RetroELEC Emulationstation/RetroArch/Kodi image for XU4

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Sun Apr 21, 2019 6:50 am

I've been creating Lakka/RetroPie style builds of OpenELEC/LibreELEC for some years now. This appliance style "JeOS" Linux distribution is perfect for running emulators, it boots lightning fast and uses a minimum of resources. I recently purchased an XU4 for my new bartop arcade, so I added support to LibreELEC for the XU4 as Lakka had been severely lagging behind.

This image boots up directly into Kodi (you can boot directly to Emulationstation by adding "frontend=es" to kernel command line). Put your roms under /storage/roms (available through SMB/NFS). Emulators will (in most cases) auto-detect controllers, Emulationstation must be configured manually (except DS4 which is pre-configured). A keyboard might come in handy for initial setup (right CTRL button brings up ES menu).

Features:

* Based on LibreELEC
* Kodi 18.5
* Compiled from source using GCC 9.2 and linker optimization (CFLAGS: -O2/-O3 -march=armv7ve -mtune=cortex-a15.cortex-a7 mcpu=cortex-a15.cortex-a7 -mfloat-abi=hard -mfpu=neon-vfpv4 -flto)
* Runs on Wayland (Kodi uses GBM/GLES)
* Xwayland included for X11 compatibility (running a browser is possible!)
* Latest 5.4 kernel
* F2FS/BTRFS/XFS support
* Odroid WiFi/Bluetooth module works out of the box
* Emulationstation (RetroPie fork) is the default frontend that launches emulators
* Libretro cores: desmume, dosbox-svn community edition, fbneo, flycast, mame2003-plus, mame2016, mgba, mupen64plus_next, pcsx_rearmed, ppsspp, puae, quicknes, scummvm, snes9x, snes9x2010, vice, yabasanshiro
* Pulseaudio/BlueZ set up to accept A2DP (bluetooth audio) so you can stream music from your phone or laptop while gaming simultaneously
* big.LITTLE cgroups (emulators are run exclusively on the big cores)
* htop enhanced with big.LITTLE support
* USB IRQs assigned to big cores
* Automount daemon provides painless access to NFS shares (you can simply access /net/servername/sharename and it'll mount seamlessly just like in MacOS)
* Utilities: Skyscraper scraper tcpdump rsync unrar p7zip cgroup-tools sdl-jstest mediainfo strace screen omxplayer wit pkgrip
* Services: Docker, Transmission, SABnzbd, Plex (automatically downloads/updates and installs through the systemd unit), ttyd (shell access from a browser)

Start services like this (through SSH):

Code: Select all

# systemctl enable/start (docker/transmission/sabnzbd/plex/ttyd)

Download link: https://tinyurl.com/yynfv8m5
Github: https://github.com/escalade/RetroELEC.tv

If anyone wants an image for an N2, send me one

Post by **odroid** » Mon Apr 22, 2019 9:30 am

Very interesting project. I hope you will include Kodi once Kodi 18.2 official version is available.

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Mon Apr 22, 2019 9:44 am

I'll put up an image with Kodi later, it works pretty good

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Sun Apr 28, 2019 6:49 pm

The image has been updated with 5.0.3 kernel, bluetooth audio, yabasanshiro saturn core, psp from ES should now work and sshd is enabled by default.

Post by **odroid** » Mon Apr 29, 2019 8:39 am

Nice update!

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Mon Apr 29, 2019 11:00 am

I've added a build with Kodi 18.2 as the default frontend (built with @Areascout's patch), it can be found under the "kodi" subfolder. I've started rebranding to RetroELEC to avoid confusion with vanilla LibreELEC.

Mangasora · Post by **Mangasora** » Mon Apr 29, 2019 9:38 pm

Hello, I decided to try your image with kodi, but unfortunately it does not boot. I tried with an etcher, through a command line, with another card but without success.

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Mon Apr 29, 2019 10:04 pm

Does not boot at all or stops somewhere in the boot process? You made sure to decompress the image before writing? SD/emmc? I am running the same image on my XU4 although I upgraded from a previous image. I see no reason why it wouldn’t work though. I will try a fresh card when I get the time. In the meantime you could always flash Lakka first then update from that, it should work. Flash Lakka, boot it and drop my .img.gz in the update folder.

Mangasora · Post by **Mangasora** » Mon Apr 29, 2019 11:17 pm

Hi.I tried all the images for XU4. It does not boot, the blue led does not flash.

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Mon Apr 29, 2019 11:45 pm

You did not answer my questions, but I will go ahead and assume that you have an eMMC card from Hardkernel. Unfortunately, you can either generate an image for an SD card or for an eMMC due to the first block being inaccessible on the eMMC's from Hardkernel.

If you would be so kind, I'm uploading a new image now that should be compatible with eMMC, please test.

Mangasora · Post by **Mangasora** » Mon Apr 29, 2019 11:58 pm

Sorry, missed to note, I use sdcard.Thank you for your attention.

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Tue Apr 30, 2019 12:02 am

Hm, in that case it should have worked. You do of course have the switch set to SD card? And you uncompressed the image before writing it? Can you see the partitions when card is inserted in another computer?

Mangasora · Post by **Mangasora** » Tue Apr 30, 2019 12:12 am

Yes the switch is on the sdcard. I see fat 512Mb,and ext4 32Mb.

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Tue Apr 30, 2019 12:28 am

Yes, that is correct. Can you try upgrading from Lakka? http://www.lakka.tv/get/linux/odroidxu3/

Mangasora · Post by **Mangasora** » Tue Apr 30, 2019 12:32 am

Yes, I will try. Thank you for your time.

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Tue Apr 30, 2019 3:44 am

Ok, I found the issue. U-boot looks for the boot partition at sector 3072 so it has to start there.

viewtopic.php?t=17192#p112397
https://github.com/libretro/Lakka-Libre ... tions#L152

New image coming very soon.

UPDATE: New image uploaded.

Mangasora · Post by **Mangasora** » Tue Apr 30, 2019 5:20 am

Hello. Looks like the image is corrupted.

Post by **odroid** » Tue Apr 30, 2019 8:42 am

Mangasora wrote: ↑
Tue Apr 30, 2019 5:20 am
Hello. Looks like the image is corrupted.

Ignore that warning message from Etcher.

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Tue Apr 30, 2019 9:46 am

Doh, sorry about that the corrupt image was due to a mistake in my script. I have just uploaded a new image with a valid partition table:

Code: Select all

Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start     End       Size      Type     File system  Flags
 1      3072s     1051647s  1048576s  primary  fat16        boot, lba
 2      1051648s  1117183s  65536s    primary  ext4

I don't have an SD card on hand but this should work

Mangasora · Post by **Mangasora** » Tue Apr 30, 2019 7:17 pm

Without success - it does not boot, the blue led does not blink.

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Wed May 01, 2019 6:20 am

Did you try upgrading from Lakka?

Mangasora · Post by **Mangasora** » Wed May 01, 2019 6:48 am

I tried, but without success.

RG

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Wed May 01, 2019 8:54 am

You have any more details than it didn't work?

Mangasora · Post by **Mangasora** » Wed May 01, 2019 6:25 pm

After the update attempt, there are a few penguins on the top left of the screen, below the cursor, and it stays that way.
I do not have a UART Module and I can not give a log, sorry.

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Thu May 02, 2019 10:15 pm

That's a much better description as I now know where you are in the boot process. I will buy an SD card today and fix this.

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Fri May 03, 2019 11:42 am

Good news is i bought an sd card. Bad news is i managed to break it

i did confirm the problem and tried different start sectors for the fat partition without luck. Also tried compiling a new u-boot.dtb still didnt work. Then i broke it

so for now no solution i will come back to it once i have time to get a new card and play with it some more. It’s just the bootloader, the os is running smooth as butter so too bad

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Sat May 04, 2019 12:23 am

If anyone knowledgeable have an idea on what the issue could be, please let me know

I have mimiced Lakka's bootloader setup like so:

Code: Select all

dd if="$RELEASE_DIR/3rdparty/bootloader/bl1.bin.hardkernel" of="$DISK" bs=512 seek=1 conv=notrunc
dd if="$RELEASE_DIR/3rdparty/bootloader/bl2.bin.hardkernel.720k_uboot" of="$DISK" bs=512 seek=31 conv=notrunc
dd if="$RELEASE_DIR/3rdparty/bootloader/u-boot.bin.hardkernel" of="$DISK" bs=512 seek=63 conv=notrunc
dd if="$RELEASE_DIR/3rdparty/bootloader/tzsw.bin.hardkernel" of="$DISK" bs=512 seek=2111 conv=notrunc

The bootloader blobs have all been taken from the sd-fuse directory of u-boot version 88af53fb from the odroidxu4-v2017.05 hardkernel branch.

Partition table looks like this:

Code: Select all

(parted) unit s                                                           
unit s
(parted) print                                                            
print
Model: Loopback device (loopback)
Disk /dev/loop1: 1120256s
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start     End       Size      Type     File system  Flags
 1      3072s     1051647s  1048576s  primary  fat16        boot, lba
 2      1051648s  1117183s  65536s    primary  ext4

U-boot is somewhat new to me so I'm a bit confused as to why the wiki have somewhat different starting positions: https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid-xu4/soft ... tion_table

This is all somewhat of disappointing mess, but once u-boot is sorted it should be all good

Not quite sure how I got mine booting either, can't recall as I was in a hacking frenzy with my new board. Think I messed around with Lakka and either upgraded or set up the partitions manually. The fat partition on my emmc starts at 8192 actually.

I'll be back, thanks for the testing feedback and sorry for the poor quality control the SD card was cheap I will get more.

Mangasora · Post by **Mangasora** » Sat May 04, 2019 1:34 am

Hello escalade. Through Lakka I managed to install your image retroelec.
I would like to run kodi by default, but I do not know how to do it.

Best Regards

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Sat May 04, 2019 2:45 am

Good, I thought that should work

Kodi is included, enter the Emulationstation menu (right CTRL on the keyboard) and choose quit to Kodi.

Mangasora · Post by **Mangasora** » Sat May 04, 2019 3:53 am

Kodi works, I started it through ssh,because the keyboard does not work with this image.
I want the kodi to start automatically when the system starts up.

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Sat May 04, 2019 4:40 am

Through ssh enter this command:

Code: Select all

# echo FRONTEND=kodi > /storage/.config/frontend.conf

Nice to hear that it works, thanks for the feedback.

Mangasora · Post by **Mangasora** » Sat May 04, 2019 5:56 am

Thank you for your work.

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Sat May 04, 2019 6:08 am

My usb keyboard works fine btw, what type of keyboard do you have?

Mangasora · Post by **Mangasora** » Sat May 04, 2019 6:23 pm

Wireless, but my air mouse also does not work with the emulstation. With kodi its work normally.
Can you release this build with kodi only without the game emulators. And if you can add vfs.rar and vfs.libarchive to kodi.
It will be great because it really works well.I forgot to mention that the HDMI CEC does not work.
Best Regards

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Sat May 04, 2019 6:58 pm

In Emulationstation you might need to map the keyboard, which you can do under input settings. I'll see about putting out a Kodi-only image, but as my focus is on emulators and don't have much resources for building it's not something I will be maintaining.

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Tue May 07, 2019 3:53 am

Good news! I've solved the booting issue, new and working image (without Kodi) has been uploaded.

EDIT:
I've updated the Kodi image as well which boots up directly into Kodi (can be changed as mentioned in the first post).

cyborg_int · Post by **cyborg_int** » Thu May 23, 2019 5:35 am

Hey!

Nice Distro, thanks for that!
I've just been wondering, if there is no inputstream addon. I thought it's integrated in Kodi 18.
Can someone help?

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Thu May 23, 2019 6:08 am

It's normally available as an addon, have you checked? If it's not I can include it in the next build.

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Thu May 23, 2019 7:04 pm

@cyborg_int

I've uploaded a new image with inputstream.adaptive included.

cyborg_int · Post by **cyborg_int** » Fri May 24, 2019 4:14 am

@escalade

Yeah, just looked for the addon again. didn't find it.
Will give it a try on the new image. Thanks thanks thanks!!!!!!

cyborg_int · Post by **cyborg_int** » Fri May 24, 2019 5:12 am

sry, saw no kodi at all in the latest image??

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Fri May 24, 2019 5:46 am

You picked the one from the "kodi" folder right?

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Fri May 24, 2019 5:50 am

I just uploaded new images (9999abf). There was no addons available because the LE repo doesn't have any compiled specifically for the XU4. I've changed the repo URL in the image to use Allwinner H3 which should be compatible (I think). I don't have time to test right now, but if they don't work they can be packaged manually or included in the image like I did with inputstream.

camatthew · Post by **camatthew** » Sun May 26, 2019 9:11 am

[youtube][/youtube]Kodi doesent work on the xu4 unless if you run (via ssh) systemctl stop kodi and then systemctl start kodi. Otherwise kodi does not come at startup and is shown as inactive (dead) by running systemctl status kodi (via ssh). And yes it was from the kodi folder

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Sun May 26, 2019 10:09 am

Please send me the boot log.

Code: Select all

RetroELEC:~# journalctl | paste

camatthew · Post by **camatthew** » Sun May 26, 2019 10:25 am

http://ix.io/1K4C

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Sun May 26, 2019 6:41 pm

Ok, think I found the issue. Can you try the latest 20190526032351-df63fec image?

Also, in the latest image I have added kernel NFS server (with v4 support) that exports /storage/roms and /storage/media (mounted drives) by default. For Generic users, I have added the latest AVX2/AVX512 optimizations from Clear Linux.

camatthew · Post by **camatthew** » Mon May 27, 2019 4:11 am

Thanks it works now problem solved

.

escalade · Post by **escalade** » Mon May 27, 2019 5:01 am

Good to hear, would appreciate some feedback on how this works for you and what you are missing (if anything) compared to other similar distro's.

camatthew · Post by **camatthew** » Mon May 27, 2019 5:52 am

Two things are missing . 1 retroplayer wont work. 2 retroarch wont launch from kodi. This image is fast.