OpenELEC (short for Open Embedded Linux Entertainment Center) is a discontinued

Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

designed for

home theater PC A home theater PC (HTPC) or media center computer is a technological convergence, convergent device that combines some or all the capabilities of a personal computer with a software application that focuses on video, photo, audio playback, and ...

s and based on the

Kodi Kodi may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * KODI, a radio station in Cody, Wyoming, USA * Kodi (film), ''Kodi'' (film), India, 2016 * Kodi, a dog in the 2004 film ''Balto III: Wings of Change'' Other uses * Kodi (software), an open sour ...

(formerly

XBMC Kodi (formerly XBMC) is a free and open-source media player and technology convergence software application developed by the Kodi Foundation, a non-profit technology consortium. Kodi is available for multiple operating systems and hardware pl ...

) media player. OpenELEC applies the " just enough operating system" principle. It is designed to consume relatively few resources and to boot quickly from

flash memory Flash memory is an Integrated circuit, electronic Non-volatile memory, non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for t ...

.http://www.openelec.tv OpenELEC.tv Official Website OpenELEC

disk image A disk image is a snapshot of a storage device's content typically stored in a file on another storage device. Traditionally, a disk image was relatively large because it was a bit-by-bit copy of every storage location of a device (i.e. every ...

s for the

Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi ( ) is a series of small single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in collaboration with Broadcom Inc., Broadcom. To commercialize the product and support its growing demand, the ...

series and Freescale i.MX6 based devices are also available. The OpenELEC team released OpenELEC 4.0 on 5 May 2014, and this version features updated

13.0 with further updated important parts of the operating system as well as the Linux kernel updated to version 3.14 and additional

device driver In the context of an operating system, a device driver is a computer program that operates or controls a particular type of device that is attached to a computer or automaton. A driver provides a software interface to hardware devices, enabli ...

s. OpenELEC 4.0 also switched its init system to

systemd systemd is a software suite that provides an array of system components for Linux operating systems. The main aim is to unify service configuration and behavior across Linux distributions. Its primary component is a "system and service manage ...

. In March 2016, OpenELEC was forked after "creative differences", taking most of its active developers at the time to join the new LibreELEC project.

Description

OpenELEC provides a complete media center software suite that comes with a pre-configured version of Kodi and third-party addons with

retro Retro style is imitative or consciously derivative of lifestyles, trends, or art forms from the past, including in music, modes, fashions, or attitudes. It has been argued that there is a nostalgia cycle in popular culture. Definition The term ...

video game console emulator A video game console emulator is a type of emulator that allows a computing device to emulate a video game console's hardware and play its games on the emulating platform. More often than not, emulators carry additional features that surpass ...

s and DVR plugins. OpenELEC is an extremely small and very fast-booting Linux based distribution, primarily designed to boot from

flash Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * The Flash, several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Barry Allen ** Wally West, the first Kid Flash and third adult Flash ...

memory card A memory card is an electronic data storage device used for storing digital information, typically using flash memory. These are commonly used in digital portable electronic devices, such as digital cameras as well as in many early games conso ...

such as

CompactFlash CompactFlash (CF) is a flash memory mass storage device used mainly in portable electronic devices. The format was specified and the devices were first manufactured by SanDisk in 1994. CompactFlash became one of the most successful of the e ...

or a

solid-state drive A solid-state drive (SSD) is a type of solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuits to store data persistently. It is sometimes called semiconductor storage device, solid-state device, or solid-state disk. SSDs rely on non- ...

, similar to that of the XBMCbuntu (formerly XBMC Live) distribution but specifically targeted to a minimum

set-top box A set-top box (STB), also known as a cable converter box, cable box, receiver, or simply box, and historically television decoder or a converter, is an information appliance device that generally contains a Tuner (radio)#Television, TV tuner inpu ...

hardware setup based on an ARM SoCs or Intel x86 processor and graphics.

History

Since 2011, the OpenELEC team usually releases a new major version, following the Kodi release schedule. Since 2014, specifics builds supporting a set of Graphics/GPU chipsets (ION, Fusion, Intel,...) are deprecated. And since version 6,

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel, based on the 8086 microprocessor and its 8-bit-external-bus variant, the 8088. Th ...

builds are deprecated too. Builds are currently available for

x86-64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit extension of the x86 instruction set architecture, instruction set. It was announced in 1999 and first available in the AMD Opteron family in 2003. It introduces two new ope ...

systems (as "Generic Build"),

, Raspberry Pi 2, Raspberry Pi 3 and the first generation

Apple TV Apple TV is a digital media player and a microconsole developed and marketed by Apple. It is a small piece of networking hardware that sends received media data such as video and audio to a TV or external display. Its media services include ...

Systems

On 5 February 2013, OpenELEC announced that they had jointly developed, with

Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...

, a manufacturer of

computer cooling Computer cooling is required to remove the waste heat produced by computer components, to keep components within permissible operating temperature limits. Components that are susceptible to temporary malfunction or permanent failure if overhe ...

systems based in

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, a passively cooled entertainment system – the MC001 media centre, based on the Kodi 12 (OpenELEC 3.0) platform. They also announced plans to provide further builds for the ARCTIC MC001 systems on their next release. Pulse-Eight sells both custom and off the shelf hardware products primarily designed for Kodi, such as remote controls,

HTPC A home theater PC (HTPC) or media center computer is a technological convergence, convergent device that combines some or all the capabilities of a personal computer with a software application that focuses on video, photo, audio playback, and ...

systems and accessories, including a HTPC PVR set-top-box pre-installed with Kodi that they call "''PulseBox''" Pulse-Eight also offers free performance tuned embedded versions of Kodi that they call ''Pulse,'' which is based on OpenELEC and a custom PVR-build of Kodi meant to run on dedicated HTPC systems. Xtreamer Ultra and Xtreamer Ultra 2, manufactured by the South Korean company Unicorn Information Systems, are nettops based on

Nvidia Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...

graphics and

Intel Atom Intel Atom is a line of IA-32 and x86-64 instruction set ultra-low-voltage processors by Intel Corporation designed to reduce electric consumption and power dissipation in comparison with ordinary processors of the Intel Core series. Atom is m ...

processors and pre-installed OpenELEC and Kodi software. The first-generation Xtreamer Ultra uses Nvidia Ion chipset with a 1.80 GHz Dual-Core Intel Atom D525 CPU, while the Xtreamer Ultra 2 uses discrete GeForce GT 520M graphics with a 2.13 GHz Dual-Core Intel Atom D2700 CPU.XBMC-based embedded Linux distro debuts on HTPC mini-PC – News – Linux for Devices
Archive.is (21 October 2011). Retrieved on 2013-07-24.

Receptions

Dedoimedo reviewed openELEC in 2014: Nathan Willis from LWN.net wrote review of OpenELEC 5 in 2015: One of DistroWatch Weekly editors, Jesse Smith, wrote in review of OpenELEC 5.0.8 in 2015:DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 625, 31 August 2015
/ref>

References

External links