SichboPVR for Linux

SichboPVR is available on a few x64 Debian variants. Additional distributions and architectures can be added if there's enough demand.

These are pre-release builds but you're welcome to kick the tyres on them. Stable repositories are set up but no stable builds exist yet — keep an eye out for stable releases in the future. Linux binaries are built from the same code as Windows, but my platform abstraction layer isn't at feature parity yet.

Current limitations:

Minimum system requirements:

The client (sichbopvr4)
A GPU that supports OpenGL 3.3 and VAAPI hardware decoding, 1GB video memory, 1GB RAM.

The server (sichbopvr4-service)
Pretty much any PC or VPS/VM instance — it uses very few resources.

How to install.

  1. Add the Sichbo Interactive public key.
    wget -qO- https://sichbopvr.com/releases/sichbointeractive.asc | gpg --dearmor > sichbointeractive.gpg
sudo install -D -o root -g root -m 644 sichbointeractive.gpg /etc/apt/keyrings/sichbointeractive.gpg
rm -f sichbointeractive.gpg
  2. Add the SichboPVR apt repository.
     
     

    Ubuntu

    Mint, Elementary, et al — Mint is reportedly the most stable variant for running SichboPVR.

    Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble)

    sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/sichbointeractive.gpg] https://sichbopvr.com/releases/ubuntu-24.04/test noble main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sichbopvr-test.list'

    Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy)

    sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/sichbointeractive.gpg] https://sichbopvr.com/releases/ubuntu-22.04/test jammy main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sichbopvr-test.list'

    Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal)

    sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/sichbointeractive.gpg] https://sichbopvr.com/releases/ubuntu-20.04/test focal main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sichbopvr-test.list'

    Debian

    (MX 23, et al)

    Debian 12 (Bookworm)

    sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/sichbointeractive.gpg] https://sichbopvr.com/releases/debian-12/test bookworm main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sichbopvr-test.list'
  3. Do the usual...
    sudo apt update && sudo apt install sichbopvr

Graphical setup.

The experience is identical to Windows. SichboPVR will be added to your programs menu. Just run it and it'll start the background service and scan in channels. You can also configure it to install as a daemon under Setup > Local TV Server.

Command line setup.

For a server setup over SSH, run:

sichbopvr4-service -configure

By default SichboPVR is locked down to localhost and only works with a SichboPVR GUI running on the same machine. The interactive server "-configure" mode will let you easily change the network settings so that it accepts connections from the internet and also set an initial admin password (a user/password is always required for remote connections.) Once set, use a SichboPVR client on Windows or an X11 Linux machine to finish configuring the server.

General Linux nonsense...

Display drivers. They're generally horrible.

The SichboPVR UI can't function at all or will function unreliably in the following configurations:

Disable/blacklist the Nouveau nvidia driver.

$ sudo bash -c "echo blacklist nouveau > /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nvidia-nouveau.conf"
$ sudo bash -c "echo options nouveau modeset=0 >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nvidia-nouveau.conf"
$ sudo update-initramfs -u
$ sudo reboot

Tuner drivers.

Avermedia TD-310

$ sudo modprobe dvb-usb-af9035
$ cd /lib/firmware/
$ sudo wget https://github.com/OpenELEC/dvb-firmware/raw/master/firmware/dvb-demod-si2168-02.fw https://github.com/OpenELEC/dvb-firmware/raw/master/firmware/dvb-usb-it9303-01.fw https://github.com/OpenELEC/dvb-firmware/raw/master/firmware/dvb-demod-si2168-b40-01.fw

Insert the tuner
$ dmesg

Should say "'AVerMedia TD310 DVB-T2' successfully initialized and connected"

More notes to come, probably...