[TheJezstarr]

Updating and testing now, I'll shout if I run in to problems.

[basilgello]

21.1 is in testing alomg with addons. I made a mistake that broke FTP cloent in Kodi for now, but the fixed version is in the buildserver and should reach testing tomorrow.

[gavinstevenson]

Hi guys,

Do you think it's likely v21.1 will move from the `testing` repo to the `stable` repo anytime soon (i.e., within the next few days or weeks)? Or will the stable repo stay stuck on v20.1 until Debian 13 is released?

The reason why I ask is that there were some bug fixes and memory leak improvements from v20.1 through v20.5 and continuing on to v21.0, and I'd love to get any of the more recent releases that includes all those bug fixes so that I can stop Kodi from crashing.

[basilgello]

@gavinstevenson I prepared 20.5 upload for stable yesterday and need some testing. Are you building Kodi yourself or you prefer compiled debs?

What bothers me more in this situation is how to persuade Debian Release Team to give blanket approval for Kodi and addon uploads to stable without the need to piece-meal the patches. I made the attempt in 2021 but failed at that time: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepor...bug=995823 Then the war in Ukraine started, I had to relocate with my family and build new life hence I did minimal needed to keep Kodi available to the users.

Now I am going to achieve first-class support of Debian in Kodi (and of Kodi in Debian). For that, I basically need two approvals:

* Approval from Debian Release Team to upload point releases of Kodi and addons to stable-updates without long delays.
   The scope is the same version Debian release has started with, i.e (20.5 for bookworm, 19.5 bullseye etc).

* Approval from Debian Fast-Track Team to upload backports of Kodi and addons of one newer version (21.x for bookworm,
20.x for bullseye etc)

Master branch snapshots can go into experimental on monthly basis but this will require users to use testing as base + add
unstable + experimental as there is no point to offer bleeding edge Kodi with old ffmpeg of stable.

[basilgello]

Tracking bug on Github: https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/issues/25631

[gavinstevenson]

Hi @basilgello, thanks for the quick response and context. I can very easily use .deb's if you've got them. I also have the ability to compile code, but my build environment is significantly different from Kodi's and would not be easy to reconfigure/adjust to accommodate the Kodi's development environment.

Thanks for the link to the mailing list. I just read through it and while I can't find the part of the conversation that's relevant to the context you provided (i.e., "persuading Debian Release Team to give blanket approval for Kodi and addon uploads to stable without the need to piece-meal the patches"), I do see that one of the Release Maintainers pointed out an incorrect usage of the template, which you fixed with a follow-up submission, at which point there were no further objections from any of the Maintainers. That seemed like a good/positive outcome to me... Maybe the conversation around persuading the Debian Release Team to give blanket approval for Kodi and addon uploads to stable without the need to piece-meal the patches happened somewhere else on the mailing lists not captured in that one specific thread.

Regardless, I'm sure Kodi isn't the only project out there that iterates faster than Debian releases, so I have to imagine this problem has been solved by other projects... I wonder what process they follow to get their updates into Debian? Perhaps we might find similar success if we mirrored the procedures those projects use?

* Approval from Debian Release Team to upload point releases of Kodi and addons to stable-updates without long delays.
   The scope is the same version Debian release has started with, i.e (20.5 for bookworm, 19.5 bullseye etc).

This seems like an admirable goal to me. I'm unfamiliar with the internal release process for Debian. Is this a common/realistic request? Have any others within Debian received similar approvals or is this a big ask?

* Approval from Debian Fast-Track Team to upload backports of Kodi and addons of one newer version (21.x for bookworm,
20.x for bullseye etc)

This also seems like a reasonable stance and would cover situations where a new Debian version gets released while Kodi is at the tail end of a development cycle (say, with a x.5 release or whatever).

At the end of the day, getting updated versions of Kodi into Debian is a worthwhile goal and I echo the thanks of zuzia-dev on the GitHub thread you posted.

[basilgello]

Debs can be found here (link active for 3 days): https://litter.catbox.moe/nsvwoq.tar
SHA-256 sum of tar archive is 0ef75257e41cd0758b7b2d3c9b582285c0793bb38f463d3601cde6f77860f658
Please verify and report if checksum does not match - I havent used this file exchanger yet.

Please install amd test everything you can: DVD ISO, DVD folders, streaming, etc.

As of context for piecemealing patches: most was probably here https://lists.debian.org/debian-release/...00920.html) and here https://lists.debian.org/debian-release/...00927.html

In Debian, packages like Chromium get updated just like we'd expect Kodi to get updated. Maybe there are other packages, too.

[gavinstevenson]

Hi @basilgello,

Thanks for the .deb's. These are excellent. I've downloaded them and can verify that the SHA-256 checksums match. I can also verify that they appear to install correctly via an `apt install ./*.deb`. Lastly, these packages appear to correct the issues I've been encountering over the past 1.5 years:

• Fix missing watched/unwatched status in Playlist window (https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/23013)
  
• A memory leak in context menus was resolved.
  
• A fix for a leak of EGLFences in the DRM Prime renderer.
  
• Image cache handling was fixed to correctly regenerate when cached files for JSON API consumers.
  

Some of these edge cases required days of usage to test, so I'll continue using this throughout the week this week to confirm.

Also, I've just tested playing UHD .ISOs, Blu-Ray .ISOs, and DVD .ISOs and everything appears to work. I don't use any streaming media services, nor do I use DVD folders. If you have a specific concern about DVD folders not playing properly, I can extract the directory structure from one of my DVD ISOs and test that as well if you'd like.

Anything you can do to get these version into Debian 12 stable would be a huge boon. I know you're working on it.

[gargamon]

I'm running Bookworm with the Kodi 20.1. I'm having problems getting kodi-send to install. There's some dependency issues. I've temporarily solved it by pinning the 2.20.1 versions of kodi-eventclients-common, kodi-eventclients-kodi-send and kodi-eventclients-python. Somehow kodi-eventclients-common 5.20.5 has snuck in and mucks up the works when it gets installed. Any change this can be remedied? 

Thanks

[basilgello]

@gargamon Please make sure you have no remnants of deb-multimedia.org repositories in your /etc/apt/sources.list and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*

[gargamon]

Thanks. I had a mirror to debian-multimedia.org active. After poking around a bit i found that the command:
 
apt policy   kodi-eventclients-common

showed me exactly where it was

[gavinstevenson]

@gavinstevenson I prepared 20.5 upload for stable yesterday and need some testing.

Hi @basilgello, I wanted to report back that after a week of extremely heavy usage (looping through movies + TV shows for ~6 days straight), that the v20.5 .debs you provided work as expected and the issues/crashes/lock ups that I used to experience with v20.1 (which were subsequently fixed in v20.2, v20.3, and v20.4) are no longer happening. I can play DVD isos, Blu-Ray isos, UHD isos, MKV files... every type of media I have access to. This is great news.

Have you been able to make any progress on pushing v20.5 through to the "stable" repo for Debian 12?

[basilgello]

Thanks for testing! I have done some progress but I not as fast as everyone would expect. Plus I decided to get https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/18727 merged befire 22 Alpha1 and upload alpha1 to experimental along with addons. Needs some more love but I am so far satisfied with tests passing on Linux/FreeBSD/OSX.

[gavinstevenson]

Do you have a sense for when you'll be able to deploy v20.5 to the "stable" repo for Debian 12?

I have to travel for work in about 8 days and would love to update all the players in my house and the houses of my family members before I leave. At the moment, whenever things crash, they'll ask me to manually remote in and fix things and I'm tired of playing IT tech support for my family.  Plus, I know other a bunch of other users who'd welcome the latest and greatest from the v20.x branch.

[eddiewould]

Looking to set up a new HTPC and I was thinking of installing Debian Testing (Trixie).

Is the KODI (v21) from the official packages "good"? Any concerns about the version of FFmpeg etc?

Or would I be better off with Debian Stable and installing from a Flatpak? What are the pros/cons?