A while ago I ended up installing Debian 7 on an old MacMini (check out this post on the Debian Install and this one for the XMBC setup), and I decided to updated the OS and XBMC to Kodi.

Update to Debian 8

I ended following similar instructions as I did in the past (the steps are covered in this post). Create backups:

dpkg --get-selections "*" > /tmp/dpkg-jessie.txt
sudo tar cpvjf deb-jess.tar.bz2 /etc /var/lib/dpkg /var/lib/apt/extended_states /tmp/dpkg-jessie.txt

Check consistency of packages:

sudo  dpkg --audit

Check to make sure no packages are onhold

aptitude search "~ahold"

Update the apt repos

sudo sed -i "s/wheezy/jessie/" /etc/apt/sources.list

Now let’s update the apt repos cache

sudo apt-get update

Upgrade all the packages

sudo apt-get upgrade

Next let’s upgrade the system

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Then reboot and make sure it comes up okay

sudo reboot

After the reboot I removed unused packages

sudo apt-get autoremove --purge

Update XBMC to Kodi

I didn’t have much configured so I uninstalled xbmc completely

sudo service xbmc stop
sudo apt-get remove xbmc xbmc-bin --purge

Since I was planning on using systemd now, I also removed the init script:

elatov@deb:~$ sudo update-rc.d xbmc remove
elatov@deb:~$ sudo mv /etc/init.d/xbmc .

Now let’s install kodi, first we need to enable backports as desribed per this page. This is done by adding this line to the /etc/apt/sources.list file :

# jessie backports
deb http://http.debian.net/debian jessie-backports main

Then update the apt cache:

sudo apt-get update

Then we will see the kodi package:

elatov@deb:~$ apt-cache showpkg kodi | grep ^Versions -A 1
Versions:
15.2+dfsg1-1~bpo8+1 (/var/lib/apt/lists/http.debian.net_debian_dists_jessie-backports_main_binary-i386_Packages)

Now let’s install it:

sudo apt-get install kodi

Then remove old packages:

sudo apt-get autoremove --purge

Then create the systemd script, taken from here:

elatov@deb:~$ cat /etc/systemd/system/kodi.service
[Unit]
Description = Kodi Media Center

# if you don't need the MySQL DB backend, this should be sufficient
After = systemd-user-sessions.service network.target sound.target

# if you need the MySQL DB backend, use this block instead of the previous
# After = systemd-user-sessions.service network.target sound.target mysql.service
# Wants = mysql.service

[Service]
User = kodi
Group = kodi
Type = simple
#PAMName = login # you might want to try this one, did not work on all systems
ExecStart = /usr/bin/xinit /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session /usr/bin/kodi-standalone -- :0 -nolisten tcp vt7
Restart = on-abort
RestartSec = 5

[Install]
WantedBy = multi-user.target

I was missing the dbus-launch command and I installed it

sudo apt-get install dbus-x11

After that all the commands were all there:

elatov@deb:~$ which xinit
/usr/bin/xinit
elatov@deb:~$ which dbus-launch
/usr/bin/dbus-launch
elatov@deb:~$ which kodi-standalone
/usr/bin/kodi-standalone

Then make sure it works

sudo systemctl start kodi

And lastly enable it to start on boot

sudo systemctl enable kodi

To make sure everything is working as expected reboot one more time:

sudo reboot

Enable Wireless Connection With Systemd

Systemd provides another daemon which can take care of the a wireless connection. It’s called networkd, I ran into a couple of sites which had instructions on the setup:

Since we are using systemd, let’s try to configure wireless networking with it. First let’s create the wpa configuration

elatov@deb:~$ cat /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-wlan0.conf
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
eapol_version=1
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1

Then add your password info to it

root@deb:~# wpa_passphrase my_access_point pw >> /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-wlan0.conf

Then create the interface configuration:

elatov@deb:~$ cat /etc/systemd/network/wlan0.network
[Match]
Name=wlan0
[Network]
#DHCP=yes
DNS=192.168.1.1
Address=192.168.1.115/24
Gateway=192.168.1.1

Lastly let’s create a service for WPA per interface:

elatov@deb:~$ cat /lib/systemd/system/wpa_supplicant@.service
[Unit]
Description=WPA supplicant daemon (interface-specific version)
Requires=sys-subsystem-net-devices-%i.device
After=sys-subsystem-net-devices-%i.device

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/sbin/wpa_supplicant -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-%I.conf -i%I -Dwext

[Install]
Alias=multi-user.target.wants/wpa_supplicant@%i.service

Then let’s remove resolv.conf since that’s created by systemd:

elatov@deb:~$ sudo mv /etc/resolv.conf ~/.

Now let’s enable the appropriate services:

sudo systemctl enable systemd-networkd
sudo systemctl enable wpa_supplicant@wlan0
sudo systemctl enable systemd-resolved

Finally you can start up the services:

sudo systemctl start systemd-networkd
sudo systemctl start wpa_supplicant@wlan0
sudo systemctl start systemd-resolved

And now let’s create the symlink:

sudo ln -s /run/systemd/resolve/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf

Also let’s go ahead and setup NTP, first let’s disable RTC:

elatov@deb:~$ sudo timedatectl set-local-rtc 0

Next let’s enable NTP:

elatov@deb:~$ sudo timedatectl set-ntp 1

Lastly let’s confirm it’s working:

elatov@deb:~timedatectl status
      Local time: Sun 2016-02-14 10:25:00 MST
  Universal time: Sun 2016-02-14 17:25:00 UTC
        RTC time: Sun 2016-02-14 10:25:00
       Time zone: America/Denver (MST, -0700)
     NTP enabled: yes
NTP synchronized: yes
 RTC in local TZ: no
      DST active: no
 Last DST change: DST ended at
                  Sun 2015-11-01 01:59:59 MDT
                  Sun 2015-11-01 01:00:00 MST
 Next DST change: DST begins (the clock jumps one hour forward) at
                  Sun 2016-03-13 01:59:59 MST
                  Sun 2016-03-13 03:00:00 MDT

And also confirm your wireless nic is up:

elatov@deb:~$ ip link show wlan0
3: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP mode DORMANT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:17:f2:53:e0:59 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

And the IP assigned:

elatov@deb:~$ ip -4 a s wlan0
3: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP group default qlen 1000
    inet 192.168.1.115/24 brd 192.168.1.255 scope global wlan0
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

welatov@deb:~$ iwconfig wlan0
wlan0     IEEE 802.11abg  ESSID:"my_access_point"
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:5.26 GHz  Access Point: 78:24:AF:7B:1F:0C
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   Tx-Power=30 dBm
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=63/70  Signal level=-47 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:4   Missed beacon:0

If you had anything in the /etc/network/interfaces file, remove it by commenting it out.

I feel like the combination of Debian 8 and Kodi 15 on the Late 2006 MacMini added a bunch of stuttering to HD videos with higher qualities, so if you like the original setup, I would leave it and not update it.