Could previous OSMC releases be repackaged to run from SD card on the Vero 4K?

Feature Requests
1

Right now I and some others are running a test build of OSMC on the Vero 4K from an SD card, while a more stable OSMC version is installed in eMMC. This allows a (slightly clunky) form of dual-booting between two different OSMC versions: boot with the SD card in the slot for the test version, or shut down, remove the card, and power back up to get the other version.

This made me wonder: how much effort would be required to repackage an earlier version of OSMC to run from SD card so that we could sort-of-dual-boot between that earlier release and the current one in the same way?

The version I would particularly like to be able to run in this way is the final 3.14 kernel / Kodi 18.9 release. Releases since then contain some regressions (some of which I’ve more or less given up hope will ever be fixed). At the same time, later versions also contain many improvements that (in other situations) I really can’t do without. So the ability to dual-boot two different OSMC versions would be quite handy.

2

There’s a limit to what could be done. You still need the bootloader and some other stuff which is on the emmc and needs to be compatible with the kernel on the SD card.

FWIW I have a 3.14 + 18.9 install on emmc and using that box to test the new USB images so perhaps it’s possible the other way round.

3

The kernel would need to be re-built for each release, so this isn’t really trivial.

4

Sounds like it would be less effort to just purchase another Vero to run in parallel at that location and skip all the manual reconfiguring in the first place. :stuck_out_tongue:

2 Likes
5

Distributing OSMC via USB/SD for Vero will likely get a bit more complex in the future with our obligations with Widevine and HDCP.

Still possible – but discouraged.

Still working on them :slight_smile:

Bootloader will prevent this unfortunately.