Posts by chewitt

  • S805x build (lafrite)

    LibreELEC.tv/linux.aarch64.conf at amlogic-master · chewitt/LibreELEC.tv · GitHub

    ^ If I change the CMA fall-back value from 256 > 128 and force a 1GB device to 512M via kernel boot params, the Kodi GUI comes up and I can play the 1080p60 version of Big Buck Bunny (test media). I need to run some experiments on a wider variety of hardware and codecs before I can consider making that value the distro default. It's possible that HEVC (which is not supported yet) might require more. Let me know how that works for you?

  • Librelec on VIM KHADAS EMMC

    You need to boot from the AMLGX "box" image (edit uEnv.ini and set the correct dtb name) and then copy the AMLGX "khadas-vim" image to /storage; then you can write the "khadas-vim" image to emmc. The emmc image will only boot from an SD card if you erase the emmc first.

  • Latest LibreElec on Intel NUC and audio

    Hopefully the flashing situation will be resolved. We recently discovered via the Intel folks working on HDR support (Kodi is their test app) that Intel has an internal Linux tool for tthis; they are going to see if it can be cleaned-up and released. No promises, but fingers are crossed.

    Bugs in official Kodi add-ons should be reported to Team Kodi via their forums or a detailed bug report (follow the template) on GitHub.

  • Librelec on VIM KHADAS EMMC

    If you are using one of the nightly images from Index of / there is a tool called "emmctool" in the OS to help with installing LE to the internal emmc storage. In short, you need to boot from any image to an LE console and then run:

    emmctool w /path/to/LibreELEC-AMLGX.arm-XXXXX-khadas-vim.img.gz

    The tool will then unpack and overwrite the existing contents of emmc storage with the specified image. If you are already booted from the AMLGX "box" image the tool is in the OS, and all you need to do is download the "khadas-vim.img.gz" suffixed image to /storage and run the command.

    The tool is considered experimental but has worked well for me in regular wipe/format boot tests. If it does screw up (it was writen by me so this is always possible) the provblem will be something wrong with partitions and naming. In this scenario you still end up with a working u-boot installed on emmc and can continue to boot from the "box" SD card to simply repeat the process.

    If you are using older "KVIM" images (our legacy codebase) .. support for them among staff is now rather limited and I would recommend you continue to run them from an SD card.

  • A64-plus

    Kodi support for newer Allwinner (and Amlogic, and Rockchip) hardware is a choreographed ballet of very recent kernels, mesa, ffmpeg and Kodi (19) items. You can backport kernel, mesa, and ffmpeg to an older LE release fairly easily, but then the Kodi version will not support the kernel drivers and ffmpeg correctly. TL/DR; You need to stick with LE master images. There has been a lot of indecision among add-on authors due to a long/protracted noegotiation about how to handle the Py3 version bump. There is now firm clairity on that from Team Kodi, and while not all authors will like the decision made, the decision has been made so the way forwards is clear, and that should result in more add-ons being converted.

  • Where is config.txt

    /flash/extlinux/extlinux.conf is not an equivalent to config.txt (RPi config commands won't work) but if you follow the instructions for Intel GPUs here Custom EDID [LibreELEC.wiki] the same process for forcing a specific edid.bin file (so the kernel drm framework always thinks an HDMI device is connected and powered) should work - Allwinner boards are also using the same kernel drm framework.

  • Video not playing on nightly Lafrite build

    FWIW .. I was playing the file from an NAS (SMB) device in the network using the low-spec on-board WiFi of the Hub. I'm not aware of any issues with USB read/write performance on Amlogic SoC's but I also never/rarely use local media with any low-power ARM devices; not because they're inherently bad, but because I swap between 20+ devices on a regular basis so everything's in a central place in the network to make that easier.

  • S805x build (lafrite)

    If you set defaults to -Os it will optimise the image for file size not "running in RAM size" which is the issue. LE sets -O2 which is sensible.

    And .. every couple of years some user discovers this wonderconfig they read about called zram, makes a lot of noise, and rushes off to do extensive performance testing that proves zram has negligible/zero benefit in our distro. Boards under 1GB don't have enough RAM to really benefit from loading more things into RAM and 1GB+ we already run everything in a ramdisk so forcing zram use only adds additional overhead.

  • S805x build (lafrite)

    If I add "mem=512M" to kernel boot params on an S905 device Kodi faults with this error ^

    So unless there are improvements to RAM utilisation in the OS or specifically the video stack, Kodi cannot run on 512MB LaFrite devices. I've flagged it to a couple of the developers, but since we are refusing to support 512MB Allwinner devices as being "too small for sensible Kodi use" and the long-term message on RPi 512MB hardware is similar (we will drop support for RPi0/1 sometime soon) I wouldn't expect a surge of activity .. sorry.