Install Tvheadend on Ubuntu 14.04

xingkong

I have an N3160 x86_64 device running Ubuntu 14.04.
It is equipped with a TBS6902 TV tuner card, and the TBS drivers are already installed.

I have tried installing Tvheadend many times without success.
Would any expert please help me? Thank you very much.

davep

Your OS is 12 years old so there may be issues with software versions. Can you explain what you have tried and what the results were?

xingkong

davep Ive
tried installing tvheadend using unofficial PPA packages, compiling it from source code, or
installing it via Docker— all attempts failed.

xingkong

davep root@ubuntu:~# dpkg -i /tmp/tvheadend_0.0.0-unknown_noble_amd64.deb
dpkg: error processing archive /tmp/tvheadend_0.0.0-unknown_noble_amd64.deb (--install):
package architecture (amd64) does not match system (i386)
Errors were encountered while processing:
/tmp/tvheadend_0.0.0-unknown_noble_amd64.deb
root@ubuntu:~# uname -m
i686
root@ubuntu:~# dpkg --print-architecture
i386
root@ubuntu:~# uname -m
i686
root@ubuntu:~# dpkg --print-architecture
i386
root@ubuntu:~# lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 14.04.6 LTS
Release: 14.04
Codename: trusty

davep

xingkong We need to see what commands you typed and what the output was. Instructions for compiling are at tvheadend/tvheadendblob/master/README.md

davep

xingkong Although your N3160 processor is a 64-bit device you are running a 32-bit version of Ubuntu - the output of uname -m should be x86_64 for a 64-bit OS. You should be able to compile Tvheadend on your system if you have development tools installed.

xingkong

Failed to compile the source code on Ubuntu 14.04. Below is the output result.

amcxm@ubuntu:~/tvheadend-4.2.8$ ./configure --enable-dvb --enable-linuxdvb --enable-dvbcsa --disable-libav --nowerror
Checking support/features
checking for cc execinfo.h ... ok
checking for cc -mmmx ... ok
checking for cc -msse2 ... ok
checking for cc -Wunused-result ... ok
checking for cc strlcat ... fail
checking for cc strlcpy ... fail
checking for cc fdatasync ... ok
checking for cc getloadavg ... ok
checking for cc atomic32 ... ok
checking for cc atomic64 ... ok
checking for cc atomic_time_t ... ok
checking for cc bitops64 ... ok
checking for cc lockowner ... ok
checking for cc qsort_r ... ok
checking for cc stime ... ok
checking for cc gmtoff ... ok
checking for cc recvmmsg ... ok
checking for cc sendmmsg ... ok
checking for cc libiconv ... fail
^ using build-in glibc iconv routines
checking for cc libdvben50221 ... ok
checking for cc ifnames ... ok
checking for py module gzip ... ok
checking for pkg-config ... ok
checking for xgettext ... ok
checking for msgmerge ... ok
checking for gzip ... ok
checking for bzip2 ... ok
checking for pkg openssl ... ok (detected 1.0.1f)
checking for cc linux/dvb/version.h ... ok
checking for pkg zlib ... ok (detected 1.2.8)
checking for pkg liburiparser ... ok (detected 0.7.5)
checking for pkg avahi-client ... ok (detected 0.6.31)
checking for cmake ... ok
checking for cc -lstdc++ ... ok
checking for cc sys/inotify.h ... ok
checking for cc inotify_init1 ... ok
checking for cc dvbcsa/dvbcsa.h ... fail
ERROR: Failed to find dvbcsa support (use --disable-dvbcsa)
amcxm@ubuntu:~/tvheadend-4.2.8$

davep

xingkong Firstly you are installing an extremely old version of Tvheadend which is now unsupported. However there are two possible fixes for the error:

Change the --enable-dvbcsa in the configure script to --disable-dvbcsa
Install the missing header file, which may be in package "libdvbcsa-dev"

The install script stops at the first error so there may be more to come.

xingkong

amcxm@ubuntu:~/tvheadend-4.2.8$ make -j2
make -f Makefile.ffmpeg libcacheget
make[1]: Entering directory /home/amcxm/tvheadend-4.2.8' DOWNLOAD misc/staticlib/Ubuntu 14.04/i686/ffmpeg-35b6d1450b81c0122c297d5ce3e5af025abe9906.tgz / kZ54ee7ZUvsSYmb9VGSpnmoVzcAUhpBXLq8k Traceback (most recent call last): File "/home/amcxm/tvheadend-4.2.8/support/pcloud.py", line 424, in <module> main(sys.argv) File "/home/amcxm/tvheadend-4.2.8/support/pcloud.py", line 419, in main globals()[cmd](*argv[2:]) File "/home/amcxm/tvheadend-4.2.8/support/pcloud.py", line 357, in do_publink_download resp = session.get('https://my.pcloud.com/publink/show?code=%s' % args[0], timeout=30, verify=PCLOUD_CA_CERTS) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/requests/sessions.py", line 479, in get return self.request('GET', url, **kwargs) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/requests/sessions.py", line 467, in request resp = self.send(prep, **send_kwargs) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/requests/sessions.py", line 570, in send r = adapter.send(request, **kwargs) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/requests/adapters.py", line 378, in send raise ConnectionError(e) requests.exceptions.ConnectionError: HTTPSConnectionPool(host='my.pcloud.com', port=443): Max retries exceeded with url: /publink/show?code=kZ54ee7ZUvsSYmb9VGSpnmoVzcAUhpBXLq8k (Caused by <class 'socket.error'>: [Errno 111] Connection refused) FAILED TO DOWNLOAD (BUT THIS IS NOT A FATAL ERROR! DO NOT REPORT THAT!) make[1]: Leaving directory/home/amcxm/tvheadend-4.2.8'
make -f Makefile.ffmpeg build
make[1]: Entering directory /home/amcxm/tvheadend-4.2.8' WGET https://www.nasm.us/pub/nasm/releasebuilds/2.13.03/nasm-2.13.03.tar.gz WGET http://ftp.videolan.org/x264/snapshots/x264-snapshot-20180906-2245.tar.bz2 2026-05-29 00:34:07 URL:http://ftp.videolan.org/x264/snapshots/x264-snapshot-20180906-2245.tar.bz2 [770102/770102] -> "/home/amcxm/tvheadend-4.2.8/build.linux/ffmpeg/x264-snapshot-20180906-2245.tar.bz2" [1] SHA1SUM test '454c3c96b7c6df19e36f09fffb2a25a60ec657ed' == '454c3c96b7c6df19e36f09fffb2a25a60ec657ed': OK UNTAR x264-snapshot-20180906-2245.tar.bz2 WGET http://ftp.videolan.org/videolan/x265/x265_2.8.tar.gz 2026-05-29 00:34:26 URL:https://www.nasm.us/pub/nasm/releasebuilds/2.13.03/nasm-2.13.03.tar.gz [1222364/1222364] -> "/home/amcxm/tvheadend-4.2.8/build.linux/ffmpeg/nasm-2.13.03.tar.gz" [1] SHA1SUM test 'fa15c35b6003518d8165ab507f31af5d3938e91f' == 'fa15c35b6003518d8165ab507f31af5d3938e91f': OK UNTAR nasm-2.13.03.tar.gz PATCH /home/amcxm/tvheadend-4.2.8/support/patches/remove-invalid-pure_func-qualifiers.diff patching file include/nasmlib.h WGET https://github.com/webmproject/libvpx/archive/v1.7.0/libvpx-1.7.0.tar.gz 2026-05-29 00:35:31 URL:http://ftp.videolan.org/videolan/x265/x265_2.8.tar.gz [1379551/1379551] -> "/home/amcxm/tvheadend-4.2.8/build.linux/ffmpeg/x265_2.8.tar.gz" [1] SHA1SUM test 'e2ef1ad186d9581239463d4e5177a25bc57b9fc0' == 'e2ef1ad186d9581239463d4e5177a25bc57b9fc0': OK UNTAR x265_2.8.tar.gz PATCH /home/amcxm/tvheadend-4.2.8/support/patches/libx265.pie.diff patching file ./source/CMakeLists.txt Hunk #1 succeeded at 209 with fuzz 2 (offset 41 lines). Hunk #2 succeeded at 228 (offset 45 lines). WGET http://downloads.xiph.org/releases/ogg/libogg-1.3.3.tar.gz 2026-05-29 00:35:50 URL:https://codeload.github.com/webmproject/libvpx/tar.gz/refs/tags/v1.7.0 [2679797] -> "/home/amcxm/tvheadend-4.2.8/build.linux/ffmpeg/libvpx-1.7.0.tar.gz" [1] SHA1SUM test 'fb3d4b80596d1e3b1a7f53757d63e7d2b3eeb7c9' == 'fb3d4b80596d1e3b1a7f53757d63e7d2b3eeb7c9': OK UNTAR libvpx-1.7.0.tar.gz WGET http://downloads.xiph.org/releases/theora/libtheora-1.1.1.tar.gz 2026-05-29 00:35:54 URL:https://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/xiph/releases/ogg/libogg-1.3.3.tar.gz [579853/579853] -> "/home/amcxm/tvheadend-4.2.8/build.linux/ffmpeg/libogg-1.3.3.tar.gz" [1] SHA1SUM test '28ba40fd2e2d41988f658a0016fa7b534e509bc0' == '28ba40fd2e2d41988f658a0016fa7b534e509bc0': OK UNTAR libogg-1.3.3.tar.gz WGET http://downloads.xiph.org/releases/vorbis/libvorbis-1.3.6.tar.gz 2026-05-29 00:37:09 URL:https://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/xiph/releases/vorbis/libvorbis-1.3.6.tar.gz [1634357/1634357] -> "/home/amcxm/tvheadend-4.2.8/build.linux/ffmpeg/libvorbis-1.3.6.tar.gz" [1] SHA1SUM test '91f140c220d1fe3376d637dc5f3d046263784b1f' == '91f140c220d1fe3376d637dc5f3d046263784b1f': OK UNTAR libvorbis-1.3.6.tar.gz WGET https://freefr.dl.sourceforge.net/project/opencore-amr/fdk-aac/fdk-aac-0.1.4.tar.gz ERROR: cannot verify freefr.dl.sourceforge.net's certificate, issued by ‘/C=US/O=Let's Encrypt/CN=R13’: Issued certificate has expired. To connect to freefr.dl.sourceforge.net insecurely, use--no-check-certificate'.
make[1]: *** [/home/amcxm/tvheadend-4.2.8/build.linux/ffmpeg/fdk-aac-0.1.4/.tvh_download] Error 5
make[1]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
2026-05-29 00:37:44 URL:https://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/xiph/releases/theora/libtheora-1.1.1.tar.gz [2111877/2111877] -> "/home/amcxm/tvheadend-4.2.8/build.linux/ffmpeg/libtheora-1.1.1.tar.gz" [1]
SHA1SUM test '0b91be522746a29351a5ee592fd8160940059303' == '0b91be522746a29351a5ee592fd8160940059303': OK
UNTAR libtheora-1.1.1.tar.gz
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/amcxm/tvheadend-4.2.8'
make: *** [/home/amcxm/tvheadend-4.2.8/build.linux/ffmpeg/build/ffmpeg/lib/libavcodec.a] Error 2

davep

xingkong Apologies I didn't realise that the project still builds for 32-bit Ubuntu Trusty. This link will get you the latest version:

https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/tvheadend/tvheadend/deb/ubuntu/pool/trusty/main/t/tv/tvheadend_4.3-2662~gf37b7b2~trusty/tvheadend_4.3-2662~gf37b7b2~trusty_i386.deb

Danny

I used debian, for some reason ubuntu didn't work for me, and I also used casaOS because it easier if you install tvheadend as a docker compose, or also casaOS has OSCAM and TVHEADEND available to be downloaded too. If you manage to install ubuntu, I bet you can also use chatgpt which for me is an excellent tool to make tvheadend and oscam run flawlessly