CoreElec and LibreElec as native host for NextPVR

[mvallevand]

Over the last week I have using my ODroid N2 with Kodi Matrix and I have found it to be tremendous client.  It's nice being able to power off a box with the remote.

I decided to see how hard it was to set up NextPVR server without Docker and as it turns out  it is really quite easy.   I still have issues with transcoding with ffmpeg, it doesn't make the box faster but it does remove the overhead of running Docker.

I was able to get an HDHR and even a locast tuner going so it is hard to imagine a better combination for light PVR requirements.

To install NextPVR server here is what I did. 

First I installed the supplied Netcore binaries from CoreElec Addons ->Programs  Then I started a new ssh session and did the following

1. Run dotnet with no parameters to make sure it is installed

2. Installed NextPVR

Code:

mkdir /storage/.kodi/addons/nextpvr-server
cd /storage/.kodi/addons/nextpvr-server
curl http://nextpvr.com/stable/linux/NPVR.zip
unzip NPVR.zip
chmod +x DeviceHost/arm32/DeviceHostLinux

3. In that folder created a service startup script /storage/.kodi/addons/nextpvr-server/nextpvr-server.start

Code:

. /etc/profile
export NEXTPVR_DATADIR_USERDATA=/storage/.kodi/addons/nextpvr-server/config/
exec dotnet  /storage/.kodi/addons/nextpvr-server/NextPVRServer.dll > /dev/null

And used chmod +x on it

4. Create the folder for the config and database

mkdir /storage/.kodi/addons/nextpvr-server/config/

5. I then created a systemd file to run NextPVR as a service  /storage/.config/system.d/nextpvr-server.service

Code:

[Unit]
Description=NextPVR
Wants=multi-user.target
After=multi-user.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/bin/sh /storage/.kodi/addons/nextpvr-server/nextpvr-server.start > /dev/null
Restart=never

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

chmod 640 nextpvr-server.service

6. Setup the server.

Code:

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable nextpvr-server.service
systemctl start nextpvr-server.service

All done.