The official repositories don't work for old kodi-versions, unfortunately. I have three devices here, where a linux-upgrade is impossible due to hard- and/or software-limitations. Since it's not possible installing newest kodi on older linux (ubuntu)-versions, I'm stuck with old kodi-versions on these devices.
Does anybody know a working mirror-server with addons for xbmc frodo, kodi gotham and/or kodi isengard? Especially the pvr- and skin-addons are important, since they are never backward-compatible.
Thanks in advance.
Pvr Addons where never in any repo.
Well, pvr-addons for frodo are missing in the ubuntu-archive-mirrors. I guess this is due to the fact that pvr was in development at the time of the frodo-release. So I found a backport-mirror for gotham with a testing (or nightly?)-release (for ubuntu 11.04). Unfortunately the tvheadend-pvr-addon in this release is not working. Maybe because of the testing/nightly-stage. Are there backports with stable-releases? What's with old skins and other addons? Especially customizable confluence-mods are bend to certain versions of kodi.
you won't have any luck finding pvr addons a 7y old release. Just compile from source.
Just found a
video about appimage. It's a tool to make software run on every linux-computer. Maybe worth a try for kodi-developers.
Here is the homepage:
Link
Opendesktop is something similar:
Link
It's an app-environment that allows easy app-like installation of software in linux.
(2018-02-20, 05:03)bred_pitt Wrote: [ -> ]Just found a video about appimage. It's a tool to make software run on every linux-computer. Maybe worth a try for kodi-developers.
Here is the homepage: Link
Opendesktop is something similar: Link
It's an app-environment that allows easy app-like installation of software in linux.
The problem with Appimage, flatpak or any other similar bundling technology is that they tend to run in a sandbox with their own dependencies all together. That means each PVR client is going to have massive bloat from all of the redundant libraries. Also, because of the way the sand boxing works, the Kodi app will not be able to properly communicate with the addons. So unfortunately, that route is basically a nonstarter. (It may work for applications, but not for addons/extensions to non-sandboxed apps.)
Well...."all dependencies alltogether"...that's actually the advantage of the bundlings. And no...the pvr-addons communicate in a server/client-way. Backend and client don't even need to be on the same machine and don't need to use the same OS. Addons usually don't have linux-dependencies at all. Their dependencies are usually kodi-internal (addens sometimes depend on other addons).
(2018-02-21, 02:11)bred_pitt Wrote: [ -> ]Well...."all dependencies alltogether"...that's actually the advantage of the bundlings. And no...the pvr-addons communicate in a server/client-way. Backend and client don't even need to be on the same machine and don't need to use the same OS. Addons usually don't have linux-dependencies at all. Their dependencies are usually kodi-internal (addens sometimes depend on other addons).
The PVR addons communicate with the backends in a client/server model, but Kodi communicates with the PVR addon as if it is a library, not in a client/server model.
And the PVR addons don't have "Linux dependencies" per se, but they are compiled binaries and are dependent upon matching the libraries/architecture that the main Kodi application is built to match. That is why the Linux PVR addons are either built from source, or provided by your distribution's package repository. Kodi doesn't provide binary builds for Linux, so why should they do so for the PVR addons?
If your hardware is really that old, you should probably look at some updates.
Is it possible that pvr is the only exception here? AFAIK all other addons are NOT provided by the linux-packaga-managers. So if the pvr-addons are the only ones architecture-dependent, then it was even easier to bundle them.
Edit:
Found two other projects alike:
Snapcraft
Flatpak
This youtube-video compares both technologies.
Snaps are supposed to be easy-usable for developers.
snap and flatpak needs halfway recent linux as well.
How about you tell us what exactly is your issue and why you cannot upgrade to something recent?
(2018-02-13, 21:03)bred_pitt Wrote: [ -> ]The official repositories don't work for old kodi-versions, unfortunately. I have three devices here, where a linux-upgrade is impossible due to hard- and/or software-limitations. Since it's not possible installing newest kodi on older linux (ubuntu)-versions, I'm stuck with old kodi-versions on these devices.
Thanks in advance.
...what's so unclear about it? Compatibility issues are very common, especially with kodi-addons. No matter if talking about scrapers, video-addons or skins: Most of them don't have cross-version-compatibility. Since they enhance the main software a lot this is a serious issue. It actually undermines the idea of an addon.
Example:
The confluence skin isn't customizable. So I usually use one of the mods, when I set-up a device with kodi for others to use. These mods usually become unmaintained after a couple of releases. So even when a kodi-update is possible it's always a bad idea because the resulting kodi has lower functionality, missing menu-entries or is just looking different. You can't expect anybody to continue the use of such an updated device. So downgrading kodi even is a good idea when hardware/OS
was allowing a version update. Unfortunately even that is questionable. I have two computers where an ubuntu-update isn't possible due to unsupported hardware in the next release.
You have to admit: after a kodi-update a whole bunch of addons just stop working, regularly. I use kodi since the "eden"-version. It's always the same when a new version gets released.
Unfortunately addons are largely created by people outside the core kodi developer community. We don't control them.
You got it! Bad idea trying to force them to release a new version of their addons every time kodi gets an update.