ODROID-C2 Headless Ubuntu 20 Image

This is a quick post for anyone who was looking to get a headless image from HardKernal but couldn’t actually find it (It doesn’t exist). This guide will use their hosted image for general security reasons.

Why would you want to do this? If you don’t plan on using it as a desktop. Also, why not save ~100MB of RAM and have an even more stable system.

If you haven’t already you can download the official HardKernal Odroid-C2 Ubuntu Image for your Odroid-C2 here.

Skipping The Install Process…

It’s 2021, I’m not going over the install process. This guide assumes you already have a clean Ubuntu 20 installed (from the OFFICIAL repository) and running on your C2. If your ODROID starts auto-patching security updates as soon as you connect it to your network, let it complete before starting.

(Optional)

You can install whatever ssh server you like for your C2, it will make the process much easier to copy and paste commands.

sudo apt-get install openssh-server -y

Removing Mate

sudo apt-get purge $(dpkg --list | grep MATE | awk '{print $2}')

Once the command above completes, continue removing additional traces left behind

sudo apt-get purge libmate-sensors-applet-plugin0 -y && sudo apt-get purge libmateweather-common libmateweather1:amd64 -y && sudo apt-get purge mate-accessibility-profiles -y && sudo apt-get purge mate-notification-daemon -y && sudo apt-get purge mate-notification-daemon-common -y && sudo apt-get purge plymouth-theme-ubuntu-mate-logo -y && sudo apt-get purge plymouth-theme-ubuntu-mate-text -y

Finally Remove The LightDM “Screen Greeter”

sudo apt-get remove lightdm -y

Additional Apps You Might Want To Remove

This is what I chose to remove, feel free to remove any apps you also wont be using without any desktop GUI.

sudo apt-get remove firefox -y

Finish cleaning up

sudo apt-get autoclean -y && apt-get autoremove -y && reboot

That should pretty much sum up the process, let me know if you encounter any issues.

Streaming 1080p Video Through The Browser On An Odroid-C2

If your trying to build a video kiosk using a RasperryPi 3 guess what, you can’t and trust me I tried. I stumbled upon the Odroid-C2 and my whole life changed…

To build a 1080p capable video kiosk simply follow the outlined steps below.

  1. Download VideoJS (Open Source Javascript HTML5 Player)
  2. HTML5 Video (.mp4)
  3. Encode your Video at 24/25 fps or at a max of 6Mbps stream, ideally 5Mpbs.

I tested multiple in-browser video players and VideoJS outperformed all. I was able to get movies like The Matrix to play very smooth at even the most GPU intensive scenes. For more information about other methods used or to view the odroid forum thread that dealt with this issue visit here.