I've had an endless stream of problems with the Raspberry PI5 due to the fact that they don't seem to care about X11 support and Wayland really just isn't quite polished yet. This is one of few distros that I actually got to run on the PI5 and it runs really well -- the video performance is quite good and the PI5 doesn't get too hot (an ongoing problem, in my experience).
I had purchased the PI5 as a low-resource desktop computer. But, I had so much trouble getting other distros to work on it (even the Raspberry PI OS), that I was relieved when this worked so well. (At least I can use it for something!) I haven't had it freeze or glitch yet. It can be a bit sluggish to start, even with 8GB of RAM -- I'm not all that happy about that. I wish the splash screen at the start were easier to tweak. I did find some directions on it, but it seemed a bit too involved for me to get into at the moment.
Overall, I've been quite happy with LibreELEC. It really gave me the smoothest performance with the PI5 so far (and I tried pretty much everything out there). I think it'll make a decent home entertainment center. It has more options than OSMC (it was easier to add themes from other repositories, for example) and smoother performance than using Kodi on Raspberry PI OS (I had numerous issues with that, even on an older, less-buggy, more X11-compatible PI4B). If you're using a PI5 and have gotten to the tear-your-hair-out phase of hardware-software incompatibility, this is a much better option than tossing it out the window, running it over with your car, or using it as a paperweight. (I honestly wouldn't blame anyone who resorted to those other options, though.)
It's the preferred option for x86, and I have some older systems with nvidia cards, so LE is ideal. There's a great wiki and forum, and questions get answered. Overall two thumbs up! If you have an older systems with nvidia, look for the x86 legacy build. Overall I'm very pleased with LE. I've used different versions as well as tried some of the nightly builds. I have seen some wireless networking card issues on older version. But those issues are due to mostly the underlying Linux kernel, not LE.
I am using it on a Raspberry pi 400 since 2021. No major issues noticed. Works better than an old X86 system. Various plugins are helpful to meet many needs. Really stable and updates are available regularly. Videos up to 1080p are playing smoothly. You can share your media files through samba server. I am using Netflix, Prime video, Hotstar, Spotify etc. with the help of Kodi plugins. Audio quality is excellent when using HDMI Pass through.
You can use this OS to convert small devices with little power consumption, to Multimedia players.
There are 2 core components of LibreELEC -
1) KODI (which consists of Media Server and Player), and
2) the Linux OS wrapped around it.
I'm using LibreElec as a Kodi Player, because I don't like the flashy Media Server integrated into Kodi.
The rest of the features I need in my Home Theatre (Dell Optiplex 7050 Micro) - are running through Docker provided by LibreELEC out of the box.
My Docker has the following Containers (Dockerhub is your friend):
1) Portainer - to manage the apps
2) MiniDLNA - to scrape and broadcast my media library files I keep in folders
3) Transmission Server - to trigger downloading torrent files on the Server, from browser on my PC
4) Krusader - to manage files on attached USB disks directly on LibreELEC host (not via SMB)
The CONTROLLER function in my system is done by BubbleUPnP app on my Android phone, with which I can browse my MiniDLNA media library, select the file(s) I want to play and select the Player (Renderer) where to send these files to play back. Unless I want to play back music or movies on my 65" TV and a 7.1 HT sound system, I can also fire up VLC on my computer and because MiniDLNA is a DLNA compatible server, I can play the files from my LibreELEC attached storage on my PC, or another Android tablet.
The notable feature of LibreELEC is that it automatically mounts USB disks at the boot up time only.
The feature doesn't work if you plug in a USB disk "on the fly" - available storage space will be limited to 7 Gib only. No need to wax lirical about how awesome LibreELEC is - because it IS !!
Just try and bend it the way you want it to work for you :)
Was using LibreElec on Pi3 for for only playing Media. After the Pi4 came out, i decided to get a faster SD Card and USB Stick. I installed some Linux Distro's, Android, Google TV. It wasn't the right choice for only watching only Movies or Series.
After Research i found LibreElec and installed on my Pi4. Was suprised 4k 30 Fps runs so smooth. I don't have any Issue like Sound Lags or Video Stutters.
I'm using it on my 4k TV. So far so good anything runs smooth like watching Movies, Series.
I've been using LibreELEC off and on for years, I think it might be the most perfect no nonsense distro I've used, there is little to no pre-installed bloat if you just want to use something to play media. It boots directly into Kodi which itself is a very versatile media player, and all will easily access and host SMB network shares and has plenty of add-ons to access a variety of streaming services.
But wait there is more, there are media service/server add-ons as well. Get a internal tuner card or USB tuner card and install the TVHeadend server add-on and you've got a DVR. Want a streaming server? There are are add-ons for Jellyfin and Emby. You can just take a look and see what easily installs via the
There are even VNC and VPN add-ons, AND if you're inclined to get your hands dirty with some CLI you can easily configure SSH easily during the install or after the install via the GUI.
I always say Linux is best when you never actually have to touch the GNU software or navigate the huge array of forked desktop environments that are just different enough to create a learning curve between them. Like android is the best mobile implementation of Linux, LIbreELEC is the best media player implementation of Linux.
Also Check out Lakka which is based on LibreELEC but focuses on game emulators.
I'm the same guy that gave LibreELEC a 5 in December of last year. Came back to say that all of the defects I pointed out previously only exist in the x64 port. I've been using it in my Pi 3B and it has worked flawlessly, and for that, I bump the rating back to 10.
I have been using LibreElec on my RPi 3b for quite some time now with no problems. I have never had the problem with booting from a new card and installing Kodi. I can only assume that Jesse Smith had a faulty SD card, or some such other problem.
I use Kodi to launch the Plex add-on, and don't have any problems. I can watch upto 1080p x264 with no problems and up to 720p x265. These are limits belonging to my TV (old) and my RPi 3 (not quite so old, but not an RPi 4).
I have tried a couple of little android boxes as my media player over the years, and find that the RPi with LibreElec/Kodi/Plex is, for me, the most effective, reliable and useful.
A wonderful alternative to plex, no disclosure to movie houses to get the fan art. New users need to allow the system to auto update, to populate the offerings first. Netflix runs very well with very little CPU overhead. The light weight (original) skin, Confluence, has now returned to the available index.
I highly recommend this for most X64 machines.
Has always worked very well for me. I run it on an old X86 PC with a fan less motherboard and silent power supply in the living room, with TVHeadend, as a PVR, and on a Raspberry Pi in the bedroom, as a client. TVHeadend is the complicated bit and is probably not for everyone.
The issues encountered in this review don't surprise me. Streaming is mess with a great many people trying to both defend and violate copyright. Judging LibreElec on this is a bit like judging a vehicle based on how its driven. Many extensions are simply nothing to do with LibreElec or Kodi.
I have used Windows Media Center, Mythbuntu, Kodi on Ubuntu and a couple of others (WMC for years). For a PVR I don't believe there's anything better than the combination of LibreElec & TVHeadend. It's rock solid stability and the complete absence of that old problem "oh, you want to record something now, hang on I just have some updates to do" means it mostly just works. The only issue I've had is sometimes getting unwanted later versions of recordings with a foregrounded person doing sign language.
I've had an endless stream of problems with the Raspberry PI5 due to the fact that they don't seem to care about X11 support and Wayland really just isn't quite polished yet. This is one of few distros that I actually got to run on the PI5 and it runs really well -- the video performance is quite good and the PI5 doesn't get too hot (an ongoing problem, in my experience).
I had purchased the PI5 as a low-resource desktop computer. But, I had so much trouble getting other distros to work on it (even the Raspberry PI OS), that I was relieved when this worked so well. (At least I can use it for something!) I haven't had it freeze or glitch yet. It can be a bit sluggish to start, even with 8GB of RAM -- I'm not all that happy about that. I wish the splash screen at the start were easier to tweak. I did find some directions on it, but it seemed a bit too involved for me to get into at the moment.
Overall, I've been quite happy with LibreELEC. It really gave me the smoothest performance with the PI5 so far (and I tried pretty much everything out there). I think it'll make a decent home entertainment center. It has more options than OSMC (it was easier to add themes from other repositories, for example) and smoother performance than using Kodi on Raspberry PI OS (I had numerous issues with that, even on an older, less-buggy, more X11-compatible PI4B). If you're using a PI5 and have gotten to the tear-your-hair-out phase of hardware-software incompatibility, this is a much better option than tossing it out the window, running it over with your car, or using it as a paperweight. (I honestly wouldn't blame anyone who resorted to those other options, though.)
It's the preferred option for x86, and I have some older systems with nvidia cards, so LE is ideal. There's a great wiki and forum, and questions get answered. Overall two thumbs up! If you have an older systems with nvidia, look for the x86 legacy build. Overall I'm very pleased with LE. I've used different versions as well as tried some of the nightly builds. I have seen some wireless networking card issues on older version. But those issues are due to mostly the underlying Linux kernel, not LE.
I am using it on a Raspberry pi 400 since 2021. No major issues noticed. Works better than an old X86 system. Various plugins are helpful to meet many needs. Really stable and updates are available regularly. Videos up to 1080p are playing smoothly. You can share your media files through samba server. I am using Netflix, Prime video, Hotstar, Spotify etc. with the help of Kodi plugins. Audio quality is excellent when using HDMI Pass through.
You can use this OS to convert small devices with little power consumption, to Multimedia players.
There are 2 core components of LibreELEC -
1) KODI (which consists of Media Server and Player), and
2) the Linux OS wrapped around it.
I'm using LibreElec as a Kodi Player, because I don't like the flashy Media Server integrated into Kodi.
The rest of the features I need in my Home Theatre (Dell Optiplex 7050 Micro) - are running through Docker provided by LibreELEC out of the box.
My Docker has the following Containers (Dockerhub is your friend):
1) Portainer - to manage the apps
2) MiniDLNA - to scrape and broadcast my media library files I keep in folders
3) Transmission Server - to trigger downloading torrent files on the Server, from browser on my PC
4) Krusader - to manage files on attached USB disks directly on LibreELEC host (not via SMB)
The CONTROLLER function in my system is done by BubbleUPnP app on my Android phone, with which I can browse my MiniDLNA media library, select the file(s) I want to play and select the Player (Renderer) where to send these files to play back. Unless I want to play back music or movies on my 65" TV and a 7.1 HT sound system, I can also fire up VLC on my computer and because MiniDLNA is a DLNA compatible server, I can play the files from my LibreELEC attached storage on my PC, or another Android tablet.
The notable feature of LibreELEC is that it automatically mounts USB disks at the boot up time only.
The feature doesn't work if you plug in a USB disk "on the fly" - available storage space will be limited to 7 Gib only. No need to wax lirical about how awesome LibreELEC is - because it IS !!
Just try and bend it the way you want it to work for you :)
Was using LibreElec on Pi3 for for only playing Media. After the Pi4 came out, i decided to get a faster SD Card and USB Stick. I installed some Linux Distro's, Android, Google TV. It wasn't the right choice for only watching only Movies or Series.
After Research i found LibreElec and installed on my Pi4. Was suprised 4k 30 Fps runs so smooth. I don't have any Issue like Sound Lags or Video Stutters.
I'm using it on my 4k TV. So far so good anything runs smooth like watching Movies, Series.
I've been using LibreELEC off and on for years, I think it might be the most perfect no nonsense distro I've used, there is little to no pre-installed bloat if you just want to use something to play media. It boots directly into Kodi which itself is a very versatile media player, and all will easily access and host SMB network shares and has plenty of add-ons to access a variety of streaming services.
But wait there is more, there are media service/server add-ons as well. Get a internal tuner card or USB tuner card and install the TVHeadend server add-on and you've got a DVR. Want a streaming server? There are are add-ons for Jellyfin and Emby. You can just take a look and see what easily installs via the
There are even VNC and VPN add-ons, AND if you're inclined to get your hands dirty with some CLI you can easily configure SSH easily during the install or after the install via the GUI.
I always say Linux is best when you never actually have to touch the GNU software or navigate the huge array of forked desktop environments that are just different enough to create a learning curve between them. Like android is the best mobile implementation of Linux, LIbreELEC is the best media player implementation of Linux.
Also Check out Lakka which is based on LibreELEC but focuses on game emulators.
I'm the same guy that gave LibreELEC a 5 in December of last year. Came back to say that all of the defects I pointed out previously only exist in the x64 port. I've been using it in my Pi 3B and it has worked flawlessly, and for that, I bump the rating back to 10.
I have been using LibreElec on my RPi 3b for quite some time now with no problems. I have never had the problem with booting from a new card and installing Kodi. I can only assume that Jesse Smith had a faulty SD card, or some such other problem.
I use Kodi to launch the Plex add-on, and don't have any problems. I can watch upto 1080p x264 with no problems and up to 720p x265. These are limits belonging to my TV (old) and my RPi 3 (not quite so old, but not an RPi 4).
I have tried a couple of little android boxes as my media player over the years, and find that the RPi with LibreElec/Kodi/Plex is, for me, the most effective, reliable and useful.
A wonderful alternative to plex, no disclosure to movie houses to get the fan art. New users need to allow the system to auto update, to populate the offerings first. Netflix runs very well with very little CPU overhead. The light weight (original) skin, Confluence, has now returned to the available index.
I highly recommend this for most X64 machines.
Has always worked very well for me. I run it on an old X86 PC with a fan less motherboard and silent power supply in the living room, with TVHeadend, as a PVR, and on a Raspberry Pi in the bedroom, as a client. TVHeadend is the complicated bit and is probably not for everyone.
The issues encountered in this review don't surprise me. Streaming is mess with a great many people trying to both defend and violate copyright. Judging LibreElec on this is a bit like judging a vehicle based on how its driven. Many extensions are simply nothing to do with LibreElec or Kodi.
I have used Windows Media Center, Mythbuntu, Kodi on Ubuntu and a couple of others (WMC for years). For a PVR I don't believe there's anything better than the combination of LibreElec & TVHeadend. It's rock solid stability and the complete absence of that old problem "oh, you want to record something now, hang on I just have some updates to do" means it mostly just works. The only issue I've had is sometimes getting unwanted later versions of recordings with a foregrounded person doing sign language.
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