Kodi build from SlackBuilds.org very slow
 

Hi all,

I have compiled 64-bit packages for Slackware 14.1 using this:
http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.1/multimedia/kodi/

I compiled and installed on my desktop machine, everything seems OK.

I then installed the same binaries on my laptop (A cheap Asus I3), and the Kodi GUI is really, really slow, pretty much unusable. I didn't get around to playing any videos yet.

On the same laptop, Youtube, IPlayer and mplayer are all OK.

Any ideas?

many thanks,
Biff.

Kodi might be including cpu optimizations for the machine it was compiled on (it's been a while since I dug through the configure). I know it's a long compile, but have you tried recompiling it on the laptop to see if the problems go away?

I guess I should have done that before posting, a bit sloppy of me I know. It's not the long compile but the collecting and compiling all dependencies, any of which could themselves have optimizations that I turned my nose up. I will do that tonight if nobody else has any suggestions!

thanks,
Biff.

Are you using something to manage the dependencies or just compiling everything manually? If it is manually, have a look at sqg that is included with sbopkg. It can generate queue files for sbopkg so it can build everything needed in the order it's needed in. Then you just start it and walk away.

Thanks, I will definitely checkout sqg/sbopkg.

Recompilation didn't help. I didn't think it would. I noticed glxgears gave a warning about DRM permissions, so I added my user to the video group, and then Kodi started working fine. Then I went back to the other machine where Kodi was working before, and realised my user wasn't a member of the video group there. Note: Both systems use XDM + Fluxbox.

So, Asus laptop, Intel video hardware: Needs user in video group.
Phenom + Radeon HD 7750: Doesn't need user in video group.

I'm not an expert on any of this, but I'm guessing Kodi on my Phenom system finds an X extension it can use for graphics acceleration, whereas the laptop doesn't and falls back to DRM?

Of course, highly likely I'm talking BS, but what do I care - it works! :-).

Your user should be in the video group if you plan on using any video card power. It probably prevented access to the hardware forcing it to run using software rendering (which is slow). If you're using the proprietary driver for the Radeon system, it could be the installer adjusts permissions for the device so you don't need to be in the video group.

Whenever you create a user, you should use the adduser script, which will prompt you to add users to the normal groups by pressing the up arrow.