Hows that strategy working out for your users Chewitt ?
Shoog
Posts by Shoog
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Ah,
Is the relationship between the two projects good and collaborative, or are there hurt feelings? Often when projects split there is some level of animosity. I don't know if I am walking into a minefield :p
This is not worth discussing. Try Coreelec and see what you think.
Your only other viable alternative is an expensive x86 system. -
So, what is CoreElec anyway? Just a fork of LibreElec focused on getting all the Amlogic features working?
Exactly.
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The N2+ works really well on Coreelec at the moment, runs quiet and is reliable. At some point in the future you can migrate to Mainline builds on the N2+ (not yet though). It offers the best price to performance ratio of any product at the moment. It runs quietly and handles just about any media you can throw at it. You could expect to pay 3-4x the price for anything x86 based that can do the same and it would cost you more in energy in the long run.
X86 make better media servers, but ARM rules in the field of media players at the moment, and Odroid rule that field by a large margin.
Libreelec follow Mainline development on ARM very closely - but its not mature enough to be a daily driver yet.
Shoog -
You know your box is not really dead unless you choose for it to be dead.
Shoog -
IPlayer monitor and log the IP addresses of all clients who access their service. This quickly allows them to spot multiple clients on the same IP address (VPN gateway) and create a blacklist of VPN IP addresses. A new VPN gateway might work for a few hours before they spot and block it.
This applies to just about any pay for view service. VPN's are now useless for bypassing geo-blocking.
Shoog -
My experience with a similar issue with the Khadas Tone board turned out to be a persistent settings issue which was resolved ultimately by doing a fresh install. Hidden logic is the cause of the issue. Its unlikely that a real fix will be found since this is a corner case which will only effect a few instances.
I also had success by setting the default sink in the ALSA settings file, but other people found this caused its own issues which resulted in a bootloop.
Shoog -
There is no fully functional LE build for this box. S912 presents its own unique issues which makes support difficult.
Look elsewhere for a mostly functional OS for this box.Shoog
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This thread is dead and the developer is gone so don't expect an answer.
Shoog
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Not an issue that impacts the N2 because it is a stand alone SBC which has its own unique bootloader.
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Another approach if you can get it to boot into Android is to use the app
Reboot to LibreELEC – Apps on Google Play
This will force a reboot from the SD card.
All this does is issue the console command
reboot update
So if you have a terminal emulator loaded on your Android install then simply launch and issue this command for the same effect.
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This technique will also allow free movement between the stable kzaq LE community builds and the experimental Balbes LE builds.
Shoog -
People are having issues when testing LE and then testing other OS's on the AMLogic platform. They are been advised that they need to reinstall Android firmware after the Uboot is altered on first boot. This is absolutely unnecessary and very poor advice as it is a complex process to restore the original Android ROM assuming you have it.
Fortunately AMLogic is wiser than this advice and they have built in functionality which allows you to boot a self contained OS off a SD card and this will restore the necessary boot functionality to whatever is needed to operate the OS.
The simple method is:-create a SD card with whatever OS you want to run using the LibreELEC.USB-SD.Creator tool (or whatever tool is recommended by your chosen OS) from the full OS image (not the update .tar)
-insert the card into your SD slot with the power off.
-Press your boxes RESET button and insert your power cord and hold the reset until the first splash screen has loaded. The RESET button is usually in one of two locations 1) at the back of the AV socket 2) in a hole on the bottom of the box labelled RESET. Use a toothpick or a match. A few very rare boxes have no RESET button and for these you will have to use a different method.
This has forced you box to boot off the SD card and has run the aml_autoscript which comes supplied with the OS image which sets up the uboot to whatever is needed run you chosen OS on next boot.
Do this every time you want to switch OS. SIMPLES.
If this fails for you try it again as the reset detection can be twitchy. There are also a number of other techniques which can be used if this method fails.
With this knowledge you can safely test whatever OS you choose without reinstalling any firmware or damaging you internally installed system.
Hope this helps.
Shoog -
Thanks for the detailed answer, its quite encouraging overall.
Just to clear things up in my mind. All codec support is SW based ? If so is this fast enough for smooth playback on anything less than a S922 or S905X3. If this is the case is hardware support of codecs been worked on as well ?
So only non-HDMI PCM audio at the moment ?Shoog
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There has been a lot of discussion about how near mainline is to been ready for prime time, but the detail of what that actually means is very vague.
Can we get a list of exactly what on chip and peripheral hardware is supported by mainline and what real world devices have that level of support. Can we also list what is definitely not working and when we can expect it to arrive in mainline.
This would be very useful for people making purchasing and software decisions going forward for the next year.
Shoog -
The issue is that all of these efforts are a constant game of catch up. Release of LE for Leia is already a year behind schedule and as I understand it has been effectively shelved. Drivers for dvb hardware are not been developed for mainline so a lot of peoples still useful hardware is been left in the dust.
Meanwhile AMLogic marches on releasing ever more exotic fare leaving the Mainline efforts yet further behind. Since ARM and AMLogic have made no effort to cooperate with the Linux efforts it seems that if you want a viable box in the now then look elsewhere for your hardware or software.
I admire the efforts been made despite this but feel its all a bit to little to late.
Shoog -
Just updated to the latest (as of yet) Odroid C2 build. But I still have the same issues I've reported before, but as noone responded at all I'll do again:
Image is installed on SD, not eMMC. It boots fine, but when I reboot Kodi, it halts. The OS shuts down nicely though, it seems to do a shutdown -h rather than a shutdown -r.
DVD menu's aren't working. I have all my DVD's ripped to ISO. Doesn't matter if I play them from NAS or the local SD card. DVD trailer starts playing, but the menu is blank (black) with only the cursor showing. When I enter a few times something usually starts playing, and when I then go back to the dvd menu, it works fine. Initially it doesn't though.
Are this bugs to be reported at this time, and if so what logs would you like? The usual kodi debug logs?
DVD playback has been flacky in Kodi for years at this stage, it has not got attention for years because the people who maintain Kodi do not have any interest in supporting it properly. Its effectively a dead technology.
Shoog
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Did you find a box? Looking for something with similar specs, only be using it to play mkvs from external hard drive. Could do with gigabit LAN as I have 1000mbps internet. I've done a lot of reading on this thread but feeling a bit confused... I suppose the simple solution would be a Minix U9 but that's almost Nvidia Shield money where I live!
Currently using a cheapo x96 s905x 1gb ram box that I had gathering dust in a drawer, it works but sometimes buffers or freezes with high bitrate 4k mkv's.None of the current crop of Amlogic boxes are supported under LE running Leia, this version has effectively been skipped at this stage.
The current crop of S922 and S905x3,S905D3 are not supported in LE.
The older boxes such as S905x2 are supported in community builds of Krypton - but are no longer actively supported by the developer.
There are alternatives outside of LE, but the new crop of boxes are not that cheap (ie €50+)
Shoog -
Friend leave here the details of which mini PC you are using.
I'm tired of the amlogic boxes, Android tv box. They all suffer from the same problems,: the firmware outdates quickly, updates come spotty, if ever, you’ll depend on the hacker scene to get Kodi going with all codecs and features, DRM problems with Netflix and Amazon, limited support of external hardware, missing drivers, etc.
If 4K and HDR aren't high priorities for you then I have a nice box running on the AtomicPi, very cheap and capable little board with a nice little 4+4W digital amp onboard. Needs a bit of diy skills to get it going.
However running Windows on it would be problematic so the DRM issues might not be resolved. Unless you splash for a NUC its unlikely that any of the little miniPC's running atom or Pentium chips will address all your needs.
Shoog -
emmc is a nice speed increase and one of the main reasons for choosing a SBC over an Android box.
You can use your existing remote if you can find a configuration file for it, otherwise you can create one yourself just so long as you can work out the code standard, the process is well documented and there is a good database as well. CEC is nice as a backup but on mine it hasn't got the context menu mapped which makes a lot of operations painfully limited.
I find that the on screen keyboard is adequate for all my needs - if been a little painful to use. I wouldn't bother with a remote keyboard, just wouldn't use it enough to make it worthwhile.2g of memory is fine and always will be for Kodi/LE. The only reason to go for 4g is if you intend to run ubuntu or Armbien.
The VIM3L will be a huge step up from your current box and you will probably see only marginal benefit going for an N2 over it. Still the pricing is close so i would still go for the N2.Shoog
