This guide has been tested with Ubuntu 16.04.4 (Xenial) x86_64, 18.04 (Bionic) and 20.04 (Focal). Please read it in full before you proceed to familiarize yourself with the build procedure.

Several other distributions have specific build guides and a general Linux build guide is also available.

1. Document conventions
2. Get the source code
3. Install the required packages
   3.1. Get build dependencies automagically
   3.2. Get build dependencies manually
   3.3. Ubuntu <= 18.04
4. Build Kodi

This guide assumes you are using terminal, also known as console, command-line or simply cli. Commands need to be run at the terminal, one at a time and in the provided order.

This is a comment that provides context:

this is a command
this is another command
and yet another one

Example: Clone Kodi's current master branch:

git clone https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc kodi

Commands that contain strings enclosed in angle brackets denote something you need to change to suit your needs.

git clone -b <branch-name> https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc kodi

Example: Clone Kodi's current Krypton branch:

git clone -b Krypton https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc kodi

Several different strategies are used to draw your attention to certain pieces of information. In order of how critical the information is, these items are marked as a note, tip, or warning. For example:

back to top | back to section top

Make sure git is installed:

sudo apt install git

Change to your home directory:

cd $HOME

Clone Kodi's current master branch:

git clone https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc kodi

back to top

You can install the required packages using one of two methods: automagically or manually. Please use the former whenever possible.

Add Kodi's nightly PPA to grab dependencies:

sudo add-apt-repository -s ppa:team-xbmc/xbmc-nightly

If you're using Ubuntu 16.04, build-depends PPA is also required:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/xbmc-ppa-build-depends
sudo apt update

Super-duper magic command to get the build dependencies:

sudo apt build-dep kodi

If at a later point you decide you do not want Kodi's PPAs on your system, removing them is as easy as:

sudo add-apt-repository -r ppa:team-xbmc/xbmc-nightly
sudo add-apt-repository -r ppa:team-xbmc/xbmc-ppa-build-depends

You can install it with:

sudo apt install ccache

You can install it with:

sudo apt install distcc

If you get a package not found type of message with the below command, remove the offending package(s) from the install list and reissue the command. Take a note of the missing dependencies and, after a successful step completion, build the missing dependencies manually.

Install build dependencies manually:

sudo apt install debhelper autoconf automake autopoint gettext autotools-dev cmake curl default-jre doxygen gawk gcc gdc gperf libasound2-dev libass-dev libavahi-client-dev libavahi-common-dev libbluetooth-dev libbluray-dev libbz2-dev libcdio-dev libp8-platform-dev libcrossguid-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev libcwiid-dev libdbus-1-dev libdrm-dev libegl1-mesa-dev libenca-dev libexiv2-dev libflac-dev libfmt-dev libfontconfig-dev libfreetype6-dev libfribidi-dev libfstrcmp-dev libgcrypt-dev libgif-dev libgles2-mesa-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libglu1-mesa-dev libgnutls28-dev libgpg-error-dev libgtest-dev libiso9660-dev libjpeg-dev liblcms2-dev libltdl-dev liblzo2-dev libmicrohttpd-dev libmysqlclient-dev libnfs-dev libogg-dev libpcre2-dev libplist-dev libpng-dev libpulse-dev libshairplay-dev libsmbclient-dev libspdlog-dev libsqlite3-dev libssl-dev libtag1-dev libtiff5-dev libtinyxml-dev libtinyxml2-dev libtool libudev-dev libunistring-dev libva-dev libvdpau-dev libvorbis-dev libxmu-dev libxrandr-dev libxslt1-dev libxt-dev lsb-release meson nasm ninja-build python3-dev python3-pil python3-pip rapidjson-dev swig unzip uuid-dev zip zlib1g-dev

If you're using Ubuntu 16.04, you also need to install:

sudo apt install libcec4-dev libfmt3-dev liblircclient-dev

If you're using Ubuntu 18.04 and later, you also need to install:

sudo apt install libcec-dev libfmt-dev liblirc-dev

Flatbuffers (Ubuntu < 20.04, from PPA repository):

sudo apt install flatbuffers-dev

Flatbuffers (Ubuntu >= 20.04):

sudo apt install libflatbuffers-dev

Building for Wayland requires some extra packages:

sudo apt install libglew-dev libwayland-dev libxkbcommon-dev waylandpp-dev wayland-protocols

Similarly, building for GBM also requires some extra packages:

sudo apt install libgbm-dev libinput-dev libxkbcommon-dev

Optional packages that you might want to install for extra functionality (generating doxygen documentation, for instance):

sudo apt install doxygen libcap-dev libsndio-dev libmariadbd-dev

back to top

Ubuntu 18.04 and lower ship an outdated Meson and nasm package. In order to compile Kodi with AV1 support, you have to manually update both Meson and nasm.

This is a requirement by the dav1d AV1 decoder used in ffmpeg.

pip3 install --user meson

Make sure ~/.local/bin is in your PATH.

Verify your Meson version by running meson -v. The version displayed should be >= 0.47.0.

wget https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/universe/n/nasm/nasm_2.14-1_amd64.deb && sudo apt install ./nasm_2.14-1_amd64.deb

Verify your nasm version by running nasm -v. The version displayed should be >= 2.14.

See the general Linux build guide for reference.

back to top