Posts by chewitt

  • Modifying kernel drivers for testing

    The build system works by unpacking sources and patching them before compiling. You can make changes in the unpacked sources, but then you need to create a "diff -Naurp" patch of the changes and add that to the package. Any change to the package folder will trigger a clean rebuild of the package where the sources are nuked and re-unpacked. The patches need to follow packagename-version-sequence-name.patch format; look at the existing set of kernel patches for more info.

  • OpenVPN BBC iPlayer re-route

    It can be done by fiddling with routing tables and not-routing traffic to the IP ranges used by Auntie's CDN infrastructure. However, as those IP's are not publicly listed anywhere and some are dynamicly allocated (much more than the website needs to be handled) it's not a simple task. You'd be better off using the LE box for TV and a NAS for whatever dubious function requires a permanent VPN to mask your traffic.

  • Alternate video player than the regular kodi video player

    Much depends on the GPU drivers. Windows drivers are generally better written (over a wide range of hardware) and can be fiddled with extensively due to the potentially wider range of use cases on a general purpose OS ~ drivers are shipped with a very safe configuration so a major tweaks are needed to get decent performance for Kodi. Hence such packs/add-ons exist. Linux GPU drivers expose dramatically fewer things to fiddle with but tend to run optimised out of the box. However, that's all moot because there is a choice of Kodi VideoPlayer or Kodi VideoPlayer. If you find a better player you need to suggest it to Kodi developers as their app needs to include support before we can bundle anything. Good luck in making the suggestion :) .. do you have a crash helmet and earplugs?

  • Bugtracker

    User donations fund some VPS for web/forums. The project is happy to receive "no strings" donations and support, but we prefer to be independent of "sponsor" obligations (another lesson learned). It might change in the future, but seems to be working for now :)

  • Bugtracker

    We've been sort of hoping/wishing that GitHub improves the Issues function; they've hinted changes are coming. At the moment it's deliberately turned off as OE experience shows an open tracker attracts a lot of "my wireless doesn't work" noise, and users get confused on where to report issues (we'd prefer the forums, and GitHub requires another registration). If we could restrict GitHub issues to prior contributors or a list of known people it would be ideal. We'd pass on the offer of using your server; the gesture is appreciated but as a result of our OE experience the team mandates that infrastructure and apps must not being dependent on any single person .. once bitten, twice as shy!

  • Proven USB stick won't boot on HP PC

    Boot from the debian USB, create an MBR partition scheme on the HDD with two partitions labelled BOOT (512MB) and STORAGE (the remainder of the space). Format both as ext4 and install syslinux bootloader to BOOT. Copy the SYSTEM, KERNEL and extlinux.conf files to BOOT; edit extlinux.conf to use BOOT=LABEL=BOOT and DISK=LABEL=STORAGE .. and then reboot. Installing LE manually takes ~10 mins.

  • LibreELEC vs OpenELEC

    LE has a strong "community" focus and is structured as a collective of people with a common interest. Although a number of us regard ourselves as "on the team" none of the people working/collaborating with the project have ever been asked to declare a formal affiliation to the project. Contributors are not asked to pick sides and are free to contribute to either project as they like. Establishing a legal entity for the project in the future may require us to formally distinguish between voting and non-voting members, thus creating a team, but that's in the future. Today there is no formal team, so it's not appropriate to publish lists of names. Our GitHub commit history provides the best guide to our regular contributors.