[christoofar]

Just want to extend my huge thanks to Matt & the community in this hugely helpful thread. I was able to finally install Chrome/OE yesterday on my CB, and it's an absolute joy to use. Hardest part for me was trying to get to a command prompt =).
The Fire TV remote works a treat w/ this box too. Can't wait for Kodi final & more skins.
Matt I owe you numerous beers for your great work on this!!

[jsp1]

About the gray scale ramp, I was able to keep mine smooth with this update. It did need to be re-calibrated to achieve this though, which is strange. Anyway, I don't notice much difference, but I'm glad to know it is more stable.

Side note: The chromebox requires a significantly different picture setup on my television then the Roku, or my Blu-ray player which means switching presets every time I change source. Kind of annoying. I don't suppose there is a standard that is universal to all (or most) devices that anyone is aware of?

The chromebox settings look wonderful for chromebox use, and horrid for everything else. I find this unusual since most other devices are pretty close in calibration standard.

[teki4u]

Just a note to anyone running a Chromebox and OpenElec. The GPU hang finally seems to have been fixed. Experimental build here : http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid1859912

Allows VAAPI rendering (no need for disabling "Prefer VAAPI render method") and includes VAAPI hardware accelerated Motion Compensated (best) and Motion Adaptive (also quite good) de-interlacing that gives you an option over SW YADIF 2x.

Been running with VAAPI Rendering enabled and VAAPI Motion Compensated de-interlacing with high bitrate 1080/50i native content and it hasn't hung yet. Huge achievement. Makes the Chromebox an even more fantastic XBMC appliance.

I have already posted this lol http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid1860480. Maybe Matt can add a link to that experimental build or upload his build to OP so people that want to test can do so because posts get losts in the end.

[Matt Devo]

I have already posted this lol http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid1860480. Maybe Matt can add a link to that experimental build or upload his build to OP so people that want to test can do so because posts get losts in the end.

given that the fix will be in the next OE release, and that these experimental builds differ pretty significantly from the mainline 5.0 OE branch, I'm not keen on making them available to a wider audience ATM, and potentially creating more non-script-related problems for people to post about in this thread

[teki4u]

I have already posted this lol http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid1860480. Maybe Matt can add a link to that experimental build or upload his build to OP so people that want to test can do so because posts get losts in the end.

given that the fix will be in the next OE release, and that these experimental builds differ pretty significantly from the mainline 5.0 OE branch, I'm not keen on making them available to a wider audience ATM, and potentially creating more non-script-related problems for people to post about in this thread

You're right Matt. Didn't know the fix will be in next release, that is great news. Thanks!

[Tinwarble]

Matt, I would fist like to thank you for your work at making getting these box set much easier than it would be if we had to do manual installations. As well as your work making pretty good instructions on how to use the script.

I just received my Asus Chromebox Thurs., followed the instructions and was able to get my box set up as a dual boot (ChromeOS+Openelec) fairly easily. With one exception, after I formatted the drive the script seemed to get wiped, so I had to re-download it. I'm not sure what happened, but except for that everything else went fine.

The only other problem that I have appears to be an EDID issue with my AVR, where about 75% of the time when I reboot I get a black screen and have to switch inputs to get a picture. But that's a Openelec or driver issue and I don't what to hijack this thread any more than it has already been about an unrelated issue.

There is one thing about the script though, that I would like to know. Is it possible to set the dual boot delay for something other than 1sec or 30sec? For me 1sec is too short and 30sec is too long, it would be nice just have the delay something like 5sec or 10sec.

[hansibull]

Hi!
I just got my chromebox today (i3 model), and I've successfully installed Ubuntu in a dual boot mode. I got a Pioneer VSX-923 AV receiver (latest firmware installed), that supports most audio formats. My problem is that I can't get system audio working (GUI sounds etc)! The audio is not working in Chrome OS either. I've chosen my receiver in the audio settings in Kodi (HDA Intel, PIO VSX-923 on HDMI #0), and since I've enabled pass through audio, All movies and TV-shows (even those who only have a 2.0 sound track) got audio, but no system audio. If I change the resolution to something else that 1080p, I also get the system audio back, but now the resolution doesn't fit my TV. I also have issues with the well known black screen, when I reboot or change the source on my AV Receiver.
If I go to the audio settings and use the Output configuration "Fixed", My AV receiver is showing PCM on the display (and 5.1 ch, since that's my setup) and now I also got System audio! The problem is that If I'm watching a DTS-HD movie, it still says PCM on the display.

Will there be a patch that fixes these AVR related issues?

[jsp1]

Hi!
I just got my chromebox today (i3 model), and I've successfully installed Ubuntu in a dual boot mode. I got a Pioneer VSX-923 AV receiver, that supports most audio formats. My problem is that I cant get system audio working (GUI sounds etc)! The audio is not working in Chrome OS either. I've chosen my receiver in the audio settings in Kodi (HDA Intel, PIO VSX-923 on HDMI #0), and since I've enabled pass through audio, All movies and TV-shows (even those who only have a 2.0 sound track) got audio, but no system audio. If I change the resolution to something else that 1080p, I also get the system audio back, but now the resolution doesn't fit my TV. I also have issues with the well known black screen, when I reboot or change the source on my AV Receiver.
If I go to the audio settings and use the Output configuration "Fixed", My AV receiver is showing PCM on the display (and 5.1 ch, since that's my setup) and now I also got System audio! The problem is that If I'm watching a DTS-HD movie, it still says PCM on the display.

Will there be a patch that fixes these AVR related issues?

If your receiver reports PCM 5.1 then you aren't getting passthrough. It sounds like your audio is being decoded on the Chromebox. This shouldn't be happening with a VSX-923. Possibly an Ubuntu thing and not a Kodi issue.

---

Matt, I would fist like to thank you for your work at making getting these box set much easier than it would be if we had to do manual installations. As well as your work making pretty good instructions on how to use the script.

I just received my Asus Chromebox Thurs., followed the instructions and was able to get my box set up as a dual boot (ChromeOS+Openelec) fairly easily. With one exception, after I formatted the drive the script seemed to get wiped, so I had to re-download it. I'm not sure what happened, but except for that everything else went fine.

The only other problem that I have appears to be an EDID issue with my AVR, where about 75% of the time when I reboot I get a black screen and have to switch inputs to get a picture. But that's a Openelec or driver issue and I don't what to hijack this thread any more than it has already been about an unrelated issue.

There is one thing about the script though, that I would like to know. Is it possible to set the dual boot delay for something other than 1sec or 30sec? For me 1sec is too short and 30sec is too long, it would be nice just have the delay something like 5sec or 10sec.

I'm fairly sure Matt already said that boot delay is limited to either 1 or 30 seconds. Which AVR are you using?

BTW, are you the Tinwarble responsible for the Western Digital Hub themes some time back?

[hansibull]

Hi!
I just got my chromebox today (i3 model), and I've successfully installed Ubuntu in a dual boot mode. I got a Pioneer VSX-923 AV receiver, that supports most audio formats. My problem is that I cant get system audio working (GUI sounds etc)! The audio is not working in Chrome OS either. I've chosen my receiver in the audio settings in Kodi (HDA Intel, PIO VSX-923 on HDMI #0), and since I've enabled pass through audio, All movies and TV-shows (even those who only have a 2.0 sound track) got audio, but no system audio. If I change the resolution to something else that 1080p, I also get the system audio back, but now the resolution doesn't fit my TV. I also have issues with the well known black screen, when I reboot or change the source on my AV Receiver.
If I go to the audio settings and use the Output configuration "Fixed", My AV receiver is showing PCM on the display (and 5.1 ch, since that's my setup) and now I also got System audio! The problem is that If I'm watching a DTS-HD movie, it still says PCM on the display.

Will there be a patch that fixes these AVR related issues?

If your receiver reports PCM 5.1 then you aren't getting passthrough. It sounds like your audio is being decoded on the Chromebox. This shouldn't be happening with a VSX-923. Possibly an Ubuntu thing and not a Kodi issue.

---

I only get PCM if I choose "fixed output configuration" If I choose "Best match" or "Optimized", I don't get any audio at all. Since I get a black screen every time I do some changes on the AVR, it seems like this is the EDID problem.

[Tinwarble]

I'm fairly sure Matt already said that boot delay is limited to either 1 or 30 seconds. Which AVR are you using?

BTW, are you the Tinwarble responsible for the Western Digital Hub themes some time back?

Yeah, 159 page. I've read the majority of this thread (and may have seen that if it was said), but can't remember if if was stated or not. Plus between this and trying to stay up on AFTV threads and other things.....the old brain can't retain everything.

It's a Denon, but like I said, not going to hijack this thread over that.

And yep, one and the same.

[quicknir]

Also make sure you have HDMI plugged in and not the display port..... that got me but YMMV.

both HDMI and DP video outputs work properly when used independently; using both together is OS-specific

Actually, this eventually turned out to be the issue. With two different televisions and two different OS's (OE and Ubuntu), I consistently saw that the chromebox initially worked just fine with displayport, but switched to HDMI only the moment I entered the installation programs for OE or Ubuntu (I didn't have anything connected there). I was using a displayport-to-HDMI cable. I think it might be worth adding a note about that to the instructions (that using the HDMI out over the DP out is "recommended"), it would have honestly saved me 3-4 hours (and I probably would have ended up with OpenElec instead of Ubuntu, not that it's directly related). I finally used the HDMI port on a chance suggestion from a friend (I missed this possibility) and everything worked perfectly.

Got XBMC setup on Ubuntu quickly, and setup a 3TB external over USB3 to mount on boot via fstab. Only things left to do is setup transmission daemon (worse than I remembered).

I am seeing two minor issues though.

1) The first is that the CPU idles with one core at around 60%. This is not XBMC related. I've seen this in other posts too but have not seen a resolution.

2) I see the occasional freezing up, esp when doing video and menus simultaneously. I saw this mentioned in another post; someone mentioned that this is fixed completely in the newest XBMC builds, or is that only applicable for OE users?

Thanks to Matt for his fine work, especially with making the BIOS replacement so easy. Without this script I'd probably have bought an NUC instead and ended up at double cost, so thanks!

[jsp1]

I'm fairly sure Matt already said that boot delay is limited to either 1 or 30 seconds. Which AVR are you using?

BTW, are you the Tinwarble responsible for the Western Digital Hub themes some time back?

Yeah, 159 page. I've read the majority of this thread (and may have seen that if it was said), but can't remember if if was stated or not. Plus between this and trying to stay up on AFTV threads and other things.....the old brain can't retain everything.

It's a Denon, but like I said, not going to hijack this thread over that.

And yep, one and the same.

I wasn't telling you to read the thread, lol...just saying the info came from Matt since that's who you asked. Not to mention there are two threads of discussion on this, so said info may not even be in this one. Anyway, I am using a Denon as well with no problems, if you'd like to PM I could try and help you troubleshoot if you're using Openelec.

I enjoyed your hub themes back when I still had my hub. Good stuff. I knew your name sounded familiar.

[Matt Devo]

both HDMI and DP video outputs work properly when used independently; using both together is OS-specific

Actually, this eventually turned out to be the issue. With two different televisions and two different OS's (OE and Ubuntu), I consistently saw that the chromebox initially worked just fine with displayport, but switched to HDMI only the moment I entered the installation programs for OE or Ubuntu (I didn't have anything connected there). I was using a displayport-to-HDMI cable. I think it might be worth adding a note about that to the instructions (that using the HDMI out over the DP out is "recommended"), it would have honestly saved me 3-4 hours (and I probably would have ended up with OpenElec instead of Ubuntu, not that it's directly related). I finally used the HDMI port on a chance suggestion from a friend (I missed this possibility) and everything worked perfectly.

I don't understand why people are using a DP-->HDMI cable when the box has HDMI out, but it certainly seems problematic, so I've added a note to the wiki about it.

Got XBMC setup on Ubuntu quickly, and setup a 3TB external over USB3 to mount on boot via fstab. Only things left to do is setup transmission daemon (worse than I remembered).

I am seeing two minor issues though.

1) The first is that the CPU idles with one core at around 60%. This is not XBMC related. I've seen this in other posts too but have not seen a resolution.

this is only an issue with the stock firmware (dual boot), a single stick of ram, and certain kernels/kernel configs. I added the fix to the wiki, which is to disable the TPM device via kernel boot parameters.

2) I see the occasional freezing up, esp when doing video and menus simultaneously. I saw this mentioned in another post; someone mentioned that this is fixed completely in the newest XBMC builds, or is that only applicable for OE users?

Thanks to Matt for his fine work, especially with making the BIOS replacement so easy. Without this script I'd probably have bought an NUC instead and ended up at double cost, so thanks!

are you using the recommended settings from the wiki? There's one Intel driver bug for which there is a workaround listed; the fix will be in future kernels or require a manually patched kernel.

[quicknir]

I used the cable just because it was handy, I agree in general I wouldn't have picked that if both were equally available.

Not sure if the conditions you listed to have the CPU idle bug are meant to be OR'ed or AND'd. I am running single boot, and as far as I understand I don't have the stock firmware; when the system boots it says something about the bios that has your name at the end. Do you think that the wiki fix is still likely to help me? Just a bit nervous about trying it if my version of the problem does not fit into the standard diagnosis.

I will take a look at the wiki recommended settings and see if that helps with the freezing, thanks very much.

[Matt Devo]

I used the cable just because it was handy, I agree in general I wouldn't have picked that if both were equally available.

Not sure if the conditions you listed to have the CPU idle bug are meant to be OR'ed or AND'd. I am running single boot, and as far as I understand I don't have the stock firmware; when the system boots it says something about the bios that has your name at the end. Do you think that the wiki fix is still likely to help me? Just a bit nervous about trying it if my version of the problem does not fit into the standard diagnosis.

I will take a look at the wiki recommended settings and see if that helps with the freezing, thanks very much.

if you did a standalone setup, then you're running my firmware, and the only thing I can think of that would cause the high CPU usage would be using an outdated kernel - what's the output of 'uname -a' ?