Minimalist Gentoo installation for Kodi/Xstream

[Dietrich]

Hi,

I need your guidance to achieve a minimalistic Gentoo installation tailored for the use as a media center using Kodi/+xstream only.

- it's going to be running in a VirtualBox (pre-installed, if you have recommendations for ressource allocations without speed deficits give them here)
available hardware ressources: i5 6600K (quad core), 16 GB RAM
- intended purpose is a minimalistic installation to run Kodi with the xstream addon (are all the flags in the Gentoo Kodi page required or just some for this purpose? required dependencies unknown)
- internet access will be necessary for Xstream (protocols? required flags and dependencies unknown)
- ability to playback videos/streams with sound will be necessary for Kodi (codecs? required flags and dependencies unknown)
- if a desktop environment is necessary to run the Kodi interface it should be a debloated one (recommendations? i3 maybe? required flags and dependencies unknown).
However, if Kodi can run without a desktop environment as a standalone interface on his own, that would be preferable. (again, required flags and dependencies unknown)
- mouse and keyboard support for within the Kodi interface (required flags and dependencies unknown)
- not sure about display drivers. they are usually handled by the VirtualBox. is there a better solution to make more use of an external GPU card bypassing the virtualbox drivers? (nvidia GTX 560, required flags and dependencies unknown)

In your response please keep in mind I am "fairly new" to linux. And I know, I know, Gentoo may not be the best idea while 1-2 years of linux experience minimum would be best before even tackling this. But I feel I wouldn't learn anything about linux if everything was pre-baked in another distro like Ubuntu.
I already have a VirtualBox running manjaro XFCE with Kodi+xstream but it just comes with too much crap I don't need. I want to get rid of that one and replace it with a more pure solution. I thought about using Arch for this, which I had on a while back, but why not take it a step further? That's why I'm here. I am a speed freak who hasn't tasted the speed of Gentoo yet and I'd highly appreciate it you could show me the way.

Thank you

[pjp]

Hello Dietrich,

Welcome to the Gentoo Forum.

You don't mention how much disk spae you'll be able to set aside, so I'm guessing that isn't too critical. You'll need sufficient space to store source files as well as temporary space where compiling will occur.

Since you're new and wanting to learn, I highly recommend starting with the Gentoo Handbook. Your i5 is 64-bit, so you'll want to select the AMD64 instructions (it covers 64-bit x86 architectures).

The "Installing Gentoo" section will leave you with a fairly minimal environment. It won't install X Windows or a desktop environment unless you tell it to. You'll start making these choices in section 2.4 Choosing the right profile where you decide if you want the default profile, or if you want to choose a generic desktop profile, or a more specific profile such as Gnome or KDE. Also be aware of the multilib versus no-multilib choice in that section. Additional choices will be made in section 2.6 Configuring the USE variable. Here you can make additional choices to install or not install optional compoents. For example, X, Gnome, KDE and other packages. The key word here is optional.

Once you get the basic system installed and configured (networking, etc.), you can then rely on the system to help make choices for installing as minimal an installation as possible that will support the software you want to use. For example, maybe Kodi has an optional requirement for KDE. You may be able to disable KDE, but not the QT libraries on which Kodi depends.

But installation of Kodi and other software is beyond the basic installation, which is the focus of the Installing Gentoo forum.

If you get stuck while going through the Handbook, feel free to ask for help. In most cases, it is usually better to try and have an error than to just ask "what next."

Have fun and good luck!

[Jaglover]

To answer your question about running Kodi without DE/WM this is exactly what I do. I run Kodi directly on Xorg. Console autologin and Xorg/Kodi autostart. My Kodi box boots straight into Kodi as a result.

[Dietrich]

To answer your question about running Kodi without DE/WM this is exactly what I do. I run Kodi directly on Xorg. Console autologin and Xorg/Kodi autostart. My Kodi box boots straight into Kodi as a result.

Would you do a tutorial on how you did it? I mean handbook is good 'n all if you know what you're doing and what exactly does and does not apply to what you want to achieve but other than that it's like driving a car staring at the navigation system instead of out your windshield.

@pjp: Thank you, I'll try to do it by the handbook first right now.

[charles17]

- intended purpose is a minimalistic installation to run Kodi ...

... and when finished, ending up with something like https://libreelec.tv/about, just based on Gentoo?

[Dietrich]

- intended purpose is a minimalistic installation to run Kodi ...

... and when finished, ending up with something like https://libreelec.tv/about, just based on Gentoo?

Yes, because those don't seem to work on a Virtualbox, I am looking all over and I haven't found anything on it so far.

[Syl20]

As the system will be built on a virtual host, you can easily make snapshots.
So you could try the "brutal mode" : install the minimal system using the handbook, do "emerge -pv kodi", and see what it wants to merge as dependencies, and with what USE flags. Then you'll be sure you'll have a minimalistic, but customized, running Kodi VM.