Lakka as a Kodi/LibreELEC add-on?

Libretro Lakka
#1

Yeah, some things I just can’t let go, even though I need to let go. It’s probably because I’m sometimes stubborn. :slight_smile:

So, after of course, experiencing failure with the latest build of Lakka LE, I had an idea with the Asus Chromebox. It runs LibreELEC like a champ (even has a dedicated Kodi Wiki to it: http://kodi.wiki/view/chromebox), and it has Retroarch app, compiled in a Python shell. It’s an older build and does not work with the latest Kodi revisions. I was thinking, how much work would it be to compile Lakka as a Kodi add-on for LibreELEC/Kodi since you all use LibreELEC for your compilation environment and form it into an add-on program for Kodi? Would this be possible or something anyone would be interested in doing? If they want to show me how to do it, or tell me how, heck, I’d do it just to learn. Any thoughts on this? Thank you. :slight_smile:

#2

I made a build that runs LE+Lakka+ES (plus other emulators), Lakka is not an addon per say but you can start it directly from Kodi. Mine is for Amlogic S905 devices, but you could get an idea on how I made it if you know how LE packages work.

There is a folder called Sx05RE which has most of the changes, the main package is called from the projects/s905/packages/oem/package.mk which was basically the only thing I changed from LE apart from creating my own “distribution” folder and adding a few patches to Kodi so I can start ES from the power menu.

if you need any help doing this let me know, although not sure how much help I could give you as I do not own a Chromebook.

#3

I’m with you Shockwave!! I’ve been digging for the last few weeks trying to figure out how to get LibRetro (or any of their sub projects) to work on my LibreElec Kodi box… Having a simple addon that installs LibRetro and it’s dependencies would be awesome!

#4

There is one but its for amlogic devices, I think you can modify it for X86 if you get the required binaries, its on freaktab and its called [LibreELEC] Bolt Ons!

#5

I’ll give it a hack. Why not? It’s not like I don’t have any hair to pull out anyway. :slight_smile:

I’ll brush up and do the research I need to get started on this. :slight_smile:

#6

To the dev crew: thinking compiling Lakka on the Chromebox will make it work? I keep getting an error “gzip: stdin: not in gzip format” with respect to the liberation-fonts-tff package I tried to compile and build on the unit. All of the other packages seemed to install (green “install” present on the command line when I try to rebuild it). I’m trying to find another unzip utility I can use to get that file open! Argh! Any tips or hints or clues or help please?

Edit: Linux version: Cinnamon Mint, Latest Version.

#7

The problem is that the package might not be updated, try to look in the sources folder inside the liberation font, there should be a file with the extension .url, check what is the address its trying to get the file from and see if it works. it might be downloading an html error file or something.

if it doesn’t you are going to need to modify the package.mk to point it to the right file.

http://sources.libreelec.tv/mirror/liberation-fonts-ttf/liberation-fonts-ttf-2.00.1.tar.gz

#8

Yup, I think you’re right, it’s trying to download it from the Fedora website and it’s not a Gzip compatible file for me to extract it. Keeps coming back with a UTF-8 error. Something tells me the checksums don’t match up. I’m trying to change it to the address you posted above, but it keeps going back to Fedora every time I try to rebuild Lakka.

Edit: Holy $#!+ which package.mk file do I edit for the HTML addy?

#9

If its trying to download from fedora it also means that you might have an old source, did you clone the repo recently?

the package is in Lakka/packages/x11/font/liberation-fonts-ttf/package.mk and the part you need to change is PKG_URL=

#10

Kodi 18 (the nightly) has some level of libretro support built-in, using game add-ons you can install cores. But it’s quite slow (I cannot even emulate SNES properly in my raspberry pi 3 in LibreELEC nightly) and incomplete (no OpenGL or Vulkan cores either). It’s still under heavy development, though.

I think the convenience of having both functionalities combined in a single device as an entertainment center is really an awesome idea… either Kodi should continue evolving as a libretro frontend or someone should make a mediacenter core for Retroarch/Lakka (the ffmpeg core can play basic videos but it’s very limited).

Or both. Lakka is much more lightweight and efficient than the “beast” that is Kodi, so I can imagine each of them being an interesting OS for different devices / use cases. Lakka is perfect for something like a handheld console such as the Game Girl project, for example, while Kodi is awesome in a more powerful machine as an entertainment center/server.

#11

LibreElec has a build with Retroarch / libretro cores included. See Escalades community build. It’s pretty awesome.

1 Like
#12

Getting this error every time I try to continue to make the distro and pick up where I left off:

UNPACK liberation-fonts-ttf

gzip: stdin: not in gzip format tar: Child returned status 1 tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now Makefile:12: recipe for target ‘image’ failed make: *** [image] Error 2

Any ideas?

#13

I’m thinking maybe I should change my Linux distro…I have no problems admitting I’m doing this wrong. I hate brick walls.

Yes, I’m well aware LibreElec has a Retroarch has been integrated, with the EmulationStation frontend (I tried it quite some time ago with this Chromebox and it even had integrated Wii/Gamecube support). The catch with it is that I couldn’t get all of the cores I wanted working and didn’t really feel like mucking around with the ES script to get the other menu entries working (ES and I do not get along).

Zackmorris? Dude, I downloaded your ROM browser frontend add on for Kodi! Thanks man! :slight_smile:

1 Like
#14

Nice Man! I’ll gonna try! You know if it works well on RPi3?

#15

Did you update the source code to the newest available?

Did you clean the build*/liberation-fonts-ttf* and the sources/liberation-fonts-ttf* directories? if not just go into the build directory and delete everything for liberation-fonts-ttf* and into the sources folder and do the same.

#16

Just a curiosity question: when you develop a build on a unit that was having graphic card compatibility problems from before, does the build process reveal what was causing the problem?

#17

Update: decided to go a slightly different route and try flashing the chrome box with arch Linux to see if I can get it to build a development copy and get those graphics drivers/card problem resolved. But I’m on the road for my weekend off right now.

#18

Escalade’s LibreELEC Community Build works very well on the RPi3. Also, check out the GitHub Source, he’s open to contributions.

1 Like