A good desktop experience on Rock64

[Luke]

A part of every SBC community will always want to use the device as a desktop 'replacement'. Starting with ayufan's 0.6.25 build much of the things people seek in such a desktop replacement are finally available and working. That said, please remember that until 0.6.X is labelled as 'pre-release' certain features - or the entire OS image - may not work properly or at all.  

Here is what you do. I suggest using an eMMC or external USB 3.0 HDD rather than a SD for best performance. Download the latest Ubuntu Xenial or Bionic (I've tested Bionic only) and install the LXDE desktop using the script in /usr/local/sbin

Code:

sudo ./install_desktop.sh lxde

The LXDE desktop performs much better than the remaining options I've tried. If you have a high-DPI display, you will also be happy to find that your display resolution is supported and you can switch to other resolutions from the  settings -> monitor settings drop-down menu. Out of the box the experience is a bit bare-bones, which is a good thing as you'll get a chance to theme the desktop and install the things you need yourself. 

The build comes bundled with Chromium, which performs ok, but I suggest installing Firefox because version 57 onward performs very well on such low-end devices. The browsing experience is very smooth by default but you can improve performance further if you wish. Those who want to watch youtube in their browser will be happy that even windowed 1080p video playback works fine in both Chromium and Firefox. 

Speaking of video playback, 1080p video can be played (potentially higher resolution too - I haven't tried) using MPV and SMplayer. If you wish to use SMplayer rather than MPV then you'll need to set it up first. I had no issues with smooth playback.

[dan1972]

couldnt install lxde on bionic minimal. unmet dependencies of mpv.

[Trash_Can_Man]

My linux knowledge is limited so maybe this question sound stupid but, can i install kodi over this lxde desktop and have at least 30fps+ on 1080p videos? and you mention youtube windowed 1080p but what about watching those at the full 1080p fullscreen? do that behave fine and at least 30fps+? without weird external players? 
Im using the rock64 as a media server but now i want to plug it to the tv and use it as a mixed media server/player on a single device, is there anything i need to have in mind in this situation?

[Luke]

My linux knowledge is limited so maybe this question sound stupid but, can i install kodi over this lxde desktop and have at least 30fps+ on 1080p videos? and you mention youtube windowed 1080p but what about watching those at the full 1080p fullscreen? do that behave fine and at least 30fps+? without weird external players? 
Im using the rock64 as a media server but now i want to plug it to the tv and use it as a mixed media server/player on a single device, is there anything i need to have in mind in this situation?

You can't play 1080p full screen in a browser. Perhaps 720 or 480p - but I haven't tried. Although I doubt it. 
As for KODI, to my surprise the answer is yes, even when rendered in software 1080p playback and GUI is smooth for the most part (the CPU load is high however). I am pretty sure you can compile a version which would use acceleration like LibreELEC.

[Trash_Can_Man]

Yea i was planning to try the raybuntu libreelec build once his r23 release is flaged as stable but its either super slow on developing or simply abandoned and im kinda noob on linux so compiling stuff is kinda out of question lol
You know if any build is able to play youtube videos 1080p fullscreen with 30fps+ in a browser (i know there is a youtube addon for kodi and maybe i can use it to watch YT videos on that libreelec build but i prefer a proper browser experience)?

[Luke]

Yea i was planning to try the raybuntu libreelec build once his r23 release is flaged as stable but its either super slow on developing or simply abandoned and im kinda noob on linux so compiling stuff is kinda out of question lol
You know if any build is able to play youtube videos 1080p fullscreen with 30fps+ in a browser (i know there is a youtube addon for kodi and maybe i can use it to watch YT videos on that libreelec build but i prefer a proper browser experience)?

LibreELEC is very much in development - I'd even say its moving fast from the bits and pieces I see. Word has it that some of it has started being upstreamed already (or is about to be). I think your idea of 'super slow' is rather subjective  Kwiboo even said he got HDMI + Mali + KODI running on mainline the other day in the chat. 
As for your questions: there is a youtube addon in LibreELEC that works perfectly (please ask LibreELEC questions in this thread). If you really want to play back youtube videos on desktop then use one of the many 'open in' plugins for FireFox (see links in first post); that will play back HD videos in full screen.

[Trash_Can_Man]

OH didnt knew that, im gonna keep waiting for that r23 release then, tyvvm for your help

[dan1972]

so i installed bionic minimal from this repo and ran the script in usr/local/sbin/ but it errored out due to mpv/ffmpeg dependencies. so i tried the minimal xenial and managed to install lxde but after restarting all i get is a black screen. anybody have any tips or perhaps a short tutorial on installing lxde in a minimal linux install? also big thanks to ayufan for all the hard work.

[pytheas]

so i installed bionic minimal from this repo and ran the script in usr/local/sbin/ but it errored out due to mpv/ffmpeg dependencies. so i tried the minimal xenial and managed to install lxde but after restarting all i get is a black screen. anybody have any tips or perhaps a short tutorial on installing lxde in a minimal linux install? also big thanks to ayufan for all the hard work.

I could install lxde (and gnome) ok a few days ago from bionic minimal. I bricked the system so I started all over again. But I can no longer install anything, with the same error. Has the bionic repo changed in the meantime ?

[Luke]

so i installed bionic minimal from this repo and ran the script in usr/local/sbin/ but it errored out due to mpv/ffmpeg dependencies. so i tried the minimal xenial and managed to install lxde but after restarting all i get is a black screen. anybody have any tips or perhaps a short tutorial on installing lxde in a minimal linux install? also big thanks to ayufan for all the hard work.

I could install lxde (and gnome) ok a few days ago from bionic minimal. I bricked the system so I started all over again. But I can no longer install anything, with the same error. Has the bionic repo changed in the meantime ?

Interesting. Has someone filed the issue on git ?