Linux distribution
Nate Drake is impressed with the freedom that the latest version of LibreELEC (code name Omega) offers to cosy up to Kodi.
L ibreELEC has been in active development since 2016, when a number of OpenELEC programmers decided to fork the project.
According to the main website, its purpose is to provide “just enough operating system” to run the Kodi media player, which is reflected in the fact that it runs happily on single-board computers such as the Raspberry Pi 4 and 5.
This said, the project wiki advises against trying to run LibreELEC on legacy hardware, as “just enough” doesn’t always stretch to older device drivers.
There’s no bootable ISO but interested parties can download a disk image to write to a bootable USB.
Although LibreELEC isn’t really designed to be run via a hypervisor, there’s a virtual machine (OVA) image available for testing purposes, which we used.
Given how lightweight the OS is, perhaps it’s not surprising that the wiki doesn’t seem to list minimum system requirements. The specs listed (left) are the result of our tinkering in a VM, but we had to increase the available video memory from 16MB to 64MB.
Upon boot, we were offered the choice to install LibreELEC, boot it in live mode, or run as is. After choosing Run, the OS needed to repartition the disks before restarting, prompting us to choose Run again. Once we overcame these teething troubles, we were greeted by the friendly Kodi setup screen. This simple interface enables you to set up the OS in moments by choosing the system language, a more imaginative hostname (the default is ‘LibreELEC’), as well as configure network settings and remote access via SSH and/or Samba.
On first load, the system helpfully informs users that their movie and TV show libraries are empty but these can be populated by going to the Files section.
However, LibreELEC offers far more than a simple media player. You have access to all the official Kodi add-ons, as well as the LibreELEC add-ons repository. These include Kodi PVR (personalised video recorder) clients, servers, screensavers and visualisations.
Our initial attempts to install the Demo PVR and even an unofficial one for Pluto TV were successful, but after this LibreELEC seemed unable to connect to the internet. We were able
