[Mansome]

What is the difference between the 3 on speed now? That is the main thing I am looking for with kodi. Currently I am running a raspbian jessie lite with LXDE and kodi. I was running Arch Linux with LXDE and Kodi. With those two LXDE builds I noticed it appeared to be faster than if I had just ran OSMC, or OpenElec. I tend to run heavy skins for the visual appeal that comes with them.

[Mr. Willie]

I'm curious on what's the current answer to this debate: should I choose LibreELEC or OSMC (or maybe XBian)?

Cheers!

[nickr]

My preference is LibreELEC, but I can see the attraction of OSMC.

Why not get two SD cards and try both?

[graham-h]

I went from OE to OSMC because I liked the nice clean OSMC skin. Now Estuary has caught up (overtaken, actually) there's not so much to choose. OSMC has never given me any serious problems but I don't have lots of add-ons. I do use the bluetooth streaming in OSMC - not sure if OE/LE have that.

[nickr]

Yes LE has bluetooth audio.

[Mr. Willie]

Thanks! So, the both are alright. Do you know about XBian?

[mrsfixit]

I have 5 Raspberry Pi's- 4 RPi2's and 1 RPi3.

I have gone from OpenElec, to LibreElec, to OSMC, and briefly flirted with Manjaro-Arm Media edition.

I've since gone back to LibreElec because upgrading OSMC on one of the Pi2's from Jarvis to Krypton caused me some kind of problems. I forget exactly what- but some of the addons stopped working I think it was... OSMC Jarvis was fine.

My brief flirtation with Manjaro-Arm was hampered by the fact that the OS refuses to see ANY thumb or other usb drive you hook up to it. Other than that I found it extremely fast on the Pi3. I would love to try it again, but not until they get the bugs sorted out.

I've never tried Raspbian, but I'm tempted because i really would like to have a web browser on the Pi so I can stream baseball games and Netflix...

[C-Fu]

the easiest way to try out, as of this moment, is to use (almost) all of Kodi's flavour via Berryboot.

1. copy the berryboot files into a fresh sd card and let it boot.
2. get any of the OS images that you want from this website, it's updated faster than the official Berryboot site. More choices too. List of Kodi-related OS that I can remember are:
- LibreELEC 8
- Peach Pi TV
- Recalbox OS
- Batocera
- OSMC
- OpenELEC
- Geexbox
- Happi
- RetroPie
- DietPi (install kodi via dietpi-software command line)
- Arch or Pixel/Raspbian

Download to a USB disk, and click the Install OS from usb menu via Add OS button. alternatively you can backup the OS/image to the USB disk after you've done any changes to it (change addons or settings or whatever) and clone it into other RPi that you have.

Personally after testing all of them, I'd go with LibreELEC first, OSMC a very close second. Every other OS is just not worth it for various reasons, mainly RPi is slow enough, and berryboot is convenient enough (compared to noobs) for you to have a dedicated OSes - one for kodi, one for retro gaming, one for desktop, etc. No more reason to have one OS that can do everything.

[mrsfixit]

the easiest way to try out, as of this moment, is to use (almost) all of Kodi's flavour via Berryboot.

1. copy the berryboot files into a fresh sd card and let it boot.
2. get any of the OS images that you want from this website, it's updated faster than the official Berryboot site. More choices too. List of Kodi-related OS that I can remember are:
- LibreELEC 8
- Peach Pi TV
- Recalbox OS
- Batocera
- OSMC
- OpenELEC
- Geexbox
- Happi
- RetroPie
- DietPi (install kodi via dietpi-software command line)
- Arch or Pixel/Raspbian

Download to a USB disk, and click the Install OS from usb menu via Add OS button. alternatively you can backup the OS/image to the USB disk after you've done any changes to it (change addons or settings or whatever) and clone it into other RPi that you have.

Personally after testing all of them, I'd go with LibreELEC first, OSMC a very close second. Every other OS is just not worth it for various reasons, mainly RPi is slow enough, and berryboot is convenient enough (compared to noobs) for you to have a dedicated OSes - one for kodi, one for retro gaming, one for desktop, etc. No more reason to have one OS that can do everything.

I am not familiar with Berryboot but your post has certainly piqued my interest... :-)

[C-Fu]

I am not familiar with Berryboot but your post has certainly piqued my interest... :-)

It should!

NOOBS is based off berryboot, but simpler. with noobs, you don't have a lot of the berryboot functions. While some are not that important (like headless VNC mode, or a terminal mode), others are incredibly useful (backup/restore an OS to the SD card as .img file, adding/deleting OS without destroying the current contents).

IMHO since NOOBS was derived from berryboot, might as well use berryboot

[trogggy]

I am not familiar with Berryboot but your post has certainly piqued my interest... :-)

It should!

NOOBS is based off berryboot, but simpler. with noobs, you don't have a lot of the berryboot functions. While some are not that important (like headless VNC mode, or a terminal mode), others are incredibly useful (backup/restore an OS to the SD card as .img file, adding/deleting OS without destroying the current contents).

IMHO since NOOBS was derived from berryboot, might as well use berryboot

I don't use / have never used either, but the discussion towards the end of this thread suggests the reverse to me:
298571 (thread)

[C-Fu]

I don't use / have never used either, but the discussion towards the end of this thread suggests the reverse to me:
298571 (thread)

lucky me, i don't have that problem. while it's true that berryboot's pro/con rests at it's one-kernel-multiple-os method, i've yet to encounter any problem with kodi flavours since mid last year.

i even dare say that while osmc devs told me it's hard/impossible/not supported to implement osmc+berryboot, in my own personal experience it's more stable to use OSMC with berryboot via Alex Gold's image than the normal/supported way. I can even upgrade/downgrade libreELEC+berryboot via the normal update folder way, which I couldn't do it with xbmc 15.

YMMV, as usual. it's good to have choices. this is my experience, and I hope yours will be the same. frankly speaking it's just easier and faster for me to backup (and later restore) via berryboot img backup rather than kodi/osmc's tar/libreelec backup method, and that reason alone is enough for me to wholeheartedly recommend berryboot over noobs or direct image flash.

the only issue left with berryboot in my 2017 experience is with installing OS that heavily depends on overlayFS like Hypriot/RancherOS...... whatever that means I managed to install docker via DietPi+berryboot anyway so not a big deal.

I don't know if I did say this, but you can also install OSMC+Retropie's Kodi+LibreELEC+OpenELEC+Batocera's Kodi+Recalbox's Kodi+Peach Pi TV+other kinds of all in one sd card if you want.

[trogggy]

YMMV, as usual. it's good to have choices. this is my experience, and I hope yours will be the same. frankly speaking it's just easier and faster for me to backup (and later restore) via berryboot img backup rather than kodi/osmc's tar/libreelec backup method, and that reason alone is enough for me to wholeheartedly recommend berryboot over noobs or direct image flash.

Just to be clear...
You're saying you think it's better to install libreelec via berryboot than to install libreelec directly?

Have I got that right?

[Sam.Nazarko]

I don't use / have never used either, but the discussion towards the end of this thread suggests the reverse to me:
298571 (thread)

i even dare say that while osmc devs told me it's hard/impossible/not supported to implement osmc+berryboot,
I don't know if I did say this, but you can also install OSMC+Retropie's Kodi+LibreELEC+OpenELEC+Batocera's Kodi+Recalbox's Kodi+Peach Pi TV+other kinds of all in one sd card if you want.

It's not impossible, it's just not recommended if you want to get OSMC updates as soon as they come in. Without being able to control firmware and kernel, we can't always guarantee things will work as expected.

Cheers

Sam

[mrsfixit]

I don't use / have never used either, but the discussion towards the end of this thread suggests the reverse to me:
298571 (thread)

i even dare say that while osmc devs told me it's hard/impossible/not supported to implement osmc+berryboot,
I don't know if I did say this, but you can also install OSMC+Retropie's Kodi+LibreELEC+OpenELEC+Batocera's Kodi+Recalbox's Kodi+Peach Pi TV+other kinds of all in one sd card if you want.

It's not impossible, it's just not recommended if you want to get OSMC updates as soon as they come in. Without being able to control firmware and kernel, we can't always guarantee things will work as expected.

Cheers

Sam

OSMC was quite nice until I said YES when I should have said NO and let it update from Jarvis to Krypton... then things went to hell in a handbasket...

My fault for doing it. But I still have it sitting on a different mSD card so I could just pop it in again and give it another go. Or downgrade it.

All I really want is Kodi, with a web browser available, so I can stream stuff from the internet like SNY.tv that there are no addons for...