SlaXBMC 14.2 Krypton 17.6 upgrade

After a long development cycle, the Kodi team has created yet another stable and mature release of our favorite Open Source Home Theater Software Kodi, code-named "Krypton".

Now; I am not accustomed to getting all serious about the updates we push into SlaXBMC, however, the truth is this Kodi release (even though I am not a big fan of the new skin - but that's up to you to decide) is so finely tuned in its mechanics and machine resources utilization that it feels much smoother than its predecessor "Jarvis". Hense, this work-of-art software had to make its' way in all SlaXBMC flavors x86, x86_64 and ARM (Raspberry Pi 1,2 and 3).

The only pre-requisite to getting this upgrade is (surprise - surprise) having a basic SlaXBMC 14.2 installation. Then, only then and with my blessings, you can proceed with the upgrade using the following instructions:
  1. Make sure your SlaXBMC box is connected to the internet via your local network
  2. Connect a keyboard and mouse on the SlaXBMC box
    • You can skip this step if you plan on using SSH to connect to your box. Instead, go to [SYSTEM->System info->Summary information] menu in Kodi and make a note of your "IP Address" for later use
  3. Using the KODI power options press on the "Exit" button, to drop to the SlaXBMC desktop
    • Alternatively, use an SSH Client to connect to your SlaXBMC box using the IP Address retrieved in step 2. Once you have logged in as user "root" and your password ["slaxbmcrpi" is the default for RPi 1 and 23] issue the command "QuitXBMCtoDesktop" to force Kodi exit
    • Should for whatever reason "Exit" button does not do the trick press Ctrl+Alt+F2 simultaneously and proceed as if in SSH mode above, providing the login credentials!
  4. Right-click on the desktop and select "xterm" on the popup menu
    • Skip this step if using SSH, you should already be in terminal mode after logging in on step 3. Also if using SSH, all actions taking place in the xterm/terminal window in following steps must be performed in your SSH terminal mode instead
  5. In the (xterm) terminal window that pop-up type and execute the command "slackpkgext" to start the SlaXBMC Update Utility
  6. If you haven't used the SlaXBMC Update Utility before: OK option 1 and select a repository closeby your country of origin (use arrows to move up/down, space to select and tab to change to the OK/Cancel section). Otherwise, skip to the next step.
  7. Still in the SlaXBMC Update Utility: OK option 3; get an updated copy of the latest repository files; make a note of any pre-selected packages named like (a) OPENSSL or (b) NTP and finally OK the packages pre-selected for an upgrade.
  8. Select Exit to terminate the SlaXBMC Update Utility and get back into terminal mode
  9. If on step 7 have noticed a package named OPENSSL then execute in the terminal the following command: sed -i '/#PermitRootLogin/i PermitRootLogin yes' /etc/ssh/sshd_config
  10. If on step 7 have noticed a package named NTP then execute in the terminal the following command: sed -i 's/#server /server /g' /etc/ntp.conf
  11. Download the packages for your SlaXBMC flavor as follows:
    • On x86 SlaXBMC systems execute in the terminal the following commands:
      • wget -c  http://slackware.uk/slaxbmc/14.2/slaxbmc-14.2/patches/libcec/libcec-4.0.2-i586-1xsb.txz
      • wget -c http://slackware.uk/slaxbmc/14.2/slaxbmc-14.2/patches/xbmc/xbmc-17.6-i586-1xsb.txz
    • On x86_64 SlaXBMC systems execute in the terminal the following commands:
      • wget -c http://slackware.uk/slaxbmc/14.2/slaxbmc64-14.2/patches/libcec/libcec-4.0.2-x86_64-1xsb.txz
      • wget -c http://slackware.uk/slaxbmc/14.2/slaxbmc64-14.2/patches/xbmc/xbmc-17.6-x86_64-1xsb.txz
    • On ARM RPi1 SlaXBMC systems execute in the terminal the following commands:
      • wget -c http://slackware.uk/slaxbmc/14.2/slaxbmcrpi-14.2/patches/libcec/rpi1/libcec-4.0.2-arm-1xsb.txz
      • wget -c http://slackware.uk/slaxbmc/14.2/slaxbmcrpi-14.2/patches/xbmc/rpi1/xbmc-17.6-arm-1xsb.txz
    • On ARM RPi23 SlaXBMC systems execute in the terminal the following commands:
      • wget -c http://slackware.uk/slaxbmc/14.2/slaxbmcrpi-14.2/patches/libcec/rpi23/libcec-4.0.2-arm-1xsb.txz
      • wget -c http://slackware.uk/slaxbmc/14.2/slaxbmcrpi-14.2/patches/xbmc/rpi23/xbmc-17.6-arm-1xsb.txz
  12. Upgrade your old packages by executing in the terminal the following commands:
      • upgradepkg libcec-4.0.2-*.txz
      • upgradepkg xbmc-17.6-*.txz
  13. Finally, restart your SlaXBMC box into Kodi Krypton 17.6 by issuing in terminal the command "reboot"
Enjoy,
Analekto

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I recently installed SLAXBMC on an Intel NUC, and I need to say this is absolutely fantastic: the power and stability of Slackware, plus the power of Kodi = a fantastic OS for media center.

I am going to try that upgrade soon! Thanks for all the hard work!

Anonymous said...

It's great that Slaxbmc works "right out of the box", and it is much appreciated as a simple install it and forget type of deal. However, although I've noticed lircd isn't properly configured, and not functioning as one would expect. Kodi is making use of kernel lirc and handling my remote (as it does on a bare bones slack install) but it appears that the lirc driver package isn't initializing properly.

log excerpt -
Jun 4 11:46:45 htpc lircd: lircd(default) ready, using /var/run/lirc/lircd
Jun 4 11:46:45 htpc lircd: accepted new client on /var/run/lirc/lircd
Jun 4 11:46:45 htpc lircd: could not get file information for /dev/lirc
Jun 4 11:46:45 htpc lircd: default_init(): No such file or directory
Jun 4 11:46:45 htpc lircd: WARNING: Failed to initialize hardware
Jun 4 11:56:25 htpc lircd: caught signal

There is no /dev/whatever_you_choose_to_call_it node being created and I've noticed that if I boot the system without loading up X, any key presses on my remote are echoed to the tty session.

One other thing I've noticed when booting is that cgmanager is complaining about a missing file (cgxxxxx.o). Nothing showing up in the logs and to this point I haven't investigated what is going on with that.

Analekto said...

Thank you very much for reporting those issues.

- I will remove the LIRC package in future releases.
- The error is probably due to the fact that lots of "container" packages are missing. The problem here is that they should ALL be excluded :) from the release to begin with since they are not required to run or compile Kodi and relevant packages.

Analekto

AlexPo said...

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