Bug#857309: kodi: 'kodi' user does not exist

[Moritz Schmidt]

Hi Balint,

thanks for your reply!

On 13.03.2017 20:36, Bálint Réczey wrote:
> Control: severity -1 wishlist
> Control: tags -1 confirmed
>
> Hi Moritz,
>
> 2017-03-09 21:55 GMT+01:00 Moritz Schmidt <moritz+debian at mmnx.de>:
>> Package: kodi
>> Version: 2:17.0+dfsg1-3
>> Severity: important
>>
>> Dear maintainer,
>>
>> I installed the kodi package on a fresh installed debian testing and enabled the kodi systemd-service which should start kodi in standalone mode.
>> The service file (/lib/systemd/system/kodi.service) is configured to run as 'kodi' user, but this user doesn't exist after installation.
>> I think automatically adding the user when using him would make sense.
> It would make sense if every installation used the kodi user, but
> there are many people who start kodi from their normal session or set
> up automatic logging in in the display manager to start kodi [1].
>
> I was thinking about adding a debconf question about adding the kodi
> user and enabling  the standalone mode during package configuration
> but this is about the same amount of added complexity as the current
> manual addition of the kodi user.
>
> I think if someone sets up a system for kodi only the first added user
> is usually the user which runs kodi anyway.

Yeah, a debconf question would be wonderful! I think that many prefer to 
just hit yes instead of setting it up on your own with all the hassle, 
but maybe I'm just lazy.

> AFAIK the kodi-systemd-service way is preferred on constrained systems
> where running even lightdm would waste too much memory,
> but I have just found nodm [2] which could also help here.

If you don't have to - why would you want to use a DM? The 
kodi-systemd-service starts kodi via xinit so why would you need that on 
a standalone-system?

>> After adding the user everything works as expected.
> Great!
>
> I will consider adding the debconf question and creating the kodi
> user, but not by default.
>> Thanks for your work and have a nice day,
>> Moritz Schmidt
> Thanks!
>
> Cheers,
> Balint
>
> [1] http://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Autostart_Kodi_for_Linux
> [2] https://packages.qa.debian.org/n/nodm.html


Thanks again for your time and effort,
Moritz