The new version of LibreELEC 9.2 arrives with support for Raspberry Pi 4

FreeELEC-9.2.0

Recently the launch of the new version of the LibreELEC 9.2 project was presented, the cuaHe stands out for adding some improvements to the system, of which the main one of them is Raspberry 4 support. For those who are unaware of LibreELEC, they should know that unfolds as a distribution for the creation of home theaters and that is a fork of OpenELEC where the user interface is based on the Kodi media center.

The basic principle of the "everything just works" distribution, for a completely ready-to-work environment. The user does not have to worry about keeping the system up-to-date: the distribution kit uses a system to automatically download and install updates, which is activated when connected to the global network.

It is possible to extend the functionality of the distribution through the system of add-ons that are installed from a separate repository developed by the project developers.

The distribution does not use the base package of other distributions and it is based on its own developments. In addition to the usual features of Kodi, the distribution kit provides a number of additional functions aimed at maximum simplification of work.

The distribution kit supports features such as remote control use (can be controlled via infrared and Bluetooth), file sharing (a Samba server is built in), built-in Streaming BitTorrent client, auto search, and local drive connection and external.

What's new in LibreELEC 9.2?

Of the main changes in the new version, several of them are related to the provision of official support for Raspberry Pi 4 boards.

One of them is that the Raspberry Pi 4 can handle 4K quality video, but by default the video is displayed in 1080p. For it the option is added "Hdmi_enable_4kp60 = 1" to enable 4K resolution output in config.txt. Raspberry Pi 4 also adds support for hardware accelerated HEVC video decoding.

While the heart of the system "Kodi Media Center" has been updated to version 18.5. Kernel Linux on x86 builds has been updated to 5.1, but Raspberry Pi offers kernel 4.19 with additional patches taken from Raspbian. Added support for webcam drivers. A special interface is provided for updating firmware with a bootloader installed on the Raspberry Pi 4 flash SPI.

In the case of Rockchip, the system remains in a state with limited support. Since the Kodi version is updated, but there are no significant video / audio improvements. So the team is working on support in the future, as they are refocusing on the Linux 5 kernel.

In addition to the standard features of Kodi, the distribution provides a number of additional functions aimed at simplifying the work as much as possible.

As a special configuration addition is being developed It allows you to configure network connection parameters, manage LCD screen parameters, enable or disable automatic installation of updates.

If you want to know more about this launch, you can check the details in the original publication In the following link.

How to get LibreELEC 9.2?

The images have been prepared for downloading from a USB drive or SD card (x86 32 and 64 bit, Raspberry Pi 1/2/3/4, various devices on Rockchip and Amlogic chips).

This you can get by going to the official website of the project and in its download section you will get the picture of it.

The link is this.

Those who download the image for Raspberry Pi, can save the system on their SD card with the help of Etcher which is a multiplatform tool.

Finally the team mention that en the first boot the system will be updated the Kodi multimedia database so the update time may vary fromDepending on the size of your hardware and media collection, this could take several minutes. 


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