Kodi 17.4 Released! How to Install it in Ubuntu

Kodi media center, formerly known as XBMC, reached the 17.4 release a few days ago with a bunch of bug-fixes. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 17.04, and their derivatives.

Changes in Kodi 17.4 include:

  • Potentially fix crashing on Windows due to an issue in Python
  • Potentially fix crashing on Windows when enabling zeroconf
  • Fix sporadic crash on Windows when installing or updating add-ons
  • Fix issue for users with reverse proxies attempting to forward websockets.
  • Fix possible issue if Linux distro uses system ffmpeg and cause black screen with 10-bit H.265
  • Properly throttle scraping music information online to prevent overloading the provider
  • Fix native keyboard on iOS 11
  • Fix potential crash on Android O loading App icons
  • Fix non showing Kodi banner on Android O
  • Fix potential crash on Android with certain keymaps
  • Fix wrong detection of VP6 and VP8 videocodec on Android
  • Update FFmpeg to 3.1.9
  • Set hard requirement to use FFmpeg 3.1.x only
  • Fix for Hangup when viewing recording and pressing next/previous
  • Fix merged scraped album type and label correctly with that derived from tags from music files
  • Fix possible crash on Linux when using ALSA
  • Save skin settings immediatly after they have changed instead of only on shutdown

How to Install Kodi 17.4 in Ubuntu:

Kodi has an official PPA that contains the latest packages for Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04, and Ubuntu 17.04.

1. Open terminal via Ctrl+Alt+T or by searching it from app launcher. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa

Input your password (no visual feedback while typing) when it asks and hit Enter.

kodi ppa

2. For those who have previous release installed, upgrade the media center via Software Updater:

upgrade Kodi

or run commands to check updates and install kodi:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install kodi

Once installed, log out and log in back with Kodi session, or launch Kodi from Unity Dash, Gnome app launcher, or other app launcher.

Uninstall:

Run command to purge the PPA which also downgrade Kodi to its stock version in your Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:team-xbmc/ppa

To remove kodi, either use your system package manager or run command:

sudo apt-get remove --autoremove kodi

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