LibreELEC v8.0.0 Released with Kodi 17.0 (Krypton)

LibreELEC is a JeOS (Just enough Operating System) based on Linux that creates a media center appliance platform for Kodi (formelly XBMC), and a fork of OpenELEC. The developers have now released LibreELEC v8.0.0 with the latest Kodi 17.0 “Krypton”.

Beside the update to Kodi 17, some of the changes since the last stable version (v7.95.3) 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

The full list of changes can be found on github.

While it’s possible to update from an existing installation, there are a few potential issues if you were running a mixed-arch build ( 32-/64-bit) for Amlogic devices, or enabled “Sync Playback to Display” with audio pass-through. If you update, and get stuck in Kodi 17 splash screen, you may want to delete /storage/.kodi/userdata/Databases/Addons27.db. While some workarounds are explained in the release blog post (linked in the introduction), you may prefer installing from scratch using LibreELEC SD creator with images available for the following platforms:

Generic x86_64 – Note: I tested a community/beta version of LibreELEC 8.0 for Apollo Lake last month.
Raspberry Pi & Pi Zero, Raspberry Pi 2 & Pi 3 boards
Freescale/NXP i.MX6 hardware
ODROID-C2 Development board
WeTek Play, Wetek Core, WeTek Hub, WeTek Play 2

Those are the officially supported hardware platforms, but if your device is not listed, there could be community support firmware images for your device. You’ll have to check out the forums to find out. Some work also also started to run LibreELEC 8.0 on Rockchip RK3288 processor.

Thanks to Harley for the tip.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.