VDR*ELEC is a collection of scripts and patches, which add a VDR client and many VDR plugins to CoreELEC (CE) and LibreELEC (LE) images. The images include a full-featured CoreELEC or LibreELEC distribution, where it's possible to comfortably switch between KODI and VDR.

Disclaimer: Not all images are tested and there is no guarantee at all, that the VDR client on these images is working as expected. Possible reasons are missing or misconfigured VDR output devices and plugins.
Therefore tests and/or pull requests are highly appreciated.

📁 CoreELEC - CoreELEC's build directory included as git submodule
📁 LibreELEC - LibreELEC's build directory included as git submodule
📁 config
+ 📁 distro - includes predefined build configurations
+ addons.list - lists all available pre-buildable KODI addons
+ extras.list - lists all available extras (patches, plugins)
+ versions - sets the commit/branch/tag to use for LibreELEC/CoreELEC
📁 package_patches - these patches are copied to LE/CE packages folders before build
📁 packages - packages, that will be added to upstream CE/LE
📁 patches - these patches are applied to CE/LE directory itself before build
📁 release-scripts - LibreELEC's release-scripts repo included as a git submodule

• build.sh - main build script
• clean-package.sh - helper script to clean single packages
• convert_ova_to_qcow2.sh - helper script to convert ova image to qcow2 format
• update.sh - helper script to update packages

These patches are already applied to VDR. These plugins are successfully built and part of the VDR tar.

You can choose between downloading a prebuilt image like you do it with official CE/LE images or building a customized image on your own.

The eaysiest way is to use a prebuilt image. These images are periodically available in the releases section of this repository. Choose the image matching your hardware and write it to SD-Card or USB. You can also use these images as an update image for your existing CE/LE installation.

Refer to LibreELEC or CoreELEC building dependencies.
The following description is based on Debian or Ubuntu as the host system.

apt-get install gcc make git unzip wget xz-utils bc gperf zip g++ xfonts-utils xsltproc openjdk-11-jre-headless

git clone https://github.com/Zabrimus/VDRSternELEC

The configuration is mainly done via environment variables.
Several configurations are already provided in config/distro. If you don't want to use an existing configuration, you can create a new one within this directory.

A sample configuration file looks like this:

DISTRO=CoreELEC
SHA=${COREELEC20}
PATCHDIR=coreelec-20

# Use project variant
VARIANT=

# Build settings
PROJECT=Amlogic-ce
DEVICE=Amlogic-ng
ARCH=arm

# VDR settings
VDR_OUTPUTDEVICE=softhdodroid
VDR_INPUTDEVICE=satip

Environment variables:

• DISTRO: can be either CoreELEC or LibreELEC
• SHA: The commit/branch/tag from CoreELEC/LibreELEC to use (see config/versions)
• PATCHDIR: This is used for additional patches (located patches/$DISTRO/$PATCHDIR)
• VARIANT: specify some variant of the project, e.g. for choosing different patches
• PROJECT:
  • CoreELEC: Amlogic-ce or any of CoreELEC/projects
  • LibreELEC: Allwinner or any of LibreELEC.tv/projects
• DEVICE:
  • CoreELEC: Amlogic-ng or another supported DEVICE for CoreELEC
  • LibreELEC: H6 or another supported DEVICE for LibreELEC
• ARCH:
  • CoreELEC: arm or another supported ARCH for CoreELEC
  • LibreELEC: arm or another supported ARCH for LibreELEC
• VDR_OUTPUTDEVICE: VDR output device, which is enabled by default, e.g. softhdodroid, softhddevice-drm, softhddevice-drm-gles or another one from the available packages
• VDR_INPUTDEVICE: VDR input device, which is enabled by default, e.g. satip or streamdev-client

It's possible to build some KODI addons and pre-install them to the image. All available addons are listed in addons.list.
Building the addons with build.sh can be triggered by adding them with the -addon option and a comma separated list.

Probably not all addons can be compiled for every LibreELEC/CoreELEC version. Mainly dvb-latest and crazycat are candidates to fail, because of the frequently updated linux kernel.

It's also possible to build some additional plugins or apply some patches on VDR during build process. All available extras are listed in extras.list.
Building the extras with build.sh can be triggered by adding them with the -extra option and a comma separated list.

If you want to create a "real" release, which can be used to update from kodi GUI, use the -release <RELEASE_SERVER> option.
Set up a webserver which is available at $RELEASE_SERVER and let it point to RELEASEDIR (sse build.sh).
Go to kodi settings and add the server as an update channel.

After choosing an existing configuration or creating a new one, the build script can be called:

$ ./build.sh
Usage: ./build.sh -config <name> [Options]
-config            : Build the distribution defined in directory config/distro/<name> (mandatory)

Options:
-extra <name,name> : Build additional plugins / Use optional VDR patches / Use extra from config/extras.list
                     (option is followed by a comma-separated list of the available extras below)
-addon <name,name> : Build additional addons which will be pre-installed / Use addon from config/addons.list
                     (option is followed by a comma-separated list of the available addons below)
-subdevice         : Build only images for the desired subdevice. This speeds up building images.
-addononly         : Build only the desired addons
-patchonly         : Only apply patches and build nothing
-package <name>    : Build <name> as a single package
-release <server>  : Create release for update, accessible at <server>
-releaseonly       : Build only the release tar and not all images
-cef               : Include cef binaries into release, otherwise deploy it as an external package
-verbose           : Enable verbose outputs while building LE/CE packages
-help              : Show this help

Available configs:
CoreELEC-19
CoreELEC-19.4-Matrix
CoreELEC-20-ne
CoreELEC-20-ng
CoreELEC-21-ne
CoreELEC-21-ng
CoreELEC-22-no
LibreELEC-10.0-arm-AMLGX
LibreELEC-10.0-x86_64
LibreELEC-11-arm-AMLGX
LibreELEC-{12,13}-aarch64-Allwinner-A64
LibreELEC-{12,13}-arm-Allwinner-H3
LibreELEC-{12,13}-aarch64-Allwinner-H5
LibreELEC-{12,13}-aarch64-Allwinner-H6
LibreELEC-{12,13}-arm-Allwinner-R40
LibreELEC-{12,13}-aarch64-AMLGX
LibreELEC-{12,13}-arm-Rockchip-RK3288
LibreELEC-{12,13}-aarch64-Rockchip-RK3328
LibreELEC-{12,13}-aarch64-Rockchip-RK3399
LibreELEC-{12,13}-aarch64-RPi-RPi4
LibreELEC-{12,13}-x86_64-x11
LibreELEC-{12,13}-x86_64-x11-qemu

Available extras:
directfb
directfbsamples
dynamite
easyvdr
permashift
channellogos
cefbrowser
remotetranscode
tsduck

Available addons:
crazycat
digital-devices
dvb-latest
dvb-tools
ffmpeg-tools
network-tools
sundtek-mediatv
system-tools

Example call: ./build.sh -config CoreELEC-19 -extra easyvdr

If everything worked fine, the desired images can be found in either CoreELEC/target, LibreELEC/target or releases.

In directory .github/workflows exists several workflows which can be used to build an own image with own configuration.

• precache sources which downloads all necessary sources for a distribution and caches them in Github as artifact.
• Update CoreELEC/LibreELEC checks if an update of CoreELEC or LibreELEC exists and creates a pull request to update config/versions.
• Update Packages checks if package updates exists and create a pull request to update the packages.
• Build VDRSternELEC Main workflow to build releases, images and addons. After the build a new release will be created and all build artifacts are uploaded to the release.

If you clone the repository, you can start your own build and create own releases. The configuration of the build can be widely configured. The configuration matches the commandline parameters of build.sh. If you often want to create an own release with specific parameters it is possibly easier to create a new workflow and configure the desired parameters. A sample workflow demo_build_template.yml exists.

❗ If you want to delete a parameter then use '-' as parameter. Otherwise the workflows falls back to the default parameter.

There exists several other cron workflows, which cannot be used outside the repository Zabrimus/VDRSternELEC. Except in a forked repository the condition is removed or changed.

• Cron Build VDRSternELEC calls periodically the workflow Build VDRSternELEC
• Cron Precache Sources calls periodically the workflow precache sources
• Cron Update CE/LE calls periodically the workflow Update CoreELEC/LibreELEC
• Cron Update Packages calls periodically the workflow Update Packages

Write your image file to an SD-Card like you are used to do it with LibreELEC or CoreELEC and boot your device.

The first boot will come up with KODI gui. Follow the dialog and choose your language and network settings. It's very helpful to enable ssh service, to be able to access the device from outside. You also want to set your time/timezone in the KODI settings now. This would also be the time, which is used in VDR afterwards.

Now it would be a good time to install the KODI addons of your choice. E.g. system-tools addon (if not pre-installed) can be very helpful, because it makes mc available on the device. In order to be able to get the right language within VDR you should also install the locale addon (if not pre-installed) and configure the addon with your desired language (e.g. de_DE).

• /usr/local/lib
  contains libraries which are usually not part of CoreELEC/ LibreELEC
• /usr/local/vdr
  contains VDR and all plugins
• /storage/.config/vdropt/
  contains the default configuration files
• /storage/.config/vdropt-sample
  contains sample configuration files
• /storage/videos
  is the default video directory

Now it's time to run the install script /usr/local/bin/install.sh from within the console (e.g. via ssh):

# /usr/local/bin/install.sh
Usage: /usr/local/bin/install.sh [-i] [-b kodi|vdr] [-T] [-w] [-c (url)] [-p (url)]

-i       : Extracts the default configuration into directory /storage/.config/vdropt-sample and copy the sample folder to /storage/.config/vdropt if it does not exists.
-C       : Use with care! All configuration entries of vdropt will be copied to vdropt-sample. And then all entries of vdropt-sample will be copied to vdropt.
-b kodi  : Kodi will be started after booting
-b vdr   : VDR will be started after booting
-T       : install all necessary files and samples for triggerhappy (A lightweight hotkey daemon)
-w       : install/update web components (remotetranscode, cefbrowser)
-c (url) : install/update cef binary lib (located at url or within /storage/.update or at /usr/local/config)
-p (url) : install/update private configs (located at url or within /storage/.update)

If you are at the first boot, the minimum you have to do is running the script with the -i option, which will copy the default configuration to the right place. If you also want, that VDR will start as default, these are the commands of your choice:

/usr/local/bin/install.sh -i
/usr/local/bin/install.sh -b vdr

To be able to use the configured language within VDR you have to create/modify file /storage/.profile with (e.g. for german UTF-8):

export LANG="de_DE.UTF-8"
export LC_ALL="de_DE.UTF-8"

Choose the values depending on your choice in KODI's locale addon (de_DE is de_DE.UTF-8).
❗ You need to create /storage/.profile, otherwise VDR won't start!

You can add the following into /storage/.profile

SWITCH_VDR_SCRIPT=<script to attach/detach the VDR frontend>

A sample script for CoreELEC and softhodroid exists in /usr/local/bin/switch_vdr_softhdodroid.sh which can be used like

SWITCH_VDR_SCRIPT=/usr/local/bin/switch_vdr_softhdodroid.sh

The script takes one parameter 'attach' or 'detach' which can be used to distinguish between the desired actions. A attach/detach of the VDR frontend is much faster than starting/stopping VDR. VDR itself will run still in the background.

❗ If you update from a previous version of VDR*ELEC you have to modify a systemd script:

sed -i "/Conflicts/d" /storage/.config/system.d/vdropt.service
systemctl daemon-reload

LibreELEC and CoreELEC use kernel built-in remote support as default. See LibreELEC - Infra-Red Remotes. If your remote control does not work out of the box in KODI, you can follow the instructions there.

A description of the configuration can be found in vdr-portal.de. All necessary driver and system.d units are already included in the distribution. Thanks to Dr. Seltsam @ vdr-portal.de

/storage/.config/vdropt/enabled_plugins contains a list of the plugins to autostart with VDR. Simply edit the file and add other plugins of your choice to the already pre-activated ones.

/usr/local/vdrshare/logos(Light|Dark) contain the channel logos, if they have been built with -e channellogos.

After basic configuration is done you probably need to adapt VDR's conf files.
VDR configuration is located in /storage/.config/vdropt. The channels.conf and the other files need to be edited according to your needs.

Since CoreELEC 20 it could be necessary to enable the systemd script /storage/.config/system.d/setup_bl301.service if the system boots directly VDR. If you observe problems starting your system via remote and you are using CoreELEC 20 or above, then try to enable the systemd script via

cp /usr/local/system.d/setup_bl301.service /storage/.config/system.d
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable setup_bl301.service
systemctl start setup_bl301.service 

Once configuration is completed, your device should start into VDR after a reboot.

Do an update with the image file like you are used to do it with LibreELEC or CoreELEC.

Example for getting your image onto the device with scp:

scp target/CoreELEC-Amlogic-ng.arm-*.tar root@<ip address>:/storage/.update
reboot

To be able to use this plugin several manual tasks are necessary.

• Install cefbrowser

  A sample installation/configuration are described in the repository https://github.com/Zabrimus/cefbrowser in section VDR*ELEC, CoreELEC-19 (sample installation/configuration)

• Install remotetranscoder

  The remotetranscoder is used to stream transcoded videos to VDR. Installation on a fast system or a system with a hardware encoder is desired. The repository can be found at https://github.com/Zabrimus/remotetranscode

• The plugin vdr-plugin-web is already part of VDR*ELEC.

Skindesigner uses a git repository to install custom skins. To be able to use this feature installing git is necessary.

• Install entware (see https://wiki.coreelec.org/coreelec:entware)
• Install git and git-http opgk install git git-http

Configuration of FLIRC, VDR remote.conf and KODI keymapping is up to the user. I only describe my configuration.

Create the following /storage/.config/udev.rules.d/flirc-receiver.rules with following content

# FLIRC receiver
ENV{ID_VENDOR_ID}=="20a0", ENV{ID_MODEL_ID}=="0006", \
  ENV{eventlircd_enable}="true", \
  ENV{eventlircd_evmap}="default.evmap"

After a reboot the flirc receiver is recognized by eventlircd and usable. You can choose another evmap instead of default.evmap, but the map must exists in directory /etc/eventlircd.d/. I haven't found a solution to easily add a new configurable evmap.

triggerhappy is a lightweight hotkey daemon similar to Autohotkey (Windows) or hotkey (Linux with X), but which works without X or any other desktop environment. I personally use this daemon to shutdown my box by pressing a specific key on the keyboard (or a configured key in FLIRC).

To enable triggerhappy use the install script

/usr/local/bin/install.sh -T

The repository contains a slighty patched openvfd driver with additional commands to set the shown value in the VFD. So instead showing only the current clock, it is possible to show something else. For example the following command shows TEST in the VFD

echo -e -n '\x03TEST' > /tmp/openvfd_service

You can switch back to the clock via

echo -e -n '\x00' > /tmp/openvfd_service

Reads the file /storage/.config/vdropt/enabled-plugins which contains a plugin name on each line and starts VDR with all enabled plugins. The plugin configuration are read from /storage/.config/vdropt/*.conf.

Uses the plugin vdr-plugin-easyvdr (see https://www.gen2vdr.de/wirbel/easyvdr/index2.html) to start VDR. The configuration entries can be found in the /storage/.config/vdropt/*_settings.ini. Plugins can be started/stopped at runtime via the OSD. Additionally the command line tool easyvdrctl.sh (which uses easyvdrctl) can be found in the <bindir>.

In Kodis default theme estuary, one additional entry will be added to the power menu to switch to VDR. If another skin is used, the entry needs to be done manually.

<item>
    <label>VDR</label>
    <onclick>System.Exec("/usr/local/bin/switch_to_vdr.sh")</onclick>
</item>

A whole sample can be found in <vdrdir>/config/DialogButtonMenu.xml

A new entry is needed, like e.g.

Start Kodi       : echo "START_PRG=kodi" > /storage/.cache/switch_kodi_vdr

It is possible to add libraries to be preloaded if needed by setting a variable in /storage/.profile

VDR_LD_PRELOAD=/path/to/lib1.so:/path/to/lib2.so

It is possible to start a local virtual machine in incus for LibreELEC/x86_64. At first you need to build the image and extras Parameter if desired.

./build.sh -config LibreELEC-12-x86_64-x11-qemu

After the build an ova Image is available in folder LibreELEC.tv/target/. This image needs to be converted to a qcow2 image.

The script convert_ova_to_qcow2.sh can be used, e.g.

./convert_ova_to_qcow2.sh LibreELEC.tv/target/LibreELEC-x11.x86_64-12.0-devel-20231221191352-db968f9.ova

Create a file metadata.yaml with content

architecture: x86_64
creation_date: 1701385200
properties:
  description: LibreELEC 12
  os: LE
  release: 12

and tar this file

tar cf metadata.tar metadata.yaml

Now you can add the qcow2 image to incus

incus image import metadata.tar <filename>.qcow2 --alias LE12

Create a new container using the newly added image:

incus create LE12 libreelec --vm -c security.secureboot=false -c limits.cpu=2 -c limits.memory=4GiB

Start the virtual machine

incus start libreelec

Connect to the running virtual machine to get a graphical view:

incus console libreelec --type vga

It is possible that you get an error message while trying to create a virtual machine

incus create LE12 libreelec --vm -c security.secureboot=false -c limits.cpu=2 -c limits.memory=4GiB
Creating libreelec
Error: Failed creating instance record: Failed initialising instance: Invalid config: No uid/gid allocation configured. In this mode, only privileged containers are supported

To solve this add the line (as root) to both files /etc/subgid and /etc/subuid

root:1000000:65536

Possibly a reboot is necessary.

This is work in progress. Kodi is using the mesa softpipe driver, which is relatively slow.

If you don't want to use these images anymore, you can simply install a new core CoreELEC/LibreELEC image and delete the directories

/storage/.conf/vdropt
/storage/.conf/vdropt-sample
/storage/.fonts

to get rid of all VDR configurations.