How to autostart Kodi at boot?

If you are running Raspbian 10 (based on Debian Buster), then the proper way to add it is to add @kodi to the file ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart which will automatically start it only for your user. If you add it to /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart then it will affect all users.

The Kodi Wiki suggests that you run the following:

sudo sed -i "1i @kodi" /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart

The sed -i "1i @kodi" part simply puts the @kodi line at the top of the file. Putting it at the top of the file may prevent the desktop from showing up for a brief second. Exiting Kodi will bring you to the desktop in either case.

You can find out which Raspbian version you are running with:

$ cat /etc/issue
Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 n l

Start by running

crontab -e

Then run

@reboot sudo -b -u pi kodi

To have it start automatically you just have to do

sudo systemctl enable kodi

and later if you want to remove it

sudo systemctl disable kodi

Aside from the answers already provided by others, you could also utilise the crontab to do this fairly easily provided that you have already disabled starting Raspbian GUI on startup via raspi-config.

sudo crontab -e

Then add the following line:

@reboot kodi --standalone

Thorough description on my blog post.

In my case to append "kodi &" at the end of "/etc/rc.local" does not work.

Neither the option of "ENABLED=1" into "/etc/default/kodi", because the file and the startup scripts does not exist.

I have tried to append the following instead that is working for me:

sudo -b -u pi kodi

By the way, if somebody knows how to set up it using a service, and respawn the service when it shut down for any reason, it could be very cool.

I am using raspbian as linux distribution.

Don't take this the wrong way but would OpenELEC be more suitable? If not, add it to /etc/rc.local just above the last line.

Kodi &

Something like that but you may need the full path.

For Raspbian GNU/Linux 9 (Stretch), the following is used to autostart kodi at boot:

1. Edit file /etc/default/kodi and set

   ENABLED=1

2. Unmask and enable the kodi systemd service:

   sudo systemctl unmask kodi.service

   sudo systemctl enable kodi.service