LibreELEC on Firestick?

pope3909 · May 24, 2022 at 10:02 PM

Has anyone found a way to put LibreELEC on a Firestick now that the bootloader can be unlocked on some models?

**Da Flex** · May 24, 2022 at 11:45 PM

Kodi app is available for Fire TV stick via sideloading. That's why an LE implementation is very unlikely, and doesn't exist yet.

**chewitt** · May 25, 2022 at 4:20 PM

Quote from Da Flex

and doesn't exist yet.

^ and won't exist, we have better things to be doing with our limited time

pope3909 · May 26, 2022 at 2:47 PM

I know that Kodi can be side loaded onto a Firestick but sideloading negates the benefits that something like LibreELEC offers. I was asking about LibreELEC OS support on a Firestick because 1. Raspberry Pi's are out of stock everywhere and go for 4 or 5 times retail price from scalpers and 2. Firestick are such widespread use that LibreELEC OS support on them could be a really big thing.

**chewitt** · May 26, 2022 at 4:19 PM

If it was as easy as installing an RPi board I'd show interest. However while it can technically be done, it's not simple, so precisely because "it could be a big thing" is why I'd run for the hills before supporting it .. because endlessly walking people through some fiddly install process on a piece of cheap hardware is not fun. Kodi runs well under Android on Firesticks "as designed" so we'll stick to that.

**Da Flex** · May 26, 2022 at 11:29 PM

Don't expect better performance on LE. Android is already super optimized for all popular media, and Kodi app uses those API's.

pope3909 · May 28, 2022 at 1:53 PM

I found a way to install LineageOS on the FireStick, but it was so sluggish that it was unusable. I'm going to attribute this to underperformance of the FireStick due to CyanogenMod's incredible reputation.

I just bought a $90 PI ZERO 2W on eBay and a heatsink to slap on it and will throw on the 9.2.6 image.

Thread resolved, thanks.

**chewitt** · May 28, 2022 at 2:09 PM

It seems you love unsupported low-spec hardware. Note that LE 9.2.6 (or 9.2.8) will not run on a Zero2W because it was launched some time after we released the last LE 9.2.x image so the image doesn't include the required firmware and other boot bits. In theory it can run LE11 images (nightlies) but it will probably run rather 'meh' due to low RAM on that model; we decided to officially not support anything with less than 1GB starting with LE10 to avoid those kinds of support issues (sound familiar?). That guidance is documented in release notes for LE10 and such (that we write and nobody reads). There is also a thread around here with some people flailing around the process of trying to backport Zero2W support to the older codebase, but I stopped reading that thread after a while as it made my head hurt.

pope3909 · May 28, 2022 at 3:40 PM

Quote

It seems you love unsupported low-spec hardware.

Feel free to sell me a reasonably priced CM4 or to get off my back. I only need to use it as a front end to my TrueNAS file server (for my 1080p TV) so I don't exactly need a super computer.

EDIT: Kodi sideloaded on FireStick isn't sluggish, but Kodi is the only app that I want to use so the amount of bloat I have to deal with is bananas.

**Da Flex** · May 28, 2022 at 4:24 PM

RPi Zero W might work for your needs: Click!

If you find a regular (non-Android) Linux for Fire TV, then you could autostart Kodi on it.

**chewitt** · May 28, 2022 at 5:31 PM

RPi Zero W is supported in LE 9.2.8 but no longer supported in LE10+ due to the <1GB RAM rule.

**Da Flex** · May 28, 2022 at 8:38 PM

Current RPi prices are so crazy that I had to spend some hope.

**chewitt** · May 29, 2022 at 7:52 AM

Zero2W is an awkward one for people. As it's 512MB it really needs the older LE codebase which is lighter on lower spec hardware, but at the same time it launched after we've stopped all work/effort on that codebase. It's not particularly hard to add support for it (although users in that forum thread seem to have done things the hard way) but we deliberately chose not to spin an official image with support; because we already decided to drop support for <1GB devices in LE10+ .. so we don't want add support and encourage people to purchase Zero2W boards when we effectively already discontinued support for them. It's not a bad board, but people have high expectations and it's still low-spec so we have to be sensible about the amount of work we create for ourselves.

diederik · May 30, 2022 at 1:19 AM

Quote from pope3909

I just bought a $90 PI ZERO 2W on eBay and a heatsink to slap on it and will throw on the 9.2.6 image.

Quote from pope3909

Feel free to sell me a reasonably priced CM4... I only need ... a front end to my TrueNAS file server (for my 1080p TV) so I don't exactly need a super computer.

Did you know that RPi's aren't the only devices on the planet?

For $35 (Pine64 Rock64 2GB) + $7 (5V3A PSU) + $13 (Premium Aluminum Casing) + $25 (32GB eMMC module) = $80 you can easily play 1080p files (even 4k).

That's just one option (and not necessarily the best); there are others.