14 DAY TRIAL // OpenELEC, an embedded operating system built specifically to run XBMC, the open source entertainment media hub, is now at version 4.2 Beta 1 and is available for testing and experimenting.
The OpenELEC developers have managed to quickly release a new version of their Linux distribution based on the XBMC Gotham 13.2 Beta 1, which is only a week old. This multimedia hub is used on its own, but it can also be implemented in an operating system.
The distribution is based on the latest XBMC version, which means that its developers are constantly implementing all the bleeding edge features and changes from that software.
“The OpenELEC 4.1 release series are test releases (beta) for OpenELEC-4.2. OpenELEC-4.2 will be the next stable release, which is a feature release and the successor of OpenELEC-4.0. Since OpenELEC 4.0 we have some parts of the underlying OS reworked. OpenELEC 4.1/4.2 is now based on Kernel linux-3.15, Mesa-10.2 and Xorg-1.16.”
“We updated the Nvidia Graphic drivers in the 64-bit image to 340.x (32-bit remains on 304.123), Systemd to systemd-215, our Connectionmanager to connman-1.24 and XBMC to XBMC Gotham 13.2 (beta1). We switched our libc from eglibc to glibc. We added support for nss-mdns, support to perform filesystem checks on every boot for our both default system partitions and FFMpeg-2.2 to our x86 builds. With switching to ffmpeg-2.2 on our x86 builds we now support h265(HEVC),” reads the official announcement.
There are quite a few interesting upgrades in this new version of OpenELEC, and some of them will really make a difference. First of all, the Linux kernel is now at version 3.15, which is the most advanced build released to date. It provides compatibility with all the new hardware that you might use in conjunction with this operating system and it's been out for a couple of months already.
The developers have also chosen to add Xorg 1.16, which was released only a few days ago. The new version of the X server brings XWayland support and integration with Systemd, just to name a couple of features.
XBMC “Gotham” 13.2 Beta 1 was made available the other day and the developers have made a number of serious changes, but they are certain to add even more features in the next releases.
Check out the official announcement for a complete list of changes and improvements. You can download OpenELEC 4.2 Beta 1 right now from Softpedia.
Remember that this is a development version and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended for testing purposes only.