[muncrief]

This is just a quick note for those running Kodi on Linux who need full audio passthrough functionality via HDMI. Kodi 17.6 passthrough works beautifully on Linux, you simply have to launch it with a script that disables PulseAudio on entry and reenables it on exit. I run Manjaro (a bit easier to use derivative of Arch), and used to run Ubuntu, so here are the scripts I use for launching Kodi with full passthrough capability. There are three scripts - pulseaudio_start, pulseaudio_stop, and kodi_launch. The start and stop scripts are different depending upon the Linux distro you're using, while the kodi_launch script is the same for all. Simply create the appropriate scripts and place them in /usr/local/bin, make them executable, and then change your Kodi launcher to execute "kodi_launch" instead of "kodi."

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Arch/Manjaro
~~~~~~~~~~~~

pulseaudio_stop
--------------------
#! /bin/bash
systemctl --user stop pulseaudio.socket
systemctl --user stop pulseaudio.service

pulseaudio_start
---------------------
#! /bin/bash
systemctl --user start pulseaudio.socket
systemctl --user start pulseaudio.service


~~~~~~
Ubuntu
~~~~~~

pulseaudio_stop
--------------------
#! /bin/bash
echo autospawn = no > $HOME/.config/pulse/client.conf
pulseaudio --kill > /dev/null 2>&1

pulseaudio_start
---------------------
#! /bin/bash
rm $HOME/.config/pulse/client.conf > /dev/null 2>&1
pulseaudio --start > /dev/null 2>&1


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All Distributions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

kodi_launch
---------------
#! /bin/bash
pulseaudio_stop
kodi
pulseaudio_start


I hope this helps some of those who love Linux but absolutely must have that passthrough (like me)!

[SkylineEX-S]

What system are you running on?

[therippa]

I created an account on this forum just to leave this comment saying how helpful OP's scripts are - I moved my HTPC from Windows to Ubuntu for stability, was disappointed to find out about the DTS:HD/TrueHD issue.  OP's solution is the cleanest I've found so far.

[nikuman]

I know this is an older thread, but I've used OP's scripts on my (k)ubuntu 18.04 system for a while now. I agree with the other response that this is the cleanest method for this.

I recently upgraded to 20.04 and had to modify the scripts a bit since pulseaudio kept respawning after I upgraded.

I ended up with something similar to OP's Arch scripts. Just tought I'd share this to hopefully help anyone upgrading to 20.04.


pulseaudio_stop
--------------------

bash:
#! /bin/bash

systemctl --user mask pulseaudio.socket

systemctl --user stop pulseaudio

pulseaudio_start
---------------------

bash:
#! /bin/bash

systemctl --user unmask pulseaudio.socket

systemctl --user start pulseaudio