out on K18 until various dependencies for Python3 were resolved and then we bumped to K19 .. and since then Oleg stopped building K18 images (the hassle of backporting isn't worth the effort). Right now the Python3 changes in K19 are causing some disruption but there is not much Kodi (or LE) can do about this; we've been promoting Python3 for 2.5 years but community developers never change until they have to .. so in the end Kodi had to force the change (coexistence was explored but isn't technically possible over all the platforms Kodi supports). It will take time but it's temporary and once the first K19 alpha release ships more add-on authors will release updates.

    Quote from chewitt

    Junoxe There is no 9.2.0 version - hence no links on the download page. LE chose to stop working on the old vendor kernel after LE 8.2 and has been working on moving the Amlogic platform onto a mainline codebase - which is still an ongoing effort. Test images that support S905X2 are here Index of / or you can use balbes150 images which are linked in the first post of this thread.

    The problem is balbes150 deleted the old LE images with Kodi 18 that worked for many people with amlogic (and some more?) devices. I know, not bleeding edge kernel nor kodi, but a working system for many users.

    I have tried Latest images with LE 9.80 in my A95X F2 (S905X2) and G31 graphics -even hardware decoding-, sound and network work great, but Kodi 19 alpha makes the system unusable for many of us, most addons don't work plainly or properly.

    Until things start working with Kodi 19, do we have to use CoreELEC if we need Kodi 18? I see we have no more choice.

    It seems CE breaks Armbian (and LE?) compatibility unless you restore the factory firmware, so we have to choose between having a working system with Android and CE (no Armbian nor LE), or being able to use Android, and just testing with LE and Armbian.

    Maybe he (or someone else) could upload the latest kodi 18 working image? I'm sure many of us would be very thankful.

    Or maybe older LE with Kodi 18 also breaks current Armbian (and LE?) compatibility?

    Edited 3 times, last by ramoncio (January 7, 2020 at 2:18 AM).

    Maybe we could find back to normal testing stuff when advising:

    When switching between different *eelecs it COULD work when doing "reboot update" or booting with toothpick-method. If you run into (strange) problems after that, you should try re-installing original firmware and changing u-boot stuff starting from stock one.

    So people who like could check in few minutes if they can go the "quick and easy way", or if they have to do the longer procedure starting with fresh stock firmware..

    I created a bootable microSD card using Etcher, with this firmware >> LibreELEC-AML.arm-9.80-devel-20200107153635-6e9040d-amlg12.img.gz. I had been using CoreELEC on my Beelink GT King Pro, so I wanted to test this port.........

    Used this meson-g12b-gtking.dtb device tree. Used the paper clip to depress the reset button under the hole in the boxes housing...... The LibreELEC OS installed, but not useable at this time. The whole screen is light blue with the writing just a shade darker.........

    My King Pro serial number is 922 HHQ

    Any advice?

    • Official Post

    You need to add the u-boot.ext file to the SD card, then we chainload modern u-boot and avoid the weird colours that appear with Amlogic u-boot. Oleg has the file on his yandex drive. Don't expect all the video stuff to be working in the image .. because Olegs images appear to be based on my work in progress Linux 5.5 bump (which is work in progress, not complete).

    Yesterday I compiled a LE image from balbes150 git sources master branch, so I get familiar with the process and can try to modify Kodi version and use Leia. Or compile one of his latest commits including Leia.

    Compilation went OK with compile build command:

    PROJECT=Amlogic DEVICE=AMLG12 ARCH=arm make image

    But after burning the image it only had a DTB that didn't boot at all, I think it was from Odroid N2.

    Then I tried with build command :

    PROJECT=Amlogic DEVICE=AMLG12 ARCH=arm UBOOT_SYSTEM=box make image

    This generated more DTBs in a /dtb directory, and I tried the meson-g12a-u200.dtb for my A95X F2 (S905X2) but it didn't boot.

    Then I copied u-boot.usb from G12 fix directory in balbes150 images to the USB disk with the two dd commands, but no success either.

    I also switched to his amlogic-master branch to try, but it got stuck compiling glibc with an error.

    So no joy atm.

    Any indications? Maybe I'm using the wrong build command?

    I read in a post somewhere that chewitt has a LE git branch for S905X2, I might try that next, but maybe some help would be nice.

    Edited once, last by ramoncio (January 9, 2020 at 12:04 PM).

    Quote from chewitt

    You need to add the u-boot.ext file to the SD card, then we chainload modern u-boot and avoid the weird colours that appear with Amlogic u-boot. Oleg has the file on his yandex drive. Don't expect all the video stuff to be working in the image .. because Olegs images appear to be based on my work in progress Linux 5.5 bump (which is work in progress, not complete).

    Thanks, will try.

    • Official Post
    Quote from ramoncio

    Thank you! I'll try that later today.

    Any hints about the compile process? Was my last build command with the "box" u-boot OK? Do I need to dd the u-boot to the disk and copy the u-boot.usb to the fat partition or that should be already included in the image?

    "PROJECT=Amlogic DEVICE=AMLG12 ARCH=arm UBOOT_SYSTEM=box make image" should give you something that most boxes will boot via one of the usual reset methods. The X96max dtb is another S905X2 device, although some are 1000-BaseT and others 100-BaseT so it's not exact.

    balbes150 I just installed image 20200108 on my VIM2 Pro, installation and everything works fine, but video playback only shows a green screen. I guess its the video acceleration.

    Currently I test this with an RTSP stream over IPTV Simple Client. The log says the following Log

    Even though the 'InputStream Client for RTMP Streams' is installed, is says ' unsupported protocol(RTSP)'.

    The green screen problem and the log message might be unrelated, since local media files won't work neither.

    Is this already a known problem?

    Edited 3 times, last by steved (January 10, 2020 at 1:17 PM).

    Hi chewitt I have tried compiling both projects, yours and Oleg's, and I can't boot the created images, but Oleg's images from Yandex boot just fine.

    Both my generated images have kernels of around 8,5Mb, but Yandex images have a 25,7Mb kernel. If I copy that kernel and dtbs to the generated images they boot, but I get a syslinux error after LE logo. With my generated images it hangs with the A95X logo, before loading LE logo.

    I have noticed neither of them have the extlinux directory, I guess they use a u-boot that doesn't need it and just uses uEnv.ini.

    I have also tried compiling from a previous commit (5095856) in your repo with kodi 18, but same results, a 8,5Mb kernel that doesn't boot.

    I have followed LE wiki to compile from sources. Created a virtualbox VM with ubuntu 18.04 server, upgraded it, installed dependencies, cloned the repositories in different directories, and run "PROJECT=Amlogic DEVICE=AMLG12 ARCH=arm UBOOT_SYSTEM=box make image" as a normal user.

    Am I doing something wrong? Maybe missing something?

    Any ideas how can I get a LE kernel able to boot from the git repos sources?

    Thanks!

    Edited 3 times, last by ramoncio (January 10, 2020 at 3:28 PM).

    • Official Post
    Quote from steved

    balbes150 I just installed image 20200108 on my VIM2 Pro, installation and everything works fine, but video playback only shows a green screen. I guess its the video acceleration.

    Currently I test this with an RTSP stream over IPTV Simple Client. The log says the following Log

    Even though the 'InputStream Client for RTMP Streams' is installed, is says ' unsupported protocol(RTSP)'.

    The green screen problem and the log message might be unrelated, since local media files won't work neither.

    Is this already a known problem?

    You probably need to disable hardware acceleration to solve the green screen. Video is currently rather broken until ffmpeg and Kodi changes catch up with recent API compliance changes to the hardware decode driver.

    • Official Post
    Quote from crazyturk

    balbes150 versions Beelink King Pro works well but the remote control is unstable.

    The night versions did not work.Can you export dtb file for Beelink King Pro in overnight versions?

    I am sory for my english.

    kodi: add patch for Beelink wireless remote · chewitt/LibreELEC.tv@bc52c92 · GitHub <= check this file is modified like this in the image (not sure if Oleg has this patch applied .. just search for peripherals.xml). IIRC you also need to disable mouse mode on the remote (top-left button if I remember correctly) else navigation goes crazy. The behaviour is all in the input subsystem, it has nothing to do with device-tree.