HOW-TO:Install Kodi for Linux

2014-01-22T08:24:20Z

Rbalint: XBMC is now installable from official Debian repositories

{{mininav|[[General topics]]{{l2|[[Devices]]}}|[[Installing]]{{l2|[[Linux]]}}|page=HOW-TO:Install XBMC for Linux}}
{{see also|XBMC for Linux specific FAQ}}

These are instructions for people who already have a Linux-based OS set up. If you have not installed a Linux-based OS yet, you might wish to try out [[XBMCbuntu]] which will install both the OS and XBMC with an easy installer.

==Official Team XBMC repositories==

===Ubuntu===
;Simple Install Instructions

{{note|1=[http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UsingTheTerminal Click here to find out how to use the terminal.]}}

*Before you run these comands type "sudo echo" into the terminal and hit Enter.
*Then copy the area below up to sudo add...
*Go back to the terminal, hit the middle mouse button and when it prompts hit Enter.
*Copy the part after sudo add... and paste it to the terminal.
*If it askes you if you want to install enter y and hit Enter

<source lang="bash">
sudo apt-get install python-software-properties pkg-config
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xbmc

</source><br />

;Repositories
*https://launchpad.net/~team-xbmc/+archive/ppa '''ppa:team-xbmc/ppa'''
*https://launchpad.net/~team-xbmc/+archive/unstable '''ppa:team-xbmc/unstable'''
*https://launchpad.net/~team-xbmc/+archive/xbmc-nightly '''ppa:team-xbmc/xbmc-nightly'''

Frodo is available from Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) to 13.04 (Raring Ringtail), you can install from the team-xbmc PPA as follows or replace the ppa with the desired from above.

<source lang="bash">
sudo apt-get install python-software-properties pkg-config
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xbmc
</source>

===XBMCbuntu===
{{main|XBMCbuntu}}
{{#lst:XBMCbuntu|intro}}

==Standard OS repositories==

A number of distributions now provide packages for XBMC. Since installation via distribution packages is simple (usually one or two commands) and the easiest way to get started, this section includes the minimum information on doing that. Distributions are listed in alphabetical order. Following the instructions provided should result in you having a working stand-alone XBMC installation.

===Arch===

As stable xbmc releases are already available through the '''community''' repository, please make sure you have it enabled in your '''/etc/pacman.conf'''. After that it's as simple as using pacman to install the most recent version of xbmc in the repository along with all of its dependencies:

pacman -Sy xbmc

===Foresight===

xbmc is in official repositories and can be installed by running:

sudo conary install xbmc

===Gentoo===

xbmc is in the official portage tree as media-tv/xbmc. Install with:
sudo emerge --autounmask xbmc

===Mageia===

PVR-enabled XBMC is available in the official repositories. You can install it with the graphical package manager or with the following command:
urpmi xbmc

Mageia 2 ships with XBMC 11.0 (Eden); Mageia 1 ships with XBMC 10.1 (Dharma). Both have opdenkamp's PVR support added.

===Mandriva===

XBMC 10.1 (Dharma) with PVR support is available in '''contrib/updates''' of Mandriva 2010.1. You can install it with

urpmi xbmc

Mandriva 2009.1 and 2010.0 have older versions of XBMC that can be installed by running:

urpmi --searchmedia Backports xbmc

Of course, you can [http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Installing_and_removing_software#Advanced_use:_Backports_and_candidate_updates install from contrib/backports] or from contrib/release using the GUI tool rpmdrake. Note that all these methods are most easily used if you have [http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Installing_and_removing_software#Do_you_have_the_online_software_repositories_set_up_correctly.3F the full software sources enabled].

===Debian===

XBMC from Debian uses Debian's packaged libraries instead of the ones embedded in XBMC source releases. You can learn about the differences here: [http://balintreczey.hu/blog/introducing-xbmc-from-debian XBMC from Debian].
You can install latest XBMC version by running:

sudo apt-get install xbmc

To install Frodo 12.3 on Wheezy you will need to enable [http://backports.debian.org/Instructions/ wheezy-backports].

==Third-party repositories==

===Ubuntu===
;Wsnipex - Xvba and improved Vdpau (not mainline)
*https://launchpad.net/~wsnipex/+archive/xbmc-xvba-frodo '''ppa:wsnipex/xbmc-xvba-frodo'''
*https://launchpad.net/~wsnipex/+archive/xbmc-xvba '''ppa:wsnipex/xbmc-xvba'''

;Nathan Renniewaldock (contains older Ubuntu support, etc)
*https://launchpad.net/~nathan-renniewaldock/+archive/xbmc-stable '''ppa:nathan-renniewaldock/xbmc-stable'''
*https://launchpad.net/~nathan-renniewaldock/+archive/xbmc-nightly '''ppa:nathan-renniewaldock/xbmc-nightly'''

===Fedora and CentOS===

xbmc builds for Fedora and CentOS 6 can be installed via the [http://rpmfusion.org/ RPM Fusion] set of repositories. Follow the [http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration RPM Fusion Configuration guide] to set up the repositories and install by running:

sudo yum install xbmc

===openSUSE===

xbmc is available in the [http://ftp.skynet.be/pub/packman/suse/ Packman] repository. To install, add the Packman repository ('''YaST (package manager) --> repositories --> repositories manager --> add --> community repositories'''), after which you can install by running:

sudo zypper in XBMC

More information is available on the [[HOW TO install XBMC on openSUSE Linux]] page.

===Debian Squeeze===
Debian officially supports xbmc since Wheezy. However there are repositories which as well provide a xbmc for older debian-versions.
Excellent packages of recent xbmc versions (currently 12.0, updated regularly) for debian Squeeze (stable) can be found here:

http://debian.oppserver.net/xbmc/

Instructions are in German but the code snippets regarding the adding of the sources should be understandable to anyone who speaks debian (or apt). Packages seem to be built from git repository and are updated at seemingly random times (probably based on the available time of the repository maintainers).

'''Please note:''' the packages in this repository depend on packages from debian-multimedia and debian backports, so you will have to add those to your sources.list as well!

===Mint PPC===
Have a Power PC computer? XBMC can be built for that, with some limitations:

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=173287

== Autostarting XBMC ==

There's several ways to start automatically XBMC:
* [[HOW-TO:Install_XBMC_for_Linux#Upstart_init_script|Upstart script xbmc.conf in /etc/init (short and sweet)]]
* [[HOW-TO:Install_XBMC_for_Linux#Modify_the_inittab|Modifying the inittab (log winded)]]
* [[HOW-TO:Install_XBMC_for_Linux#Add_a_new_init_script|Add a new init script]]

===Upstart init script===
Create a '''<code>/etc/init/xbmc.conf</code>''' with following contents.
<source lang="xml">
# xbmc-upstart
# starts XBMC on startup by using xinit.
# by default runs as xbmc, to change edit below.
env USER=xbmc

description "XBMC-barebones-upstart-script"
author "Matt Filetto"

start on (filesystem and stopped udevtrigger)
stop on runlevel [016]

# tell upstart to respawn the process if abnormal exit
respawn

script
exec su -c "xinit /usr/bin/xbmc --standalone -- -nocursor :0" $USER
end script
</source><br />

{{note|<code> -- -nocursor</code> option '''kills all X cursor''' on XBMC startup and does not interfere with mouse use/operation}}

You may have to edit '''<code>/etc/X11/Xwrapper.config</code>''' and replace the last line that says:

<source lang="xml">
allowed_users=console
</source>

to

<source lang="xml">
allowed_users=anybody
</source><br />

XBMC will now auto-start on boot and restart/respawn if killed or crashed.

=== Modify the inittab ===

This was tested on Arch Linux.

To automatically start xbmc on your system, do the following:

First you need to make some changes to <code>/etc/inittab</code>. Comment out (add a #) to this line:

<pre>
id:3:initdefault
</pre>

to

<pre>
#id:3:initdefault
</pre>

and uncomment

<pre>
id:5:initdefault
</pre>

Then add this line to the bottom:

<pre>
x:5:wait:login -f <YOUR_XBMC_USERNAME> </dev/tty7 &>/dev/tty7
</pre>

Using wait instead of respawn means that you can exit out of xbmc into the console.

*NOTE*: This is a security hole as it autologins a dedicated xbmc user without asking for a password!

Now that we have the user logged in we need it to auto start XBMC.
In <code>~/.xinitrc</code> add the following to the end of the file
(after removing/commenting any other exec lines that start a windowmanager):

<pre>
exec ck-launch-session xbmc
</pre>

Add this line to your <code>~/.bash_profile</code>

<pre>
[[ $(tty) = "/dev/tty7" ]] && exec startx </dev/null &>/dev/null
</pre>

And create a hushlogin file to suppress login messages.

<pre>
touch ~/.hushlogin
</pre>

Lastly, for the magic sauce that makes this work, add dbus to your daemons in <code>/etc/rc.conf</code>.

<pre>
DAEMONS=(... dbus ...)
</pre>

You're finished. Next time you reboot you should be greeted with XBMC.

=== Add a new init script ===

This method works well under Debian. The current configuration is a HTPC running Debian Squeeze, with no window manager installed. The main goal here is to start an Xserver only for XBMC. It allows also to specify which user will start / own the XBMC process. This method will '''not work''' if you have a window manager installed (however, it should not be hard to modify the script to suit your needs)

*Create a new script under '''/etc/init.d/'''. Call it '''xbmc'''
*Change the rights, in order to allow it to be executable.
<pre># chmod a+x /etc/init.d/xbmc</pre>
*copy the code under in the file. Modify the variables to suit your configuration:
<pre>#! /bin/sh

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: xbmc
# Required-Start: $all
# Required-Stop: $all
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-Description: starts instance of XBMC
# Description: starts instance of XBMC using start-stop-daemon and xinit
### END INIT INFO

############### EDIT ME ##################

# path to xinit exec
DAEMON=/usr/bin/xinit

# startup args
DAEMON_OPTS=" /usr/local/bin/xbmc --standalone -- :0"

# script name
NAME=xbmc

# app name
DESC=XBMC

# user
RUN_AS=sterfield

# Path of the PID file
PID_FILE=/var/run/xbmc.pid

############### END EDIT ME ##################

test -x $DAEMON || exit 0

set -e

case "$1" in
start)
echo "Starting $DESC"
start-stop-daemon --start -c $RUN_AS --background --pidfile $PID_FILE --make-pidfile --exec $DAEMON -- $DAEMON_OPTS
;;
stop)
echo "Stopping $DESC"
start-stop-daemon --stop --pidfile $PID_FILE
;;

restart|force-reload)
echo "Restarting $DESC"
start-stop-daemon --stop --pidfile $PID_FILE
sleep 5
start-stop-daemon --start -c $RUN_AS --background --pidfile $PID_FILE --make-pidfile --exec $DAEMON -- $DAEMON_OPTS
;;
*)
N=/etc/init.d/$NAME
echo "Usage: $N {start|stop|restart|force-reload}" >&2
exit 1
;;
esac

exit 0</pre>
*Test the script by trying to start / stop XBMC with it.
<pre># /etc/init.d/xbmc start
........
# /etc/init.d/xbmc stop</pre>
*If all is ok, you can add the script to your configuration, by issuing a "update-rc.d"
<pre># update-rc.d xbmc defaults</pre>
*If XBMC does not start, you may need to allow X to start from non-consoles. Under Debian/Ubuntu, run:
<pre># dpkg-reconfigure x11-common</pre>
and choose "Anyone".
*You can now reboot the server, XBMC should be started just after the boot sequence.

==Installation from source==

If distribution packages are not available, or you need a newer version, or specific features enabled, then you will most likely need to compile from source. While compiling from source does not differ very much between distributions (except for installation of build dependencies), a few different guides are available in this wiki.

*[[HOW-TO compile XBMC for Linux from source code]]
*[[HOW-TO compile XBMC for Linux on Debian/Ubuntu]] - This is a tutorial on how to compile and install XBMC on Debian and Ubuntu.
*[[HOW-TO compile XBMC for Linux on Fedora Red Hat Enterprise Linux CentOS]] - This is a tutorial on how to install XBMC on Fedora 8/9/10, RHEL & CentOS 5.2.
*[[HOW-TO install XBMC for Linux on Arch Linux, a Step-by-Step Guide]]

[[Category:Linux]]
[[Category:How-to]]
[[Category:Installation|Linux]]
[[Category:XBMC Manual]]
{{frodo updated}}

Official Kodi Wiki - User contributions [en]

HOW-TO:Install Kodi for Linux