Getting Steam and Kodi to play nice

I’ve been trying to get Kodi and Steam to play nice on my Arch HTPC for a while now. It’s been a bit of a pain as all the configs and everything are in transition between XBMC and Kodi.

My cousin asked me to set him one up similarly but also including steam functionality, I thought it couldn’t be so hard… so off I went. It proved nearly impossible for me to get SteamOS running with Kodi well enough not to mention the limited install options to really have something I wanted to leave him with, a non linux user. After alot of trials with various distros I resolved to just use Windows with autologin, Steam-launcher, Kodi Launcher, and Steam-Ice… I did and it works wonderfully … buuuut its Windows and thats good enough for him but not me.

I wanted more or less the same thing.. my HTPC/home server had been running Arch with an autostartup script into XBMC, using a bluetooth keyboard to control everything… it was great. But I figured it’s got enough juice for some steam games so here is my mostly working attempt to get Kodi and Steam big picture to transition from one to another smoothly.

Install LightDM + Autologin.

Since I wasn’t even using a DM before to boot straight into XBMC/Kodi I had to add one, I installed lightdm and set it to autostartup openbox.

Make sure you set your desktop environment from Gnome or KDE or whatever it is to openbox.For some reason changing the DE after setting autostar on lightdm wasn’t happening. No matter what I did the lightdm autostartup kept going into gnome even after changing the autologin-session in /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

Also I decided to use openbox to as the DE. Instead of gnome as the guide suggests.

[Desktop Entry] Version=1.0
Name=XBMC
GenericName=Media Center
Comment=Manage and view your media
Exec=/usr/bin/xbmc-sl.sh
Icon=xbmc
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=AudioVideo;Video;Player;TV;

Steam doesnt like desktop entries using commands with prefixes (in this case sudo), so two script files are necessary – one for steam to launch, which in turn launches the second with sudo rights (this is needed as commands are being executed for different users)

sudo /usr/bin/xbmc-sl2.sh

#!/bin/bashdbus-send –system –print-reply –dest=org.freedesktop.DisplayManager  /org/freedesktop/DisplayManager/Seat0 org.freedesktop.DisplayManager.Seat.SwitchToUser string:’desktop’ string:”

export DISPLAY=:1

until [[ $(sudo -u desktop wmctrl -l |grep “Desktop$”) ]] ; do
sleep 1
done

if [[ $(pidof xbmc.bin) ]] ; then
sudo -u desktop wmctrl -r “XBMC Media Center” -b add,fullscreen &
else
sudo -u desktop xbmc &
fi

chmod +x xbmc-sl.sh

chmod +x xbmc-sl2.sh

Now to edit the sudoers file to allow the above to be executed without a password prompt. Run sudo visudo and add the following to the end:

%steam ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/xbmc-sl2.sh
%desktop ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/xbmc-sl2.sh

At the end I also added my kodi user to sudoers file instead of desktop because I don’t have a desktop user.

sudo mv /usr/share/xsessions/openbox.desktop.dis /usr/share/xsessions/openbox.desktop

sudo nano /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

and change the whole line beginning with user-session= to user-session=Openbox ctrl + x to exit. If this doesnt set the Openbox session to auto-boot, exit XBMC and at the login screen press ‘F9′ to open the windowmanager selection box and select Openbox there.

mkdir -p $HOME/.config/openbox/ && echo "export DISPLAY=:0" >> $HOME/.config/openbox/autostart.sh && echo "xsetroot -solid black &" >> $HOME/.config/openbox/autostart.sh && echo "/usr/bin/xbmc &" >> $HOME/.config/openbox/autostart.sh && chmod +x $HOME/.config/openbox/autostart.sh

*Optional: For a better Openbox right click menu that contains entries for Steam, Steam BPM, XBMC, Chromium and others:

sudo apt-get install menu
nano ~/.config/openbox/menu.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><openbox_menu xmlns=”http://openbox.org/”
xmlns:xsi=”http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance”
xsi:schemaLocation=”http://openbox.org/
file:///usr/share/openbox/menu.xsd”>

<menu id=”root-menu” label=”Openbox 3″>
<item label=”Terminal”>
<action name=”Execute”><execute>x-terminal-emulator</execute></action>
</item>
<item label=”Chromium”>
<action name=”Execute”><execute>chromium-browser</execute></action>
</item>
<item label=”PCManFM”>
<action name=”Execute”><execute>dbus-launch pcmanfm</execute></action>
</item>
<item label=”XBMC”>
<action name=”Execute”><execute>xbmc</execute></action>

You can modify that last file there to add or remove menu entries to the open box right click menu.

I didnt use any pre or post steam scripts.. everything seems to just work, steam launcher is not in portable mode (if that matters?).

xsetroot -solid black &

/usr/bin/kodi &

Modified files for Kodi.

/usr/share/applications/xbmc-sl.desktop ->/usr/share/applications/kodi-sl.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0

Name=Kodi-sl

GenericName=Media Center

Comment=Manage and view your media

Exec=/usr/bin/kodi-sl.sh

Icon=kodi

Terminal=false

Type=Application

Categories=AudioVideo;Video;Player;TV;

sudo /usr/bin/kodi-sl2.sh

#!/bin/bash

dbus-send --system --print-reply --dest=org.freedesktop.DisplayManager /org/fr$

export DISPLAY=:1

until [[ $(sudo -u kodi wmctrl -l |grep "Desktop$") ]] ; do

sleep 1

done

if [[ $(pidof kodi.bin) ]] ; then

sudo -u kodi wmctrl -r "Kodi Media Center" -b add,fullscreen &

else

sudo -u kodi kodi &

fi

Getting the PS3 controller going.

Playstation 3 Controllers via Bluetooth

To make the Playstation 3 controller work over bluetooth you will need to install the sixpair utility.After installing sixpair connect your controller with an USB cable and run sixpair

# sixpair

Disconnect your controller from USB and wait about 5 minutes (not sure if really needed)

Now you will need to pair it with bluez. You will need bluez-utils and bluez-plugins packages.

Disable all bluetooth utilities (like bluedevil or bluemon)

Run the bluetoothctl utility

# bluetoothctl

A bluetooth prompt will appear.

Press the playstation button and watch for connection and disconnection messages and copy the device address (something like 38:C0:96:56:4D:AA)

Wait for the lights stop blinking.

Now, type the following:

agent on
default-agent
discoverable on
pairable on

Hit the playstation button again and while it blinks type the following

connect <device_addr>

Keep trying this command if you see device not available (it will loop between connected and disconnected) until you see something like the following

I usually keep pressing up + enter (repeating the last command)

[CHG] Device <device_addr> Modalias: usb:v054Cp0268d0100
[CHG] Device <device_addr> UUIDs:
       00001124-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb
       00001200-0000-1000-8000-00805f9b34fb

Now trust the device

trust <device_addr>

You’re done

After you do that your PS3 controller will pair with your computer whenever you press the PS button. However for Kodi and Steam it’t not really going to do you any good. Kodi has an event server for PS3 controllers and works well so long as you sync the controller after Kodi has started up if you sync the controller before Kodi has started it will crash on startup. weird? This isn’t a huuge problem if your only running Kodi, but since I want to switch between Kodi and Steam its a pretty big problem.

ATTRS{name}=="PLAYSTATION*", ENV{DEVNAME}=="/dev/input/event*", RUN+="/home/example/sixaxis.sh $devnode"

ATTRS{name}=="Sony*", ENV{DEVNAME}=="/dev/input/event*", RUN+="/home/example/sixaxis.sh $devnode"

udev wasn’t applying the rule to the controller because it couldn’t find PLAYSTATION* in its name, the controller was called something else. Mine was Sony Wireless Game Controller so I changed the

 ATTRS{name}=="PLAYSTATION*"

ATTRS{name}=="Sony*"

I suppose this wont work if you have any Sony devices on your system? I don’t so whatever.

#!/bin/bash

function startSixaxis ()
{
chmod 600 $DEVICE; #Change original device permissions so Steam doesn’t detect it
xboxdrv –evdev $DEVICE -d –type xbox360-wireless –silent –evdev-keymap KEY_#300=y,KEY_#302=a,KEY_#301=b,BTN_DEAD=x,BTN_TOP=start,BTN_TRIGGER=back,BTN_A=guide,BTN_BASE6=rb,BTN_BASE5=lb,BTN_TOP2=du,BTN_BASE2=dl,BTN_BASE=dd,BTN_PINKIE=dr,BTN_THUMB=tl,BTN_THUMB2=tr –evdev-absmap ABS_#13=rt,ABS_#12=lt,ABS_X=x1,ABS_Y=y1,ABS_Z=x2,ABS_RX=y2 –mimic-xpad-wireless –axismap -Y1=Y1,-Y2=Y2 –calibration RT=0:127:255,LT=0:127:255 &
PID=$!
echo “$PID” > $PID_FILE
}

DEVICE=$1
PID_FILE=”/tmp/xboxdrv_pid$(echo $DEVICE | sed ‘s/\//_/g’)”

if [[ “$ACTION” == “remove” ]]; then
PID=$(cat $PID_FILE);
kill -9 $PID #SIGKILL is needed because the xboxdrv process can get stuck
fi
if [[ “$ACTION” == “add” ]]; then
startSixaxis
fi

I want to add, none of this is my work I just patched a bunch of stuff together. So credit goes to the authors of the original fixes.