[Klojum]

I feel a wee bit responsible for this debate here as I was the OP.

You are not responsible for the 'debate', things went from 0-overdrive in a short time between former colleagues.
CoreELEC's initiators simply have decided to go their own way, hence the fork from LibreELEC.
Also, they now have their own forum for CE run devices and troubleshooting.
The current Amlogic situation has already been pointed out in a previous given URL.

[clarkss12]

I feel a wee bit responsible for this debate here as I was the OP.

Couple of points from me as a typical user of Kodi and an AML device.

1. I could carry on running Android on the AML device as it is doing a decent job of delivering 4K but the perfectionist in me believes if all I want is Kodi to be optimum then I should be installing LibreELEC
2. I did a shedload of reading on this forum to see where to go next. I looked at the LibreELEC forum for info ..asked a few questions about the AML box I was buying.
3. I went to install LibreELEC only to find the device is unsupported on that build ... at this point I am like ‘wtf?’
4. Through more reading and searching I discover there is an unsupported LibreELEC build out there and that @wrxtasy is also doing stuff to keep it working on AML boxes.
5. I’m grateful that build exists because I feel like I can do what I wanted with a fork of LibreELEC... I start to mess about getting ready to install and hit a few snags around device trees .
6. Next thing I know someone mentions CoreELEC and I think nope not going there ....
7. Did some research on it and it seems better supported than the LibreELEC fork from @wrxtasy (no offence intended) so I think let’s have a go anyway.
8. CoreELEC installs easily (only issue atm is my remote but that’s fixable I know).

What I do not know is what this ‘hacky’ stuff is that’s been mentioned or even if I should be concerned.

What I do know is that I feel disappointment in knowing the LibreELEC team are not actively supporting AML when others in the community are willing to.

I don’t expect ask LibreELEC questions here nor do I expect to ask questions of CoreELEC here but for each of these I would ask in the relevant forum ..

It’s just a shame al the ELEC teams can’t pull together for the good of every member of this community.

And a big thank you from me to ALL those devs who work this stuff regardless of the fork you work on ..

 Well said.  +1

[clarkss12]

I don't know chit about the inner workings of OpenELEC, LibreELEC or CoreELEC, but just like to have them work.  It was depressing news that the Kodi/LibreELEC folks were abandoning the hardware based on the Amlogic SoC.  Been using Kodi/OpenELEC ports by Kszaq for several years, since he made the port for my since retired MK808b Plus stick.  That stick, running OpenELEC and tvheadend server, served me well for a couple of years, as my PVR/DVR backend, until I retired it.  I am still using one of my Amlogic boxes as my tvheadend PVR/DVR.

When Kszaq, moved from OpenELEC to LibreELEC, I move with him also, for his support of my Amlogic devices.  Now, it appears that LibreELEC has decided to abandon the Amlogic SoC and CoreELEC has decided to continue support.  So, it is a NO BRAINER for me to make the move to CoreELEC.  I am now running CoreELEC on all of my devices now, instead of LibreELEC.  But this is NOT to diminish the hard work of LibreELEC, for it has served me well, as did OpenELEC.

http://freaktab.com/forum/tv-player-supp...8b-and-mxq

[Raybuntu]

I think there are a few misunderstandings. First of all I don't see this thread going to overdrive as @Klojum says. I think we all had a very civil talk with mutual respect around here which is a bit of a surprise knowing how biassed both sides are.

I don't know where you get the idea that Amlogic was abandoned by Team LibreELEC. It just happened that AML developers left LE to do their thing.

[clarkss12]

I think there are a few misunderstandings. First of all I don't see this thread going to overdrive as @Klojum says. I think we all had a very civil talk with mutual respect around here which is a bit of a surprise knowing how biassed both sides are.

I don't know where you get the idea that Amlogic was abandoned by Team LibreELEC. It just happened that AML developers left LE to do their thing.

  So, there was NO discussion about LibreELEC not supporting Amlogic devices past Leia

[Raybuntu]

Doesn't look like it. I'm no longer part of LibreELEC so I can't speak for them but I didn't hear a clear "We will drop AML Support" either. From the outside it looks though as development is stalled at least for Leia.

[AdamG]

What I do not know is what this ‘hacky’ stuff is that’s been mentioned or even if I should be concerned.

What I do know is that I feel disappointment in knowing the LibreELEC team are not actively supporting AML when others in the community are willing to.

There is an informative howto for information about configuring the IR remote for your device available here.

Hacks if that's what you want to call it, exist in all LE community, CE and OSMC releases for Amlogic support and a lot of the hacks are the same as we all use each other's patches for the best compatibility for users, unfortunately at present there is no other way to give users a real usable release without them due in part to the kernel that all the various distros use.

Work is ongoing by various developers on adding support for Amlogic devices to the mainline kernel, this is still far from completion though but in theory we would no longer require these hacks any more and afaik chewitt from LE is working with the developers who are working on Amlogic mainline support so I don't believe it is right to say LE are not actively supporting AML.

[Gkinghrn]

I don't know where you get the idea that Amlogic was abandoned by Team LibreELEC. It just happened that AML developers left LE to do their thing.

I know this isn’t quite the same thing but this was what decided me to more or less give up with LibreELEC and see what other options were there ..

[Gkinghrn]

There is an informative howto for information about configuring the IR remote for your device available here.

Thank you I have been following that ..got a bi stuck but I believe the issue was around the EOL markers in the config file I am using ..will fix today .. very informative thread that one..

[fritsch]

I don't know where you get the idea that Amlogic was abandoned by Team LibreELEC. It just happened that AML developers left LE to do their thing.

I know this isn’t quite the same thing but this was what decided me to more or less give up with LibreELEC and see what other options were there ..

 

 As someone that tried to upstream and fix AMLogic special hacks since more than 5 years now - I can assure you that absolutely NOTHING changed from vendor side. They just sold the HW to poor users and afterwards the poor user argument is used to put pressure on OSS developers to keep the private hacks / workarounds for the poor users. The vendors did nothing, just made their money, moved support into the community.

The only decision they understand is: We don't support you anymore if you don't use existing open standards. Need an example where this worked? AMD's XVBA - you don't know it? There is a reason for that: We improved vdpau for it that much that most people moved to OSS drivers and now experience nice hevc 10 bit after AMD even implemented VAAPI:

For AMLogic and their poor outdated official kernels and blackbox decoders there is exactly one way forward: Switch to advance technology, e.g. DRM, V4L2 with zero-copy rendering and so on and so forth. Downside: This all needs a lot of user understanding and that they are the people the vendor makes his business on with the pure goal to make money with them and then fingerpoint on others while supporting nothing ...

Edit: Btw. this also worked on Android "somehow" ... now you can enjoy HD Audio without any private amlogic hacks on this platform. For video they seem to need a bit longer ... change only happends if those that sell shit don't sell it anymore.

[wrxtasy]

I don't know where you get the idea that Amlogic was abandoned by Team LibreELEC. It just happened that AML developers left LE to do their thing.

I know this isn’t quite the same thing but this was what decided me to more or less give up with LibreELEC and see what other options were there ..

The problem (and benefit) with the current S905X, S905D, S912 - LE, CE and OSMC AMLogic Kodi forks is mixed SDR and 4K HDR support.
This requires custom coding and so called "hacks" or mods. to Kodi to add such support to access AMLogic Kernel features currently.

Such mods. would never be allowed in Kodi master code so AML Linux developers and users are left between a rock and a hard place.
What do you do ?

The only options then left are to totally rebrand Kodi (or LibreELEC) and remove such fork support from the Kodi forums and conduct all such development and support away from Kodi itself.

If everything Rockchip, Intel, AMLogic etc were using a mainline Kernel with the standards @fritsch mentions above we would not even be having this conversation. Kodi Utopia would then exist !

Edit:
Team Kodi is right for herding everything into the common, modern standards direction.
There are likely going to be casualties along the way.

[Raybuntu]

I totally agree with @fritsch. For me personally as a user I still want to use the Hardware I bought. That's all this is. We are picking up the broken pieces to fix that mirror. I have nothing against putting pressure on Amlogic (they have it coming), I'm just not sure this is going to work for Linux. Android is a different story as it's their main business. If you count our users + LE ones + kszaq users you are maybe at 6K. This is irrelevant for their market. I guess Sam got more users on OSMC afaik. I have no idea about Kodi numbers but I estimate 30M, so even from an economical (hosting costs) it's a dead end.

[fritsch]

I totally agree with @fritsch. For me personally as a user I still want to use the Hardware I bought. That's all this is. We are picking up the broken pieces to fix that mirror. I have nothing against putting pressure on Amlogic (they have it coming), I'm just not sure this is going to work for Linux. Android is a different story as it's their main business. If you count our users + LE ones + kszaq users you are maybe at 6K. This is irrelevant for their market. I guess Sam got more users on OSMC afaik. I have no idea about Kodi numbers but I estimate 30M, so even from an economical (hosting costs) it's a dead end.

 Now make the same calculation from team kodi pov, please in a sense of "total cost of ownership".