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Kodi 18.1 on LibreELEC 9.0.1

Kodi runs best on OpenELEC or LibreELEC, as it is a stripped down Linux which contains only what is necessary to run Kodi. It boots very fast directly into Kodi.

I installed LibreELEC 9.0.1 running Kodi 18.1 on an Asrock Beebox N3150, with 8 GB DDR3L single channel RAM, and 64 GB mSATA drive (Transcend MSA370). The Beebox is very small, although you can install a 2.5“ SSD, the mSATA is the much better solution as it does not fill up the enclosure and compromise the cooling.

The following guide explains how to install Kodi on any Intel compatible 64bit architecture.

Installation

  1. Make a bootable USB drive with the LibreELEC iso, I used Rufus Portable to do this, then run the installer.
  2. Set Language, Region, Timezone, and machine name during first boot into Kodi.
  3. Set the settings level to “Expert”.
  4. Enter weather settings in Settings –> Services, select Yahoo or Gismeteo as service for weather information, then enter your location in Location1 field. Disable “Current location”.
  5. Set the default audio device in Settings –> System. If you connect the Kodi box via HDMI to an amplifier, select the HDMI connection as audio output.
  6. Modify the regional settings in Settings –> Interface.
  7. After installing the Keymap Editor, map the Mute key to “Context Menu - c” in Settings –> Add-ons. The Asrock remote does not have a key for the context menu, and the mute key is not needed as the volume is controlled through the AV receiver.
    1. Go to Addons –> Keymap Editor in Program Add-ons.
    2. Press Mute once, the mute symbol will appear on the top right corner of the screen
    3. Select Edit, then press Mute within 5 seconds (before the key is learned and altered, a mute command will be sent to Kodi, which un-mutes Kodi)
  8. Connect through SSH and upload the public rsa key file to ~/.ssh. Rename the file to “authorized_keys”.
  9. Disable SSH Password in Settings –> LibreELEC Settings –> Services.
  10. Disable Samba and Avahi in Settings –> LibreELEC Settings –> Services.
  11. Create Estuary custom menu entries according to the following guide.
  12. To update Kodi directly from within the running system, login to the LibreELEC box via SSH and type in the following commands:
    cd /storage/.update
wget http://releases.libreelec.tv/LibreELEC-Generic.x86_64-9.0.1.img.gz
reboot

Addons

  1. I prefer to scrape all my movies offline. In my locations I operate a total of 7 Kodi boxes, and with offline scraping I need to do it only once. tinyMediaManager does an excellent job in this, however, it is more effort than using the Kodi built in scrapers.
  2. Install Keymap Editor from Kodi Add-on repository –> Program addons
  3. Install YouTube from Kodi Add-on repository –> Video addons
  4. Install Radio from Kodi Add-on repository –> Music addons

Movie settings

  • Settings –> Videos –> Library –> Group movies in sets
  • Settings –> Videos –> Playback –> Preferred audio language
  • Settings –> Videos –> Subtitles –> Preferred subtitle language
  • Settings –> Videos –> Subtitles –> Languages to download subtitles for
  • Settings –> Videos –> Subtitles –> Default movie service
  • Settings –> System –> Audio output –> Audio output device
  • Settings –> System –> Audio output –> Number of channels
  • Settings –> System –> Audio output –> Enable pass through
  • Settings –> System –> Audio output –> DTS capable receiver
  • Videos –> Files: Add different sub-folders to the library on the server, which you want to add to a movie set with it's own menu entry
  • Add folder by folder, after each add go to Movies and <Right click> –> Manage –> Manage movie set for each movie to assign it to a set
  • Start with the movie which folder art you want to appear as set in the movie collection. I have not found out how to change the art afterwards in the Titan skin.
  • <Right click> –> Add to favourites for each set you created, then go to Settings –> Skin Settings –> Configure shortcuts –> Edit menu shortcuts
  • Add each favourite to the menu

Clone to new device

As the setting up of a Kodi box with an alternative skin requires a lot of tweaking, you might think of cloning the device once it is fully setup. Here are some hints how to do this efficiently:

  1. Boot the set up Kodi box into an external USB stick with CloneZilla installed on it. Before booting, plug in a second USB stick which will hold the backup files.
  2. Backup the disk which holds the Kodi install.
  3. Boot the new device into the external USB stick with CloneZilla installed on it. Restore the backup taken in the previous step.
  4. Boot the new Kodi box and change the device name (Settings –> Services and LibreELEC Settings). Change other basic settings such as location etc. as required.

The following steps are only required, if you run the new box with a different media server:

  1. Remove all Favorites.
  2. Remove all media sources (videos, photos, music).
  3. Add all media sources from the new media server.
  4. Create new movie sets if required, and then add them to Favorites.
  5. If the Favorites do not show up in your menus, go into Skin Settings and change Action for the respective menu item.

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