Skip to main content

Installing and customizing CoreELEC in X96 Air

I previously installed CoreELEC on another TV Box (Ugoos X3 Pro), which unfortunately died after only 9 months during the summer (due to the unit overheating, which I learned is a common problem for cheap Android TV boxes). So this time I purchased a X96 Air (4GB/32Gb) and had to do the whole thing again.

So this is a note-to-self in case I ever have to install CoreELEC again on some other device.

Installation of CoreELEC is simple enough by following this guide. Basically, it involves downloading and writing the firmware to a microSD card using usbimager. Then insert the microSD card, reset the unit and hold the reset until the logo appears. The unit will then proceed to boot into CoreELEC.

First thing is to connect to WiFi, then enable SSH. This allows me to login via ssh and execute:

ceemmc -x 

from the terminal. This writes CoreELEC to the built-in eMMC storage, after which I am able to remove the microSD card and reboot the unit into CoreELEC via the built-in storage.

Now here comes the bit that was tricky enough to get me stuck for quite some time. 

I am using a Mele F10 Airmouse, and CoreELEC was able to detect it automatically when the USB receiver was plugged in. However, I wanted to reconfigure the keymap such that during video playback, the left and right buttons will do forward and back stepping by 10s, and the back button will do stop the video. 

This can be achieved by adding /storage/.kodi/userdata/keymaps/keymap.xml:

<keymap>
  <fullscreenvideo>
    <keyboard>
      <left>stepback</left>
      <right>stepforward</right>
      <browser_back>stop</browser_back>
    </keyboard>
    <mouse>
      <mousedrag>noop</mousedrag>
      <mousemove>noop</mousemove>
      <rightclick>stop</rightclick>
    </mouse>
  </fullscreenvideo>
</keymap>

The back button on my airmouse will sometimes map to browser_back, and sometimes rightclick. I am not sure why, so I have mapped both to the command stop in the keymap file.

Also change System > Interface > Skin > Fonts to Arial based so that Unicode filenames can be displayed.

Don't forget Settings > Interface > Regional > Timezone country for the correct time.

Finally, my new TV box has a LED display at the front, and I was delighted this is supported by CoreELEC to display all kinds of info (date, time, CPU temperate etc.). This is configured by downloading the appropriate device VFD file as /storage/.config/vfd.conf (I used x96-max-1gbit-vfd.conf), and also to install the OpenVFD addon.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Adding "Stereo Mixer" to Windows 7 with Conexant sound card

This procedure worked for my laptop (Thinkpad E530) with a Conexant 20671 sound card, but I suspect it will work for other sound cards in the Conexant family. I was playing with CamStudio to do a video capture of a Flash-based cartoon so that I can put it on the WDTV media player and play it on the big screen in the living room for my kids. The video capture worked brilliantly, but to do a sound capture, I needed to do some hacking. Apparently, there was this recording device called "Stereo Mixer" that was pretty standard in the Windows XP days. This allowed you to capture whatever was played to the speaker in all its digital glory. Then under pressure from various organizations on the dark side of the force, Microsoft and soundcard makers starting disabling this wonderful feature from Windows Vista onwards. So after much Googling around, I found out that for most sound cards, the hardware feature is still there, just not enabled on the software side. Unfortunately, to

Hacking a USB-C to slim tip adapter cable to charge the Thinkpad T450s

This hack is inspired by this post . A year ago, I bought an adapter cable for my wife's Thinkpad X1 Carbon (2nd Gen) that allows her to power her laptop with a 60W-capable portable battery (20V x 3A). A USB-C cable goes from the battery into the adapter, which converts it to the slim tip output required by the laptop. Everything works out of the box, so I didn't give much thought about it. Recently, I decided to buy a similar cable for my Thinkpad T450s. I know technically it should work because the T450s can go as low as 45W (20V x 2.25A) in terms of charging (though I have the 65W charger - 20V x 3.25A).  I went with another adapter cable because it was cheaper and also I prefer the single cable design. So imagine my surprise when the cable came and I plugged it into my laptop and it didn't work! The power manager just cycle in and out of charging mode before giving up with an error message saying there is not enough power. After much research and reading the Thinkwiki

Using Google Dashboard to manage your Android device backup

I used to use AppBrain/Fast Web Install to keep track of which apps I have installed on my phone, and to make it easier to reinstall those apps when the phone gets wiped or replaced. But AppBrain had been going down the tubes, and Fast Web Install had always been a hit-and-miss affair. Android's own "backup to the cloud" system had previously been even more unusable. There isn't a place where you can see what has been backed up. And when you setup a new phone with your Google account, you just have to wait and pray that your favorite apps will be restored to the phone. Typically all the stars have to be aligned just right for this to happen. More often than not, after waiting for an hour or so and nothing happens, you just curse under your breath and proceed to install your favorites apps manually via the Play Store. But I just looked again recently and was pleasantly surprised that things are much more civilized now. Firstly there is a place now where you can loo