Kodi on the Steam Link

This repo contains the Steam Link port of Kodi.

Installation

1. Download the latest release from https://github.com/garbear/kodi-steamlink/releases.
2. Copy archive to the folder steamlink/apps/ on a USB drive (FAT32 or EXT4).
3. Insert the drive into the Steam Link and power-cycle. It will take approximately 2 minutes to install the 80MB archive.
4. When the Steam Link boots, Kodi should appear on the home screen.

Building Kodi

To build Kodi, follow the steps at: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steamlink-sdk/tree/master/examples/kodi

Debugging

Kodi may crash when launched from the Steam Link homescreen due to a PulseAudio conflict. Until this is fixed, Kodi must be run from the command line.

Enable SSH

1. Create a non-empty file on the USB drive at steamlink/config/system/enable_ssh.txt
2. Insert the drive and power on the Steam Link
3. SSH into the Steam Link as root using an SSH client, e.g. ssh [email protected]
4. The password is steamlink123

Changing Steam Link builds

If you need to test Kodi on a build different from the latest public beta, follow these steps:

1. Place the build number (e.g. 600) in a text file on a USB drive at steamlink/config/system/update_branch.txt
2. Insert the drive and power on the Steam Link

To revert back to the latest public beta build:

1. Place the word beta in a text file on a USB drive at steamlink/config/system/update_branch.txt
2. Insert the drive and power on the Steam Link

Kill the Steam Link launcher and launch Kodi

If you are on the public build (566), enter the commands:

killall powermanager.sh powermanager app_run.sh shell

cd /home/apps/kodi && ./kodi.sh

If you are on the beta build (597 or later), enter the commands:

killall powermanager.sh powermanager shell.sh shell

cd /home/apps/kodi && ./kodi.sh

Viewing the log

If you launched Kodi from the Steam Link launcher, use the command:

tail -F /home/apps/kodi/.home/.kodi/temp/kodi.log

If you launched Kodi from the command line, use the command:

tail -F /home/steam/.kodi/temp/kodi.log

Remote debugging via GDB

To get a stack trace, run gdbserver on the Steam Link and connect via local gdb. This is explained here: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steamlink-sdk

build_steamlink.sh can be modified to make this easier. See this commit and this commit.

Before building Kodi, modify the startup script to run gdbserver. Find the line with the Kodi command and prefix it with gdbserver :8080 like this.

Debugging locally using Valgrind

To track down a memory corruption bug, perform a "depends" build of Kodi. This will use the same libraries as the Steam Link instead of relying on system libraries.

First, create a writable folder /opt/kodi-deps. Then clone this repo and run:

cd tools/depends
./bootstrap
./configure --with-toolchain=/usr --prefix=/opt/kodi-deps --host=x86_64-linux-gnu
make
cd ../..

Before compiling Kodi, modify the startup script to launch Kodi under Valgrind. You should prefix the Kodi command with valgrind --leak-check=yes like this.

Next, compile Kodi via CMake:

mkdir build
cd build
/opt/kodi-deps/x86_64-linux-gnu-native/bin/cmake \
    -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug \
    -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=/opt/kodi-deps/x86_64-linux-gnu/share/Toolchain.cmake \
    -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=$HOME/kodi-steamlink \
    ../project/cmake
make
make install

You can substitute the installation folder ($HOME/kodi-steamlink) for a prefix of your choice.

Finally, run the resulting startup script at $HOME/kodi-steamlink/bin/kodi.