The developers behind the OpenELEC Linux operating system for embedded devices, designed to act as a media center, have announced the release of the first Beta build of OpenELEC 7.0.



OpenELEC 7.0 will be available later this year, as a drop-in replacement for the 6.x series, but until then early adopters can get a taste of what's new by downloading the Beta 1 build released today, March 21, 2016.
Rebased on the long-term-supported Linux 4.4 kernel and the Kodi 16.1 RC (Release Candidate) media center, OpenELEC 7.0 Beta 1 comes with support for the WeTek Core platform, which now has its own build. Also, the Nvidia_Legacy build has been merged into the Generic build.
"WeTek Core is the best Android TV box you can have to watch IPTV, Movies, and TV Shows while you relax on your sofa," the developers have explained. "With an AMLogic S812-H, 2GHz Quad-core processor, 4K Support and 8-bit H265, this box will give you all entertainment you are looking for."
AMDGPU open-source driver now available For now, a lot of stuff is happening under-the-hood, so OpenELEC 7.0 Beta 1 updates numerous core components, among which we can mention ALSA 1.1.0, GCC 5.3, X.Org Server 1.18, FFmpeg 2.8, Mesa 11.2 RC, Glibc 2.23, systemd 229, LLVM 2.8, Binutils 2.26, Python 2.7.11, libva 1.7, libressl 2.2, libnfs 1.10, and connman 1.31.
Moreover, OpenVPN support has been re-implemented, Bluetooth Audio is now supported, various WLAN drivers and firmware were updated, adds the new AMDGPU open-source graphics driver for AMD Radeon GPUs, and updates the Intel video driver. Download OpenELEC 7.0 Beta 1 right now via our website or from the official one.
If you plan on installing this first Beta build of OpenELEC 7.0, please try to keep in mind that it's a pre-release version, which means that it contains known, unresolved issues. More details should be available in the release notes.