Media Centre Linux OpenELEC now on Raspberry Pi

The OpenELEC developers have released version 3.0 of their minimalist multimedia Linux distribution. The Linux system serving as the basis of the "Open Embedded Linux Entertainment Center" – or OpenELEC for short – has been completely updated and now supports even more hardware. The system only comes to between 90 to 130 megabytes, and there are now ISO images specifically for the Raspberry Pi and Arctic MC001 barebones computers.

OpenELEC 3.0 uses the XBMC 12.1 media centre software, which now includes support for live TV and video recording. Thanks to a new audio engine in XBMC 12, OpenELEC can now also output the HD surround sound formats DTS Master Audio (DTS-MA) and Dolby True-HD and recognise more audio hardware. Raspberry Pi support has been added here, as well, and AppleTV users will be pleased to see updated CrystalHD and NVIDIA drivers and patches to XBMC to improve playback. The release announcement lists other new features.

The project's download page already has ISO images for various architectures, although the developers have announced plans to end support for 32-bit ION and 32-bit Intel in the version after the next one. The developers also note that, while they have stabilised the support for AMD's XVBA, ageing drivers with various bugs limit the work they can do and, unless AMD "rises to the challenge", the OpenELEC project may have to drop AMD support to avert a "growing support problem".

(djwm)