Raspberry Pi 3 Media Center with LibreELEC, Kodi and Moonlight

Goal

The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B v1.2 will be used as a TV-connected media center and streaming receiver.

Features:

Direct boot into LibreELEC
Media playback on TV
USB remote control support
Screen streaming from Mac and Linux PCs in 1080p
Moonlight as streaming client
Sunshine on Mac/Linux as streaming server

Architecture

Mac / Linux PC
  -> Sunshine
   -> WLAN / LAN
    -> Raspberry Pi 3 with LibreELEC + Moonlight
     -> HDMI ORION TV

Hardware

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B v1.2
MicroSD card 32 GB (Samsung)
Raspberry Pi power supply(maybe USB from TV)
HDMI cable
ORION TV HDMI input 2
USB remote control with USB receiver
Optional: Ethernet cable for more stable streaming

Software

LibreELEC download link no moonlight :(
Raspberry Pi OS downloads link
Kodi??
Moonlight add-on for LibreELEC/Kodi is no linger maintained
Workaround is to install Moonlight via apt on PI OS
Sunshine on Mac and Linux PCs

Important: Sunshine <link> runs on the sending device as the streaming server. Moonlight runs on the Raspberry Pi as the streaming client.

Preparation

Step 1: Download & Prepare LibreELEC

diskutil list

/dev/disk4 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *32.0 GB    disk4
   1:             Windows_FAT_32 bootfs                  536.9 MB   disk4s1
   2:                      Linux                         31.5 GB    disk4s2

❯ diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk4
Unmount of all volumes on disk4 was successful
❯ cd Downloads
❯ gzip -dc LibreELEC-RPi2.arm-12.2.1.img.gz | sudo dd of=/dev/rdisk4 bs=4m status=progress
Password:
  570425344 bytes (570 MB, 544 MiB) transferred 44.265s, 13 MB/s
0+17425 records in
137+1 records out
575668224 bytes transferred in 44.859535 secs (12832684 bytes/sec)
❯ sync
❯ diskutil eject /dev/disk4
Disk /dev/disk4 ejected

Step 2: Boot the Raspberry Pi

Insert the MicroSD card into the Raspberry Pi
Connect HDMI to the TV
Plug in the USB receiver of the remote control
Connect power supply
Boot the Raspberry Pi

During first startup:

Select language
Configure hostname, e.g. libreelec-on-orion-tv
Configure WLAN

Step 3: Verify Network

In LibreELEC:

Settings

  -> LibreELEC

  -> Connections

Step 4: Connect and install plugins..

go to the setting gear in the Kodi menu: choose LibreELEC > Services > SSH > Set SSH Passwort and Enable SSH

connect

ssh -o PubkeyAuthentication=no -o PreferredAuthentications=password root@<ip>

<ip> is visible ein the setting gear in the Kodi menu System info and then IP address

libreelec-on-orion-tv:~ # which moonlight
libreelec-on-orion-tv:~ # uname -a
Linux libreelec-on-orion-tv 6.12.56 #1 SMP Sat Nov  1 10:10:05 UTC 2025 armv7l GNU/Linux
libreelec-on-orion-tv:~ # cat /etc/os-release
NAME="LibreELEC"
VERSION="12.2.1"
ID="libreelec"
VERSION_ID="12.2"
PRETTY_NAME="LibreELEC (official): 12.2.1"
HOME_URL="https://libreelec.tv"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://github.com/LibreELEC/LibreELEC.tv"
BUILD_ID="6209f5a3b067c45fbf527286dd84ee483294b46a"
LIBREELEC_ARCH="RPi2.arm"
LIBREELEC_BUILD="official"
LIBREELEC_PROJECT="RPi"
LIBREELEC_DEVICE="RPi2"

libreelec-on-orion-tv:~ # ping github.com
PING github.com (140.82.112.4): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 140.82.112.4: seq=0 ttl=50 time=139.797 ms
64 bytes from 140.82.112.4: seq=1 ttl=50 time=122.406 ms
64 bytes from 140.82.112.4: seq=2 ttl=50 time=129.423 ms
^C
--- github.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 122.406/130.542/139.797 ms
libreelec-on-orion-tv:~ #
libreelec-on-orion-tv:~ # which wget
/usr/bin/wget

dl the latest Moonlight version from: https://github.com/moonlight-stream/moonlight-embedded/releases

https://github.com/moonlight-stream/moonlight-embedded/releases/tag/v2.7.1

libreelec-on-orion-tv:~ # wget https://github.com/moonlight-stream/moonlight-embedded/releases/download/v2.7.1/moonlight-embedded-2.7.1.tar.xz
Connecting to github.com (140.82.112.3:443)
Connecting to release-assets.githubusercontent.com (185.199.108.133:443)
saving to 'moonlight-embedded-2.7.1.tar.xz'
moonlight-embedded-2 100% |**************************************************************************************************************|  334k  0:00:00 ETA
'moonlight-embedded-2.7.1.tar.xz' saved
libreelec-on-orion-tv:~ # tar -xf moonlight-embedded-2.7.1.tar.xz

libreelec-on-orion-tv:~ # ls
CMakeLists.txt                   moonlight-embedded-2.7.1.tar.xz
LICENSE                          moonlight.conf
README.md                        music
backup                           picons
cmake                            pictures
docs                             recordings
downloads                        screenshots
emulators                        src
libgamestream                    third_party
logfiles                         tvshows
lost+found                       videos

Reinstall OS:

❯ xzcat 2026-04-21-raspios-trixie-arm64.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/rdisk4 bs=4m status=progress
Password:
  6501171200 bytes (6501 MB, 6200 MiB) transferred 201.184s, 32 MB/s
0+158460 records in
1550+0 records out
6501171200 bytes transferred in 201.193332 secs (32313055 bytes/sec)
❯ sync
❯ diskutil eject /dev/disk4

Setup Pi OS then: user afra PW:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install kodi moonlight-qt -y

Inhaltsverzeichnis