[Solved] Is Kodi 18 still available now that 19 is out?

[seaken64]

Now that Kodi 19 is out is Kodi version 18 gone forever? I don't want Kodi 19 since I use an ESPN3 add-on that is not yet supported in version 19. But I can't locate version 18. I am running antiX-17.4 and I tried all the antiX repos and Debian testing repos and the Multimedia repo.

I tried to download an MX-17 18.5 version but when I try to install it it says it is already installed. (I have 17.6) I would switch to MX-17 or 18 if I could get Kodi 18. I moved back to Stretch because this machine has an old nvidia 6600 that needs the Legacy nvidia driver. I tried installing in MX and couldn't get it to work. I was able to get it to work in antiX-17.4. But now I can't find Kodi 18 of any kind. Version 19 is available, but not Kodi 18.

Am I barking up the wrong tree? Is there a chance that I could find a .deb file for Kodi 18 that will work?

seaken64

[Stevo]

Well, I have 18.5 here https://build.opensuse.org/package/show ... /kodi-18.X

but why exactly isn't that ESPN3 extension working? It seems rather important to let die on the vine.

Did you already update to 19 from our test repo? As long as you have 18 and don't manually install from the test repo, you'll still have 18.

[tony37]

I would switch to MX-17 or 18 if I could get Kodi 18.

in MX 18, Kodi 18 is in the test repo

[JayM]

In MX19 Kodi 18.5 is in the stable repo and Kodi 19.0 is in the test repo. Tony37 just wrote a post on how to pin packages at a particular version in Tips&Tricks. I have no idea what antiX has in its repos or how they handle their upgrades.

[seaken64]

Thank you all for your tips. But I think I am going to give up on getting Kodi 18 working on that machine. I thought I could do it but my linux/antiX/MX knowledge is still not good enough to work around all the issues that come up with Kodi and nvidia.

I picked up the machine for $15 at a recycle center. I added memory and a sata hard drive and installed antiX-19 64-bit. It is an AMD dual core processor with PCIe slots, where I have a GeForce 6600 GPU in the 16-bit PCIe slot. antiX works fine with the nouveau driver.

When I installed Kodi 18.9 and tried to run it the machine crashed and locked up, I had to power down, I tried a couple of times and tried to consult the logs, which did not get written to disk. The system just locked up. I figured that maybe it was the GPU driver and I tried to use the nvidia drivers. But the Legacy 304.xxx driver would not work in antiX-19. I was able to re-install antiX-17.4 and I got Kodi 17.6 running.

I decided to try MX 18, which like antiX 17 is based on Stretch. But I cannot get MX to install the Legacy nvidia driver. I tried Kodi 18.5 in MX and again it locks up the computer. But Kodi 17.6 also runs okay.

As a last ditch effort I thought I would try the nvidia driver in antiX-17. It works. I now have the nvidia driver working but now I can't get Kodi 18 to install.

So, I had two possibilities to run Kodi 18 on that machine (in theory) - antiX-17 with nvidia driver and Kodi 18, or MX-18 with nvidia driver and Kodi 18. Neither possibility is working for me. But I think my best hope is with antiX. I have read that some others have been successful to get the legacy nvidia driver working in antiX-19. But so far I have not attempted it. Maybe I will go ahead and try it. But I am leaning toward staying with Kodi 17.6.

Unfortunately, I never got the chance to prove my theory that Kodi 18 would work with the proprietary nvidia driver. Oh well.

Thanks again,
seaken64

[seaken64]

@Stevo, I have not tried Kodi 19 yet in either antiX-19 or MX-19. I had already run Kodi 19 on a Windows box and due to the change to Python 3 a lot of add-ons are not yet working. The one I use the most is ESPN3 and it will probably be re-written to work in Kodi 19. But for now it does not work. In the meantime I am using Kodi 18.9 on the Windows machine. I have Kodi 18 working fine on another MX box. This was a special case where I was trying to get a Stretch version distro working with Kodi 18 on an old box. I figured Kodi-18.5 would be better than 17.6 but it turned out to be too complicated for me.

I will try again to install Kodi 19 on that machine and see what happens. It will likely crash. I am looking into replacing the GPU with an AMD card. It's all just experimental. I've got Kodi-18 working fine on other machines. But I have often found that going backward with Kodi is very difficult. Once a new version comes out they abandon the last version. I thank you for still providing the version 18 option.

seaken64

[tony37]

On antix17, what you could do is enable the default mx repo and the mx testrepo by adding this to /etc/apt/sources.list (or create a file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d):

Code: Select all

deb http://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ stretch main non-free
deb http://mxrepo.com/mx/testrepo/ stretch test

Then install Kodi 18:

Code: Select all

sudo apt update && sudo apt install kodi

And then turn off the mx repos again

I see you also posted on the antix forum, so that answers your question there too. Kodi is way too complicated dependency-wise to just install from a deb file, and you also need the normal mx repo.

[tony37]

I decided to try MX 18, which like antiX 17 is based on Stretch. But I cannot get MX to install the Legacy nvidia driver.

I noticed that problem earlier, with solution at viewtopic.php?p=616973#p616973

[Stevo]

It seems that the nouveau driver does not provide the minimum requirements for OpenGL that Kodi needs, then.

[seaken64]

Kodi is way too complicated dependency-wise to just install from a deb file, and you also need the normal mx repo.

Ok, that is interesting. I did add the MX-17 testrepo. I did that after I tried installing from the downloaded .deb files. But I did not also add the normal mx repo. I will try that. Maybe that will be the answer.

Thanks for the tip,
seaken64