2020-05-17, 20:06
Has anyone found a Linux Desktop distro that allows installation of Kodi without any hassles (in other words, one where you don't have to compile from source) and that still offers LIRC 0.9.0 in its repository? I ask because up until now I have used Ubuntu but I have seen several negative comments about Ubuntu 20.04, such as that the default Gnome desktop has a serious memory leak and that they are trying to force Snaps on everyone which are a whole other can of worms, but my biggest objection to it is that no one seems to have been able to figure out how to install LIRC 0.9.0 in it and get it to work. In Ubuntu 18.04 you could follow the instructions in a blog post that's been mentioned several times in this forum but apparently that no longer works in Ubuntu 20.04 (EDIT: Well at least not for some users, though after I posted this I saw that one guy reported success). Two things I should note specifically is that I specifically am looking for a distro with a full Linux desktop (so, no *Elec) and also that I use LIRC to control other things besides Kodi, so anything that only supports Kodi will not work for me. The post 0.9.0 versions of LIRC apparently are such steaming piles of crap that almost nobody (other than the developers, probably) can get the damn thing to actually work, and nobody has ever published instructions for making it work the way the 0.9.0 version did. People have even posted bug reports to the Ubuntu developers asking them to roll back the version in their repository back to 0.9.0 but they refuse to do it. So since from what I am reading there's a lot to dislike about Ubuntu 20.04 anyway (particularly the Gnome desktop version), I just wondered if anyone has found a desktop distro that Kodi runs well in, and where it can be easily installed, AND that still offers LIRC 0.9.0 in their repository.
The real problem with LIRC versions after 0.9.0 is that in some ways they are a much different program. For example they no longer offer IR blasting, for sending IR commands to a device using an infrared LED emitter of some kind. But the biggest problem is that in 0.9.0 and earlier there was a configuration menu that came up when you first installed LIRC, that let you pick the brand or type of remote you had, and also the type of IR emitter if you happened to have one. This made installation super simple. In later versions, not only was the IR emitter capabilities removed, but the configuration menu was removed as well. I have no idea why, but that alone made it unusable for nearly all of their former users. In an ideal world, someone would take the 0.9.0 version and fork it (and rename it, so it would be seen as a different program in the repositories and not overwritten by newer versions of the "new" LIRC) but I would have no idea how to do that, but I sure wish someone would. The biggest thing I liked about the older versions is that by creating a .lircrc file in your home directory you could extend LIRC to control several different programs, or even do system tasks (such as actually starting Kodi from the desktop using the remote). But either all that is gone now, or the secrets of how to do it are locked up tight in the minds of the LIRC developers, and they aren't telling, at least not in such a way that anyone can comprehend (no, the "man" page or online documentation, such as it is, are not at all helpful).
Note that one of those things that emulates keystrokes from the keyboard will not work for me, because those don't have the ability to launch system commands, because any given keystroke can mean something completely different depending on which program happens to be in the foreground at the time. That is not how LIRC works - LIRC, particularly when paired with a .lircrc file, is much more capable than any keyboard emulator because it can directly execute system commands as if you were entering them at a Linux terminal or they were being sent from a script (and by the way it can also launch shell scripts). I just wanted to mention that because if I don't I know someone will suggest that, and it's just not the same thing at all.
EDIT 2: Even if no one knows about LIRC, what is a good Linux distro to run Kodi on that allows easy installation but is not Ubuntu or one of its variants?
The real problem with LIRC versions after 0.9.0 is that in some ways they are a much different program. For example they no longer offer IR blasting, for sending IR commands to a device using an infrared LED emitter of some kind. But the biggest problem is that in 0.9.0 and earlier there was a configuration menu that came up when you first installed LIRC, that let you pick the brand or type of remote you had, and also the type of IR emitter if you happened to have one. This made installation super simple. In later versions, not only was the IR emitter capabilities removed, but the configuration menu was removed as well. I have no idea why, but that alone made it unusable for nearly all of their former users. In an ideal world, someone would take the 0.9.0 version and fork it (and rename it, so it would be seen as a different program in the repositories and not overwritten by newer versions of the "new" LIRC) but I would have no idea how to do that, but I sure wish someone would. The biggest thing I liked about the older versions is that by creating a .lircrc file in your home directory you could extend LIRC to control several different programs, or even do system tasks (such as actually starting Kodi from the desktop using the remote). But either all that is gone now, or the secrets of how to do it are locked up tight in the minds of the LIRC developers, and they aren't telling, at least not in such a way that anyone can comprehend (no, the "man" page or online documentation, such as it is, are not at all helpful).
Note that one of those things that emulates keystrokes from the keyboard will not work for me, because those don't have the ability to launch system commands, because any given keystroke can mean something completely different depending on which program happens to be in the foreground at the time. That is not how LIRC works - LIRC, particularly when paired with a .lircrc file, is much more capable than any keyboard emulator because it can directly execute system commands as if you were entering them at a Linux terminal or they were being sent from a script (and by the way it can also launch shell scripts). I just wanted to mention that because if I don't I know someone will suggest that, and it's just not the same thing at all.
EDIT 2: Even if no one knows about LIRC, what is a good Linux distro to run Kodi on that allows easy installation but is not Ubuntu or one of its variants?
