Login at Kodi Home

Boilerplate4U · 2021-10-24, 12:46

I have encountered some problems with installing Win10/x64 in a virtual machine and will instead give it a try with MacOS or Linux. Linux seems like a good alternative to keep storage footprint down, but at the same time I want a good IDE with a built-in GUI debugger such as Xcode or VS Studio.

Some questions:

1. Does anyone run a virtualized development environment for kodi and if so, what?
2. Virtual Box or VMware Player as VM machine?
3. MacOS or Linux as a guest os?
4. Which Linux distro?
5. Does debugging Kodi work with VS Studio on Linux?
6. Any good alternatives to gdb such as gdbgui?
--

Thanks in advance!

**Klojum** · 2021-10-24, 14:33

There is an OVA file available @LibreELEC. Info: https://wiki.libreelec.tv/hardware/virtual and https://forum.libreelec.tv/thread/20970-...libreelec/ .

Boilerplate4U · 2021-10-24, 16:46

Thanks for the pointer! At first glance, however, it seems that it's more of a runtime environment for Kodi than a complete dev stack. Btw, which dev-env (ie OS / IDE) do you prefer to use yourself?

**Klojum** · 2021-10-24, 16:52

1) LibreELEC itself runs only on a minimal/vanilla Linux basis with just the necessary bells & whistles for Kodi to operate.
2) I'm not a Kodi developer, but any additional questions you can also ask on the LibreELEC forum.

Boilerplate4U · 2021-10-24, 17:05

I've been using LE some years ago and it's a great platform to run Kodi on. But I suspected the LE build tools described in the wiki is just for building the LE runtime environment not Kodi itself. I think LE is unfortunately much too specialised to be able to tweak it to a complete Kodi dev environment.

But I appreciate your suggestion thought, thanks!

Boilerplate4U · 2021-10-26, 13:14

Ok, this became my final picks: I start with macOS/XCode, but if it doesn't work out satisfactory, I'll switch to Ubuntu/Eclipse. I opted out Virtualbox since I work with and already have VMware installed on all hosting environments. The virtual machine is stored on an external USB-C/Thunderbolt SSD.

To sum up:
1. MacOS/Xcode using VMware Workstation/Fuse
2. Ubuntu/Eclipse using VMware Workstation/Fuse.

Hosting environments: Win, macOS and Linux. I'll let you know how it works out..

**CastagnaIT** · 2021-10-27, 18:18

my experience with VM is that Kodi apparently works but not in full
due to VM custom graphic drivers that cause GUI/Playback problems
i do not recommend using virtual environments for development, debugging or testing purpose, are not reliable

Boilerplate4U · (This post was last modified: 2021-10-27, 19:31 by Boilerplate4U.)

Thanks for the heads up! I remember I had some intermittent problems some years ago when hooking up with RDP to Hyper-V. I'm currently building kodi on a virtualized macOS so we will soon find out how it works with this setup.

The main objective of this exercise is to try to consolidate my old developer platforms (which sometimes I didn't have a clue which versions of kodi I was using, among many other related problems)

Krobar · 2021-11-17, 20:33

I can run Kodi under a Windows VM running on Linux/KVM. The integrated Intel HDMI Graphics card is passed through and works pretty well including bit-streaming TrueHD/DTSHD.

Boilerplate4U · 2021-11-17, 22:09

Thanks for the feedback. I've got both macOS/xCode and Ubuntu/Eclipse up and running as virtual machines tho I haven't managed to fix the development environment for Win10 yet because of some problems building the Kodi dependencies. See https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=365080

Btw, what IDE are you using on Win10, MS Visual Studio?

Krobar · (This post was last modified: 2021-11-18, 14:17 by Krobar.)

I'm only just starting and a complete amateur with C++ but it is compiling fine for me on my Windows workstation. I currently have VSCode as the IDE and I definitely need some plugin help to understand and link some of these objects and buffers together as I still don't understand what calls CDVDAudioCodecPassthrough::AddData and ultimately controls the rate of audio frame submission.

The VM for me is used for testing the HDMI audio output, using a VM means I can just point to a different drive image so I can return to a working stable setup for the family easily.

I have replied in your Windows build problem thread.

amidr · 2021-12-21, 11:09

I can run Kodi in a WindowsVM running on Linux. The inbuilt Intel HDMI Graphics card is used and performs admirably, including bit-streaming TrueHD/DTSHD.