Posts by madhits

  • Is the Linux x64 (AMD64/EM64T) Display Driver still cut

    I have 2x gerforce 7800 cards, series 7 cards. The cards use 304.137 driver. My understanding from Libreelec 8.0 was the the driver 304.137 was not included or that the cards earlier then series 7 were not included. I cant recall how it was diced up. I think it had to do with hardware decoding which I was ok losing. According to the kodi info here: Supported hardware - Official Kodi Wiki

    Nvidia GeForce 6-Series or newer is needed for software decoding and I'm fine with that but I think libreelec cut off the drivers all together with no option to put them back in. I understand series 7 cards do not have VDPAU but I think they have VA-API support.

    I rarely play video higher then 720p and that along with 1080p content plays fine with software decoding.

    Anyway has anything changed?

  • Is the Linux x64 (AMD64/EM64T) Display Driver still cut

    Hello, About a year ago libreElec decided to cut older drivers for kodi 17. I was more then just a little upset at the time. Now I am wondering if this decision has stood before the release of kodi 18?

    I still have 2 machines that rely on these drivers and to my utter surprise Nvidia released another drivers update to Version: 304.137 Release Date: 2017.9.19.

    I expected the update before that one to be its last but we got another update for a series of graphics cards made way way back in the daw of time itself 2005. Here are the details: NVIDIA

    So my question is are the Nvidia 304.137 drivers still cut from Libreelec? ;(

    I am still building my own builds of kodi to support my graphics card, wondering if the team hear had a change of heart on this? I know the builds need to be small and I get that but graphics is like #1 and there are no driver packs for kodi (I wish there was). Having to maintain my own builds is doable but a pain cuz I'm such a noob at this.

  • [Solved] LibreElec test Build HOW TO

    Quote from lrusak


    Your hardware you are using is very old, I'd be surprised if you could even use OSX on it. So why do you think we should support it? The entire point of our distrobution is to have a small embedded distro with the minimal amount of tools and packages you need to have a complete media center. We cannot support everything and I'm sure there is many individuals out there that would like to have something supported but whats the point if it's only a couple people out of a install base of what is now about 50,000 users?

    Yeah some of my hardware is very old. I really pride myself on using old, outdated, or discarded hardware because it goes against the throw away culture we live in. People are always amazed by old 2005/2006/2007 built system that run 1080p 5.1 dolby sound. I've referenced the story of stuff before and I truely believe in that. See: Story of Stuff

    The problem is exactly what you say. Not a lot of people are willing to keep there old hardware and because not a lot of people keep it we are stuck with no support for it. Well sorta, drivers are still written by some companies but then no one uses them and thus they dont get updated. Its a cycle of out with the old in with the new. As surprising as it sounds your decision to drop Nvidia series 7 will affect Nvidia's decision to update in the future if they were that is. Nvidia is pretty awesome to keep supporting there legacy hardware and I want to of course use my old hardware but also because they made the driver and I want to say thank you. I cant convince you guys to support old hardware out of principle because 1. The user base numbers dont support it. and 2. There are distros that do that, just not jeos for old hardware. which is what I want.

    Anyway now that I have a basic understanding of the build process I hope to get a build done myself with your help. I had to start again with milhouses script running because it failed last night. Now its at 55% again and I'm hoping it completes this time. I also started my build on a minimal ubuntu ISO.. 54mb and I added only whats needed to build LibreElec besides firefox and xbuntu minimal GUI. The system or at least the hard drive I'm using will be dedicated to building LibreElec in the future and other linux tasks. I will remember to keep it clean though since that effects the build process.

  • [Solved] LibreElec test Build HOW TO

    Quote from Grimson

    This isn't detailed enough for you: Compile - LibreELEC ?

    So you expect the devs to give everyone basic linux training? Get a grip, use Google and you'll find enough places specialized in that.


    I have done that, of course. Now that I think about it this kind of problem cant be completely fixed by the devs, but I think they either inspire people or drive them away. The walkthroughs and guides have to come from the community really. Different users offering up there own experences as to how they got this done. Don't you guys wonder why Linux cant overtake windows or osx on the desktop? Why avg user thinks linux is so hard? and why do we not try to break that sterotype down? It has a lot to do with community involvement, making it appear easy to build something, despite if it is really that difficult or not. Insaenlymac/tonymacx86 is busting with people offering how they got OSX bla bla on there machine. However when I look at LIbreElec or openElec I dont see the average user making there own builds unless its just for them and not sharing the exp with others. Why is that?

    Over at the insanelymac community. Average users are constantly posting how they got there install done and what lil steps they took to make it work. The task of installing OSX on a pc is complicated but it has gotten easier through new tools. My point is the guides, & the users who write them make this community more digestable to the average user. I felt like making my own build before this and I thought it was almost impossible due to the feedback I got from this forum. However I tried anyway and I used the openelec guide above and ran into countless errors and gave up. I could not understand what the errors were and spent a solid 3 weeks googling because there was no avg joe blow who had come before me trying to do this and publishing there results, mistakes and errors. Even the topic milhouse pointed me at over at kodi.tv the guy gave up and never got the build done. Why is that? I might not have all the answers but I can certainly see the problem.

  • [Solved] LibreElec test Build HOW TO

    What I meant by making it easier is a walkthrough explaining each step and what the prerequisits are. I had Milhouse help me and even with his scripts, readme and most of a guide as a total noob I still ran into some minor errors. Granted making those mistakes helped me learn the process, and some mistakes were bound to come up. The openelec docs despite being basic are a lil outdated and do not give the finer detail that someone thats never touched linux needs. Now luckly Ive had some knowledge from my hackintosh experence. A lot of the commands and some of this stuff is simular. That's just my 2 cents on it. I liked that Milhouse uses scripts for his work as it really allows you to work backwards like I said before. I was able to look at his scripts and patches and see more or less what they did. Editing them in the future without breaking them will be my next goal. A slow process but I'm learning along the way. My 1st custom build will be done in a few hours hopefully.

  • [Solved] LibreElec test Build HOW TO

    These errors are related to SSH. I am sshing into my ubuntu minimal install from a mac on my local network. So I generated a SSH key for my mac. Is that right?

    Or do I have generate one for my ubunti minimal machine and forget the mac? I am just using ssh cuz this is the machine I am planing to eventually run the custom install of LibreELEC on. This is so damn confusing. Is there such a thing as double sshing. IE I ssh into my ubuntu machine and then also ssh into github. Wow does that do my head in...

  • [Solved] LibreElec test Build HOW TO

    Quote from lrusak


    try building again?

    Not sure why you're not building vanilla LibreELEC


    Irusak. I have tried about 20-30 times. This morning same result. I tried moving the problem line to the bottom of the lepull.dat file but it just errors on a different curl line item. Its weird, its something with curl because when I use wget it works. I'm not sure how to make the script use wget over curl though. I even reinstalled curl. No luck there.

    As for not going with vanilla build, I knew that would come up if you or chewitt responded. The reason for this is because I'm a noob and honestly barely understand what is going on during the build process. However I do understand scripts (IE low level coding), I used to build my own scripts back when I built windows installers so they do make sense to me and milhouse was kind enough to share his build process with me and its been digestable for someone with no exp. Before this I wasted my time trying to build a vanilla stable build and I got errors and could not understand why. I now believe it was because I was missing a lot of the tools needed to make the build work. Milhouse also wrote me a script for the hardware support I need. I seriously owe him a beer. Not to totally dog you or chwett but this process has to be made a lil easier if you want more people involved. I get the sense that you and chewett dont want any new devs. I hope my feeling is way off. Making some scripts up and posting them may help a lot of people get into this. I have always learned by looking at the answer and working backwards, maybe that is why scripting is something I get.

    Update: I dont believe it but I had the ~/.git.conf configured wrong.. OYE.. Noobie error!

    UPDATE2: Still getting input stream errors.. No solution so far. wget of these git directories works but script ignores downloaded version.

  • [Solved] LibreElec test Build HOW TO

    I have starting the process of making my own build of LibreElec 8 kodi 17. I am a totall noobie at this so its a work in progress, I am attempting to add support for SIL680 & Nvidia Geforce 7 series cards.
    I am only building for the new release because building for the current stable I dont have a script for. I understand the process for stable but then throwing in new drivers makes it more error prone and I already wasted a lot of time trying to build stable without success. The scripts milhouse uses seem to make things easier but of course Ive got some errors.
    See this tread for more backstory and about Milhouses scripts see: LibreELEC Testbuilds for x86_64 (Kodi 17.0) or Python not building

    Here is the updated guide on how to build LibreElec if your a total noob..

    Full build instructions for LibreElec first time build. This is mostly Milhouses readme with added instructions for first time users. Hope this helps anyone who is struggling to build there own LibreElec with custom hardware support.
    Get a github ID.. Sign up at github.com

    Install Ubuntu minimal 54mb 1604 build make sure ssh is installed along with xubuntu minimal. Installation/MinimalCD - Community Help Wiki Once installed open terminal in the gui and do the following:

    1.1 Configure git (change http://user.name/user.email as appropriate) both steps are required.

    $ sudo apt-get install git
    $ git config --global user.name "YourGithubUsername"
    $ git config --global user.email "[email protected]"
    $ git config --global push.default simple

    Setup git so you don’t hit download limit of free users.
    $ nano ~/.git.conf

    GIT_USERNAME="YourusernameHere"
    GIT_PASSWORD="YourpasswordHere"

    1.2 Ubuntu dependencies, added gedit incase you don't want to use nano you can use gedit and the default browser does not seem to work so firefox was used, these are optional:
    $ sudo apt-get install curl g++ gawk gperf xsltproc xfonts-utils default-jre libncurses5-dev texinfo ccache u-boot-tools python python3 firefox gedit

    1.3 Environment setup:

    $ cd ~
    $ mkdir projects
    $ cd projects
    $ sudo apt-get install pv pxz pigz pastebinit patchutils
    $ git clone git://http://github.com/LibreELEC/LibreELEC.tv.git
    $ wget -q oebuild.tar.gz -O - | tar xvz

    2. Configure your details in ~/projects/build.conf:
    $ mv build.conf.sample build.conf

    2.1 Edit build.conf. This is the step where you change profile. If you wish, set a default profile with the following entry (pi2 is an example):
    [ -z "${PROFILE}" ] && PROFILE=pi2
    $ nano ~/projects/build.conf
    Or $ gedit ~/projects/build.conf


    2.2 Add support for other hardware or make edits for driver support. You can also remove support to speed up build. This legacy hardware txt is below and adds support for geforce series 7 and SIL680 IDE card. This maybe a request for help on the forums. However you may also find methods online to add support for your hardware. This script is here as an example of the edits needed to add such support.
    $ echo "=master forwardPatch 00_legacy_hardware.txt" >> ./lepull.dat

    3. Start building:

    cd ~/projects
    PROFILE=multi-master ./autobuild.sh


    ECHO LEGACY HARDWARE TXT file for support of Geforce Series 7 & SIL680 RAID/IDE CARD.

  • Hardware support.. Why no Nvidia 304.131 moving forward?

    Quote from Nailig

    This does not greatly effects you if you stay on the current version. You say it runs, then what is the problem? Why do you need a newer version of LE?

    It is your choice. You can not have it all unless you or someone else in the community makes their own build. You can not expect this group of LE volunteers to support all available hardware that is out there. All software eventually needs new hardware.

    I hear you but I just think its unfair when the changelog 304.131 = 340.96. The only difference is hardware names and the fact that Nvidea for some reason has them in 2 different driver release files. If they were in 1 file we would not be having this discustion. I and the others who are affected are more a victum of circumstance (nvidias 2 files vs 1) then anything else.

    As for not needing the newest release you are right I do not. However I need another driver as chewett mentioned above so I am trying to learn how to build it in myself. This has been a 3 week process and I have to thank Milhouse for showing me how he does the test builds. Almost got it built as soon as I can resolve this curl error.

  • Hardware support.. Why no Nvidia 304.131 moving forward?

    Quote from chewitt


    Over time the definition of "current" and "legacy" needs to move forwards and the decision to bump legacy to 340.xx was deliberated by the team for a long time (we postponed it for 7.0 but agreed on 8.0). The change impacts our support for cards that are typically a decade (or more) old as the newer cards supported by 304.xx are also supported by 340.xx. The decision will stand regardless of your poll and if you are determined to use your ancient card (and need RAID support in the kernel) the solution is to self-build an LE image with the bits you need; as nVidia maintains their drivers aganst new kernels it's a fairly simple change to revert.

    If there are a group of users that need 304.xx support the solution is for you to group together and support each other; someone can build an image using the older driver and share it to the group. This is what happened when a group of ION users wanted 340.xx support to solve some graphical images at the time we still used 304.xx. If someone wants to step up/forward as that builder we're quite happy to support the effort with some hosting space to publish the builds from, if that's easier than sharing via dropbox/mega/etc.

    This greatly effects me as I have 3 HTPC running kodi 7.0.2 with Geforce 7 series hardware and all can play 1080p video with 5.1 dobly digital output. Now I understand the need to drop support for older cards but what I dont understand is nvidia updated both of these drivers on the same day and both are current newly patched legacy drivers. So its a shame to see a new driver regardless if its for a particular hardware dropped from support. I will make my own builds I guess but I think this is really a shame. A 512mb DDR3 gefroce card is Not junk..

  • Hardware support.. Why no Nvidia 304.131 moving forward?

    Upgrade now to Nvidia 340.96“Fixed a bug that could cause texture corruption in some OpenGL applications when video memory is exhausted by a combination of simultaneously running graphical and compute workloads,” the official changelog reads.Moreover, support has been added for X.Org xserver ABI 20 (xorg-server 1.18), and this is the most important new feature. It’s worth pointing out that Nvidia also released legacy drivers on the same day for the GeForce 6 and 7 series, and those are marked with the 304.131 version. The changelog is identical with the 340.96 driver mentioned above.
    Why is 340.96 included in LIbreElec moving forward but 304.131 not going to be. If Nvidia releases the same update for Series 6,7,8 & 9 cards just under 2 different drivers why cant both be supported moving forward?

    I want to see if others users would like to see support for geforce series 6 & 7 cards moving forward.

  • Hoping for Hardware Support... SIL 0680 PATA IDE

    Quote from vpeter


    You are in luck Generic: Add support for SIL680 PCI/ATA controller · LibreELEC/LibreELEC.tv@0379559 · GitHub

    Vpeter thanks for pointing this out to me. I just asked for Milhouse to add it last night here: LibreELEC Testbuilds for x86_64 (Kodi 17.0)

    I never imagined he would get it done that fast. Amazing. I know lrusak & chewitt wanna keep LibreElec clean but if there was some sort of driver plugin support/package management or other way that average user could add there drivers it would be great. It would leave all these extra drivers out of the main code base but at least people could add them if they wanted to.

  • Hoping for Hardware Support... SIL 0680 PATA IDE

    Quote from lrusak


    The easiest way to adjust the kernel config is described here.

    Development workflow - OpenELEC

    I wrote that a couple years back.

    Irusak.. I gave it another try and I guess I have to give up. This is impossible it seems.

    I even tried to get opensuse to boot a special version of kodi I found on the suse studio site, it sees me Sil680 card which is nice. But It will not ID my graphics correctly so I am stuck even after installing a custom xorg.conf, which should have addressed the res issue. See: Kodi – SUSE Gallery

    There has to be an easier way. PLEASE can you do anything to make this a lil easier? I will give anything a try. The differences between the guide above & Libreelec maybe part of the problem. It just will not work. I just need this 1 Sil680 and I'm done. Prob take you 10mins to fix for me and ive been trying to 3 weeks with libreelec, kodiubuntu, kodi on suse, all without any luck. Please help!

  • Hoping for Hardware Support... SIL 0680 PATA IDE

    Quote from lrusak

    The 760 is quite new and is supported, you are probably thinking 7xxx series.

    Yeah its a 7900 actually not 7600. Its quite beefy with 512gb ram but I guess getting old. I'm not surprised that support will be dropped on it. Figures story of stuff. I wish you guys could or would do a legacy build and make it something that was easy to build yourself kinda how suse studio works. See: Kodilicious – SUSE Gallery

    Thats likely the furture. Be nice to make your own libreelec without having to compile and build the whole os from scratch. Did my head in when I tried..

    All I need is pata_sil680.ko and I'm golden.. Its a shame I cant place that file in the boot directory and it just works.

  • Hoping for Hardware Support... SIL 0680 PATA IDE

    Quote from lrusak


    That probably means your graphics card is too old and isn't supported. What is the hardware you are trying to run on?

    Nope.. The graphics is NVidia Geforce 760 512mb DDR3 & it currently boots from IDE onboard ICH7R Libreelec 7.0.2.

    Like I said in the orginal post I am trying to make a dual boot Kodi/Xpenology system. I need all the onboard SATA and PATA ICH7R controllers for Xpenology.

    The pata_sil680.ko is for Libreelec or Id like it to be on that controller as it will boot faster than USB2. Once you mentioned USB boot I thought that might solve my problem. but I tried 2x 1gb and 2gb flash drives and both would not load the xorg drivers. Odd because my libreelec install currently on my 40GB IDE drive boots fine of the ICH7r & loads the Geforce 760. I just would like to move that drive to the pata_sil680.ko. I'm not sure why the USB would not boot. I could try transfering the 40GB IDE install over to USB.

    But I have this pata_sil680 PCI card just collecting dust so I'd love to use it. Can you help. Ill try to build this again but i'm still a linux noob..

  • Hoping for Hardware Support... SIL 0680 PATA IDE

    Quote from lrusak

    This is wrong, Yes, usb 2.0 speed isn't that great, but we boot the entire system into memory. The only reading/writing that is done is to the /storage partion when runtime configuration is kept.

    see, LibreELEC.tv/init at master · LibreELEC/LibreELEC.tv · GitHub

    The only thing that will be effected is startup speed.

    Well the USB install failed. Could not start xorg. Err no matter which way I go it wont work. I rather use this silicon image IDE controller anyway. lrusak CAN YOU PLEASE help me with a build of libreelec that includes Ubuntu – File list of package linux-image-4.2.0-34-lowlatency/trusty-updates/amd64.. PLEASE I BEG YOU!!