odroid-xu4-setup

VERSION 1.0

How to set up an Odroid XU4 with Kodi, Mame and an external USB drive

I describe all the steps to install Ubuntu Linux on an Odroid XU4 and use it as a media and game center using Kodi and Mame. Installing Mame is optional as well as configuring the USB drive, the joystick, etc... You can stop at the Kodi level or go further and have a fully functional video, music and game machine. Not all the steps are straightforward and some of them implies that you read another documentation on the web. I did all the research for you and give links to the webpage you will need to follow or simply read in order to understand necessary concepts. The first part on building Kodi is self-contained. The part on Mame will require external readings. The rest is self-contained again.

Install Linux and Kodi on your Odroid XU4

To install all of this, follow the steps:

The first step is ideally done on another Linux box. If you don't have one yet (wait,what?), better to migrate to Linux as soon as you can

Download an image from https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid-xu4/os_images/linux/ubuntu_4.14/20181203
Check your image is valid with md5sum

and compare the result with the corresponding md5sum file.
```
md5sum	ubuntu-18.04.1-4.14-mate-odroid-xu4-20181203.img.xz
```
Assuming you're doing all of this on a Linux box, decompress the file you downloaded:
```
xz -d ubuntu-18.04.1-4.14-mate-odroid-xu4-20181203.img.xz
```
Plugin your SD card on an USB port of your Linux box
Search for the device with lsblk
```
lsblk
```
WARNING

Let's assume your SD card is on /dev/sdX. Be very careful to choose the correct device or you will risk to erase the content of another disk.

WARNING

Write the image to the SD card

sudo dd if=ubuntu-18.04.1-4.14-mate-odroid-xu4-20181203.img.xz of=/dev/sdX bs=1M conv=fsync
sudo sync

Umount your SD card either from your desktop environment or on the command line:
```
sudo umount /dev/sdX
```
Insert your SD card in your odroid XU4 and boot it up

Then login on the desktop with the credentials as given at https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid-xu4/os_images/linux/ubuntu_4.14/20181203#access_credentials

At this stage you have a fully functional Odroid XU4 desktop. The next step will be to install Kodi and remove this direct desktop access so that your box will directly boot on the Kodi interface more like a regular TV set.
Open a terminal (search in the menu on the top-left of the screen)
Update the packages
```
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt dist-upgrade
```
During the update, the first time you boot your machine, you may get an error regarding a lock file with dpkg (/var/lib/dpkg/lock), it means that one of the automated update procedure is still running which is very likely with a new install. Just let it run until the end and try the commands again.

During the update, if you get a message about boot.ini being replaced, just say 'OK'

During the update, if you get a question about /etc/apt-fast.conf, answer Y (for Yes)

Install Kodi now:

sudo apt install kodi kodi-bin kodi-data libcec4 python-libcec openbox

The Mali graphical driver is installed by default and works well. Go in a terminal and run glmark2-es2 and you should see a demo (a horse). FPS should be around 300 frames/second run glmark2 and you should see the same demo. FPS should be around 30 frames/second. Terrible! The reason is because the Mali driver only supports OpenGL ES (Embedded System) and not plain OpenGL. The solution is to use a library called gl4es, which you can find on Github.
Install gl4es

In a terminal, install the following development tools:
```
sudo apt install git cmake xorg-dev gcc g++ build-essential
```
Get the source code of gl4es. So, gl4es is an implementation of OpenGL using ... OpenGL ES (instead of implementing the library directly). So for systems like Odroid XU4 with a driver supporting only OpenGL ES, it is possible to use software based on OpenGL too with hardware acceleration:
```
git clone https://github.com/ptitSeb/gl4es.git
cd gl4es
```
And compile it:
```
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DODROID=1
make
```
It will compile and display its progress with a lot of messages. Toward the end, if the compilation has been successfull, you should see the following:
```
[ 96%] Building C object src/CMakeFiles/GL.dir/glx/utils.c.o
[ 98%] Linking C shared library ../lib/libGL.so.1
[100%] Built target 
```
Save the Mesa version of OpenGL (the one installed by default):
```
sudo mv /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libGL.so.1 /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/save.libGL.so.1
sudo mv /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libGL.so.1.0.0 /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/save.libGL.so.1.0.0
```
and copy your new compiled version:
```
sudo cp lib/libGL.so.1 /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/
sudo ldconfig
```
Now check that everything is fine by running:
```
glxinfo|head -6
```
If you see the following, then you're good to go:
```
LIBGL: Initialising gl4es
LIBGL: v1.1.1 built on Mar 28 2019 06:22:26
LIBGL: Using GLES 2.0 backend
LIBGL: loaded: libGLESv2.so
LIBGL: loaded: libEGL.so
LIBGL: Using GLES 2.0 backend
```
(of course the date on the second line will be different for you)

Now you can run glmark2 again:
```
glmark2
```
and this time you should see FPS around 300 to 600. At this stage, your Odroid XU4 also have full OpenGL support. You can even use a software like Blender.

For security reason, kodi and its associated programs will be run by a user with limited privileges, with no password and automatic login. We will call the user kodi:

sudo adduser --disabled-password --gecos "" kodi

The output will be:

Adding user `kodi' ...
Adding new group `kodi' (1000) ...
Adding new user `kodi' (1000) with group `kodi' ...
Creating home directory `/home/kodi' ...
Copying files from `/etc/skel' ...

Assign some privileges to this user:

sudo usermod -a -G cdrom,video,plugdev,users,dialout,dip,input,netdev,audio,pulse,pulse-access,games kodi

Add options to allow Kodi to start its own X server:

sudo sed -ie 's/allowed_users=console/allowed_users=anybody/g' /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config
sudo sed -ie "\$aneeds_root_rights = yes" /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config

Add the Kodi service to systemd (better to copy and paste the following rather than typing it):

cat << EOF | sudo tee /etc/systemd/system/kodi.service
[Unit]
Description = Kodi Media Center

After = systemd-user-sessions.service network.target sound.target mysql.service dbus.service polkit.service upower.service 
Wants = mysql.service

[Service]
User = kodi
Group = kodi
Type = simple
#PAMName = login # you might want to try this one, did not work on all systems
ExecStart = /usr/bin/xinit /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session openbox --startup /usr/bin/kodi-standalone -- :0 -nolisten tcp vt7
Restart = on-abort
RestartSec = 5

[Install]
WantedBy = multi-user.target
EOF

A quick note on the first line, the sudo command works on tee to write with super-user rights to the file, because if I would do it on cat and follow the same pattern as the other commands in this document, the redirection to the file would not work. Indeed, the redirection is done by the shell (belonging to the user odroid) and not by the command. So sudo cat would not work.

Enable Kodi at boot time:

sudo systemctl enable kodi
sudo systemctl set-default multi-user.target

On the Hardkernel Wiki, it is said that a recent Canonical's EGL package blocked access to the Mali GPU. It is sooo true. The fix is as they said:
```
sudo apt install mali-x11 --reinstall
```
At the time of publication (end of April 2019), it fixes the loss of Mali GPU access bug. So it is highly recommended to apply this fix. In fact, if you update the system as I said before, you will have the bug and you will fix it by reinstall mali-x11 as above.
From now on you have a fully functional Kodi system. If you want to reboot, your Odroid XU4 will directly start on Kodi. I you want to add more features, like MAME (Mame on Wikipedia), an external USB drive, a joystick, a firewall, you can follow the rest.

If you want to stop and enjoy your Odroid XU4 now, you can reboot it:
```
sudo reboot
```

In the next sections, I'll show you how to:

install an external USB drive and have it automounted (for Kodi or Mame for example),
install and configure Mame and use it from Kodi
install and configure a joystick for Mame
remove software and services which are not necessary and use memory and CPU cycle for nothing

Everything can be done either by connecting to your Odroid XU4 with ssh or on the screen directly (you'll need a keyboard). If you want to connect on the screen directly, after rebooting your Odroid XU4 on Kodi, you can press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to switch to a terminal (text screen). At any time, you can go back to Kodi by pressing Alt+F7.

Install an USB external drive on your Odroid XU4

Switch to a terminal or login with ssh.
Install usbmount to automount USB drives:
```
sudo apt install usbmount
```
There is a bug in the version 0.0.22 of usbmount as provided by the stock Ubuntu Linux when connecting 2 USB drives at the same time. The bug has been fixed with usbmount 0.0.24 which is not yet on the Ubuntu repository. You can upgrade it manually, if you like:

If your second drive (or even the first) doesn't mount properly when you plug it in, you can try to upgrade usbmount as follows:
```
git clone https://github.com/rbrito/usbmount.git
cd usbmount
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y debhelper build-essential fakeroot
dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc -b
cd ..
sudo dpkg -i usbmount_0.0.24_all.deb
```
By default, usbmount will mount the external USB drive with the sync option. sync means that all write access to the disk will be immediately flushed to the disk. And it can dramatically slow down all the disk operations.
```
sudo sed -ie 's/^MOUNTOPTIONS=.*/MOUNTOPTIONS="noexec,nodev,noatime,nodiratime"/' /etc/usbmount/usbmount.conf
```
I assume it is safe to use the async option here because you're not supposed to unplug this disk at any time. When I've done that, the write speed of my external hard drive has been multiplied by 10!

Install MAME to play arcade games from Kodi

This section is long and will require external resources if you want to have all the bells and whistles of a full-featured MAME installation. From time to time, we will refer to external guides too.

Install MAME

sudo apt install mame mame-data mame-doc mame-extra mame-tools libsdl2-gfx-1.0-0 libsdl2-image-2.0-0 libsdl2-mixer-2.0-0 libsdl2-net-2.0-0 libsdl2-net-2.0-0 python-pil

Create a new config file with the correct paths, using OpenGL ES 2, the ALSA audio driver, tuning the speed and using all the cores:

cat << EOF | sudo tee /etc/mame/mame.ini
inipath                  $HOME/.mame;/etc/mame
rompath                 /home/kodi/AML-ROMs/
samplepath              /home/kodi/AML-assets/samples/
ctrlrpath               /home/kodi/AML-assets/ctrlr
hashpath                /usr/share/games/mame/hash

cfg_directory           $HOME/.mame/cfg
nvram_directory         $HOME/.mame/nvram
memcard_directory       $HOME/.mame/memcard
input_directory         $HOME/.mame/inp
state_directory         $HOME/.mame/sta
snapshot_directory      $HOME/.mame/snap
diff_directory          $HOME/.mame/diff
comment_directory       $HOME/.mame/comments

video                   auto
render                  opengles2
audiodriver             alsa
samplerate              32000
numprocessors           8
mouse                   1
uimodekey               INSERT
autoframeskip           1
EOF
sudo chmod ugo+r /etc/mame/mame.ini

Then we need to remove the gl4es startup message to make MAME happy. Long story short: a Kodi plugin will extract the games' database MAME.xml to the standard output by running mame. When mame starts, gl4es is initialized and displays a nice message, like the one above. But the Kodi plugins capture the standard output which is supposed to be an XML file, except that we have this welcome message on top of it from gl4es. So when Kodi tries to read the XML file (in fact a Python library tries too), it fails:

cat << EOF | sudo tee /usr/local/bin/mame
#!/bin/sh
export LIBGL_SILENTSTUB=1
export LIBGL_NOBANNER=1
/usr/games/mame "$@"
EOF
sudo chmod ugo+x /usr/local/bin/mame

When configuring the AML add-on in Kodi, we will use this new mame command we've just created

Install and configure Advanced Mame Launcher plugin from Kodi

We're going to follow the official guide of a Kodi plugin called Advanced Mame Launcher (AML) and adapt a few steps to follow our setup. Here, I assume that we have an external USB drive connected to the Odroid XU4. It will be helpful to store data for MAME.

Assuming you're on a text terminal (see above on how to switch to a text terminal from Kodi), the first step is to create directories to store MAME data. The external USB drive is mounted to /media/usb0 and by default to /media/usb too. We will assume it's the case from now on.

cd /media/usb
sudo mkdir mame
sudo chown kodi.kodi mame
sudo su - kodi
cd /media/usb/mame
mkdir -p AML-ROMs AML-CHDs AML-SL-ROMs AML-SL-CHDs AML-assets/samples/
cd AML-assets
mkdir artpreviews artwork cabinets clearlogos covers_SL cpanels fanarts fanarts_SL flyers manuals manuals_SL marquees PCBs snaps snaps_SL titles titles_SL videosnaps videosnaps_SL
cd
ln -s /media/usb/mame/* .
exit

Then we need to fill in the directories with the latest data for Mame as described in https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=304186. We use the following script to download and install everything automatically:

sudo su - kodi
cd /media/usb/mame/AML-assets
# catlist.ini catver.ini genre.ini genre_OWS.ini mature.ini not_mature.ini
wget http://www.progettosnaps.net/catver/ -q -O - | grep 'download?tipo=catver' | sed "s#.*href=\"\(.*\.zip\)\".*#wget -q 'http://www.progettosnaps.net\1' -O file.zip#"|sh
unzip -jq file.zip '*.ini'
rm file.zip

# nplayers.ini
wget http://nplayers.arcadebelgium.be/ -q -O - | grep -E 'nplayers[[:digit:]]{4}\.zip' | sed "s#.*href=\"\(http://nplayers.*zip\)\">.*#wget -q '\1' -O file.zip#" | sh
unzip -jq file.zip nplayers.ini
rm file.zip

# bestgames.ini
wget http://www.progettosnaps.net/bestgames/ -q -O - | grep 'download?tipo=bestgames' | sed "s#.*href=\"\(.*\.zip\)\".*#wget -q 'http://www.progettosnaps.net\1' -O file.zip#"|sh
unzip -jq file.zip '*.ini'
rm file.zip

# series.ini
wget http://www.progettosnaps.net/series/ -q -O - | grep 'download?tipo=series' | sed "s#.*href=\"\(.*\.zip\)\".*#wget -q 'http://www.progettosnaps.net\1' -O file.zip#"|sh
unzip -jq file.zip '*.ini'
rm file.zip

# history.dat
wget https://www.arcade-history.com/?page=download -q -O - | grep -o 'href="[^"]*\.zip"' | sed 's#href=\"\.\.\(.*zip\)\"#wget https://www.arcade-history.com\1 -q -O file.zip#'|sh
unzip -jq file.zip history.dat

# mameinfo.dat
wget 'http://mameinfo.mameworld.info' --header="User-Agent: Firefox/70.0" -q -O - |grep -o 'href=\"[^"]*Mameinfo.*\.zip"'|sort|tail -1| sed 's#href=\"\(.*zip\)\"#wget --header=\"User-Agent: Firefox/70.0\" \1 -q -O file.zip#'|sh
unzip -qjp file.zip *.7z > mameinfo.7z
7z e '-i!mameinfo.dat' mameinfo.7z > /dev/null
rm file.zip mameinfo.7z

# gameinit.dat
wget http://www.progettosnaps.net/gameinit/ -q -O - | grep 'download?tipo=gameinit' | sed "s#.*href=\"\(.*\.zip\)\".*#wget -q 'http://www.progettosnaps.net\1' -O file.zip#"|sh
unzip -jq file.zip english/gameinit.dat
rm file.zip

# command.dat
wget http://www.progettosnaps.net/command/ -q -O - | grep 'download?tipo=command' | sed "s#.*href=\"\(.*\.zip\)\".*#wget -q 'http://www.progettosnaps.net\1' -O file.zip#"|sh
unzip -jq file.zip Longhand/command.dat
rm file.zip

exit

Modify mame.ini to reflect the new directory structure:

sudo sed -i 's#^rompath \+.*$#rompath /home/kodi/AML-ROMs/#' /etc/mame/mame.ini
sudo sed -i 's#^samplepath \+.*$#samplepath /home/kodi/AML-assets/samples/#' /etc/mame/mame.ini

Add assets
1. Go back to Kodi: type 'Ctrl+D' on your terminal, then 'Atl+F7' to go back to Kodi.
2. In https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=304186, you can follow the paragraph called Setting up MAME assets and Software List assets to add more resources and assets. This is the way to get extra pictures, logos, etc... You can read the page here: http://forum.pleasuredome.org.uk/index.php?showtopic=30715 about the MAME Extra packages to understand all the type of resources you can find on the Net for Mame.
3. On the above mentioned page, you can find links to Mame resources on the Internet. They come in huge packages you simply have to move to /media/usb/mame as we created before. Let me give you some examples about those packages, which can be useful in the process:
  - if you find a package called MAME 0.xxx EXTRAs where xxx is a Mame version number, go into the directory you have downloaded. In this directory, you will find more directories. Move their content to the corresponding directory in /media/usb/mame/AML-assets/<some directory>
  - Another similar package might be called something like MAME 0.xxx Multimedia. You should process it the same way
  - but you will find .zip files too. You can simply unzip them and move them to the final directory as above. Some directories don't have the same name, so keep the names we created above. In this case, transfer the content of the directory instead of the directory itself.
  - if you find packages with bios-devices in their name you don't need them if you already downloaded the very big packages with ROMs in their name. They are just subset for different situation. You can read more about all those packages on this page. These packages are made when you want a minimal version of the ROMs for example if you're running short on disk.
  - There are packages called Rollbacks Roms too (information here). You only need them if you have a ROM manager for Mame which can deal with multiple version. You won't need them in this tutorial.
  - There are the Software List ROMs and CHDs. Obviously, their content will go into the /media/usb/mame/AML-SL-ROMS and /media/usb/mame/AML-SL-CHDs directories we've created before. SL stands for Software List of course.
4. Finally, you might have messed up a bit with users' permission when downloading and moving files. So you want to make things well by assignign the kodi user to the mame directory:
```
sudo chown -R kodi.kodi /media/usb/mame
```
Install and configure the AML plugin. You will find it in Program Adds-on. It's called Advanced Mame Launcher.
1. in Kodi, go to Settings, Addon settings, Install from repository. In Program add-ons, look for Advanced Mame Launcher and install it. Follow the picture in the order:
2. After it's installed, right-click on the add-ons logo and go to Settings:
3. Change the paths to the executable and the data directories as shown on the picture:
4. Go back to Kodi's initial screen and look for the AML plugin, in general Add-ons, Program Add-ons, Advanced Mame Launcher.
5. Select any row, open the context menu with a right-click and select Setup plugin.
6. And run a full setup and configuration of the plugin by choosing the All in one step options in the context menu of the plugin: This step can take several minutes to an hour. You will see a lots of progress bars. If you did everything well before, it should work without error messages. The plugin is now configured and ready.

And Mame is ready!

Install a joystick to play with MAME

Ideally, playing with MAME requires a nice joystick. Here are two examples of joystick I've built myself. It's a good exercise of woodwork, painting, designing and electronics and a fun game for the family. I've made them with planks I collected from a construction site nearby. Good for the environment to recycle things too.

Install the software to support and calibrate the joystick. Arcade joysticks are easy to build or can be bought on Internet. They work very well and ideal for playing with MAME's arcade games.
```
sudo apt install joystick jstest-gtk
```

Calibrate the joystick As most of Mame games will require a simple joystick with buttons, calibration will be very simple. You can use jstest-gtk but as we already install Kodi, we will do the calibration from the command line only. With click joystick, the only calibration is to associate buttons (inside the joystick for the directions and fire/select buttons), with their respective direction or function. The calibration will be available system-wide and therefore will be used by mame

if you can plug your joystick to your Linux machine, I recommend to use, in first instance, a small programm called jstest-gtk. It's a simple GUI and you can check what's the proper direction of your joystick. In my case, I use a DragonRise compatible joystick (the one on the picture), with 4 connectors for up, down, left and right. But there are a few problems which we will fix with the calibration. First of all, the left-right and up-down are inversed and then the up-down axis is upside down. So to make it short: up is right, down is left, right is down and left if up!!! I can see that on the jstest-gtk interface.
another option (since Kodi 17) is to setup your joystick directly from Kodi. Read the tutorial here.

As there are many models of joystick, I won't cover all the possible configurations but please contribute and I'll add your solution to this guide.

If you want to play with the joystick configuration and assign various command to each button or change the directions, you need to provide a configuration file. Let's call it myjoyremap.cfg. In my case, I use the following file, but yours might differ a lot depending on what you want to achieve and your joystick's model.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<mameconfig version="10">
    <system name="default">
        <input> 
	    <port type="P1_JOYSTICK_UP"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_1_XAXIS_RIGHT_SWITCH </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_JOYSTICK_DOWN"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_1_XAXIS_LEFT_SWITCH </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_JOYSTICK_LEFT"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_1_YAXIS_UP_SWITCH </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_JOYSTICK_RIGHT"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_1_YAXIS_DOWN_SWITCH </newseq> </port>

            <port type="P1_BUTTON1"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_1_BUTTON1 </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_BUTTON2"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_1_BUTTON3 </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_BUTTON3"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_1_BUTTON5 </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_BUTTON4"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_1_BUTTON7 </newseq> </port>

            <port type="P1_BUTTON5"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_1_BUTTON2 </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_BUTTON6"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_1_BUTTON4 </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_BUTTON7"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_1_BUTTON6 </newseq> </port>

            <port type="P1_BUTTON8"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_BUTTON9"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_BUTTON10"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_BUTTON11"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_BUTTON12"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> </port>

            <port type="P1_START"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_1_BUTTON9 </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_SELECT"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_1_BUTTON10 </newseq> </port>
            <port type="COIN1"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_1_BUTTON8 </newseq> </port>
            <port type="START1"> <newseq type="standard"> KEYCODE_1 OR JOYCODE_1_BUTTON9 </newseq> </port>

            <port type="P1_PEDAL"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq>
            </port> <port type="P1_PEDAL2"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_PEDAL3"> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_PADDLE"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_PADDLE_V"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_POSITIONAL"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_POSITIONAL_V"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_DIAL"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_DIAL_V"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_TRACKBALL_X"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_TRACKBALL_Y"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_AD_STICK_X"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_AD_STICK_Y"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_AD_STICK_Z"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_LIGHTGUN_X"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P1_LIGHTGUN_Y"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>



	    <port type="P2_JOYSTICK_UP"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_2_XAXIS_RIGHT_SWITCH </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_JOYSTICK_DOWN"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_2_XAXIS_LEFT_SWITCH </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_JOYSTICK_LEFT"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_2_YAXIS_UP_SWITCH </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_JOYSTICK_RIGHT"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_2_YAXIS_DOWN_SWITCH </newseq> </port>

            <port type="P2_BUTTON1"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_2_BUTTON1 </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_BUTTON2"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_2_BUTTON3 </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_BUTTON3"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_2_BUTTON5 </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_BUTTON4"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_2_BUTTON7 </newseq> </port>

            <port type="P2_BUTTON5"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_2_BUTTON2 </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_BUTTON6"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_2_BUTTON4 </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_BUTTON7"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_2_BUTTON6 </newseq> </port>

            <port type="P2_BUTTON8"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_BUTTON9"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_BUTTON10"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_BUTTON11"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_BUTTON12"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> </port>

            <port type="P2_START"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_2_BUTTON9 </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_SELECT"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_2_BUTTON10 </newseq> </port>
            <port type="COIN2"> <newseq type="standard"> JOYCODE_2_BUTTON8 </newseq> </port>
            <port type="START2"> <newseq type="standard"> KEYCODE_2 OR JOYCODE_2_BUTTON9 </newseq> </port>

            <port type="P2_PEDAL"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq>
            </port> <port type="P2_PEDAL2"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_PEDAL3"> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_PADDLE"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_PADDLE_V"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_POSITIONAL"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_POSITIONAL_V"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_DIAL"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_DIAL_V"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_TRACKBALL_X"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_TRACKBALL_Y"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_AD_STICK_X"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_AD_STICK_Y"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_AD_STICK_Z"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_LIGHTGUN_X"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>
            <port type="P2_LIGHTGUN_Y"> <newseq type="standard"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="increment"> NONE </newseq> <newseq type="decrement"> NONE </newseq> </port>

        </input>
    </system>
</mameconfig>

Then you need to copy it to /media/usb/AML-assets/ctrlr/.

Then you can edit this file to adjust it to you own joystick. My joystick (which I built myself, hence the little problem :-) ) has a 90 degrees misconfiguration. So UP is right, RIGHT is down, etc... In the XML file, you have two parts. one for the Player 1 joystick and another part for the Player 2. Each line with type="P1_JOYSTICK_UP" (etc...) is the direction as understood by mame. Then, the real configuration comes after as JOYCODE_1_XAXIS_RIGHT_SWITCH. Therefore, this line means that when my joystick sends a code for RIGHT, mame will interpret it as UP. Below this, I configured the buttons 1 to 8 and the START and SELECT buttons. Then I do the same for the Player's 2 joystick.

Finally, you can add it to the mame.ini configuration file by doing

echo "ctrlr myjoyremap" | sudo tee -a /etc/mame/mame.ini

Remove unused software to save memory and CPU cycles

This section is not mandatory but you can find it useful to make your Odroid XU4 lighter and more responsive. The XU4 has 2Gb of memory, which (at the time of writing) is good for a Single Board Computer (most of them have 0.5 to 1Gb, but I can see some 2 to 4 Gb finally coming on the market). So memory is a precious resource as well as CPU cycle. You don't want any slowdown of your machine while watching a movie or playing a game. I selected a few services which I think are not necessary for a Kodi/Mame installation. Here is the way to stop and disable them. However, we will not uninstall the software, so that you can enable them again, should your needs change in the future.

Cups the printing server As you don't really need to print from Kodi or Mame, it's safe to remove the print server (named CUPS):

sudo systemctl stop cups
sudo systemctl stop cups-browsed
sudo systemctl disable cups
sudo systemctl disable cups-browsed

To re-enable it

sudo systemctl enable cups
sudo systemctl start cups

UPower controls the power source. It's useful in a smartphone, a laptop or an embedded system. However, in the case of a Kodi/Mame entertainment system in your living room, the only power source is the socket wall and your Odroid XU4 is supposed to be connected all the time. So you can safely remove this one too:
```
sudo systemctl stop upower
sudo systemctl disable upower
```
Whoopsie is the error reporting daemon for Ubuntu, mainly used by desktop environment when something crashes. As we're only using Kodi, it's not necessary here:
```
sudo systemctl stop whoopsie 
sudo systemctl disable whoopsie 
```
ModemManager is a daemon which controls mobile broadband (2G/3G/4G) devices and connections. The Odroid XU4 is connected to an ethernet (or a wifi if you have one) and does not need a modem connection.
```
sudo systemctl stop ModemManager 
sudo systemctl disable ModemManager 
```
unattended-upgrades is a daemon to automatically update the system. I like when a computer works for me but in this specific case, we will avoid doing any automatic update. The reason is we want a stable entertainment system for all the family, which is available at any time. We don't want to have to do maintenance, just before launching the family movie, because an update didn't work:
```
sudo systemctl stop unattended-upgrades 
sudo systemctl disable unattended-upgrades 
```
If you want to upgrade your Odroid XU4, you can still do it manually by running first an update of the packages' database:
```
sudo apt update
```
Then if you like the list of packages to be updated, run an upgrade:
```
sudo apt upgrade
```
Personally, I'm a big fan of a software called synaptic which is a GUI for apt-based systems like Ubutun and Debian. I recommend it.

Set the clock to your own time zone

You can synchronize the clock to a time server on the net and always have your Odroid set to the most accurate time. Moreover, you want to set the clock to your timezone.

First we install an NTP (Network Time Protocol) client which will connect to time server to get an accurate time
```
sudo apt install chrony
```
Then we search for the time zone. It will be something like Europe/Zurich or Pacific/Auckland. To find yours do:
```
timedatectl list-timezones
```
Search and note your own time zone. Let's say you live near the North Pole in Longyearbyen, you will find the time zone in the list given above as Arctic/Longyearbyen. Then tune your Odroid XU4 by doing:
```
sudo timedatectl set-timezone Arctic/Longyearbyen
```

More configuration

In the following, I'll give a few tricks and tips to improve your configuration in general. In general, it's better to either connect with ssh to your ODroid-XU4 box or simply connect a keyboard. Most of them should be executed as a super user. You can, for example, do the following to open a super-user session, and therefore you won't have to repeat the command sudo everytime. Don't forget to log off from the super user when you're done (Ctrl-D or exit will do it):

sudo bash

Upgrading regularly

apt update
apt upgrade

Yes, that's it, no need to reboot or anything. Come on, it's Linux. It's simple and efficient. In fact, it's not completely true all the time. The only case in which you have to reboot is when the Linux kernel itself is updated. In practice, if you upgrade services or long-running program like Kodi, you want to make your life simple and you can reboot to relaunch all of them in one go, instead of stopping and restarting them on the terminal. But Linux doesn't require a reboot.

Unwanted windows' decorations

After upgrading, I had window decorations around Kodi. Obviously, it's not something I want in a media center. To remove them it's simple:

cd /home/kodi/.config/openbox
sed -i 's#<applications>#<applications> <application name="*"> <decor>no</decor> </application>#' rc.xml

Support my work by making a small donation

with Paypal:
with Bitcoin at the address: 18kuqN4vsy4ALNrg39dCkQnEoPPEbqagsH or by using the following QR code:

odroid-xu4-setup by David Bellot is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://github.com/yimyom/odroid-xu4-setup.

All the images in this document are licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0

David Bellot Sydney, Australia 2019-2020

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odroid-xu4-setup

Table of contents

Install Linux and Kodi on your Odroid XU4

Install an USB external drive on your Odroid XU4

Install MAME to play arcade games from Kodi

Install a joystick to play with MAME

Remove unused software to save memory and CPU cycles

Set the clock to your own time zone

More configuration

Upgrading regularly

Unwanted windows' decorations

Support my work by making a small donation

All the images in this document are licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0

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odroid-xu4-setup

Table of contents

Install Linux and Kodi on your Odroid XU4

Install an USB external drive on your Odroid XU4

Install MAME to play arcade games from Kodi

Install a joystick to play with MAME

Remove unused software to save memory and CPU cycles

Set the clock to your own time zone

More configuration

Upgrading regularly

Unwanted windows' decorations

Support my work by making a small donation

All the images in this document are licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0

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