ANNOUNCE: piCorePlayer 7.0.0

[paul-]

Lets keep the Christmas presents coming!

The pCP team is happy to announce the official release of piCorePlayer 7.0.0

Significant changes

pCP 7.0.0

• Kernel 5.4.83
• RPi Firmware Dec 8, 2020
• Includes support for RPi 400, and CM4 modules.
• Based on piCore 12.x base.
• OpenSSL 1.1.1h
• Drivers included for upcoming DAC cards. Allo Boss2, and PiFi40.
• Hardware Random Daemon. Required for some headless installations to allow SSL to work properly. SSH key generation on older pi boards(Zero/B/B+) is still rather slow on first boot. May take up 120-140s on first boot to fully populate.
• mDns enabled by default. Burn your image, boot the RPi, and find it by http://pcp.local This is broadcasting the hostname of your player, so please change your hostname on the tweaks page if you have multiple pCP devices. (mDns can be disabled on the tweaks page too)
• Integration of cifs-utils for better CIFS drive mounting support, including special characters in share passwords. (Not enabled by default)
• You now have the ability to set the amount of time when retrying to mount remote network shares. This should resolve problems where NAS system boot slower than pCP. The network share also no longer disables itself if not found.
• Includes Squeezelite 1.9.8-1287-pCP, which includes the latest ssl handling patches.
  
  • FFmpeg support has been dropped.
  • New library for MP4/ALAC
  • WMA support has been dropped, install LMS "Play Windows Media" plugin for support.

Changes since Beta6

• RPi4B 8GB board should boot fine on both 32 bit and 64bit images
• PirateAudio display support is updated and working
• Implemented LMS upgrade branches for upgrade (Release/Stable/Development) Default is the release branch, but is user selectable.

Images

32 Bit: piCorePlayer7.0.0
Supports: All RPi boards

64 Bit: piCorePlayer7.0.0-64Bit
Supports: RPi3B and RPI4B Boards.

Known Issues

• No support for RT kernels. I don't see support for these kernels continuing.
• Merus Amp is not fully integrated yet, please note how to configure the card. https://forums.slimdevices.com/showt...l=1#post993971
• The 64bit kernel does not support the USB Fiq driver that is required on a RPI3B for most proper USB functions. The RPi4B never has required this version of the usb driver.
• HDMI audio is quite hit and miss. Many bumpy roads ahead for HDMI audio out.
• Playing ALAC files is broken in the 7.0.0 images. Perform a full update of squeezelite from the main menu, to update the required libraries.

Notes

• Adding a file named "netusb" to the boot partition will automatically load/configure net-usb kernel modules.
• Adding wpa_supplicant.conf to the boot partition will automatically enable wifi.

Recommended Upgrade path.

• Download new image and configure from scratch.
• Insitu_update is availiable, and handles most installations. However, downgrading versions will not be possible.
• Some packages will be automatically upgraded, as they are known to need updated for pcp7. Some packages like python will not be automatically upgraded. While the old version are no longer available for download, they should continue to work on your current system.

Downloads Can be found: https://docs.picoreplayer.org/downloads/

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Latest WWW interface version. This is updated by running "Patch Update" from the main menu

piCorePlayer version: 7.0.0
www version: 00011 (note screenshot below might not reflect the newest version)

Attachment 30393

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RPI4 Bootloader update Support - This will allow you to update your RPI4 bootloader and VL805 chipset firmware. Needs to be done via ssh. If something goes wrong below, and your RPI4 won't boot, here is a link to the RPI Recovery proceedure. https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/

Backups of your firmware configurations are saved here: /etc/sysconfig/tcedir/raspberrypi/bootloader/backup

The latest Default firmware from RPI is LATEST: Thu Sep 3 12:11:43 UTC 2020 (1599135103)

open an ssh session

ceo
tce-load -w rpi-vc python3.8                             (You can omit if you already have these)
wget https://github.com/piCorePlayer/rpi-eeprom/releases/latest/download/rpi-eeprom.tcz
wget https://github.com/piCorePlayer/rpi-eeprom/releases/latest/download/rpi-eeprom.tcz.md5.txt
md5sum -c rpi-eeprom.tcz.md5.txt     (Make sure the output of this command is OK)
tce-load -i rpi-eeprom.tcz

pcp-rpi-eeprom-update -a                                (This will update to the latest "default" firmware)
pcp rb                                                            (reboot to load the bootloader)

If you would like to load other firmware branches, do this before running rpi-eeprom-update (options are critical, stable or beta)

export FIRMWARE_RELEASE_STATUS=stable

This this is a flash process if something goes wrong, make sure you are aware of rpi's recovery process.....https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/

Command output should look similar to this

tc@piCorePlayer:~$ pcp-rpi-eeprom-update
pCP rpi-eeprom package version: v1.0
BCM2711 detected
Dedicated VL805 EEPROM detected
Checking for updates in /tmp/tcloop/rpi-eeprom/lib/firmware/raspberrypi/bootloader/default
Use raspi-config to select either the default-production release or latest update.
BOOTLOADER: up-to-date
CURRENT: Thu Sep  3 12:11:43 UTC 2020 (1599135103)
 LATEST: Thu Sep  3 12:11:43 UTC 2020 (1599135103)
RELEASE: default
VL805: up-to-date
CURRENT: 000138a1
 LATEST: 000138a1

Once you have downloaded the extension for the first time, then you can easily update to the latest version.

pcp-rpi-eeprom-update --update

[paul-]

<Place holder>

[carsten_h]

Hello!

That is i really great christmas present! Thank you very much!

Is it possible to make an insitu update from 6.1.0 to a 64bit version on a Pi4B? I think the normal insitu update would install the 32bit version.

[paul-]

Since it is a pure 64bit system there is not a practical way to upgrade. So any current pcp6 installation will only upgrade to a 32 bit system.

[kidstypike]

Since it is a pure 64bit system there is not a practical way to upgrade. So any current pcp6 installation will only upgrade to a 32 bit system.

I've just in situ upgraded a Pi4 from 7beta 64 bit to 7.0.0, will this be 64 bit?

Does pCP display which version is installed?

[paul-]

I've just in situ upgraded a Pi4 from 7beta 64 bit to 7.0.0, will this be 64 bit?

Does pCP display which version is installed?

When updating

32bit -> 32bit
64bit -> 64bit

32bit installs you will see the kernels listed as pcpCore-v7 (or v7l or nothing in the case of v6)


64 bit will show the kernel as pcpCore-v8


Otherwise, its all under the hood.

[kidstypike]

When updating

32bit -> 32bit
64bit -> 64bit

32bit installs you will see the kernels listed as pcpCore-v7 (or v7l or nothing in the case of v6)


64 bit will show the kernel as pcpCore-v8


Otherwise, its all under the hood.

Thanks.

Seems I'm on v7l

I'll do a fresh 64 bit install tomorrow.

[Paul Webster]

So much for home IT Christmas lockdown
Now running pCP 7 and LMS 8.1

Well done for making it so smooth.

[praganj]

I just updated one Pi4/4GB player and one Pi4/8GB server from 7b6. Everything works perfect.
Phantastic, thank you so much for all you work

[carsten_h]

Hello!

There is one strange sentence for LMS installation for the branch type: "Release: Select this to only only update when there is a new release" :-)