Use a remote without LIRC

[mikecar]

I found the answer myself, and it is a beut!

kodi contains some (dangerous IMHO) code to "auto-detect" linux input devices, and decide whay to do with them. Apparently, a device is considered a "keyboard" if it can generate AT LEAST 20 ascii characters. In my case, the remote DOES simulate a keyboard, but not completely. Therefore, kodi decides to ignore it.

The workaround is this : when setting up the kernel keymap for an input device that generates keyboard events, add some "dummy" scancodes, to get the number of possible key events to be >20! silly, but works! and, since the remote will never actually send those scancodes, the workaround should not hurt...

One last note : keep the scancodes <255, and preferrably < 127, as kodi has these limits hard-wired