OpenELEC 4 Debian

For people short on SD cards, I created an OpenELEC Debian package for Debian Wheezy.



To install under Debian Wheezy:

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wget http://www.berryterminal.com/dl/openelec_0.1_armel.deb
sudo dpkg -i openelec_0.1_armel.deb
sudo cp /boot/arm128_start.elf /boot/start.elf
sudo reboot


To start:

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sudo OpenELEC


(Will simply shutdown running Debian services, and launch OpenELEC in a chroot under /opt/OpenELEC)


Advantages over having OpenELEC on a seperate SD card:

• saves you an extra SD card.
• easier to download stuff under Debian and play on OpenELEC later.

Disadvantages:

• Requires the 128 MB RAM split. (less memory available to the main system, more to the GPU)

If you want to use CEC (the ability to control the media player with your normal TV remote), make sure you enabled the following setting: "System" -> "Settings" -> "Services" -> "Webserver" -> "Allow control of XMBC via HTTP"

Thank you, seems interesting. I'm going to try it

Thanks!
Download and install seems to work just fine. Streaming files from a UPnP source is working pretty well.
Only things I have noticed is when I run OpenELEC I get the following...

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Shutting down services...
[ ok ] Stopping Light Display Manager: lightdm.
[ ok ] Stopping NFS common utilities: idmapd statd.
[ ok ] Stopping rpcbind daemon....
[ ok ] Network Interface Plugging Daemon...stop eth0...done.
[ ok ] Stopping enhanced syslogd: rsyslogd.
[ ok ] Stopping Samba daemons: nmbd smbd.
[ ok ] Stopping periodic command scheduler: cron.
[ ok ] Stopping system message bus: dbus.
Stopping dphys-swapfile swapfile setup ..., done.
[ ok ] Stopping NTP server: ntpd.
[ ok ] Stopping OpenBSD Secure Shell server: sshd.
[ ok ] Stopping the Winbind daemon: winbind.
[ ok ] Stopping the hotplug events dispatcher: udevd.
Starting OpenELEC in chroot...
OpenELEC - Version: devel-20120623213722-r1
mkdir: can't create directory '/dev/shm': No such file or directory
mount: mounting none on /dev/shm failed: No such file or directory

I went on a hunt to look into the /dev/shm and have found that a blank file gets created??

Has this got anything to do with saved preferences or settings? The image that is displayed by OpenELEC is slightly larger than my screen so I resize it but this setting does not seem to be retained.

Thanks for any help or idea you have...

I have followed the instructions but when I try to start with typing sudo OpenELEC my monitor goes black and nothing else happens.

I went on a hunt to look into the /dev/shm and have found that a blank file gets created??

Should be able to do fine without /dev/shm

Has this got anything to do with saved preferences or settings? The image that is displayed by OpenELEC is slightly larger than my screen so I resize it but this setting does not seem to be retained.

Noticed the same problem, both with OpenELEC under Wheezy and standalone.
Haven't found a real solution for that.
As a workaround I switched my TV to a different p.size/zoom setting and it did fit then.

Thanks for the file, I was to install it with no problems. However, I'm getting random hangs when navigating the menus with an attached USB mouse (which works just fine in Wheezy.) Also, is there any way to enable ssh into openELEC? I tried adding the ssh_enable file in config, but no luck. Perhaps the chroot environment has something to do with it?

Lastly, is there any dead easy way to have openELEC see my files which are share by SAMBA from another machine?

Thanks.

Thanks for the file, I was to install it with no problems. However, I'm getting random hangs when navigating the menus with an attached USB mouse (which works just fine in Wheezy.) Also, is there any way to enable ssh into openELEC? I tried adding the ssh_enable file in config, but no luck. Perhaps the chroot environment has something to do with it?

Not sure about the mouse, I use my TV remote (CEC) and didn't experience problems.

Lastly, is there any dead easy way to have openELEC see my files which are share by SAMBA from another machine?

Might need to load additional drivers (probably: sudo modprobe cifs) before starting OpenELEC.

I have got and armhf error and could not install the deb file. I am using raspbian piesces.

I have got and armhf error and could not install the deb file. I am using raspbian piesces.

Package has not been tested under Raspbian, and does not advertise it is compatible in the meta data (although it should be).
If you want to try it, you need to add "--force-architecture" to the dpkg line.

Can't this be turned into a XBMC package ?
Would be nice ro have it in the official repos.

ghans

I have got and armhf error and could not install the deb file. I am using raspbian piesces.

Package has not been tested under Raspbian, and does not advertise it is compatible in the meta data (although it should be).
If you want to try it, you need to add "--force-architecture" to the dpkg line.

It worked!

Now i can't change sound output to analogic to use the RCA video. The system hangs.

Also, is there any way to enable ssh into openELEC? I tried adding the ssh_enable file in config, but no luck. Perhaps the chroot environment has something to do with it?

Does work for me

In Debian: sudo touch /opt/OpenELEC/storage/.config/ssh_enable

login with root/openelec

Now i can't change sound output to analogic to use the RCA video. The system hangs.

Seems to be a bug.
As a temporary workaround, switch to analog manually:

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sudo sed -i 's/<mode>2/<mode>0/' /opt/OpenELEC/storage/.xbmc/userdata/guisettings.xml


Be aware that there are still some other issues with analog audio though.
Seems if CPU usage spikes, audio has a hickup, and also goes out of sync with the video.

Edit: I do have squeeze tho, if that makes a diff, then I know where the problem is lol....

Right now I have an issue with OpenElec's playing videos, whenever I try, it opens them I see the network light blink and the tv just goes to a ton of random lines and a horrid sound comes out lol....(no I don't mean tv snow....)

Is it not opening the videoplayer correctly? Or is there a step in the setup that i'm missing?

Edit: I do have squeeze tho

Squeeze might work.
But then you need to at least update the firmware.

(and after update make sure you are still using the 128 mb memory split
"cat /proc/meminfo" should give: MemTotal: 123180 kB
if not do "sudo cp /boot/arm128_start.elf /boot/start.elf" again, and reboot)

Installed , started ok but in wheezy I was using a WLAN nano USB adapter that is not working anymore in openelec after restarting services. I don't how to setup the WLAN adapter in openelec. Can somebody help me ?

I did have the same problem.
But the system also hangs when I try to change the seaker configuration from 2.0 - while keeping the audio output as HDMI.

Anyway. Apart from this it has been pretty stable. Thanks Max.

Now i can't change sound output to analogic to use the RCA video. The system hangs.

Seems to be a bug.
As a temporary workaround, switch to analog manually:

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sudo sed -i 's/<mode>2/<mode>0/' /opt/OpenELEC/storage/.xbmc/userdata/guisettings.xml


Be aware that there are still some other issues with analog audio though.
Seems if CPU usage spikes, audio has a hickup, and also goes out of sync with the video.

Just a little bit confused :
Is this really a XMBC package or a OpenELEC package ?
Isn't OpenELEC a "real" , slimmed-down distro ?


ghans

Just a little bit confused :
Is this really a XMBC package or a OpenELEC package ?

This is the entire OpenELEC distribution, including all supporting programs and libraries.
Packaged as a .deb to allow easy installation on a SD card that already has Debian on it.

Isn't OpenELEC a "real" , slimmed-down distro ?

Correct, it is an independent distribution.
But as demonstrated here, one can start other distributions from within Debian.
There are no technical limitations preventing that.

Just a simple script of a couple lines that shuts down Debian's running services to free up resources, and starts OpenELEC's /sbin/init in a chroot ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroot )

That way OpenELEC can use its own optimized hardfp libraries.
If one creates a real Debian XBMC package instead, you are stuck with Debian's system libraries and suffer in performance because they are softfp. (unless you use Raspbian)

Installed , started ok but in wheezy I was using a WLAN nano USB adapter that is not working anymore in openelec after restarting services. I don't how to setup the WLAN adapter in openelec. Can somebody help me ?

Wifi settings and the like are hidden under: "Programs" -> "OpenELEC OS Settings" -> "Network"
Don't forget to use the scroll bar on the right to get to all the settings (like the SSID).
Reboot is necessary for changes to effect.

Works a treat

2 things:
1) I can't get my Microsoft USB Remote to work - it works out of the box for OpenElec and Raspian - so do I need to get drivers for it from somewhere?

2) is there a way I can write a script so that on boot it waits 10 seconds for a keystroke otherwise loads straight into OpenElec?

other than that, well done and many thanks!

2 things:
1) I can't get my Microsoft USB Remote to work - it works out of the box for OpenElec and Raspian - so do I need to get drivers for it from somewhere?

Try enabling SSH on standalone OpenELEC, log in, and do a "lsmod"
Does it show the name of the module your USB remote uses?

2) is there a way I can write a script so that on boot it waits 10 seconds for a keystroke otherwise loads straight into OpenElec?

There is not an easy one line command to do that with this package.
Although if you know some programming you may be able to write a script for that, and put it in /etc/rc.local so that it is executed on boot.



It does is a feature I do want to add to the next version of my BerryBoot boot selection screen.
I did some initial work to replace the text selection screen in the current version, with a simple GUI that currently looks like this:



With a button to make one OS the default, so that it is booted automatically after a number of seconds unless you press a key or wiggle your mouse.
But the new version is not ready for release yet, and also still needs some work to deal with the different memory splits each operating system prefers, before I can add OpenELEC to the mix.

Wifi settings and the like are hidden under: "Programs" -> "OpenELEC OS Settings" -> "Network"
Don't forget to use the scroll bar on the right to get to all the settings (like the SSID).
Reboot is necessary for changes to effect.

Something not working well. Even after reboot there are the settings it is not connecting to the WLAN. Is there a possibility to see some more messages to see what is wrong ? Anyway that damn display overscan settings that I am clearing are not saved so I am obliged to redo every time .

2 things:
1) I can't get my Microsoft USB Remote to work - it works out of the box for OpenElec and Raspian - so do I need to get drivers for it from somewhere?

Try enabling SSH on standalone OpenELEC, log in, and do a "lsmod"
Does it show the name of the module your USB remote uses?

The reply from lsmod:

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Module                  Size  Used by
ipv6                  213236  28
evdev                   6840  0


i tried to install lirc but doesnt seem to have done anything. So I must be missing something somewhere.

2) is there a way I can write a script so that on boot it waits 10 seconds for a keystroke otherwise loads straight into OpenElec?

There is not an easy one line command to do that with this package.
Although if you know some programming you may be able to write a script for that, and put it in /etc/rc.local so that it is executed on boot.



It does is a feature I do want to add to the next version of my BerryBoot boot selection screen.
I did some initial work to replace the text selection screen in the current version, with a simple GUI that currently looks like this:



With a button to make one OS the default, so that it is booted automatically after a number of seconds unless you press a key or wiggle your mouse.
But the new version is not ready for release yet, and also still needs some work to deal with the different memory splits each operating system prefers, before I can add OpenELEC to the mix.

How I get this error all the time.

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pi@raspberrypi:~/downloads$ sudo dpkg -i openelec_0.1_armel.deb
(Reading database ... 49414 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking openelec (from openelec_0.1_armel.deb) ...
dpkg: error processing openelec_0.1_armel.deb (--install):
 failed in write on buffer copy for backend dpkg-deb during `./opt/OpenELEC/usr/share/xbmc/language/Polish/strings.po': No space left on device
dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing:
 openelec_0.1_armel.deb


Does anybody know what could be the problem ? I quite new to Linux. Thanks for replies.