[Guide] Kodi on Raspberry Pi OS / Raspbian Buster

[Rascas]

INTRO:

After so many posts about people getting problems on installing Kodi on Raspbian Buster, this is a complete guide on how to do it, and an attempt to keep things together in the same place. You will see that after all, it is not so hard.

In the time of the first Raspbian Buster image released by the RPi Foundation, like on previous Raspbian verisons, there was only available the generic Debian Kodi version (17.6 in this case) which is compiled against OpenGL, so not optimal to run on the RPi (at least by this time), it runs very slow.
But now, the latest stable version is available on the raspberrypi.org repo, compiled against OpenGLES, optimized for the RPi.


Latest stable version available on Raspbian:
Kodi 18.6 Leia


INSTALLATION:

To install it you just need to run the following command:

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sudo apt-get install kodi

Take note that Kodi on Raspbian, like most Debian based OSs, is divided into many packages, so you can install only what you really need. Besides the main package, you will find many "binary addons" packages which provide additional features to Kodi. For example, PVRs, Joystick support, Inputstreams, Visualizations, etc. You can easily search for aditional packages by running:

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apt-cache search kodi

And install what you want.
For example in this case, we will install the joystick support, IPTV Simple PVR and the inputstream addons:

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sudo apt-get install kodi-peripheral-joystick kodi-pvr-iptvsimple kodi-inputstream-adaptive kodi-inputstream-rtmp

After that, restart Kodi and check if the binary addons are enabled in Kodi interface, if not, enable them.

Here are some more recommend binary addons to install (only for Kodi 18 and above):
-kodi-vfs-libarchive - compressed files support
-kodi-vfs-nfs - NFS support
-kodi-vfs-sftp - SFTP support

Alternatively and easier, if you are running Raspbian with Desktop, you can just open the graphical package manager "Dont know the name of it" on the upper left corner menu, search for "Kodi" and install the packages you want.


RASPBERRY PI 3 AND BELOW ONLY TWEAKS:

This is very important!

-Kodi on the Raspberry Pi 0/1/2/3 will only function if you are using the Broadcom drivers! This is the "Original non-GL desktop driver" on raspi-config, which is currently the default on the Raspbian images for the RPi 0/1/2/3. If you select the open-source OpenGL driver, it won't work!

-Kodi on Raspbian requires a minimum of 160 MB of RAM dedicated to the GPU to function properly! This can be done by running "raspi-config" -> "Advanced Options" -> "Memory Split" -> 160.
-If you have a RPi 2/3, the recommended is 256 MB of RAM for the GPU.

-Kodi 18 on the Raspberry Pi 2/3 supports 10bit video files (at least h264 and h265/HEVC) but they are software decoded. The Pi 3B / 3B+ may do 720p 10bit and 1080p 10bit low bitrate only at max! For that you need at least 300MB of RAM for the GPU.

-Raspbian by default, doesn't play some video codecs like VP6, VP8, MJPEG, Theora, etc, so to be able to play this codecs, you need to go to "raspi-config" -> "Interfacing Options" -> "Camera" -> Enable,
or just add a new line in /boot/config.txt with:

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start_x=1

-If you have a RPi 0/1/2 and want to play h264 50 or 60fps videos, depending on the kernel/firmware version you are using, you may need to also add a new line in /boot/config.txt with:

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disable_auto_turbo=0

RASPBERRY PI 4 ONLY TWEAKS:

This is very important!

-Kodi on the Raspberry Pi 4 will only function if you are using the Open Source drivers! This is the "GL (Fake KMS) OpenGL desktop driver with fake KMS" on raspi-config, which is currently the default on the Raspbian images for the RPi 4. If you select the Broadcom/Legacy driver, it won't work!

-Kodi on Raspbian requires a minimum of 160 MB of RAM dedicated to the GPU to function properly! This can be done by running "raspi-config" -> "Advanced Options" -> "Memory Split" -> 160. The recommended for the RPI 4 is 320 MB.

-Kodi 18 on the Raspberry Pi 4 supports up to 4K h265/HEVC 10bit video files. HEVC HDR/10 bit is still not complete/optimal on the RPi 4, the playback may not be smooth and present "washed" colors. This may be fixed on Kodi 19.

-If you have a 4K monitor/TV, Kodi will automatically limit the GUI interface to 1080p, for a faster and better experience, since rendering the interface at 4K gives a considerable penalty hit. 4K videos will still play at that resolution whitout user interferance. If you want you can always change this going to Kodi -> Settings -> System -> Limit GUI size

-If you have a 4K monitor/TV, by default, the Raspberry Pi 4B will select a 30hz refresh rate. To allow selection of 60Hz refresh rates go to raspi-config -> Advanced Options -> Pi 4 Video Output -> Enable 4Kp60 HDMI or add a new line to /boot/config.txt with the following:

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hdmi_enable_4kp60=1

Note, this will increase power consumption and increase the temperature of the Raspberry Pi. It is not possible to output 4Kp60 on both micro HDMI ports simultaneously.


ADDITIONAL INFO:

Kodi package includes an ARMv6 (for the RPi 0 and 1), ARMv7 (for the RPI 2 and 3) and ARMv8 (for the RPi 4) binaries, which are autoselected accordindly to which version of the Raspberry Pi you have for best performance. Optimizations available in Open/LibreELEC like H265/HEVC NEON acceleration are also included and enabled automatically if you have a RPi 2/3/4.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


EXTRA INFO (not required for proper function):

RUNNING KODI WITH ANOTHER USER DIFFERENT FROM THE DEFAUL "PI":

If you want to run Kodi with a user different from the default "pi", that user needs to be part of the following groups, for everything to work fine:
audio, video, input, dialout, plugdev, netdev (needs confirmation), users, cdrom (only if you have cd/dvd drives) and tty (needs confirmation).
For that, run the following command:

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sudo usermod -a -G audio,video,input,dialout,plugdev,netdev,users,cdrom,tty "username"

Replace "username" by the desired user name. Depending on the use case of Kodi, not all this groups may be needed.


AUTO-STARTING KODI AT BOOT:

Option 1 (without desktop):
If you want to auto-start Kodi automatically at boot, go to rc-gui on Raspbian desktop or raspi-config on a virtual terminal, and choose the option to boot to CLI/console.
Then copy/paste the following to a virtual termianl to create a systemd service for auto start:

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sudo tee -a /lib/systemd/system/kodi.service <<_EOF_
[Unit]
Description = Kodi Media Center
After = remote-fs.target network-online.target
Wants = network-online.target

[Service]
User = pi
Group = pi
Type = simple
ExecStart = /usr/bin/kodi-standalone
Restart = on-abort
RestartSec = 5

[Install]
WantedBy = multi-user.target
_EOF_

Press Enter after paste. Then enable the service:

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sudo systemctl enable kodi.service

Then reboot. If you want to auto start Kodi at boot with a different user change the "User" and "Group" fields above accordingly.

Option 2 (with desktop):

If you want autostart Kodi at boot but also keep the Desktop Environment on the background, just edit the file (with sudo) /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart and add a line, preferably at the beginning of the file with:

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@kodi

This option is a bit more resource intensive because the DE is loaded on the background.


SOURCE CODE:

The source code of this packages/binaries are available here:
https://github.com/PIPplware/xbmc

For the Raspberry Pi 0/1/2/3 binaries, the Kodi 18 Leia branch used is "leia_backports", and for the Raspberry Pi 4, the Kodi 18 Leia branch used is "leia_pi4".
Each of this branches are the original Kodi respective branch + popcornmix Raspberry pi patches/fixes/tweaks respective branch + some litle patches/fixes/tweaks for Raspbian.

If you have any problem, please include your Kodi log. Information on how to do it here: http://kodi.wiki/view/Log_file

[Rascas]

[reserved]

[LTolledo]

Now this is the stuff of champions!

THANKS! MANY THANKS! and many more to come!

will try it on the Buster Desktop install for RPi3B+

[Rascas]

Now this is the stuff of champions!

THANKS! MANY THANKS! and many more to come!

will try it on the Buster Desktop install for RPi3B+

Thanks much!

On the RPi 3 on Buster it shoudn't be any problems, on the RPi 4 on the other hand it may need some fine tunning

[gkreidl]

Thanks, Rascas, for the great work you have done (again).

But there is one thing I don't understand:

In the future it may be available in the Raspberrypi.org repo if the guys are interested, making things easier.

They have done it in the past for Stretch. Why shouldn't they do it now?

I know how much traffic will be caused by supplying Kodi packages for the RPi. As you know, I have done that in the past, before you took over (and did a much better job by supplying the full set of binary add-ons and specialized binaries for the main application). The Foundation should pay for it, not your pipplware group.

I was quite astonished when they added your version to the Foundation repository, because they had never done something like that that before, but it has been a great step forward. And I cannot see any reason, why they shouldn't do it again, and I'm waiting for an official statement here from the Foundation repository maintainers.

[bat0nas]

Just installed following the instructions and the GUI of the Kodi is so sloooww.
Also Temperature sign flashes on the upper right corner. I assume temp went over 80C.

I have a Pi 4 4GB version.

Anyway I will test more with a clean config. Has anybody encountered such slowlines and temp?

[Rascas]

Thanks, Rascas, for the great work you have done (again).

But there is one thing I don't understand:

In the future it may be available in the Raspberrypi.org repo if the guys are interested, making things easier.

They have done it in the past for Stretch. Why shouldn't they do it now?

Thanks. The thing is, the RPi 4 support is still a bit experimental, not only from this packages, but also upstream, it may be a bit early still. I believe the idea for Kodi 19 is to leave GBM + MMAL and go for GBM + v4l2. From my part, I already found 1 or 2 bugs + 1 or 2 things to improve.

But of course, having the packages on another server would be great to offload traffic, ours isn't great and it is in one corner of Europe hehe.

[Rascas]

Just installed following the instructions and the GUI of the Kodi is so sloooww.
Also Temperature sign flashes on the upper right corner. I assume temp went over 80C.

I have a Pi 4 4GB version.

Anyway I will test more with a clean config. Has anybody encountered such slowlines and temp?

What does it say in Kodi -> System Information -> Video, in the right panel ?

[titcharles59]

Hi
I'm new on the forum
many thanks for this guide. I tried to run it on a raspi 3 B+
But I faced this issue when I tried to install kodi

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pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo apt-get install kodi                                                                                                                   
Lecture des listes de paquets... Fait                                                                                                                          
                                                                                                                                                               
Construction de l'arbre des dépendances                                                                                                                        
Certains paquets ne peuvent être installés. Ceci peut signifier                                                                                                
que vous avez demandé l'impossible, ou bien, si vous utilisez                                                                                                  
la distribution unstable, que certains paquets n'ont pas encore                                                                                                
                                                                                                                                                               
été créés ou ne sont pas sortis d'Incoming.                                                                                                                    
L'information suivante devrait vous aider à résoudre la situation :                                                                                            
Les paquets suivants contiennent des dépendances non satisfaites :                                                                                             
 kodi : Dépend: kodi-bin (>= 2:18.4-2~buster) mais ne sera pas installé                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                                               
        Dépend: kodi-bin (< 2:18.4-2~buster.1~) mais ne sera pas installé                                                                                      
E: Impossible de corriger les problèmes, des paquets défectueux sont en mode « garder en l'état ».   

[gkreidl]

Thanks. The thing is, the RPi 4 support is still a bit experimental, not only from this packages, but also upstream, it may be a bit early still. I believe the idea for Kodi 19 is to leave GBM + MMAL and go for GBM + v4l2. From my part, I already found 1 or 2 bugs + 1 or 2 things to improve.

But of course, having the packages on another server would be great to offload traffic, ours isn't great and it is in one corner of Europe hehe.

V4L2 would be a bad idea, as it currently doesn't support interlaced video at all. No TV support any more.

[gkreidl]

What does it say in Kodi -> System Information -> Video, in the right panel ?

The interface is completely sluggish. Processor load is 95% (on all 4 cores), if something is happening on the screen (mouse movement or showing the processor load). It almost looks like using software mesa.

GPU: Ilvmpipe (LLVM 6.0, 128 bits)
Screen resolution: 1920x1080@60.00Hz - Full screen
OpenGL vendor: VMware, Inc.
OpenGL version: OpenGL ES 3.0 Mesa 19.1.0-dev

Rpi 4B/4G, 256 MB video RAM.

[Rascas]

What does it say in Kodi -> System Information -> Video, in the right panel ?

The interface is completely sluggish. Processor load is 95% (on all 4 cores), if something is happening on the screen (mouse movement or showing the processor load). It almost looks like using software mesa.

GPU: Ilvmpipe (LLVM 6.0, 128 bits)
Screen resolution: 1920x1080@60.00Hz - Full screen
OpenGL vendor: VMware, Inc.
OpenGL version: OpenGL ES 3.0 Mesa 19.1.0-dev

Yeah, like I thought, looks like sometimes Kodi does not have permission to the DRM subsystem, don't know exactly why, and Kodi starts with software MESA (llvmpipe) instead of V3D acelerated driver.

To fix it create a new udev rule, like for example /etc/udev/rules.d/99-kodi.rules with the following content:

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SUBSYSTEM=="drm", GROUP="video", MODE="0660"

I will add a note on this on the first post. I believe this should be included in Raspbian by default in /etc/udev/rules.d/99-com.rules. Or some other approach if they find better.

[Rascas]

Packages updated to 18.4-3.

Changes available here:

[Pi4]
-gbm: Expose videoplayer.usedisplayasclock
-Make PI:HDMI the default audio output device
-HACK: add videoplayer.usemmal setting to gbm.xml (This is enables MMAL option in Kodi GBM. Needed for HW MMAL decoding on the Pi4.)

Just update and upgrade the packages has you normally do.

[gkreidl]

I updated and created the udev file.
It did not work immediately. I had to reboot the system to get it to work.

PI:HDMI was not automatically enabled. I had to enable it myself.

[Rascas]

I updated and created the udev file.
It did not work immediately. I had to reboot the system to get it to work.

PI:HDMI was not automatically enabled. I had to enable it myself.

Yes, you need to reboot for the udev rule to apply.
And the PI:HDMI as default only applies for people installing the latest version for the first time. Or if you reset your Kodi settings, for example, by deleting ~/.kodi.

[gkreidl]

I updated and created the udev file.
It did not work immediately. I had to reboot the system to get it to work.

PI:HDMI was not automatically enabled. I had to enable it myself.

Yes, you need to reboot for the udev rule to apply.
And the changes above only applies for people installing the latest version for the first time or if you reset Kodi settings, for example, if you remove ~/.kodi.

Is there a way to enable MMAL manually? Or does it now work out of the box (without resetting my Kodi settings)?

[Rascas]

I updated and created the udev file.
It did not work immediately. I had to reboot the system to get it to work.

PI:HDMI was not automatically enabled. I had to enable it myself.

Yes, you need to reboot for the udev rule to apply.
And the changes above only applies for people installing the latest version for the first time or if you reset Kodi settings, for example, if you remove ~/.kodi.

Is there a way to enable MMAL manually? Or does it now work out of the box (without resetting my Kodi settings)?

It should be enabled automatically, or else enable it manually in System Settings -> Player -> Videos -> Allow hardware acceleration MMAL

[milkaca]

Many thanks for this Rascan! Great work, all is working fine for me on RPi4!

[karlandtanya]

Many thanks for your work!

I have installed on a rpi4/4gb per instructions, but when I start kodi the screen goes black.
I can ssh in to reboot, then I have a screen again, but I'm lost w.r.t. kodi.
What am I doing wrong? how to get kodi to output to hdmi?
thanks again!

[Rascas]

Many thanks for your work!

I have installed on a rpi4/4gb per instructions, but when I start kodi the screen goes black.
I can ssh in to reboot, then I have a screen again, but I'm lost w.r.t. kodi.
What am I doing wrong? how to get kodi to output to hdmi?
thanks again!

Which HDMI port do you have connected ? Make sure it is HDMI 0, which is the one closer to the power supply connection. If that does not fix your problem, please post your Kodi log, check first post for information on how to get it.

[karlandtanya]

Thank you so much for your quick reply!

yes, the TV it's connected to HDMI0, 1280x728x60, and watching vids w/ vlc works ok

here is the logfile

https://paste.kodi.tv/wusodezasu.kodi

[Rascas]

Thank you so much for your quick reply!

yes, the TV it's connected to HDMI0, 1280x728x60, and watching vids w/ vlc works ok

here is the logfile

https://paste.kodi.tv/wusodezasu.kodi

I am sorry, but you aren't running the packages provided by me so I cannot help you much. Follow the instructions on the first post and try again.

[karlandtanya]

sorry, that was dumb on me! I couldn't get yours to work so tried a different one with the same result.
which *really* suggests I'm doing something wrong, not a problem with the build

Anyhow I installed yours & reproduced the problem

Here is the log:
https://paste.kodi.tv/tewuveguhi.kodi

[bscphil]

Yeah, like I thought, looks like sometimes Kodi does not have permission to the DRM subsystem, don't know exactly why, and Kodi starts with software MESA (llvmpipe) instead of V3D acelerated driver.

To fix it create a new udev rule, like for example /etc/udev/rules.d/99-kodi.rules with the following content:

Code: Select all

SUBSYSTEM=="drm", GROUP="video", MODE="0660"

I will add a note on this on the first post. I believe this should be included in Raspbian by default in /etc/udev/rules.d/99-com.rules. Or some other approach if they find better.

As discussed here, and elsewhere in the same thread, it looks like the pi user ought to be in the render group by default, since it's in the video group. The render group gives access to a less privileged graphics interface that doesn't have modesetting, it's just used for GPU acceleration. That seems to be the bug that the Raspbian folks need to fix, it was caused by some recent-ish upstream changes in systemd.

[Rascas]

sorry, that was dumb on me! I couldn't get yours to work so tried a different one with the same result.
which *really* suggests I'm doing something wrong, not a problem with the build

Anyhow I installed yours & reproduced the problem

Here is the log:
https://paste.kodi.tv/tewuveguhi.kodi

How are you running Kodi? Through the Desktop, in a virtual terminal, at boot through systemd, etc ? Does it work if you start it through a virtual terminal ? If not what is the output ?