LibreELEC 10.0

http://libreelec.tv/2021/08/26/libreelec-matrix-10-0/

by LeoPanthera • 5 years ago

112 59 5 years ago

This link is not great for people unfamiliar with the project. I went to the Wiki link in the menu to figure out what this is.

LibreELEC is just enough (Linux-based) OS to run Kodi. Kodi is entertainment center software.

mrspeaker• 5 years ago

Maybe they don't want tire-kickers, but the whole website feels like "If you have to ask, you don't belong here, move along!".

The blog post doesn't mention what it is, the home page doesn't mention what it is, the about page hints at what it does, but only says it's for something called "Kodi" but doesn't say what THAT is.

Good way to create a sense of mystery though!

Cockbrand2• 5 years ago

TBH, I think they're just ~nerds~ technical people who focus a lot on their product and don't have the resources and skills to build an attractive, inviting website. The product itself is great, though!

thiagocsf• 5 years ago

I’m a long-ish time user of LibreELEC and holy crap! That blog post is like “there be dragons here, there and everywhere”.

I’ve recently moved on from LE on RPi to OSMC on some British media centre hardware that I forget the name now. The main reason was because some (all?) of the x265 stuff I downl^H^H^H^H^Hacquired wouldn’t play properly.

dspillett2• 5 years ago

Maybe they don't want tire-kickers

Could well be at this time. My LibreELEC running Pi4 recently updated itself to 9.2.8, and isn't showing 10 as an update yet. Perhaps this is considered a gamma testing period.

selfhoster112• 5 years ago

If you don't know about Kodi, there will be a steep learning curve to learn either it or LibreELEC in every case.

rubyfan• 5 years ago

reminds me of the old apache project sites where they would tell you the latest version, changelog and how to download from a mirror site but somehow not tell you what the project even is.

SV_BubbleTime• 5 years ago

It was a tribute things like this as by programmers for programmers. And that programmers have little empathy for normal people - I’m a programmer.

nabla9• 5 years ago

It's Linux distribution, not Linux-based.

Even their main page is confusingly unspecific.

MisterTea• 5 years ago

Why would you click "Wiki" when there is a perfectly descriptive "About" link a few pixels over?

encryptluks22• 5 years ago

I really like Kodi in terms of what options are currently available, but I find it to be quite bloated and the configuration to be a nightmare if you want to manage it independently of the app. I'd love to see some new competitors in this arena that focus on static config management so that I can manage my config using YAML/TOML manually rather than having to configure everything through the app. Also, setting up multiple users or syncing Kodi configs is still 2nd class.

Lammy2• 5 years ago

so that I can manage my config using YAML/TOML manually

How is that any better than XML? https://kodi.wiki/view/Advancedsettings.xml#guisettings.xml_...

encryptluks22• 5 years ago

TOML/YAML is significantly better than XML, hence why almost every modern app uses YAML for configs. Kodi's settings are scattered across multiple XML files and you have to manage each one independently rather than just pointing it to the server, it is just annoying to setup.

handrous4• 5 years ago

I've never liked Kodi's performance and stability, don't like the UI (skins don't help, it works the same regardless and most of the unofficial skins are half-broken anyway) and I hate how it's configured—those last two are intertwined, because I don't like how config is scattered all over and mixed in with using the thing, on a TV interface (another matter on a web or desktop interface—that would be fine). Haven't gotten used to or comfortable with it in years and years of using it.

Finally switched to Jellyfin with its accompanying Roku app (and the web interface, in a pinch). Much happier with that. Jellyfin in docker on my fileserver, map the drives there, start it up with auto-restart (which will also start it on boot) and forget about it. Configure and watch some on the web, but mostly just watch from the couch on a Roku. Much better UI, despite being far from perfect. Snappier and less fragile, even in its web interface. Media source management's less crazy-making.

I don't really use live TV, streaming (the plugins I usually wanted to use on Kodi were usually broken or too janky to use, anyway), or radio, on Kodi, though. Or the games features—I use Lakka instead, which I like much better UI-wise. I don't think Jellyfin can replace those features, if you use them.

10GBps3• 5 years ago

Kodi's Achilles heel is their choice to implement in Python. I've gotten used to the interface though it gets slower with every release.

Cockbrand2• 5 years ago

I haven’t used standalone Kodi, but with LibreELEC, I don’t share this experience. It runs really nicely on my Raspi 3, and I can control it via my TV‘s remote. It pretty much feels like it’s running on the TV itself instead of the (not so) smart built-in features. The UI is a bit slow at times, but definitely not annoyingly so. The default configuration is quite good and usable, and I didn’t feel the need to change much.

globular-toast2• 5 years ago

Same and I'm running on a Pi2. It's been running flawlessly for 5-6 years at this point. I always cringe whenever I see just how unbelievably and unbearably slow some built in TV "smart" stuff is. It's especially unbelievable because my setup cost around £30 to "upgrade" my dumb TV (in fact, the Pi was just lying around surplus to requirement so basically free).

I have tried Plex and currently have Jellyfin set up. Plex I removed immediately due to "cloud" login (yes I know you can disable it, I did by removing it). Jellyfin is useful but I still find myself using Kodi directly as it just works.

gizdan3• 5 years ago

I ended up writing some scripts that automate the set up of kodi. Periodically my Android TV gives out so I have to reset it (it's an old TV). Having automated the set up of kodi has allowed me to get back up and running in minutes.

walteweiss2• 5 years ago

Do you mind sharing that?

AnIdiotOnTheNet• 5 years ago

I used to like Kodi, back when Exodus was in its heyday and before everyone had a streaming platform so I was just pirating left and right. Now I find that my Kodi box spends 99% of its time launching Chrome.

10GBps3• 5 years ago

Sucks the Pi3 is not supported. "current development is focused on RPi 4"... Yeah, the Pi3 is only like the most widely used embedded system on the planet and Pi4's are still incredibly hard to find. I would have focused on the 3 first. :/

LeoPanthera2• 5 years ago

It is supported, it's just not finished yet. Dev builds are available, or you can just keep running 9.2, which still works fine.

handrous4• 5 years ago

I don't think Pi3 had HEVC decoding, which makes it kinda suck vs. a Pi4, as a video-playing device. May as well use a 2, at that point. They'll both struggle with anything over SD-resolution in h.265.

10GBps3• 5 years ago

I play 1080p and 720p H.265 all the time without issue on my 3 B+. It's just barely fast enough.

walteweiss2• 5 years ago

I play FullHD on my Pi 2B v. 1.2 (not 1.1) and it works very well, only with H.264, not 265 (but I don't really need it at the moment and don’t see it as something you really need, if don’t need 4K).

hnlmorg• 5 years ago

I've played HD content on a RPi 3 for a few years without any issues. In fact I think it was running an earlier version of OpenELEC (not sure when they changed their name to LibreELEC -- or maybe that's a new project with the same goals?)

I'm pretty sure I've used a RPi 2 for HD content too but that did suck. The UI was a little laggy and I had to manually set NFS mounts because even SMB caused too much overhead. Once the stream started it played most content ok but god help you if you needed to fast forward or rewind.

c0l02• 5 years ago

My RPi 3B+ turned out to be fast enough to decode most any 1080p H.265 content in unaccelerated software on LE 9.2 without problems. Sure, at high bitrates you'll see more than 300% CPU consumed - but that's when having four cores in that tiny thing actually pays off for real :)

compsciphd• 5 years ago

pi4 doesn't have vc-1 (or mpeg-2, but mpeg-2 is doable on the cpu). the Pi4 struggles with vc-1 bluray images. In practice, it should have enough cpu to handle vc-1, except for the fact that ffmpeg doesn't have a threaded decoder for vc-1 (long standing missing feature in ffmpeg, but no one with enough experience

dave_sullivan• 5 years ago

I started using Kodi on a modded Xbox when it was XBMC.

Recently got an odroid N2+ and put CoreElec with Kodi on it and I'm very impressed. On the hardware, it runs very smooth. Configuration is a mess, but overall it's come a long way and I'm very happy with it. Once configured, I leave it alone.

rossmohax• 5 years ago

Does it support HDR on Linux?

zamadatix• 5 years ago

For certain boards, they are doing device specific tricks to make this work at the moment. E.g. Pi 4 is supported.

AlexanderDhoore• 5 years ago

I used to run OpenELEC on a 1th gen Apple TV back in the day. Good times.

EDIT: And my jailbroken iPod Touch was the remote!

LibreELEC 10.0

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