FiveNinjas Slice LibreELEC preview build

**chewitt** · October 11, 2016 at 8:55 AM Official Post

This is a LibreELEC image for the FiveNinjas "Slice" box based on the standard RPi and RPi2 image(s) with patches to support the CS4265 audio DAC and WS2812 LED ring in the Slice box. Other features like lirc disable and log submission have been incorporated into the main LibreELEC image. As the original SliceOS skin was never updated for Krypton (and has font licensing issues) the image uses Estuary. To achieve a more Slice-blue look set the "midnight" colour scheme.

GitHub sources for the images are normally up to date here: GitHub - chewitt/LibreELEC.tv at slice-8.0

Instructions for updating SliceOS and clean-install images for CM(1) and CM3 cards are on the website: downloads – LibreELEC

NB: Please post all questions to this thread. I will not answer PM messages!

Enjoy

MikeBuzz · October 11, 2016 at 7:36 PM

Nice to see finally an semi official build, good work.

I understand that you might have a pre production cm3, how does it handle x265?

Will be testing this tonight once I get home

**chewitt** · October 12, 2016 at 3:49 AM Official Post

Like RPi3 the CM3 has no hardware decoding support for H.265 and with the stock config.txt it can *almost* handle the format in software. If you apply a little overclock in config.txt it seems to cope. I haven't found the time to convert a large 40GB-ish Blu-Ray rip for testing but for normal HD broadcast things I record from the BBC and a couple of other online places it's been fine. NB: The thermometer icon shows permanently in the top-right corner of the screen due to the CPU load but Gordon has voiced good results adding a small passive heatsink, so that's on my to-do list.

ghollingworth · October 13, 2016 at 10:32 AM

Quote from chewitt

Like RPi3 the CM3 has no hardware decoding support for H.265 and with the stock config.txt it can *almost* handle the format in software. If you apply a little overclock in config.txt it seems to cope. I haven't found the time to convert a large 40GB-ish Blu-Ray rip for testing but for normal HD broadcast things I record from the BBC and a couple of other online places it's been fine. NB: The thermometer icon shows permanently in the top-right corner of the screen due to the CPU load but Gordon has voiced good results adding a small passive heatsink, so that's on my to-do list.

Are you sure it's on permanently? That doesn't sound right... I've added a slug of copper between the CM and the case lid and added some heatsink compound between the two...

Gordon

**chewitt** · October 13, 2016 at 4:29 PM Official Post

The thermometer is only on when software decoding on the CPU. Current testing suggests 720p H.265 media (H.264 from the BBC converted with HandBrake) is perfectly okay but 1080p is borderline and drops frames in panning scenes. I'll see what I can bits I can fettle into a heatsink over the weekend

ghollingworth · October 13, 2016 at 6:38 PM

Fixed audio... Haven't tested Slice2 yet but it should all work

**chewitt** · October 14, 2016 at 12:19 PM Official Post

If you update using the .tar file in Index of /slice/ (same filename but newer file) the images now have Gordon's audio fixes included and analogue should work?

g7ruh · October 14, 2016 at 12:30 PM

Quote from ghollingworth

Fixed audio... Haven't tested Slice2 yet but it should all work

Hi Gordon,

is this the analogue audio that is fixed? As you may recall from Five Ninjas forum, I like the analogue audio!

Roger

g7ruh · October 14, 2016 at 4:11 PM

Quote from chewitt

and analogue should work?

I tried the today update and get HDMI audio for both settings (HDMI and HDMI and analogue) but no analogue when set to HDMI and analogue.

Tested with HDMI connected and change settings, also with NO HDMI connected, using VNC to see screen, no audio both times.
Tried each setting after a power off (power connector removed) still no analogue audio and there is no red light in the connector suggesting no optical out either.

*** edit: cannot get LEDSs to work, I am sure it did once .... (LEDs pattern does not show at startup the power down pattern that is in the Five Ninjas build). :s

Happy to retest for you

Roger
[hr]

Quote from chewitt

Gordon's audio fixes included and analogue should work

Update on last post after some lateral thinking....

Added echo blacklist snd_bcm2835 >> .config/modprobe.d/disable-spdif-for-hd-audio.conf from here Latest build testing [NOTE ADVICE] - Help / Support - FiveNinjas
then I get another option in system settings ... audio: ALSA: Default (snd_slice Analog), when this is selected and music is playing there is continuous white noise and a tone (maybe about 1khz).

Power off system and the sound stops (as expected ). At power on, as soon as the Libre ELEC splash screen goes, there is a crunchy sound (like speakers pop when power on an amplifier (a badly designed one!)) and the white noise and tone are there as before (with no music playing). This time the power on LED sequence worked too, and the power off sequence worked as well.

Retried power off three times, results as above.

Reboot system, results the same, power off LED sequence, rebooting OK, white noise and tone come back and about a second after that, the startup LED sequence starts.

After a while the audio stops (I guess when it sleeps) and using keyboard to wake up Slice the noise and tone are back again.

Hope this helps
Roger
[hr]
Further update , there is a red light in the audio connector indicating the optical output is turned on. I have tested the Five Ninjas build and get audo via optical. There is no (decodable) modulation on your build.
Roger

**chewitt** · October 15, 2016 at 5:35 AM Official Post

It's a packaging issue in the image. If you download dt-blob.bin and replace the current file in /flash it should work fine. At least, I have normal stereo output here, a cable needs to be acquired to test the optical output.

g7ruh · October 15, 2016 at 11:56 AM

Quote from chewitt

It's a packaging issue in the image. If you download dt-blob.bin and replace the current file in /flash it should work fine. At least, I have normal stereo output here, a cable needs to be acquired to test the optical output.

Thanks, that fixes it nicely. I have analogue audio and optical audio too.

If you fix the package, I will reload Five Ninjas version then do a complete update to yours so we can verify the package is complete.

Roger

**chewitt** · October 16, 2016 at 8:46 AM Official Post

I did a full rebuild with the 4.8.1 kernel bump which grabbed the correct/updated files and I now see the file timestamps matching other items which are normally updated as part of an OS update:

Code

Slice2:~ # ls -l /flash/total 133800
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          1494 Oct 15 11:35 LICENCE.broadcom
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root     126730240 Jan  1  1980 SYSTEM
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root            48 Oct  1 13:07 SYSTEM.md5
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         13743 Oct 15 11:35 bcm2709-rpi-2-b.dtb
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         14417 Oct 15 11:35 bcm2710-rpi-3-b.dtb
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         13717 Oct 15 11:35 bcm2710-rpi-cm3.dtb
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         17932 Oct 15 11:35 bootcode.bin
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root            47 Oct  1 13:07 cmdline.txt
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          3365 Oct 14 22:57 config.txt
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          1027 Oct 15 11:35 distroconfig.txt
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          4451 Oct 15 11:35 dt-blob.bin
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          9737 Oct 15 11:35 fixup.dat
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       6222256 Jan  1  1980 kernel.img
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root            48 Oct  1 13:07 kernel.img.md5
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root          8192 Oct 15 11:35 overlays
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       3895684 Oct 15 11:35 start.elf

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image files on the webserver are still named 7.90.007 but are updated.. would be great if you can do the full update test.

g7ruh · October 16, 2016 at 9:23 AM

Quote from chewitt

I did a full rebuild .....are still named 7.90.007 but are updated.. would be great if you can do the full update test.

I am away from the Slice until Wed this week, I will do test as described above and report back later in the week
Roger

g7ruh · October 18, 2016 at 4:58 PM

Quote from chewitt

would be great if you can do the full update test.

Quote from chewitt

I got back earlier than planned....

Reloaded Five Ninjas Nightly build which booted and tested OK.

Downloaded your rebuilt package (16 Oct 0740) and installed it. All works as it should. The only (obvious) difference is the LibreElec splash screen at boot time: it now says "LibreElec Alpha" not "LibreElec, just enough OS for kodi" Is this a planned update of the splash screen or a regression to earlier version?

Apart from that I can confim the analogue audio and optical audio work as they should "out of the box".

Thanks for assembling the package. I will test it for a bit longer on audio then install on my main Slice and test my video too, and report back on the results in a day or five.

If you would like me to do any more testing, just ask.

FYI (it should not make any difference functionally, although Gordon advised that it will likely reduce performance a bit) I am using NTFS partitions on both Slice boxes. I am just using the video to play old TV show box sets, not any serious decoding of surround sound tracks etc. I am waiting until CM update and may then revert to EXT4 partitons as well. I was testing the NTFS one a while ago for Gordon and saw no reason to change it.

Roger

**chewitt** · October 18, 2016 at 7:28 PM Official Post

It's good to hear all is okay with the packaging; thanks for testing that. The alpha splash is used in all LE alpha builds. It will change again in beta and then revert to the "clean" one for final release. I still need to adapt Gordon's lirc enable/disable function into the settings app. Subject to me finding the time it will probably appear in the next alpha build.

MikeBuzz · October 18, 2016 at 9:44 PM

Have just flashed your build to my CM3 works perfect, tested a few films and its so much smother than the CM1, and Libreelec feels more polished than OE.

Is there a plan to make Slice an officially supported platform or will it remain community?

**chewitt** · October 19, 2016 at 3:40 AM Official Post

Once changes to add $DEVICE support to our build system are merged I will adjust things to Slice/Slice2 are sub-devices of the RPi/RPi2 projects and then PR support to our main git repo. That should make long-term maintenance of Slice things fairly trivial regardless of who does the image building and publishing part.

For community/official status: There's no current plan, but there's a plan to have a chat about plans which might lead to a plan

g7ruh · October 19, 2016 at 8:05 AM

Quote from MikeBuzz

to my CM3 works perfect

Quote from MikeBuzz

...... turns green with envy ......

Roger