[hungry person]

I've been using Kodi 17 on an unupgradable Ubuntu 18.04 (32 bit hardware support ends there). When switching to up to date Debian (v. 11 bullseye) I am no longer able to even launch Kodi (Kodi from Debian from the official repos), and have inquired about it in the official Kodi from Debian support thread. So far I'm unsure as to the actual root cause for Kodi failing to start.

A question I've so far been unable to find an answer to is whether it's even theoretically possible to compile newer versions of Kodi to run on OpenGL 1.4 hardware? If so, which versions? This version that currently doesn't run is Kodi 19. Are there any particular changes in 18 or 19 that could easily explain this?

My questions stem from this sentence in the Linux section of the Wiki article about supported hardware: 

 
Kodi will run on most graphics cards made within the last 10-years or so, though for good hardware video decoding support a little newer graphics cards can be required. This includes most cards from AMD/ATI, Intel, or NVIDIA which support OpenGL 2.0 or later.

The wording doesn't seem that strict, and at the top of the page it says "Page updated for v17" which doesn't help much in this case since v17 actually seems to be able to make run on OpenGL 1.4.

It would be nice to know the root cause so that I know whether there's a point to try getting it to run.

[Klojum]

and at the top of the page it says "Page updated for v17"

Plenty of Kodi wiki pages have not been updated for newer older, current or future versions of Kodi. It is an ongoing battle.

Just to picture the context: which actual hardware and/or graphics card are you trying to run Kodi on, using OpenGL 1.4? Because older Raspberry Pi devices already use OpenGL 3.x...

[hungry person]

Hello, thanks for taking an interest! 

Here's the relevant excerpt from all of the official Kodi from Debian post:

Hello!

I tried running in Debian 11.2 (32 bit) on an old netbook with an Intel Atom N270 CPU. It didn't work, which is fine, but was a bit curious as to why. For some reason I just enjoy keeping this machine alive.

`va_openDriver() returns -1` and then segmentation fault. The log: "failed to create EGL context".

The integrated GPU only supports OpenGL 1.4, so my guess is 2.0 is a hard requirement?

Kodi 17 for Debian ran very well on Ubuntu 18.04.

Just to clarify, I do have more modern hardware and my interest and goal isn't solely to get Kodi up and running, but to actually understand the cause in case it doesn't. If it's a design decision then that is fine, but otherwise it's a potential challenge, which I might enjoy.

[Klojum]

on an old netbook with an Intel Atom N270 CPU

That's not old, and not even ancient. I think 'prehistoric' is the best suited word for it these days in computer terms, because it's almost 15 yrs old technology by now.

From what I remember, it already was a problematic box from the beginning when only windows drivers would work, and not Linux or OpenELEC drivers.
Some of those notebooks/netbooks were quite useful because those had an Nvidia onboard graphics card. I even have one of those. Yours is likely only have the Intel GMA(?) card onboard?

Kodi 17 for Debian ran very well on Ubuntu 18.04.

I suggest you stick to whatever works. IMHO, it's not going to be any easier/better with "everyone" (and now Linus himself) saying goodbye to old 32bit hardware support.
The 'why' to your problem I cannot explain, as I simply don't have that type of technical expertise on the matter.

[hungry person]

Interesting, I haven't seen any with nvidia in them. Yeah, this only has the GMA graphics built in, but it can run old unreal engine games like Rune so I can't complain about the XP retro feeling. I wasn't aware I'd enjoy having a small netbook to run ScummVM on until I was given this thing.

I suggest you stick to whatever works. IMHO, it's not going to be any easier/better with "everyone" (and now Linus himself) saying goodbye to old 32bit hardware support.

Well, I see no problems with sticking with Ubuntu 18 in parallel with trying to make it work on modern Debian 11 since they're not mutually exclusive. The mention of Ubuntu 18.4 and Kodi 17 is simply meant as background info and context for the question, in order to put a lower bound on the version number.

While I understand what you're saying, what Linus thinks about legacy architectures doesn't have any impact here since this particular 32 bit hardware is basically the entire premise for asking the question. All 64 bit machines I own (including Pi 3/4) run Kodi just fine, so whenever I want easier/better I'll just use one of those. This machine can't even decode 720p without stuttering, but that's not the point. I know it's old, but I appreciate it for what it can do (e.g. playing SD content and Youtube clips) and I think there's a certain charm to it. That doesn't mean I'll say no to continuous security updates.

In the same vein I like to repair the things I own for no other benefit than that I enjoy the process and the resulting Ikea effect. I can rarely defend it as being easier, or even economical.

[DarrenHill]

Thread moved to Linux support

[hungry person]

Just for the record, since I'm not sure how this is a Linux-specific question, what constitutes "Linux support" here? Is the supported OpenGL version highly dependent and varying for each platform and therefore impossible to talk about separately from the platform itself?

I'm just a bit unsure how this OpenGL support question is something that can/should only be answered by the Linux subforum audience.

[sarbes]

I'm not sure if it is a hard requirement, but I think we need a few 2.0 extensions. If you want to run such a system, you are on your own as far as I'm concerned. We don't have the resources to support multiple rendering paths. Heck, we are even discussing to drop support for platforms missing modern extensions (like PBOs).

Judging from the error, it could be that your system doesn't support the version of EGL we require (1.4?).

[hungry person]

Thanks for taking an interest!

I kind of get the impression that the maintainer of Kodi from Debian is "on his own" already, so I thought I'd not pester him with this question over and over, and instead deliver an answer if I could

After all, if I find out it's even theoretically impossible to launch on such hardware, and by design, I wouldn't have to bother him with it anymore.

I don't mind whatever requirements the project decides to design for -- I'd say drop whatever doesn't appeal to you. Just trying to determine what I should expect to be able to run for any single major version of Kodi. I'd be happy only knowing "this is the last version you could possibly run on such or such hardware".

Thanks for the tip, I'll investigate that path.

[hungry person]

Judging from the error, it could be that your system doesn't support the version of EGL we require (1.4?).

You wouldn't happen to know a command that prints the system EGL version? I was unable to find one. Glxinfo doesn't mention the version at all as far as I can tell.

[hungry person]

Finally found the eglinfo tool. The system seems to support API version 1.4.

[hungry person]

For future readers it's very possible to run Kodi on a 32 bit machine with only OpenGL 1.4 support. E.g. Kodi 21 on Debian testing (future Debian 13 Trixie).

On this hardware on X11 there's a bug requiring you to launch using `--gl-interface=egl` or you'll crash, but on Wayland it works out of the box.