Hi,
Sorry for the late reply.
As you’re on Ubuntu 16.04, my suggestions are similar to the topic here: OSMC remote mapping on KodiBuntu.
This won’t require any further changes.
There will be an OSMC release for PC in the future as well, which will provide a better experience than Kodi on Ubuntu.
With the latest remote, we have aimed for very close compatibility with Kodi on all platforms (Windows, Mac and Linux) out of the box.
Sam