Ubuntu 22.04 LTS-TV Headend installation options

Jonas Lang

Just finished migrating from Ubuntu 18.04 LTS to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and I'm looking at options for installing TVH. First thing that struck me was the use of Snap to install TVH. Just as a test I ran the installation using Snap and ended up with a version of TVH 4.2.8 Dirty. Odd name. I noticed that TVH was installed as root and was buried behind the Snap package manager without the ease of use I experienced using the Debian package manager in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

All appeared to be working but I was experiencing issues adding an IPTV m3u playlist. The Config wizard froze when scanning the NASA TV entry and I had to resort to uninstalling/reinstalling TVH and start all over again to resolve this.

My question at this stage is there a recent Debian package available I can use to install TVH. My previous version of TVH on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS was 4.2.28. With some research I've come across this version from Michael Marley listed as TVH 4.2.3 https://launchpad.net/~mamarley/+archive/ubuntu/tvheadend-git I'm a little confused with these different sources and the versioning numbers used. I've never really had any luck building TVH so I'd prefer to use a Debian package that has been recently maintained.

Jonas Lang

Meant to add I’m using a dedicated x64 PC. Docker and VM solutions don’t interest. This would be just a straightforward TVH install.

Saen Acro

https://tvheadend.org/d/4492-manual-building-deb-packages-on-clean-ubuntu-or-other-debian-distros all you need is to read...

Jonas Lang

Thank you for your response.

I did read the 46 posts and it didn’t instil much confidence in my ability to succeed in building it. By the looks of the amount of different members replying it doesn’t look like many others have tried it either.

Maybe my question should read....does any forum member have a particular PPA they could recommend to add as a source for installing TVH on Ubuntu 22.04. It appears from researching again that Michael Marley’s PPA will offer TVH 4.3 for Ubuntu 22.04. If other members have used this PPA what have your experiences been so far. Does any other PPA offer a similarly maintained version.

Saen Acro

PPA have hard limitations, no GPU acceleration's for example.

Jonas Lang

Ok. If I’m reading this correctly and in my case I’m trying to pass a DVBS transport stream from the TVH backend server to a frontend client (Kodi for example). Surely the GPU hardware acceleration requirement can be dealt with by the client. Would I need GPU hardware acceleration at the server end.

Saen Acro

Jonas Lang wrote:

> Ok. If I’m reading this correctly and in my case I’m trying to pass a DVBS transport stream from the TVH backend server to a frontend client (Kodi for example). Surely the GPU hardware acceleration requirement can be dealt with by the client. Would I need GPU hardware acceleration at the server end.

For transcoding yes.

Jonas Lang

I see.

Up to now, prior to migration to Ubuntu 22.04 adding the PPA and installing TVH from that source it was more than capable of serving a .ts to a Kodi frontend and I allowed the Kodi frontend handle the GPU hardware acceleration side of things. Obviously I was doing something wrong for the last 14 years.

Clearly the Snap packaging side of things has thrown a spanner in the works so I’d be happy enough to add a reliable PPA and install TVH from that source.

Believe me I’ve built enough from source successfully in the past but looking at that post you linked to for build instructions stretching back over 5 years and 46 posts later it doesn’t fill me with much confidence. There’s nothing worse when a build goes wrong and your OS is filled with unwanted artefacts.

Once again thanks for your input. There doesn’t appear to be many others active on the forum judging by the level of responses though.

Jonas Lang

Just quoting a section from your final post on that build link your referenced

“I agree that there is need systematized build script,
with will solve dependencies and ask about enabled/disabled features.

no matter OS architecture”

Do you feel confident that anyone reading this entire post will successfully build from source. Bearing in mind it stretches back five years. Would it be possible to supply a simple list of copy/paste instructions for an AMD64 build reflecting where TVH is at in 2022.

Jonas Lang

I’ve also come across this post. You asked the OP if it worked and to be honest it’s difficult to see if it did from his response. You can see my difficulty proceeding with the build instructions https://tvheadend.org/d/6934-vaapi-transcoding-problem-am-i-using-wrong-version?r=39669

Saen Acro

And in with step is so hard
step zero "prepare for do it"

Jonas Lang

And in with step is so hard

step zero "prepare for do it"

I’m sorry but I have no idea what you mean. It’s sounds cryptic. Are you putting your replies through a translator.

Jonas Lang

Just to come back to my original question with a working solution.I removed the Snap Store version of TVH and installed the Michael Marley PPA found here.

https://launchpad.net/~mamarley/+archive/ubuntu/tvheadend-git

This version is 4.3.0 and is definitely working a lot more smoothly.It's got a few extras not found in the 4.2.x version. It's quite easily installed by adding the Michael Marley PPA,

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mamarley/tvheadend-git

sudo apt update

You can then install TVH with the following command

sudo apt install tvheadend

Please bear in mind I am running this on an amd64 version of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS with a Kodi frontend and would definitely recommend it.It's had 8 updates in the last month so at least this PPA appears to be active.

Andrew Lo

Thanks for this relatively up-to-date solution. The push towards snap packages is confusing to me. Hopefully the community will complain loudly enough that Canonical will give up on the idea. Yes it makes application management harder, but that's the nature of open-source.

Jonas Lang

Since that post I’ve built TVH for my own platform. Definitely a much smoother experience all round. I put together these simple copy/paste instructions to achieve this https://tvheadend.org/d/8133-tvheadend-build-and-install-on-ubuntu-22-04-64-bit-x86_64-platform-for-beginners

Flole

Please don't use unofficial/modified builds, you'll basically lose the ability to file bug reports here. Use official builds, those are located at https://cloudsmith.io/~tvheadend/repos/tvheadend/packages/ for a whole bunch of distributions and architectures. There are even instructions on how to install that repository.

Saen Acro

Flole Systems wrote:

> Please don't use unofficial/modified builds, you'll basically lose the ability to file bug reports here. Use official builds, those are located at https://cloudsmith.io/~tvheadend/repos/tvheadend/packages/ for a whole bunch of distributions and architectures. There are even instructions on how to install that repository.

https://tvheadend.org/projects/tvheadend/wiki/AptRepositories#Flole-Systems-repository-on-cloudsmithio

Flole

This basically replaces the old apt.tvheadend.org repository, I'll update the Wiki and other installation instructions soon once I'm absolutely sure it works properly. At this point it's already superior to the doozer/apt.tvheadend.org repo as it provides more architectures and OS versions.

Jonas Lang

Assuming that all the original contributors have moved on by now are you taking over the administrative responsibilities for the TVH project. It would be nice to have this as centralised as possible along the lines you are proceeding now.

Flole

I'm just moving the repository to a different server/service, that's all. The buildsystem has been migrated from doozer aswell and now GitHub is doing the builds. There were some issues in the past with doozer and the current repo that were super difficult to fix as nobody seemed to have access.