Posts by chewitt

  • Will future LibreELEC for Kodi 18 Leia work with S812 processor?

    At this stage it's too early to say what the future holds for 32-bit Amlogic devices. Kodi needs to clean-up Linux support similar to how the Krypton move to "mediacodec" simplified Android support. In the long term Kodi wants a V4L2 based Linux video architecture, and that almost certainly requires Linux platforms like Amlogic (and Raspberry Pi) to be running a current/mainline Linux kernel with V4L2 video drivers. Older 32-bit S802/805/S812 devices are stuck on an ancient 3.10 kernel that falls wildly short of that requirement. If code clean-up progresses quickly it is quite possible that a 64-bit Amlogic device will be required for Kodi v18 support on Linux.

  • New Community Build?

    It depends on the Kodi v18 schedule. If Kodi decide to do a shorter sprint for v18 that results in an autumn-ish release then your 4.11+ fix will arrive in the next series of alpha/beta builds as we move towards that release. If it looks like v18 will run longer (end of year-ish) then we'll organise a mid-year 8.2 release with a newer kernel/mesa to pick up improved Intel hardware support, and we'll probably throw in a switch back to openssl for some bonus credit. So nothing firm yet, but we have Kodi DevCon over the next few days and that might firm ideas.

  • RPI3 as Access point

    That can probably be solved by tweaking openvpn configurations to set appropriate routes. Or you go shop and get a proper router, because the hotspot feature in LE is not and never will be a proper wireless router.

  • Bricked my Chromebox?

    OE's update process has no protection against "wrong image" updates (unlike LE which does) so it's blindly applied the RPi2 .tar file to the boot partition and this has overwritten the SYSTEM file. The box still half-boots because RPi devices use a kernel.img file not 'KERNEL' so the original KERNEL file is still present and being used. Half-booting doesn't help though :)

    If you took a backup (and moved it off-box) before updating the fastest option is to create a new installer USB using our USB/SD creator app and then clean install LE on the box. Once it's up/running you can restore the backup.

    If you did not take a backup you need to boot the box from an LE install USB or Ubuntu "Live" USB; both can be run in Live mode. LE boots/runs and can give SSH console access to run some terminal commands. Ubuntu gives you a full desktop environment. Basically you need to mount the first partition on the internal HDD and overwrite the KERNEL and SYSTEM files there with new ones extracted from the LE 8.0.1 update .tar file, then reboot and you should be running LE.

    NB: On the download page there is a drop list (above the pi logo) and if you click this, you'll see an option for Generic x86_64 hardware. Click that and the page links change to show the Generic image update files. If you don't click it.. you're looking at RPi2 links.

  • NextThing Co C.H.I.P and GR8

    [Linux] Generic drm/kms implementation by lrusak · Pull Request #11955 · xbmc/xbmc · GitHub

    ^^ this is also supporting current efforts with the Rockchip based TinkerBoard and Amlogic aarch64 devices on a 4.11 kernel, and sometime in the next week or so an Exynos based DragonBoard should end up in the hands of the same developer. There are no plans for LE to "support" DragonBoards but it has the best (or most-complete) V4L2 stack of any ARM device so it has development uses as we figure out fun stuff like atomic modesetting. Things are moving in the right direction and it's not a unicorn, but there's a HUGE amount of unwritten code between where we are today and the next release of Kodi using Wayland etc.

    So best support is and probably always will be Raspberry Pi, but after that there's no clear winner. Right now I'd give Amlogic a minor edge but that's only due to knowing more about the fugly state of their current kernels and the efforts Baylibre are doing to correct them. Rockchip has more code in the mainline kernel, but we know less about them.

    NB: S802 is 32-bit and none of the current mainline effort targets Amlogic 32-bit devices. There is a fair amount of IP common with aarch64 platforms but there are differences and nobody is being actively paid to code for them.

  • KIII Pro vs. RPi+USB-tuner

    Some Amlogic devices suffer from installation quirks/niggles (unique device trees etc.) and some have shitty firmware so there is always a slight gamble to be made, but 64-bit devices from reputable vendors have a lot of promise and we are working very closely with the developers Amlogic contracted to rewrite and upstream 64-bit platform support into the mainline Linux kernel. That effort should be more or less complete around Linux 4.13, although graphics fettling and tuning will take longer - but we already have private test builds working on 4.11 and the video architecture changes needed in Kodi v18 are in process too. So the future is a little way off.. but very visible. Amlogic is not at pi levels of community focus but it's move a long way from the hideous codebase it was 1.5 years ago. I have zero expectations of S912 fbdev drivers so the 'libhybris' wrapper will continue as the only option for S912 devices like the one you mentioned. That hack seems to be holding up, but it's still a gamble.

  • NextThing Co C.H.I.P and GR8

    I would expect all serious development on 32-bit Amlogic platforms using ye ancient 3.10 kernel to dry-up once mainline support for S905/905X arrives around Linux 4.13, and there is currently zero support for Exynos chips in current Kodi although DRM/V4L2 we're doing might open the door to that changing before v18 ships. Those factoids might narrow your selection criteria.

  • New Community Build?

    Just create a release thread in the main support area. If it ends up growing legs and runs with lots of posts and activity we'll move it somewhere more permanent, although I suspect we've caught up on support in the near-ish future as 4.11 released yesterday.

    I'd ask for your changes to be in your GitHub repo, and for a URL to the repo in the first post of the thread. Keep the first post up-to-date with the latest build details and comments.

  • Plex Media Server on LibreELEC

    Anything involving apt-get is not going to work on LE/OE or OpenPHT (which is based on LE these days). LE supports docker and ls.io have a pre-built container for Plex that can be installed as a Kodi add-on. I'm not sure if OpenPHT supports the same.

  • IPTV Stream opening takes for ever

    Kodi developers changed/improved the buffering code in Krypton. This improves overall playback but results in longer times before playback starts. It's a known/aware problem; the usual complaint is channel zapping in tvheadend or similar. No changes are expected until Kodi v18.

  • Cannot rewind with LibreELEC 8.1 onto my Wetek Play 2

    Amlogic support in Kodi v17 is not fully baked and there are some unfinished bits, and this is one of the quirks that shows up on some media - I see it most when trying to skip back in tvheadend time-shift recordings. It's more a case of "working as expected" than a reportable bug so I won't be asking for logs or investigating further. Fixes for current quirks will/should come with Kodi v18 and further overhauling of Kodi VideoPlayer code, and by that point we are hopefully running on a mainline Linux kernel that solves other quirks in the current (ancient) 3.14 kernel.

  • No SSH Access

    Cipher changes in LibreSSL that invalidate old/cached keys or an outdated PuTTY version or invalid permissions on the /storage/.cache folder where the SSH private keys are stored (if insecure sshd will not start) are the normal culprit. If you add "tty" to boot params you should end up with a console on CTRL+ALT+F3 that you can investigate from.