Posts by chewitt

LE currently implements exFAT via FUSE which runs in userspace and so is rather slow. In the near-term future LE10 will probably bump to newer kernels which now have the new/official Microsoft exFAT driver implemented (Linux 5.7 IIRC) so the driver runs in-kernel and should be an order of magnitude faster to use; performance should be on-par with other in-kernel drivers like the VFAT drivers we use for FAT16/FAT32.

ConnMan checks ipv4.connman.net on boot to see if it's online or not. If the network is online Kodi will then start and numerous Kodi add-ons will check for updates by making a request to a Kodi URL which will redirect to a mirror hosted by one of 30+ independent mirror sites. Kodi uses mirrorbits which will geolocate your IP and recommend a server near to you, but you have no control over which one. The LE settings add-on will also start and check our infra for updates. This request is fulfilled by our infrastructure but if you choose to update the request will be redirected to one of our mirror sites and mirrorbrain will redirect you - and you have no control over which one. Individual add-ons that you install may also check for stuff.

Both LE and Kodi devs are quite security conscious, but we're also a simple client OS designed for watching TV so security is a deliberate and measured compromise around ease-of-use and we're not attempting to be the most seure device possible (as that OS is a pain in the arse for noob users to work with). TL/DR; If you don't trust LE/Kodi .. place it in a separate VLAN on youor network and implement firewall rules to prevent it reaching other devices.

Martin's branches are here: Branches · xdarklight/linux · GitHub .. note the amount of "WIP" items and don't get too excited

Put the device on a static DHCP reservation so you can SSH in after booting and share logs to see why the screen is black.

You can enable "disable password auth" after installing private SSH keys (stops unauthorised access to the console where passwd can be run). You can put a PIN on the LE settings add-on to stop people accessing the add-on to change the password from the GUI.

LE 9.0.2 is the latest official release. After this point we have abandoned all work on the legacy Amlogic 3.14 kernel and refocussed on mainline Linux support for LE10 (based on Kodi v19 which is still in a pre-Alpha state). This has some rough edges on playback but it otherwise in fairly good shape on Linux 5.6 .. I'm overdue to push a bump to Linux 5.7rcX to the master branch.

Current test images are in Index of / .. use the AMLGX 'box' image from an SD card.

NB: Kodi will always show under 1GB free because some RAM is reserved for system use (drivers and such) .. 775MB sounds about right/normal.

There's a mailing list on [email protected] but traffic is super low and I already pinged the main connman developer who worked with me on adding the initial wireguard support to connman (he wrote code, I tested it - my use-case is limited though).

If you need to control start sequencing use a system.d service, you have a lot more control over when things happen.

You might ask the author to submit the add-on to our repo?

1. RPi4 supports hardware decode of 4K HEVC, but not 4K VP9, and not H264 (which is not a standard).

3. The TV should support a "Just scan" or auto mode. On a modern TV you should never need to calibrate the screen. And 1080p@60 is the best default resolution. Forcing the screen to run at 4K just adds load to the device. Kodi is already upscaling the 720p skin to 1080p, the TV will do a better job of scaling 1080p > 4K (native resolution of the panel) can Kodi does scaling 720p > 4k.

4. The filesystem is read-only apart from the persistent /storage area - this cannot be changed Anything you need to configure can normally be done in /storage, but we can't advise what to do unless you explain what you're trying to change.

5. Resolution determines the GUI (desktop) resolution. The whitelist determines the resolution/refresh rates to be used for playback if "adjust refresh rate to match video" is enabled. If the TV supports them, enable [email protected]/24/50/59.94/60 and [email protected]/24/25/29.95/30 (50/60 optional).

6. It generates more heat and draws more power, and IMHO is completely unnecessary unless you actually have 4K60 media. So far I've only seen test media in this format so I don't have it enabled.

Quote from maildjain

seems like 9.2.2 rewrites the boot-loader ? Can anyone help please ?

Once installed, nothing touches the bootloader.

I already have support for the C4 in my private git repo, but I need to clean some things related to Linux 5.7 up a little before I push support to the LE repo. Adding support for the C4 took a whole 30 mins as Dongjin had already prepared a device-tree file for Linux 5.4 that only needed a couple of minor updates for Linux 5.7 - and the device-tree is now submitted upstream.

To answer the original Q more directly. During playback press the 'o' key and it will show you whether FFmeg hardware or (SW) softtware decoding is being used. Older Intel low-end GMA chipsets are not always so well supported, they pre-date the point where Intel got properly interested in Linux and started to invest effort in support (in the newer hardware that followed). You might find that Windows is a better option.

Kodi supports NFS sources similar to SMB sources.

I think you'll get further in the Kodi forums where add-on developers hang out.

You'll need a TTL adapter (normally a USB device) as the signal voltage levels are different to a standard RS232 port. I also see nothing on the board to indicate those are the UART pins, although it's a low resolution image and markings could be on the underside. Normally the +ve pin (pin 1) will have a solid white triangle pointing to it (see the white connector on the left side of the image for an example) or has a white square ring around it - something distinctive. In future please post output to a pastebin site and images to somewhere like imgur - you can share higher resolution images that way.

To fix this you'll need to create an SD card image with u-boot from an A95X-F3 box and then short pins on one of the emmc chips so that the box is forced to search for BL2 firmware on the SD card. If you can get into u-boot (or higher level OS) it's normally possible to zero the emmc (or at least enough of it to resolve the broken boot firmware) and then the box will always boot from SD card and OS installs become easier.

IIRC it works on RPi3 hardware, but their RPi4 version requires/assumes Xorg (for Rasbian) and since we don't use Xorg in our pi images, it doesn't work on RPi4 hardware.

I'm not sure LE has ever supported those accessories, and these days everything involving the legacy 3.14 kernel is a bit of a fading memory and lost cause (it's been consigned to history and forgottten about) so I'm not sure you'll get much help. The Odroid forums would be a better place to trawl old posts for possible info.