LibreELEC on RP3B+

    Hi, I have a 3B+ that I'd like to use as for Kodi, and I thought using libreElec would be a nice lightweight distro to use, but I've run into some problems, so I'd like to confirm what I've read and next steps.

    1. Please do not suggest getting a RBP4 or a different machine. That is not helpful and does not answer my question.

    2. My understanding is that RBP3 doesn't use standard (hardware) video acceleration, and will run worse on newer versions, so the best version to use is 9.2 since that was built pre-4 and has all the specialized video accelerations tricks for RBP built in.

    3. However, I get the rainbow screen because the firmware in 9.2 isn't new enough so it won't boot the RBP3b+. So I need to get the firmware from RBPOS and add it to the older version for it to boot. Will that screw up the video acceleration?

    4. I can't get the most recent version of LibreElec to boot, but the most current version of RBPOS boots.

    Is that it? Will updating the firmware in the libreElec 9.2 image still retain the video acceleration for the RBP3b+?

    Why offer 11.0 for RBP2/3 if the performance is worse?

    Why not port the video hacks to that image so it works as well as the older version?


    Thanks,

    Charlie

    I have two RPI3Bs running LE9.2.8 and they're fine.

    You don't say what you're trying to boot from MicroSD card or USB drive. If the former then it may simply be the SD card isn't seated properly. If the latter then, if my memory is right, the earlier firmware on the Pi doesn't support booting from USB drive. I seem to recall a patch somewhere on this site which tells you which of the config files to alter but my suggestion would be to get a cheapo small microSD card, burn LibreElec onto that and use it to boot from.

    It may be possible, once you've booted the machine, to download the latest firmware which will allow booting from USB drive, no guarantees.

    3b+ running away here fine on latest LE11. I strongly suggest you try it first and make your own mind up as to what it can and cannot do. You’ll get little or no support on an old version like LE9 and you’ve the likes of Python 2x v Python 3x to contend with too.

    Quote from charwhee

    2. My understanding is that RBP3 doesn't use standard (hardware) video acceleration, and will run worse on newer versions, so the best version to use is 9.2 since that was built pre-4 and has all the specialized video accelerations tricks for RBP built in.

    HW acceleration works fine on Pi2/Pi3 for h264, mpeg4, mpeg2 (with licence), VC1 (with licence) with latest kodi.

    The only loss compared to 9.2 is hevc decode. That had a heavily software accelerated decoder which used bits of

    arm simd, 3d shaders and VPU vector operations. Unfortunately that just wasn't possible to support when moving to

    standard linux api (v4l2 and drm).

    I'd recommend using the latest LE image, and avoid hevc encodes.

    If you need to play hevc, then stick with 9.2.