Update Dec/2022

With the release of lirc 0.10.2, we can use the devinput driver with no other customizations on both x86_64 (kodi-x11) and arm64 (kodi-gbm). The more expansive version (details for mythtv, mplayer, other) has been archived in streamzap/old for those interested.

Streamzap

Getting the Streamzap USB remote to work with Kodi under Linux is fairly straight forward. This repo contains instructions and files to allow operation with LIRC.

Setup LIRC

• Install lirc for your distro.
• Make sure that lirc is using the devinput driver which has been defaulted for a number of years now. Likely, your distro defines this in /etc/lirc/lirc_options.conf.
• Start lirc using your init system (systemd, openrc, upstart, etc.)
• Place kodi/Lircmap.xml into ~/kodi/userdata/
• Place kodi/remote.xml into ~/.kodi/userdata/keymaps/
• Note there does not appear to be a need to define a custom config in /etc/lirc/lircd.conf.d/ any more. Just use the package provided devinput.lircd.conf
• It should be noted that user can regenerate this file by calling lirc-make-devinput > /etc/lirc/lircd.conf.d/devinput.lircd.conf

Note that by default, lircd runs as root user. However, for increased stability and security, upstream recommends running it as an unprivileged user. See Appendix 14 and/or this Arch Wiki page for that setup. Arch users may build and install lirc-user-service to automatically configure this behavior.

Optional setup/custom script

• Optionally place kodi/audio_switch/audio_switch.py in ~/bin/ (note you likely need to edit the code to match your system, see the thread in the comments of the file).
• Optionally place the two suggested icons into ~ as shown in the script.

Supplemental info

Kodi upstream links

• keyboard.xml
• remote.xml
• List of built-in function