EmuELEC, bad news. The beginning of its end?

It seems that the end is near for the well-known EmuELEC emulation system, or so it appears from the statement published by its developer shantigilbert.

The lack of help, the pressure and different personal problems have taken their toll on shantigilbert who has decided to stop updating this emulation system with the addition of new devices. From now on, it seems that updates will be minimal and will be focused on troubleshooting, as can be read in the statement published by the developer.

Farewell from EmuELEC developer

From here we want to thank all the work done by shantigilbert and we share 100% his decision. Here is the developer’s commentary on LibreELEC’s Discord channel.

• As an alternative, in the future, maybe CoreELEC will have more support for Amlogic SoC.

shantigilbert – 04/17/2023 8:51 am
You may be wondering why there hasn’t been much action on 4.7. The reason is that I have decided to stop working on EmuELEC. I no longer have the time or energy to continue, and my health issues have gotten in the way. While they are not serious, they are quite annoying. My arms and back often ache when I spend a lot of time in front of the computer, and I already do that in my full-time job. When I get home, the last thing I want to do is spend any more time on the computer.

Plus, I’ve been taking medications that make me sleepy and I’ve been busy taking care of my mom for the past year, which takes up a lot of my free time.

With so many new devices being released and many people requesting assistance for those devices, it no longer feels like a hobby but more like a chore. I barely have time to enjoy EmuELEC let alone play with it. Not to mention that many of the new devices have big changes in kernel and u-boot operation, and I was never very good at that part of the system. I’ve tried to find people to help me in that regard, but haven’t had much luck.

So, with that said, EmuELEC is not dead, it will continue to get updates, I just won’t be adding any new devices. I will only work on updates and emulator tweaks when I have the time and energy to do so. The pressure of fixing things and setting up new devices has taken its toll on me and, combined with all the other problems mentioned above, is starting to affect my mental health.

Discord, Github and the forum will remain as they are today.

From the bottom of my heart I want to thank everyone who has helped in any way to make EmuELEC what it is today, and I hope you will continue to support it. However, I understand that you no longer want to after reading this announcement.