[jluvs2ride]

New forum member here, but not new to KODI.

Greetings from South Carolina!

I've run KODI mostly on Raspberry PIs, but decided I wanted a little more horsepower so I scrounged up a PC, installed Debian Stretch, Webmin, and KODI. 

I've been trying to get KODI to auto login as the KODI user and launch KODI with no success. I tried the same method that worked on the Raspberry PIs but that has been unsuccessful.

Basically this;

This is the /etc/systemd/system/kodi.service unit file:

[Unit]
Description = Kodi Media Center

[Service]
User = kodi
Group = kodi
Type = simple
ExecStart = /usr/bin/kodi-standalone
Restart = always
RestartSec = 15

[Install]
WantedBy = multi-user.target
To install, enable and run the service:
 
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable kodi.service
systemctl start kodi.service

The kodi user was created with the following commands:
 
adduser --disabled-password --gecos "User to run Kodi Media Center" kodi
adduser kodi audio
adduser kodi video
adduser kodi plugdev
adduser kodi input

The kodi-standalone service does run, but it doesn't login and launch the GUI. If I manually login as the root user I get an error "unable to create gui". I think this is related to my not being logged in as the kodi user.

Now I'm seeing a lot of threads saying that I need to install a desktop environment to be able to auto login/launch KODI. Is that the case? I'd rather not give extra resources to a DE if I don't have to.

I not completely ignorant of LINUX but it helps if I have a roadmap to follow.

Thanks!

[jluvs2ride]

Looked over this several times;

https://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:HOW-TO:Aut..._for_Linux

But there are just some things I don't understand.

A note on using Kodi Standalone Service, this package runs Kodi as a systemd service and disables the login for user kodi and will not work when autologin is enabled. In fact, it will break the login process if you autologin user kodi and run Kodi Standalone Service at the same time. This package is installed automatically with the standard Kodi package when you install Kodi on Raspbian, but must be configured manually for all other Linux distributions. You can run the which command to find this package as well.

And;

Be advised, Kodi Standalone Service still launches the Kodi GUI and still requires a WM even though it is running as a systemd service. When you install a WM such as xfwm4 (the WM for XFCE4), the CLI will tell you if it provides the x-window-manager package.

[rascas]

I have just read that wiki page, it was the first time I saw it, and my opinion is, don't go for that, it is very old information and somethings don't even make sense...
First things first, which version of Kodi are you trying to run? I am asking this because in Debian Stretch, I believe the Kodi version is still an earlier 17.X version, so a quiet old one, and that version is not recommend or generally supported here.

[jluvs2ride]

I have just read that wiki page, it was the first time I saw it, and my opinion is, don't go for that, it is very old information and somethings don't even make sense...
First things first, which version of Kodi are you trying to run? I am asking this because in Debian Stretch, I believe the Kodi version is still an earlier 17.X version, so a quiet old one, and that version is not recommend or generally supported here.

Thanks for your response, but I'm not sure what you mean by that last sentence;

I believe the Kodi version is still an earlier 17.X version, so a quiet old one, and that version is not recommend or generally supported here.

[rascas]

Which kodi version are you running? The lastest currently is 18.1.

[jluvs2ride]

Which kodi version are you running? The lastest currently is 18.1.

17.1 Debian package version: 2:17.1+dfsg1-3 Media Center Kodi from Debian
Copyright © 2005-2013 Team Kodi from Debian - http://kodi.tv

This is a fresh install from a couple of days ago. Should I uninstall this and attempt to install 18.1?

[mcelliott]

Do you need to run anything else in addition to Kodi? If not, why not try LibreElec?

[Klojum]

so I scrounged up a PC, installed Debian Stretch

17.1 Debian package version: 2:17.1+dfsg1-3 Media Center Kodi from Debian

If you want a fairly trouble free setup for Kodi, go with Ubuntu and Kodi's PPA. Do not install Kodi from the Ubuntu/Debian store.

Or, a simpler and more direct approach (depending on the graphcis card in your PC), testdrive LibreELEC on a bootable USB stick.

[jluvs2ride]

so I scrounged up a PC, installed Debian Stretch

17.1 Debian package version: 2:17.1+dfsg1-3 Media Center Kodi from Debian

If you want a fairly trouble free setup for Kodi, go with Ubuntu and Kodi's PPA. Do not install Kodi from the Ubuntu/Debian store.

Or, a simpler and more direct approach (depending on the graphcis card in your PC), testdrive LibreELEC on a bootable USB stick. 

I suppose I can try the ubuntu setup, does no one run this on debian?

[Klojum]

I suppose I can try the ubuntu setup, does no one run this on debian?

Kodi on Debian tends to be outdated, and Debian has its own views on what/how to package Kodi with. I'm sure there are some people using Debian, but... It is our program and we have our PPA and a wiki page to go along with it. We are not going to give support for every Linux distro out on planet Earth.

[jluvs2ride]

I suppose I can try the ubuntu setup, does no one run this on debian?

Kodi on Debian tends to be outdated, and Debian has its own views on what/how to package Kodi with. I'm sure there are some people using Debian, but... It is our program and we have our PPA and a wiki page to go along with it. We are not going to give support for every Linux distro out on planet Earth. 

I get it, that's fair.

[jluvs2ride]

I suppose I can try the ubuntu setup, does no one run this on debian?

Kodi on Debian tends to be outdated, and Debian has its own views on what/how to package Kodi with. I'm sure there are some people using Debian, but... It is our program and we have our PPA and a wiki page to go along with it. We are not going to give support for every Linux distro out on planet Earth. 

OK, so I installed LibreELEC and it solved several problems I was having. Thanks!

[Klojum]

Thread marked solved.