Kodi Setup

So the above view is what we are going to strive to, but there are some initial  standard setup steps after installing Kodi before I get to that skin view.

After installing Kodi, and running for the first time, the individual is presented with the default skin called Estuary.  I'm not going to spend so much time on its appearance, as this skin will eventually be changed over to the Aeon Silva skin.  So first go to the top and select the little Gear icon, this brings you to the settings page.

Once here the first thing is to select "Services", then switch to Expert view (default is Basic view).

On this screen, I turn on basically all the controlling capabilities offered, Airplay support, and setup a weather addon.  I typically use Multi-Weather as it allows to pinpoint to my location, and if you have setup an account with OpenWeather, you can assign an API key to be able to access weather maps.  Note for Airplay support you will need to make sure Zeroconf is installed and turned on (under the General tab).  If Zeroconf isn't installed on the system, it can be download from Apples Bonjour file and print sharing app.

Back at the Main Setting screen, now select the Player icon.

There are a few setting that you can play with in here, but for this quick setup, I usually drop to Music, then select a 10 sec crossfade (check on Crossfade between songs...).  I also load either Milkdrop, or Milkdrop 2 for Visualisation.

Back at the Main setting screen, we now select the System icon.  There are a few settings here to play around with if required, but for the sake of this setup tutorial, select Add-ons, then turn on the Unknown Sources.

Again, back at the Main setting screen, now select File Manager.  This is where you setup the locations of your addon repositories.  I'm not going to explain how to use this, as most of the online addon tutorials all go through and explain how to add sources under the File Manager tab.

Once sources have been indicated, you can then select the Add-ons icon, click to download a repository from one of your sources, the install the repository, then install any particular addon.

The next step once back in the Main settings screen is to select the Interface icon.  This will open the screen where you can select to change the skin you use, but prior to that, scroll to Screensaver, and then change the Screensaver mode from the default "Dim" and select the screen saver of your choice.  I prefer Kaster, as it displays some stunning photos.

Kaster screen saver:

Now scroll back up to Skin, and select Skin to open a window to list additional availabe skins to download.  This is here where I select to use the Aeon Nox SiLVO skin, but there are others that one may rather use in their own setups, just select the Get More... button to choose.  Once the skin has been download, select Yes to confirm the change.

Now the only remaining things to configure are skin related.  Once back in the Settings screen, select Interface, scroll to Regional and select the country that you are in.  That will setup the default time format, and weather temperature format for the country.  Then back up to and select Skin, then over to  -Configure Skin... under the Skin selection.  This will allow to do personal touches to the individual skin to personalize it to your liking.  Eventually this is how I like to view it: