I know. But that is what is AFAIK the official "supported" Minix release.
But I've got good news. I'm typing this listening to music from my U9.
For those that haven;t read all my posts, I lost my sound after upgrading to Nougat (from the factory Android 6 firmware). I had no sound through HDMI or headphone jack. But Bluetooth worked. The last thing to check was the optical output. Today I found myself an SPDIF cable and, lo and behold, my sound worked immediately. But then ...
it continued to work after I switched my receiver back to HDMI.
Sometimes, I hate computers (which can be a problem, because I'm a SysAdmin). I just don't understand why it now suddenly works. Of course I tried all the suggestions from this forum, but so far nothing seemed to work. And now, suddenly, it does. I say: Don't ask why, enjoy!
Next steps:
1. Why can I put my U9 to sleep with the remote, but not wake it
2. Will it now be possible to mount SMB shares (for use with Kodi). With the original firmware, I couldn't.