Kodi on Ubuntu Mate

Support & Help Requests Raspberry Pi
#1

Hi everyone. Last 24h (nearly, with little brake for a sleep) I was playing with my new toy, Raspberry Pi 3. I would love to have it set up as my media center, based on Ubuntu Mate (so easy to browse websites) with Kodi as my media player. I was trying some online solutions to get Kodi works on my Pi 3 but with no results. I understand that main thing is the different CPU architecture…

I was able to start and run OpenElec as an OS with prebuild Kodi and it was working fine but it has no browser so decided to use Ubuntu Mate.

Is it possible to get it works (Kodi on Raspberry Pi 3 with Ubuntu Mate 15.10)?

Many Thanks :slightly_smiling:

#2

Welcome to the community! Sadly, at the moment it’s unlikely. Ubuntu MATE for the Raspberry Pi still lacks GPU acceleration (for applications like VLC and Kodi) and one reason OpenELEC and Raspbian (somewhat) are better suited. Some users found solutions by recompiling VLC with changes, but omxplayer (a command line tool) is the suggested way to smoothly play videos for now. :frowning:

Supporting applications that required GPU acceleration might be possible in future.

There is… one option… Dual boot for the best of both? :wink:

#3

Thank you got your help lah7. I’ll try with dual boot then :slight_smile:

#4

I’m back… after trying to add grub to Pi3 (failed), after another failure with BerryBoot (rainbow screen, doesn’t work with Raspberry Pi3?) don’t have a clue how to set up dual boot.
I’ve found this solution: https://chezcummings.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/raspberry-pi-using-different-distros/ but so far had no time to try it. Anyone had some experience with it?

#5

Darn, add me to the list of people that was hoping for this exact combination.

UbuntuMATE with a working Kodi on my RPi3 is exactly what I want

#6

Hi all,

this might help (I haven’t watched it all and don’t have one!):

#7

The 16.04 beta release has some improvements over GPU graphics acceleration:

Experimental hardware accelerated OpenGL can be enabled, if you know how :wink:

It might be worth testing the 16.04 beta. :wink:

#8

I am working on Kodi, initial feedback from testers is encouraging.

4 Likes
Raspberry Pi 2 with ubuntu mate and kodi
#9

YES! you can put KODI on The Raspberry Pi 3 with Ubuntu MATE 16.04…however not installed inside the OS. Here is what I mean:

Because of GPU drivers not available blah blah blah… all one has to do it partition your SD card that has Ubuntu MATE and leave an 8gb or more space on it… then install this (without raspbian…just KODI and RetroPie):
http://www.multibootpi.com/builds/retropie-3-6-openelec-6-0-3-raspbian-jessie-triple-boot/

Now it will NOT work…what one savvy enough has to do, is find a way to put a sort of GRUB menu to let you choose Ubuntu or RetroPie/Kodi. or somehow make the second partition bootable also and perhaps let you log out into a terminal and type: startx for ubuntu, or emulationstation for retropie…once in retropie it lets you also go to kodi and vice versa.

I AM TELLING YOU! this is easy for the one who knows how.
it lets you use one SD card for all instead of swapping.

I dont need KODI to run from within Ubuntu…as none of the other Raspberry Pi installs don’t do it either…they basically reboot into KODI

easy as pie…SOMEONE PLEASE DO THIS! and show us :slight_smile:

#10

@ Wimpy

Why bother doing all that work… KODI already exists for the Pi in many forms…rather spend time on my suggestion in my previous comment. Just make it so that you can choose to boot directly into KODI - RETROPIE or UBUNTU…thats all it needs…a nice menu or GRUB or whatever…Put the KODI or OPENELEC’s that already exist simply on another partition of the SD card…examine that Multiboot Pi for yourself and see how it works…download it and install it…its pretty cool…simply switch out Raspbian for Ubuntu…or better…dont…just make a way to install grub to see these two partitions…and allow NOOBS or this MutibootPi version of NOOBS to install itself on that second partition…choosing even Raspbian if one wants it

#11

Hi Wimpy - thanks for working on this (please don’t listen to vjscala32!), I’m setting up a Pi3 with Mate for my sister-in-law and though she’s already going to be astonished for with what she’s getting for the outlay, Kodi installed would really earn me brownie points out the wazoo!

How’s progress going?

#12

Out of date instructions.

Kratos

3 Likes
#13

The instructions look good, and have downloaded the XBMC 16.1 package. Will give a try to install an my RPi 2 B and test…

#14

Why would you tell him not to listen to me? that is weird…explain that…I think my suggestion is superb as one doesn’t have to lift a finger concerning KODI…why work on something that already exists for the Pi…and in Many forms? more intentional fragmentation? I don’t get it.

See if one uses NOOBS for instance…and installs only KODI or OPENELEC…and leaves the rest of the Partitioned MicroSD card for Ubuntu MATE…that solves the problem! all Wimpy has to do is install a GRUB menu or something of the sort…to allow you to select KODI or Ubuntu MATE…much less work for him…but of course people can do whatever they want…perhaps there is another reason to why start from scratch like that that i am not aware of…maybe you want to switch to a different Workspace and have KODI right there? I am totally all for that! but is the Raspberry Pi 3 powerfull enough? what about Graphics drivers that don’t seem to be present in Ubuntu MATE yet?

Anyway…I hope if Wimpy doesn’t do it…that someone else does…because it means we will have KODI by tommorrow

#15

Why would I suggest that? Well, let me count the reasons…

  1. This thread is called ‘Kodi on Ubuntu Mate’ - why go off-topic with chat about dual booting? There are plenty of other threads and sites with info that might help you cobble together something that works for your use case.
  2. I explained why I personally would like this to be possible right there in my post.
  3. Wimpy stated he is already working on it (and making progress too, with testers); who are you to tell him (and the testers) where best to direct time and effort?
  4. Half the point of these little boards is faffing about and seeing what it can do; what we are trying to find out is whether we can get Kodi running on Ubuntu Mate for pi.
  5. I didn’t like your attitude.

If you’d read the posts above yours you’d see that it’s pretty much there already; should everyone just have given up? Cool your boots fella and be a bit more appreciative of the work people are doing for all our benefit.

2 Likes
#16

You are definitely coming from the wrong angle towards me…everything I said has to do with this thread…it is KODI and Ubuntu MATE related.

Of course I appreciate Peoples work…I appreciate all the variants of Ubuntu that are out there. What I am trying to “Suggest” and not “Demand” is that peoples precious time and effort would be better suited on a more focused accomplishment…For example…it is a total waste of time and man power to create things like ubuntu 16.10, Ubuntu 15.10 and all not LTS releases…Linux Mint and Bohdi have both finally realized this…and have focused their time and effort on Perfecting the LTS releases…which is something I am absolutely more happy about…where as before distros created fragmentation within their own distro and causing everyone else to work hard to to make their software and repos compatible with inbetween non LTS releases…ones that will have a really short lifespan…what we need is .point updates to the LTS releases…anyhow I say all that as an example and picture of what I am trying to convey to Wimpy (and how about letting him speak for himself rather than you speaking for him?)

I am about empowering the Linux Community…I sell Computers for a living and have switched 98% of my customers to Ubuntu/LinuxMint…they love it…all I want id for the Pi and Ubuntu to succeed…and it can only do that if we have less fragmentation.

However…we each individually own our own personal Raspberry pi’s…and we each can do whatever we wish with them…so if one deems putting their efforts into a particular task…so be it…I can’t stop anyone…nor can they stop me…thats not the point. The point is to be more productive.

And I believe Kratos has already gotten KODI to work with Ubuntu 16.04…so he says…I dare not try it yet.
So perhaps Wimpy can help on that…alot simpler I think.

My idea is still darn great…because it fools the system to get something to work where it would appear it did not (because it is not “available” yet for ubuntu MATE)

#17

I acknowledge your passion :). And, point releases?
Both these issues will be addressed in Ubuntu MATE 16.04.1 for Raspberry Pi 2 and 3 which is due in late July.
I don’t think this exchange is getting anywhere, so I will respectfully disengage… sorry everybody.

#18

No need to leave, I think we cleared everything. We are good …Thanks
We both simply want KODI badly :slight_smile: if its not functional in some way…we can’t recommend it to anybody yet. And I am dying to recommend this as you are.

I am just sitting here waiting for someone to say something about their experience with that KODI posted above for download and how it works for them so far.

Dying to install it. More Power to my Pi !

#19

@vjscala32 Thanks for working on this. I do have a build of Kodi 16.1 for Pi 2 and 3 in a PPA that is intended to work with Ubuntu MATE. However, I have one annoying issue.

Starting Kodi from within MATE works fine, but when you Quit is hangs for several minutes before returning to the desktop. Have you seen/fixed this?

Perhaps we should collaborate on this? Can you share you Debian source packages? I’ll point you at my stuff later, when I’m at a computer :slight_smile:️

1 Like
#20

Hi @Wimpy,

the only work-around that I found that works is to set it to "System Settings > Sytem > Video Output > Display mode > Window" (downside is you don't get full screen!) and then click on the close button top right, clicking on "Exit" doesn't work or takes ages, the other alternative is to press Ctrl + Alt + Del and do a restart!. :smiley:

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