Hello,
I’m trying the new Bullseye Arm7 Version on an USB-Stick on my RP3+b and so far I’ve seen the Version of KODI is 19.1:
Candidate: 2:19.1+dfsg2-2
All my other Mutimedia Pi’s and Computers are on 18.7 and I really want to keep it (external MySQL Database, own made Addons aso…)
So how can I install 18.7 on Bullseye?
Best regards,
Chris
No chance without compiling it manually. The Kodi 18.7 package came from the Raspberry Pi repository, but it cannot be installed on Bullseye due to a large amount of mismatching dependencies/system libraries.
Ouch…
I don’t have any experience with compiling…
Any other way like Docker or so?
Or do I need to use your Buster Version?
Oh and thank you for your response! 
[EDIT]: Apropos Buster: Your Download-Section only shows Bullseye, so where can I find it?
Oh and if I go back to Buster, I guess I can’t use the Backup made with Bullseye for restoring my settings, or?
Yeah, compiling Kodi isn’t much fun, I have to say. It takes up to two days here on an RPi 
. Instead of running it with the Docker overhead or running 2+ years outdated distribution version, I suggest to update your apps to work with recent Kodi versions. I guess it will be possible to migrate a Kodi 18 database to Kodi 19, probably it does it automatically? This will cause you mid/long term much less pain and effort compared to the alternatives.
You have no backup of the Buster system? If so, you can restore it which will fully restore the Buster system. Similarly, if you have a Bullseye backup and restore it on a Buster system, it would basically be upgraded to Bullseye 
. We do not promote old downloads, as this causes more issues than it solves.
If you really want to revert to a fresh Buster system, PM me.
Well…
I’m not the only one who don’t like KODI 19 with all the problems it brings with it… 
This will cause you mid/long term much less pain…
I’ve read much about KODI 19 in forums, discords, reddits and there was much “pain” 
And many “I’m happy now that I’ve downgraded to 18.7” (or 18.9).
Anyway, I want to get more experience with Docker so I’ll try this first before I revert.
But good to know that I can send you a PM for getting Buster! 
I have a backup somewhere from DietPi Buster but I made some… well… clumsy things and I want to prevent this on a new DietPi.
Also it was the Arm6 one and I wanted to test Arm7 now…
Anyway great work with Bullseye I’ve seen so far!!! thumbs_up
IMHO running an old unmaintained software version because of being unhappy with the new one isn’t a sustainable solution. Probably it makes more sense to report the issues with it, trying to get bugs fixed and enhancements added. Best to reach developers directly is doing so in GitHub (respectively the code repository): https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/issues
Thanks to open source and public code repositories, pull requests with the intended changes can be offered directly, if one has some knowledge about that code .
When you go from 18.x Leia to 19.x Matrix, the database will update automatically and a new one will be created on your MySQL or MariaDB server (presuming that’s where it’s centrally stored). All Kodi devices linked to it will use the appropriate version of the database for their installed Kodi version, but there will be no “cross-communication” between them.
So for example new shows or movies added on an 18.x machine won’t appear on a 19.x one, and the watched statuses between the two version families will no longer synchronise (shows watched on an 18.x machine will appear as watched on other 18.x machines, but not on 19.x ones).
The main reason for the “pain” is the enforced update of the Python version used between Leia and Matrix. Leia and its addons are based around Python 2, which of course is now EOL and will no longer receive any security (or other) updates. So we were forced to update to Python 3 in Matrix (and beyond - Nexus and all future versions will be based on Python 3).
As the two languages are not compatible with one another, there was a hard divide drawn, and Python 2 addons for Leia will not work on Matrix due to this. It is of course possible for authors to update their addons to the new language, and indeed many have done so and a majority of addons are still fully available.
But it has had the other effects of allowing a lot of the old/dead/unsupported addons to be removed from our ecosystem, which is generally positive but may impact on some people who were still using them even in that state. And of course a lot of the older piracy addons have also fallen by the wayside. For us that is a good thing, but for some elements of our user base it would be less desirable.
Okay, but is Kodi really to blame for moving forward and finally dropping an EOL Python version? I see that Kodi 17 and 18 seem to not support Python 3 yet but Python 2 only (?) and Python 19 does only support Python 3, so a transition version with support for both would have been nice. However, major version increments are meant to not assure backwards compatibility, so whenever a major version update is available, you simply know that you cannot rely on any previous things to work. So only upgrade if you do not rely on it. For Buster => Bullseye, as long as you do not want to compile an old Kodi yourself, do not upgrade as long as you rely on an addon for Kodi 18 and earlier.
That Python 2 is EOL since beginning of 2020 is and was pretty clear to everyone, so it was pretty clear too that Kodi 19 won’t support it anymore and I’m pretty sure they provided this information early on all developer channels they have. So addon developers had plenty of time to make their addons Python 3 compatible. Of course some are spare time projects, and unpaid open source addon developers are not to blame for not maintaining their addon to stay compatible with modern language/framework/software versions, but Kodi is neither to blame for this. It is simply to be accepted by users and do their decisions accordingly .
There were test builds of Leia (v18.x) that used Python 3, whilst the release version was the final one using Python 2. Plus there were of course all of the alpha/beta/RC versions of Matrix (v19.x) which were available whilst Leia was the stable release one.
These were prepared to allow addon developers to update their code in preparedness for the switch, plus it was announced and publicised well in advance. Many addon developers took advantage of it, some did not.
Should also clarify for transparency that I’m a member of Team Kodi, although not a hands-on core developer. We did (and are occasionally still do) get a lot of complaints from users who assume that we provide all of the 3rd party piracy addons (which we don’t), and when their pirated Netflix/HBO/Prime/movie sources suddenly stop working, it is of course us they try to lay the blame on, when quite frankly we’re usually glad when all the piracy stuff that’s tarnishing our good name stops working and gets binned…
DarrenHill
it’s off topic but probably you could assist us on some kodi challenges. In last weeks we where struggling to get kodi 19 running on RPi4. Pls correct me if I’m wrong MichaIng and issue has been solved in meantime.
I’m also not sure. One user had it solved, but not sure whether this is generally solved now or due to some unidentified solution step while playing around with the different ideas we had. So yeah, if one has an RPi 4 for testing, that would be great.
Let me see if I have time tomorrow to do a test on PRi4B ARMv8
Not sure what changed but Kodi 19.1 is starting fine on my RPi4B ARMv8 Bullseye.
May be of interest - there’s a thread on the Pi Foundation forum by Popcornmix about building Kodi (19.3) on Bullseye - https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=323303
That is great news 
!! The RPi Kodi repository is updated with a Bullseye branch: https://github.com/popcornmix/xbmc/tree/bullseye
It has a build script. Interesting is a build flag -DENABLE_VAAPI=OFF which seems to be the one we were looking for to mute the libva warnings on Kodi start.
Good notes also about rpivid-v4l2 device tree overlay for HEVC/H.265 hardware acceleration, cma-512 option for 4k video playback and that gpu_mem doesn’t need to be increased over the default value.
The question is whether it’s worth that we rebuild our ARMv6/7 packages for Bullseye with this, or whether we wait for it to be released via RPi package repository.
This sounds like good news.
Does this mean CEC will now work? I formatted my card again and have only installed PiHole and Ubound currently I skipped Kodi due to CEC not working in Kodi on Bullseye.
That might already work now. libcec6 builds are available now: http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian/pool/main/libc/libcec/?C=M;O=D
The current Kodi package was compiled against libcec from Debian, but the same version 6.
After you mentioning that CEC might be working now I decided to install Kodi to test it out. I used dietpi-software command to do the install and rebooted after it was complete. I set Kodi to load at boot when I was prompted during the install. Kodi does not load though and I get an Error message and my RaspberryPi drops straight into root without needing to login it would seem?
The error message reads:
failed to open zone.tab
ERROR: Unable to create GUI. Exiting
This is a clean RaspberryPi 3 install the only other software I had installed prior a day or two back was PiHole together with Unbound, both of these are working as expected.
Just a side note what would I need to change to allow Kodi to run at boot using the dietpi user? I guess this would stop it from dropping straight into root should it fail for any reason in future.
there is no benefit of running Kodi as user dietpi. If it fails, it will drop to CLI as well.
The topic we discussed above was to have Kodi running on RPi4 64bit. Can you share the Kodi version you use
Required Information
Hi Joulinar,
Thanks for replying and taking a look. Here is the information requested:
DietPi version:
G_DIETPI_VERSION_CORE=7
G_DIETPI_VERSION_SUB=8
G_DIETPI_VERSION_RC=2
G_GITBRANCH='master'
G_GITOWNER='MichaIng'
G_LIVE_PATCH_STATUS[0]='not applied'
Distro version:
bullseye 0
Kernal version:
Linux RaspberryPi-3 5.10.63-v8+ #1459 SMP PREEMPT Wed Oct 6 16:42:49 BST 2021 aarch64 GNU/Linux
SBC model:
RPi 3 Model B+ (aarch64)
Kodi version:
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Architecture Description
+++-==============-==============-============-==============================================
ii kodi 2:19.1+dfsg2-2 arm64 Open Source Home Theatre (executable binaries)