Tested on FreeBSD 13.0-RELEASE
NOTE (2023-07-22): this installation procedure is needlessly complex and time-consuming for the average user, and is more effort to maintain as well. For most people, binary packages and skipping the steps to build from source against LibreSSL and sndio is the more sensible option. I don’t have time to rewrite this currently, but it needs a rewrite.
Everyone needs a break sometimes. In my case, I find myself watching videos and listening to music frequently, and sometimes I’d rather play media over speakers than headphones (they’re a different experience, with pros and cons to each).
I’m aware there are Linux distributions that provide a decent out-of-the-box experience with Kodi. The one that comes to mind is LibreELEC. I’ve used it before, and I’d say LibreELEC would suffice for the average person.
However, I strongly prefer to have control over how everything functions, even if it requires some initial setup. What really matters to me is how pleasant it is to extend and maintain a given system. In my eyes, setup is the short game and maintenance is the long game.
I also have gripes with the implementation. If I don’t have the last word in how a system works, then I’m typically disinterested because it means I’ll have a harder time fixing it if something goes wrong. Given these factors, I set out to create my own entertainment center that met my specific needs on a Latte Panda Delta.
For the sake of brevity, I won’t cover the process of installing FreeBSD in depth. It’s well-documented elsewhere, and I’m not doing anything out of the ordinary during this phase.
Here’s the short of it:
Verify the image’s checksum and GPG signature. Without this, there is no assurance that the installation image is from the source it claims to be and that it hasn’t been tampered with.
Flash the image to a USB drive.
Boot from the USB drive and go through the installation procedure.
This is where it starts getting more specific. I’m a really big fan of
sndio, so I use ports instead of packages because
Kodi isn’t built with sndio support by default. Admittedly, this makes
the post-installation phase much more tedious.
Log in to the freshly installed FreeBSD box and follow along.
Enable and start
powerd(8)
for power management. In theory, it will lower power consumption when
the entertainment center isn’t doing much.
# sysrc powerd_enable="YES"
# service powerd start
To get it out of the way before compiling anything to ensure changes are
immediately effective, set up
make.conf(5).
To keep things up to date, my make.conf is available and managed by git, but please do not copy it blindly. It specifies everything needed to compile against sndio, LibreSSL, and Intel Quick Sync Video.
See the FreeBSD handbook entry on ports for more details.
# portsnap fetch extract
Install a ports management tool. For the purpose of simplicity, I’ll
choose ports-mgmt/portmaster here. ports-mgmt/poudriere is also
good and what I use these days, but teaching how to use it here is out
of scope. portmaster gets the job done.
# make -C /usr/ports/ports-mgmt/portmaster install clean
Install git, as it’s needed for checking out the source tree. I
like the git-tiny flavor.
# portmaster devel/git@tiny
Check out the source tree.
This is required for building graphics/drm-kmod.
# git clone https://git.freebsd.org/src.git -b releng/13.0 /usr/src
I like to install a couple of tools to make myself comfortable before
building Kodi. In particular, I find sysutils/tmux to be essential,
because one can detach from a tmux session and log out while
portmaster is building, then later log in and reattach to check on
the build.
I definitely recommend security/doas as a simple method of
privilege elevation.
Consider installing a text editor and a shell in addition to the
aforementioned tools, if desired. I like editors/neovim and
shells/oksh.
# portmaster sysutils/tmux security/doas
If security/doas was installed, set up
doas.conf(5). Since persistence
is currently unsupported on FreeBSD, I add nopass for my own sanity.
# echo 'permit nopass :wheel' >/usr/local/etc/doas.conf
This is important for the next part. This one-liner checks to see if the
current user has a tmux session currently open. If not, it first tries
to attach to an existing session, and creates a new session if that
fails.
$ [ -z "${TMUX}" ] && { tmux attach || tmux; }
Alright, it’s finally time to compile Kodi.
Note: if ports configuration isn’t desired beyond what’s already
specified in make.conf, prepend BATCH=1 to the below command. I
recommend at least looking over the options available for
multimedia/ffmpeg and multimedia/kodi with make config.
Remember to install packages needed for Hardware video
acceleration.
In the Latte Panda Delta’s case, they are
multimedia/libva-intel-media-driver and
multimedia/libvdpau-va-gl.
# portmaster audio/sndio graphics/drm-kmod multimedia/libva-intel-media-driver \
> multimedia/libvdpau-va-gl x11/xorg misc/unclutter-xfixes multimedia/kodi \
> multimedia/kodi-addon-inputstream.adaptive
After giving permission to portmaster to build everything, detach from
the tmux session (CTRL-b d is the default binding. Alternatively,
create a second window with CTRL-b c and issue tmux detach). Then,
kill the SSH connection and take a fifteen minute break or so.
Once that initial fifteen minute break is over, SSH in and tmux attach
to see if there were any errors encountered early on that need to be
addressed. It’s tedious to wait several hours only to realize that
portmaster wasn’t actually compiling anything for most of that time.
Now it’s time to relax. Compiling Kodi and Xorg on a single board
computer isn’t too speedy.
Review installation messages to check for needed interventions.
$ pkg query '%M' | less
Create a separate user for Kodi (I named mine kodi). Make
sure to add kodi to the video group.
# adduser
If kodi wasn’t added to the video group during this process, no
problem. This can be remedied like so:
# pw groupmod video -m kodi
After that, make sure to log in as kodi.
To initialize a graphical environment, we need to create
/home/kodi/.xinitrc.
The xset commands are here to prevent interference with Kodi’s screen
blanking mechanisms. unclutter ensures that the cursor won’t
remain visible if idle (though the cursor is usually invisible during
ordinary usage–it’s merely a fallback in case it does become visible.
One common example is if a pointer device is accidentally bumped).
$ cat <<EOF >~/.xinitrc
> . "${HOME}/.profile"
> xset s noblank
> xset s off
> xset -dpms
> unclutter &
>
> exec kodi
> EOF
From a console (not SSH), start X.
$ startx
If it works, log out of kodi and back in to the user with root access.
It can be helpful for Kodi to start automatically on boot. Some things
are required for this to work: the first is that kodi needs
to be automatically logged in. To address this, append some magic to
gettytab(5).
# cat <<EOF >>/etc/gettytab
> # autologin kodi
> A|Al|Autologin console:\
> :ht:np:sp#115200:al=kodi
> EOF
Edit
ttys(5)
to match below.
# Virtual terminals
#ttyv1 "/usr/libexec/getty Pc" xterm onifexists secure
ttyv1 "/usr/libexec/getty Al" xterm onifexists secure
As kodi, append this simple check to /home/kodi/.profile.
Essentially, it makes sure X isn’t running and that it would start X
in the correct tty before doing so.
$ cat <<EOF >>~/.profile
> if [ -z "${DISPLAY}" ] && [ "$(tty)" = '/dev/ttyv1' ]; then
> exec startx
> fi
> EOF
Finally, reboot.
# reboot
If everything is good, it’s time to configure the sound system. Set the
default device with
sysctl(8)
if needed (inspect /dev/sndstat for a list of devices).
# sysctl hw.snd.default.unit=1 # needed for HDMI in my case.
Now, decide whether bit-perfect mode will be used or not and consult the relevant section below. Note that the “Sync playback to display” option in Kodi is fundamentally incompatible with bit-perfect audio, as it resamples both video and audio to match the refresh rate of the monitor.
To use bit-perfect mode, two sysctl tweaks are needed. Here,
I use the first device, but be sure to check what device needs to be
adjusted.
# sysctl dev.pcm.1.bitperfect=1
# sysctl hw.snd.maxautovchans=0
I recommend changing hw.snd.feeder_rate_quality from its default of
1. According to
sound(4),
the default of linear interpolation doesn’t provide anti-aliasing
filtering. I like to start from the highest resampling quality possible
and lower the value if needed.
# sysctl hw.snd.feeder_rate_quality=4
Remember that regardless which mode of operation was selected, if tweaks
made with sysctl are to be permanent,
sysctl.conf(5)
must be modified accordingly.
Note that sndiod is not needed in either case.
Pull in updates every night at 03:00 per
portsnap(8) and freebsd-update(8).
Note that neither portsnap cron nor freebsd-update cron apply
updates. They only download updates.
# cat <<EOF | crontab -
> 0 3 * * * root /usr/sbin/portsnap cron
> 0 3 * * * root /usr/sbin/freebsd-update cron
> EOF
When ready to update, issue these commands to apply changes to the ports
and source tree, as well as binary updates to the base system (I add
fetch just to be safe):
# portsnap fetch update
# freebsd-update fetch install
# git -C /usr/src pull
If freebsd-update fetch install installs any updates,
graphics/drm-kmod needs to be rebuilt per the FreeBSD
handbook.
# portmaster -f graphics/drm-kmod
Always check /usr/ports/UPDATING before upgrading any ports. Then,
upgrade.
$ less /usr/ports/UPDATING
# portmaster -a
Reboot.
# reboot
Overall, I’m quite happy with the way the entertainment center turned out. It’s involved in the beginning (in great part due to my specific desires/vision), but maintaining it isn’t so bad. I definitely feel more comfortable maintaining a *BSD system over a Linux system in the long term (particularly OpenBSD, but FreeBSD as well), so this setup works out well for me.
Eventually, I’d like to add in the ability to emulate and play games. For now, Kodi is enough to quell my boredom.