I put together this script.

On a pristine Ubuntu v24 system, it will:

  • Download all dependencies.
  • Download TVH source files.
  • Build the TVH application.
  • Install the TVH application.

It builds TVH inside your home directory in a subdirectory called 'tvh-build'.
It will install TVH components into '/usr/local/bin/tvheadend' and '/usr/local/share/tvheadend'.
You will be prompted for your password on multiple occasions.
You will still need to manually create a user or whatever and add TVH to systemd.
You will need to make sure that the firmware for your DTV hardware is installed.

It worked for me, on my test system and TVH was able to scan services and receive OTA EPG data. I did no further testing.

Use this script at you own risk. It took at least 30 minutes to build TVH on my system, your timing may differ. There is no warranty or guarantee of support expressed or implied whatsoever.

#!/bin/bash
cd ~
mkdir tvh-build
cd ~/tvh-build
sudo apt install build-essential git pkg-config libssl-dev bzip2 wget libavahi-client-dev zlib1g-dev libavcodec-dev libavutil-dev libavformat-dev libswscale-dev liburiparser-dev libbsd-dev gettext cmake libdvbcsa-dev python-is-python3
git clone https://github.com/tvheadend/tvheadend.git
cd tvheadend
./configure
make
sudo make install

Good luck.

blitz120 I looked extensively for a tvheadend team supported package for Kubuntu (or Ubuntu) and found nothing.

That's weird, there are packages for basically all recent and not-so-recent Ubuntu versions on cloudsmith. When clicking the download link at the top of the page there should be a link to that.

blitz120 if they have one, someone from the tvheadend team should submit a bug report, since they will know what the root issue is

That's not going to happen. Nobody is going to walk around and fix broken packages. There aren't even enough resources to maintain our own stuff, we can't start maintaining stuff from others. Maintainers sometime choose to do stupid stuff (like removing dependencies) that breaks things. There is no support for unofficial, modified builds. If they have a problem with their package and need help, they're more than welcome to ask for help.

        DeltaMikeCharlie

        I finally figured out how to add files (I had to walk the root file system to find where my media had been mounted), so I will be going with it.

        I could live with ssh short term (while I'm configuring), but once I deploy it I won't have ready access to ssh from another machine. I'm retiring my laptop, and my wife (who lives apart) doesn't have a PC to connect. I can try using an Android phone, but I expect that to be quite painful.

        Thanks for the encouragement.

          Flole

          Well, I don't see anything there that says they are or aren't supported. In any case there are just under 5000 packages on cloudsmith.io spanning numerous hardware and OS platforms; there is also no reasonable way to search this list, since only the last filter option is used. A good package may be there, but it's a veritable needle in a haystack.

          As far as walking around and fixing broken packages, well, if one finds a bug and has a proposed solution to outside software, it behooves them to pass that on to the relevant team. This then becomes a muilti-way reciprocal arrangement, resulting in less overall effort being spent addressing issues across all organizations.

          If it's connected to one's own software (e.g., some level integration), then one should ask questions about their own software, such as "How could my software better handle such problems in the future (solve them, capture contextual information surrounding the error, minimize any damage?" These are the sorts of things that good professional developers do to improve their work, which also increases efficiency.

          Now one thing which may have come out of this, if what @DeltaMikeCharlie is accurate, someone in the chain between tvheadend and snap has created an undifferentiated fork of the software. The Perl modules in question were invoked internal to tvheadend, not part of the packaging, and if Perl is not used in the supported tvheadend version, then the existence of the fork needs to be highlighted and addressed.

              blitz120 A good package may be there, but it's a veritable needle in a haystack.

              Which is why you follow the install instructions on that site and let the OS get the right package for you.

              blitz120 good professional developers

              And Tvheadend has no developers at the moment. If you find "good professional developers" (or even a single one) who want to contribute, please send them over. We'd also be happy with "average" or "non professional"/hobbyist developers though, so the bar isn't that high 🙂

              blitz120 then the existence of the fork needs to be highlighted and addressed.

              I have reached out to them in the past and told them to clearly state that their build is unofficial. They have done that and provided a way to report issues for their build. You've decided to ignore that and report the issue here, where nobody really cares as nobody wants to figure out what some maintainer of some package somewhere did. The right way would have been to follow the instructions and report it where they want such issues to be reported, and if they can reproduce it on a clean, official build (meaning: rule out it's their own issue) they can report it as a Tvheadend bug. (Edit: Nevermind, they're using some old Tvheadend 4.2 version which isn't supported anymore anyways)

                    blitz120 DaveH
                    Thanks; unfortunately, movian appears to be an alternative to kodi and simply uses tvheadend (which is why it showed up in the search, I suspect). It's possible that tvheadend is included, but the web page for it appears to be down.

                    So does that mean that it is the tvheadend snap you have tried to install? In which case why have you not followed its support instructions?

                      blitz120 you’re 27 years a software developer and you got a simple error like “Unable to locate package libavresample-dev". Seriously. A simple search immediately throws up a solution.

                      home-assistant/developers.home-assistant/issues/1353

                      I think you’re just wasting everyone’s time here trying to flex your grey matter cells. You’re personally tagging everyone in the hope you can drag them into some sort of long winded irrelevant technical discussion.

                      You’ve been told that Snap for TVH is not supported here but have continued to press in the hope that someone will give in and do all the hard work for you including simple searching which you clearly do not want to do.

                      That link I supplied with simple copy/paste instructions couldn’t be any simpler as the build process highlights solutions to any problems you may encounter during the build process.

                      Either way I’m out of this discussion and would appreciate that you didn’t tag me again in any further discussion. If others here want to indulge you any further that’s completely their choice.

                          Jonas Lang A simple search immediately throws up a solution.

                          home-assistant/developers.home-assistant/issues/1353

                          Just to note that the forum seems to have broken the link you were trying to provide 🙁

                          I expect you meant:
                          https://github.com/home-assistant/developers.home-assistant/issues/1353