Instructions for building XBMC for Raspbian

[mpthompson]

The building went fine, and took about 12 hours, but when I try to start xbmc all I get is a message box that says I need to run with color depth of at least 16 bits. How can I change the color depth in xwindows on Raspbian?

paaland, XBMC is run outside of X and is independent of its configuration. You shouldn't start X before starting XBMC (I know, because I made this mistake myself). If your /boot/config.txt is empty, but default you should have a 16bit color depth.

What I suspect is that your xbmc.bin file is linked against the wrong libEGL.so and libGLESv2.so libraries.

You can try one of the following commands to see what libraries your xbmc.bin is linked against:

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ldd /usr/lib/xbmc/xbmc.bin | grep libEGL
ldd /usr/lib/xbmc/xbmc.bin | grep libGLESv2

The resulting path should be against on of the symbolic link paths created in step 6 of the build instructions. If not, you'll need to fix up the symbolic link paths.

Some of this is a bit difficult to debug in the forums. If you catch up to me in the #raspbian IRC channel I'll do what I can to help speed you through these issues as you have already done the hard part of getting the build done. If you want to keep it in the forum, I'll do the best I can to help you here as well.

[robotfunk]

following some tips I made it up to step 9. When it's time to configure I get

configure: error: Unable to determine soname of libmad library

googling this error gives the following in the source code

# libmad
- LIBMAD_BASENAME=$(gcc $CFLAGS -print-file-name=libmad.so | \
- while read output; do objdump -p $output | \
- grep SONAME | \
- awk 'BEGIN { FS = " " } ; { print $2 }'; done)
- if [[ -z "$LIBMAD_BASENAME" ]]; then
- AC_MSG_ERROR([Error occurred determining basename of libmad library])
- fi

so i try:

gcc $CFLAGS -print-file-name=libmad.so

which returns:

/usr/lib/gcc/arm-linux-gnueabihf/4.6/../../../libmad.so

which looks right
libmad.so is in /usr /lib/

[Iggy82]

All working fine, instructions were perfect, I had no issues at all.

I'm trying to create an SD image for you now as I had a fresh install of Raspbian before installing this. Trouble is it looks like its going to total 2.5GB! I am not sure if there is anything I can delete to help but currently this is way out of my hosting capability. Mainly because I have copper 8MB connection so upload speed is capped around 40kbps, it'll take forever!!

[masterluke]

Ideally somebody smart could package this up into a .deb for those who are afraid\unable to compile themselves. Not sure if this is a big ask or not.

[ejsolutions]

Two days on and I've got XBMC running on my 'tainted' pisces image. Initial impressions are that it runs pretty smoothly. I'll need to go and find a jack-to-RCA cable to check on sound functionality but SD video certainly streams fine from my local NAS, onto a composite output.
Presumably the source files in /opt can all be removed, to clear up some space (though I'll probably back them up to the NAS)?

Is there any indication of when a new release of non-MATE pisces might become available? If not too imminent, I'll try to find time to do another build on a 'fresh' pisces image. Then a spot of Googling about building a deb may be in order.

EJ

[Iggy82]

I've made an image now, zipped up its 1.3GB which will take 8 hours on my connection to upload. You'll need at least a 4GB card or larger. I would do it overnight but I have limited upload usage per month so I think I'll upload it to multiupload from work tomorrow, watch this space!

If anyone is local to Cambridge, I can give you a copy on a DVD or something?

[Beini]

Here's how to remove the unneeded checks for hardware acceleration so you don't need to run it with "--no-tests" parameter.

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head -n 171 "/usr/share/xbmc/FEH.py" > "/usr/share/xbmc/FEH.py.new
mv "/usr/share/xbmc/FEH.py.new"  "/usr/share/xbmc/FEH.py

Is there a way to run xbmc windowed, or anyway that let's me switch TTY/window? Would be nice so that I wouldn't have to exit it to use X etc.

[ejsolutions]

...zipped up its 1.3GB...

This appears to be excessively large! Have you removed the xbmc source files? Try archiving the image with xz or 7z formats.

[mpthompson]

Is there any indication of when a new release of non-MATE pisces might become available?

I'll see what I can do about putting out an updated "Pisces" image. I've been holding off until after the Debian Wheezy freeze is complete so that the image would have frozen packages on it, but I don't know exactly when the freeze will be complete. I should probably go ahead and just put out a new image.

[mpthompson]

Ideally somebody smart could package this up into a .deb for those who are afraid\unable to compile themselves. Not sure if this is a big ask or not.

That is the long term goal. Unfortunately it is a big task and with a package as complex and with as many dependencies as XBMC, it probably requires someone already experienced with creating Debian packages. I keep hoping someone with more Debian packaging experience will step forward to work on this, but it hasn't happened so far.

[ejsolutions]

Thanks for even thinking about an update to pisces, given the current fluidity of debian.

I notice that when I exit xbmc, to the console, that I get a
"no talloc stackframe around, leaking memory"
though it's likely to be due to my own particular setup. Thought I'd mention it, in case others are also seeing this.

[paaland]

paaland, XBMC is run outside of X and is independent of its configuration. You shouldn't start X before starting XBMC (I know, because I made this mistake myself). If your /boot/config.txt is empty, but default you should have a 16bit color depth.

I tried that first, but only got the "cannot open display" message that indicated that xbmc needed xwindows.

What I suspect is that your xbmc.bin file is linked against the wrong libEGL.so and libGLESv2.so libraries.

These are the files it's linked against. And that seems fine since it's among the ones sym-linked in step 6 in the instructions.

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        libEGL.so => /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libEGL.so (0x40d23000)
        libGLESv2.so => /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libGLESv2.so (0x40239000)

How ever checking it seems that /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libEGL.so is a link to libEGL.so.1 which is a link to libEGL.so.1.0 and not the symlink to /usr/lib/libEGL.so

I'll redo the symlinking and retry.

[masterluke]

I just tried to do this following your guide..

Everything seemed to be going well until the step "make -C tools/rbp/depends/xbmc/"

After a few mins the response was...

<snip>
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking build system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu
checking host system type... arm-bcm2708-linux-gnueabi
checking whether the C++ compiler works... no
configure: error: in `/home/raspbian/xbmc-rbp':
configure: error: C++ compiler cannot create executables
See `config.log' for more details
make: *** [configure] Error 77
make: Leaving directory `/home/raspbian/xbmc-rbp/tools/rbp/depends/xbmc'
[email protected]:~/xbmc-rbp$

Any ideas? I don't *think* I missed any of the earlier commands.

EDIT - Attached config.log - remove the .zip from the filename. Its not zipped but the forums wouldnt let me use config.log, config.log.txt or configlog as the filename but for some crazy reason .zip files are allowed.

[Beini]

I tried that first, but only got the "cannot open display" message that indicated that xbmc needed xwindows.

Run it with --no-tests or see my post above about removing those tests.

[Iggy82]

This appears to be excessively large! Have you removed the xbmc source files? Try archiving the image with xz or 7z formats.

http://www.multiupload.co.uk/QO0B1ZMZ7A

1.23GB file contain SD image of XBMC installed on a fresh installation of Raspbian. Sorry but my knowledge of Linux is limited at best of times so I am unsure how to remove the unnecessary source files. I'll be happy to do this if someone can give me some assistance.

For new users, instructions for copying this image to a new SD can be found here - http://elinux.org/RPi_Easy_SD_Card_Setup

Image is from a 4GB SD card, you can resize partitions for a larger card using instructions here - http://elinux.org/RPi_Resize_Flash_Partitions

Login: root
Password: raspbian

Launch XBMC: type

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clear ; sudo /usr/lib/xbmc/xbmc.bin

[ejsolutions]

You can download files up to 799 Mb only.
Upgrade your account to download bigger files.

Step 8: "cd xbmc-rbp/" - you don't need this directory once the build process is complete.
Also, "sudo apt-get clean" may give back some space.

[Iggy82]

Step 8: "cd xbmc-rbp/" - you don't need this directory once the build process is complete.
Also, "sudo apt-get clean" may give back some space.

Sorry guys I'm trying to help but obviously not!

I'll clean up the directory when I get home and re-upload a smaller image!

[masterluke]

On a positive note - I have solved my earlier problem. Tried the whole process again (this time with my overclock removed) and its building now. Not sure if it was the overclock or something else but at least its doing something now. Thanks to all.

[Neon87]

Sorry guys I'm trying to help but obviously not!

I'll clean up the directory when I get home and re-upload a smaller image!

I really appreciate your work!
When you'll upload the new image I'll download that and give it a try!

[ejsolutions]

Yes, I'll also give it a go, now that another SD card has arrived in the post today. Meantime, I've being doing some housework on this laptop to find space to create compressed images. - xz wants to create a temporary file in my home directory and unfortunately that partition is rather full of other Projects.

I might even try another build of xbmc tonight, if I remember to start it of at a sensible time.

[mpthompson]

When you'll upload the new image I'll download that and give it a try!

I uploaded a new Pisces R3 image that is simply an update of the Pisces R2 image here:

http://www.raspbian.org/PiscesImages

This image has the latest packages from the Raspbian repository so it should save the time needed to do a "apt-get dist-upgrade" of the older R2 image.

[paaland]

I am now able to start xbmc by using the --no-test switch. xbmc starts up seemingly fine and the rss feed scrolls happily on the bottom of the screen. The time updates as well. But there is no response to either the keyboard nor mouse in xbmc. The only thing that does anything is pressing ctrl+alt+del which causes xbmc to exit and the raspi to reboot.

Any ideas? The keyboard and mouse works find in console and xwindows.

[ejsolutions]

... I uploaded a new Pisces R3 image..

Many thanks - replied to in main thread.
EJ

[masterluke]

Im slowly getting there.

XBMC seems to have compiled, but after doing the post-install instructions i did a "sudo reboot" as requested and the Pi booted into a graphical logon instead of a console logon. I'm guessing that updating Raspbian caused this change. Unfortunately I can't figure out how to exit X so that I can start XBMC. Ctrl-Alt-Backspace just restarts X, logging on under ssh and killing X also just restarts it.

If someone could point me in the right direction I would be very grateful.

EDIT - it also seems that the ssh server doesnt get started until X is logged into. This means a remote restart via ssh required a hands-on logon at the pi before it can be logged into remotely. Perhaps this is some other problem on my pi.

[Iggy82]

OK so I am happy to announce that I have created an SD card image ready for download.

Due to file hosting limits, I have split the file into 3. I managed to reduce the file size from 1.23GB to 893MB by removing the XBMC source files and using 7zip (http://www.7-zip.org/download.html) to compress the image. The image is from a 4GB SD card.

Please find download links below:

1 http://www.multiupload.co.uk/QL6G31POOT (400.5mb)
2 http://www.multiupload.co.uk/Q5FNE7ABR0 (400.5mb)
3: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9560811/Raspbia ... -12.7z.003 (91.9mb)

Please mirror these images yourself if you are able to as they will eventually expire. Also, the last one is on my dropbox account, I can get away with 200 downloads per day but any more and my account will be temporarily suspended!

For new users, instructions for copying this image to a new SD can be found here - http://elinux.org/RPi_Easy_SD_Card_Setup

Image is from a 4GB SD card, you can resize partitions for a larger card using instructions here - http://elinux.org/RPi_Resize_Flash_Partitions

Login: root
Password: raspbian

Launch XBMC: type

Code: Select all

clear ; sudo /usr/lib/xbmc/xbmc.bin

I also had to type 'startx' to get it to launch after typing the above command. I've also launched it successfully from LXTerminal from with Raspbian desktop GUI without any issues.