CoreELEC p3i

This is a custom build based on the great work Jamal did with his U3k line of CE builds and by proxy, CPM, avdvplus, and everyone else involved. p3i aims to continue the lineage of U3k by:

• providing a stable daily driver base for especially S922X-based SoC's (Ugoos AM6b+, FireTV Cube 2, ...)
• backporting significant improvements to CoreELEC and Kodi from upstream and other known custom builds
• ensuring full transparency in the development process (all changes are properly committed and comprehensible)
• providing significant performance improvements for complex UIs

p3i doesn't aim to reinvent the wheel, but ultimately, to replace the famous CPM A14 build as a stable, well maintained, daily driver.

It's directly forked off of U3k B11, so its core is:

• Kodi Omega 21.3 with significant backports from Kodi 22 upstream
• Python 3.13.11
• FFMPEG 8.1.2

Building

p3i builds like stock CoreELEC, with two things you need to get right: the build target variables, and the local source checkouts the core packages build from.

PROJECT, DEVICE and ARCH

The build system picks its target from environment variables. With nothing set it defaults to PROJECT=Amlogic-ce, DEVICE=Amlogic-ne, ARCH=aarch64, so a bare make builds Amlogic-ne, not the Amlogic-ng (arm) images p3i primarily targets (S922X devices like the Ugoos AM6b+).

Every invocation needs the same variables: make, ./scripts/clean, ./scripts/build, all of them. Each PROJECT/DEVICE/ARCH combination is its own build tree, so a bare ./scripts/clean kodi cleans the Amlogic-ne tree while your image builds in the Amlogic-ng one: you never actually cleaned.

# release image for Amlogic-ng (arm)
PROJECT=Amlogic-ce DEVICE=Amlogic-ng ARCH=arm make release

# clean/rebuild single packages in that same tree
PROJECT=Amlogic-ce DEVICE=Amlogic-ng ARCH=arm ./scripts/clean kodi
PROJECT=Amlogic-ce DEVICE=Amlogic-ng ARCH=arm ./scripts/build libdovi

Setting the defaults permanently

Export them from your shell so every command agrees:

# bash: ~/.bashrc — zsh: ~/.zshrc
export PROJECT=Amlogic-ce
export DEVICE=Amlogic-ng
export ARCH=arm

# fish: run once (universal variables), or put in ~/.config/fish/config.fish
set -Ux PROJECT Amlogic-ce
set -Ux DEVICE Amlogic-ng
set -Ux ARCH arm

Don't use ~/.coreelec/options for these three: the build system sources that file after the target defaults are resolved, so DEVICE=Amlogic-ng set there still leaves ARCH=aarch64 and you end up with a broken hybrid build tree. That file is fine for build tweaks like CONCURRENCY_MAKE_LEVEL, not for target selection.

Local source checkouts (branch coreelec-21_local)

Development happens on coreelec-21_local; coreelec-21 carries the release states it is cut from. The core packages of this fork don't download release tarballs. Their package.mk points at a local working copy via a file:// URL, and whatever is checked out there is what gets built. The build never pulls or resets these checkouts, so verify their state before packaging:

package.mk	builds from local checkout	source repo
projects/Amlogic-ce/packages/mediacenter/kodi	sources/kodi/xbmc-local	pannal/xbmc
projects/Amlogic-ce/packages/linux	$HOME/linux-amlogic-local	pannal/linux-amlogic
projects/Amlogic-ce/packages/linux-drivers/amlogic/media_modules-aml	sources/media_modules-aml/media_modules-aml-local	pannal/media_modules-aml
projects/Amlogic-ce/packages/mediacenter/CoreELEC-settings	sources/service.coreelec.settings/service.coreelec.settings-local	pannal/service.coreelec.settings
projects/Amlogic-ce/packages/mediacenter/skin.p3i.estuary	sources/skin.p3i.estuary/skin.p3i.estuary-local	bundled skin

Clone each repo to the listed path (the branch to check out follows from PKG_VERSION/PKG_GIT_BRANCH in the respective package.mk), or edit the PKG_URL in those files to point at your own checkouts.

One-time note: the first build also bootstraps the rust toolchain (for libdovi), which adds roughly an hour of host compilation. Subsequent builds reuse it.

Issues & Support

• Issue-tracker
• Discussions
• Discord: TRaSH-Guides #ugoos-mediaplayer and #support channels

Links

As my Github profile isn't public at the moment, here are the significant source-code repository links for you, if you're interested:

• Releases
• XBMC/Kodi base repository
• CoreELEC Settings Addon repository
• Linux Amlogic repository
• Amlogic media modules repository

Thanks

Massive thanks to all the testers, especially the ones from TRaSH-Guides #ugoos-mediaplayer, who initially spiked my interest in continuing Jamal's work by exposing potential long standing UI issues in Kodi.

Also massive thanks to (not limited to, in no particular order):

• CPM
• Jamal
• Team CoreELEC
• avdvplus, SamuriHL and others involved in the CoreELEC custom builds
• Team Kodi
• OSMC

Donations

License

CoreELEC original code is released under GPLv2.

Copyright

As CoreELEC includes code from many upstream projects it includes many copyright owners. CoreELEC makes NO claim of copyright on any upstream code. Patches to upstream code have the same license as the upstream project, unless specified otherwise. For a complete copyright list please checkout the source code to examine license headers. Unless expressly stated otherwise all code submitted to the CoreELEC project (in any form) is licensed under GPLv2. You are absolutely free to retain copyright. To retain copyright simply add a copyright header to each submitted code page. If you submit code that is not your own work it is your responsibility to place a header stating the copyright.