LibreELEC 8.0 for raspberry pi released

[fox]

See announcement here. The new version comes with Kodi 17. I think I know how to install the new Kodi on Raspbian, but how do you upgrade the version of libreELEC installed by Noobs or Berryboot. Alternatively how might you replace the version of libreELEC installed by one of these?

[bobf]

One way would be to SSH into it from another system and apt-get update it, though I've had problems with read-only filesystems so far... More investigation necessary... And, of course, it has the updating feature in the system menu, but I believe it's passive; you can't say, "Update now", just set it up for automatic updates...

[Jason]

You mean 'apt-get upgrade', don't you, Bob? IMHO you're better off having automatic updates for a media server anyway. Who wants to keep connecting a keyboard to it or SSHing in every time to check for updates? That is, unless you have one of those fancy Bluetooth keyboards like Bill has.

[bobf]

What? Then you just use it "because you can?" Do geeks really need a little bourgeois in their lives, too?! <^8# And -update, upgrade/dist-upgrade as the situation warrants, of course...

[fox]

One could backup their LibreELEC (or openELEC) configuration and then install the new version onto an RPi SD card, as there is a RPi image of it. But in my case, I want it on my BerryBoot setup. There are instructions on how to convert a standard RPi image into an image that BerryBoot can use, but I tried several times and was unable to do it with the LibreELEC 8.0 image. But BerryBoot also has a repository of images that can be added to a setup using its booter, and among them was LibreELEC 7.95 beta. This beta is only two weeks old, so I figured it was probably good and I added it. They made some interface changes that appeal to me and I had no stability issues with it, so that's what I'm planning to use. The older 7.0.3 version is still on the usb pendrive it is running from (along with Ubuntu Mate 16.04), but I won't remove 7.0.3 until I've given 7.95 a thorough test. Also, I suspect that a Berryboot image of 8 will be available soon.

[fox]

Using 7.95 on my TV as I write this. Seems to be working really well, and as a bonus, my TV clicker works with the interface without any special setup! Furthermore, there is a Kodi app for my iPhone that does the same, and apparently, one for android phones and tablets called Kore.

[fox]

The maintainer of the Berryboot repository just packaged LibreELEC for Berryboot installation. You can get it here. Changes from the previously-posted 7.95.3 beta include:

- Fix for TVheadend issues in the WeTek Play 2 DVB driver
- Fix for interactive governor causing slowdown issues on the WeTek Core
- Fix for missing Bluetooth “connect and trust” option when pairing
- Fix for missing ir-keytable streamzap support after recent changes
- Updates to refine lirc repeat timing changes
- Update WeTek Play 2 remote keymap to expose more buttons
- Updates to linux-amlogic 3.10 (arm) and 3.14 (aarch64) kernels
- Add hexdump busybox applet needed for Odroid_C2 overclocking

I don't know if any of these affect me, but I think I'll install it on my pi3.

Does anyone know if there's an easy way to save and transfer the files, repos and customizations I made to Kodi from 7.95.3 to 8.0?

[Jason]

Does anyone know if there's an easy way to save and transfer the files, repos and customizations I made to Kodi from 7.95.3 to 8.0?

Maybe I'm missing something different about the Pi, but can't you just upgrade it? That should keep the existing settings.

[fox]

I don't think it's always that simple, but I did find a LibreELEC site that suggests you can upgrade it from within the current version of LibreELEC. I'm going to try it later tonight and will report back.

[Jason]

Maybe this is just updates within the same number release, but you'd think you'd be able to upgrade over it. I mean, who wants to keep installing a new version everytime one is released, right?

https://wiki.libreelec.tv/index.php?title=HOW_TO:Update_LibreELEC

[fox]

This is definitely a problem in a Berryboot installation. From LibreELEC in my installation, I was able to set it to upgrade, load the software channel and download the upgrade. From there it was supposed to apply the update and reboot automatically. But this didn't happen, and I tried it twice. What I could do is add LibreELEC 8.0, and now I have three versions of it, along with Ubuntu Mate on my setup. But as Jason notes, it is a PITA to have to modify the settings and install the non-Kodi add-ons each time you upgrade to a newer version of LibreELEC. I'm pretty sure that the problem is either inherent to the Berryboot setup itself, or to my version of it where the OSes are on a usb medium. There is a way to do an automated backup and restore of Kodi, but restoring this would restore the Kodi version as well as the configuration. There has to be a way to back up just the configuration and apply that to the updated version of Kodi, but I haven't found that yet.

[bobf]

Off the top of my head, Mike, you could copy your .kodi folder to offline storage then copy it back into the updated version... And there was one version which also had a .config folder that could also need to be copied over, but I can't remember - I *believe* it was on the first installation I did, which could also have been Raspbian...

SSH, right? <^8#

[fox]

Meanwhile, LibreELEC 8.01 was released; a maintenance update.