[soulfabric]

I am looking for an ARM box/board to replace an old netbook running XBMC.

I want to be able to run XBMC on Linux and NOT Android. Despite hours of forums scourging and intense googling I cannot find any information on the linux compatibility of the boxes below. It is probably due to the relative fresh release of the boxes and lack of user experience.

Can someone can already tell, based on the specs, if under Linux hardware decoding and hardware acceleration will be/is available?

- MediaQ M310 (based on Hisilicon K3V2) http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-media-re...24755.html
- M8 (based on the new AMLogic AML8726-M8 – apparently renamed M802 by AMLogic and the Mali 450 MP) http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/155422...droid.html)
- Geniatech ATV1800 (same AML8726-M8 /M802)

For the MediaQ M310 I found here that apparently Hisilicon support has been added to the linux kernel but it’s still quite vague and now word on hw decoding and acceleration: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=ne...px=MTU4MTE
For the AML8726-M8/M802 some people in this forum tend to think that AMLogic working with XBMC support should be soon available.

As an alternative iMX6 Freescale based boards:
- Cubox i2Ultra
- Wandboard Quad
Both benefit of the tremendous work of Stephan Rafin (http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...phan+rafin) and XBMC seems to be working. BUT the problem with those boards is the form factor: Cubox…is well… a cube and not readily available for purchase. The wandboard is a bit thick and only an horrible plastic case is available.

Any other quad core ARM Linux compatible XBMC box out there?

[Starstream]

Aside from the Freescale devices I don't think there are any others in a usable state, with an XBMC linux build that can be flashed or installed to the device.

* The Amlogic M8 series is very new and not quite out there yet and is Android only (for the time being).
* Someone was dabbling with a linux firmware for the Rockchip RK3xxx series but I don't think that went anywhere.
* The O-DROID uses a quad core Samsung chip & does have a linux XBMC branch but it's not recommended and suggested to use Android instead.

The point of linux on the Amlogic M1/M3 series was because they didn't have a lot of processing power but linux isn't necessary on the M8 series according to Pivos, the chip has the horsepower to run XBMC under Android with no impact, whenever Pivos launch their next line those should be the one to go for.

Alternatively there are some Intel STB in the works that are linux based if that's what your after.

[noggin]

When I last looked Android wasn't great at 24/50/60Hz refresh rate switching of its output format, whereas Linux builds were. Has this changed? If so then Linux is still looking preferable to Android for many of us.

[soulfabric]

So AMLogic M802 is too new to tell if a linux build will work...I still do hope that we'll see a linux build for those boards. The point of linux for me is more the OS than the performance and as noggin mentioned the issues with the refresh rate.
Speaking of Pivos, the new line seems to be pushed back to Q2 2014. I won't wait so long.

Rockchip is a no-go because of the lack of support for linux.

I am still quite fond of the form factor of the MediaQ M310 and the processing power offered but still have no clue if linux will be available on this platform (Hisilicon H3620 with Mali 450MP). It even has an HDMI in to connect a Bluray player.

I'lll have a look at Intel but I don't think they come close to the computing power per watt of ARM processors. Small, silent, performant and low consumption, that's what I'm after.

[soulfabric]

After more research on the MediaQ M310 SoC compatibility, it seems that HiSilicon (Huawei) has been actively contributing to Linaro.

Support for the HiSilicon K3V2 has been added to the kernel (3.13):
http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/01/31/l...oid-4-4-2/
There's even instructions in the release notes on how to create your own image:
http://people.linaro.org/~guodongxu/myup...g.Team.pdf

However, some notes seem to imply that booting to linux on those boards is all but easy:
1) uboot binaries for both boards are not released by HiSilicon. Since some feature depends on uboot, so in order to verify this release on K3v2 or S40v200 boards, please contact HiSilicon to get uboot.
2) eMMC/SD card is not supported in this release. Root filesystem is created on ramdisk (initramfs).
3) zImage, device tree blob, and initramfs are combined into one single image.

The same chip is used in other Huawei products, like the Ascend P6 and the folks at XDA have been successfully rooting their phones: http://forum.xda-developers.com/ascend-p6. At least encouraging for those ready to use Android but not the vanilla version.

Question to the Linux Gurus out there: can we boot linux the MediaQ M310? If yes, what is needed?

[soulfabric]

Just an update on the topic to mention that linux has successfully been booted (only remotely for now) on the Tronsmart S89. Read the post at CNX Software: http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/05/15/h...ogic-s802/

Additionally AMLogic released the kernel source code : http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/05/18/l...a-s89-sdk/

A working linux should be ready quite soon if the community picks up the work already done by some.

[Starstream]

I'd recommend going with a Solidrun CuBox-i device which uses the Freescale iMX6 chip it's much further along with Openelec and GeeXbox available for it, Sam Nazarko will also be supporting it with his linxbmc project.

They are now available for sale and shipping, I have one and the performance is excellent despite it's alpha software status it is quite stable too (experience with GeeXbox).

I think progress with the Amlogic S8 series could be a lot slower unless someone is actively contributing time/resources into putting together a linux version, it's a pity Amlogic don't embrace something like Openelec so any box vendor could just cut a version for their box.