[LIVE] HOW-TO install XBMC Live on Acer Aspire Revo - The Complete Guide for Newbies

[LIVE] HOW-TO install XBMC Live on Acer Aspire Revo - The Complete Guide for Newbies - Printable Version

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- Zarbis - 2009-12-15

Burninator Wrote:Is anyone using their Revo over a wireless network? How well does it stream video?

I understand wired out be ideal, but a cable from my PC to my TV would be a pain and ugly for my setup (condo and PC and TV do not share a wall). I suppose it could be done, but I would rather not have too if I can avoid it. But if wireless isn't going to cut it I would rather figure it out before hand. I will be buying a N router and the distance from my PC to my TV is about 15'. Thanks.

I'm using my Revo wich connected to my desktop through cheap and crapy TP-Link TP-WR541G. Peak download speed I've reached using it was 22mbits\sec, usually it's near 18-20mbits and its far enough for almost all HD comtent, excluding unriped BD images.
The only minor problem that you can experience is when you open a video file and seeking very much finding exact scene in film XBMC may start buffering REALLY much, preloading near 20-30 megabytes of video, it looks like XBMC thinks you got not enough wide bandwidth.
But if you just watch your movies without seeking and seeking and seeking i think you won't get any bandwidth bottleneks.

- Furner - 2009-12-16

Here is a quick tip for Revo owners.
Instead of making the massive factory restore disk, and I know most people dont even have a USB dvd burner, you can download the Windows 7 Home Premium ISOs directly from Microsoft. The reason the images are available is for the "741" promo for college students that Microsoft did. They wanted an additional charge to ship the disk, so their default option for that promo was download the ISO

Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit:
http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/X15-65733/X15-65733.iso
(right click, save as)

32 bit (not sure if 64 bit product keys will work with 32 bit windows, but you can try)
http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/X15-65732/X15-65732.iso

EDIT: I know the link says msvista, trust me this is windows 7. If you have a Win7 Home Premium factory disk, look at the product code in the very center of the disk, it will match the X15-xxxxx codes above.

- Burninator - 2009-12-16

/\ Is there anyway to transfer the copy of Windows 7 that comes with the Revo to a different PC? I want to follow this threads lead and load XBMC Live onto the Revo and it would be great to use Windows 7 on a different PC than have it go to waste. Thanks.

- Kevlarte - 2009-12-16

I have just one quick question... I have followed the steps from this tutorial and XBMC is up and running great on my new Acer. I'm just not sure how to ftp the new skins in. I tried to put the Aeon file in the usr>share>xbmc>skin and received several error and permission denied codes. So I went ahead and tried putting it in through home>xbmc>.xbmc>skin. That route seemed to work, or at least the file was now showing in the XBMC. But when i try to enable the skin it says that it was incompatible.. Please if you could help or direct me in the right location it would be greatly appreciated!

- khatarnaak - 2009-12-17

Ok, I'm not sure how many people this will help, but it would've helped me. I got it from this site, but I'll simplify it.

To get the Revo's WiFi (I have the R3600) working here's what I did:

1. Download PuTTy and log in into XBMC using your username and password, which you created during the install process.

2. Perform an update by typing

Code:
sudo apt-get update

and then

Code:
sudo apt-get upgrade

Now reboot by typing

Code:
sudo reboot

3. Because of the reboot, you may have to log PuTTy back in.

4. Once logged in, install the WLAN packages by typing

Code:
sudo apt-get install ntp wpasupplicant wireless-tools

Reboot again.

5. Next, you'll have to create an interface file. I'm going to deviate from the link I gave above, because to this day I still have no idea how to use PuTTy to get to save changes to a file.

Download WinSCP and log in as root. To be able to this, you have to give root a password. I did this by logging in as normal using PuTTy and then typing

Code:
sudo passwd

Make sure you don't forget this password!

Now, log in as root using WinSCP and navigate to /etc/network. There, you'll find a file called interfaces. Right-click this and select Edit and copy and paste the following:

Code:
# Used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8). See the interfaces(5) manpage or

# /usr/share/doc/ifupdown/examples for more information.

auto lo

iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0

iface eth0 inet dhcp

#iface eth0 inet static

#address 192.168.0.100

#netmask 255.255.255.0

#gateway 192.168.0.1

auto wlan0

iface wlan0 inet dhcp

pre-up wpa_supplicant -B -Dwext -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

post-down killall -q wpa_supplicant

Change the address and gateway to reflect your settings, of course! Now, select the icon at the top left and save the changes and exit the editor.

6. You'll now have to generate a hex password for your secured WiFi network. Using PuTTy, type the following:

Code:
wpa_passphrase your_essid your_ascii_key

So, suppose I had a secure WiFi network called Skynet and password terminator, I'd type:

Code:
wpa_passphrase Skynet terminator

This will give you a readout which looks something like this:

Code:
network={

ssid="Skynet"

#psk="terminator"

psk=fe727aa8b64ac9b3f54c72432da14faed933ea511ecab1 5bbc6c52e7522f709a

}

Copy this into a text file exactly as you see it, because you'll need the hex psk.

7. Create a new text file on your desktop and type in the following:

Code:
ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant

ap_scan=1

network={

ssid="Skynet"

proto=WPA RSN

key_mgmt=WPA-PSK

pairwise=CCMP TKIP

group=CCMP TKIP

#psk="terminator"

psk=fe727aa8b64ac9b3f54c72432da14faed933ea511ecab1 5bbc6c52e7522f709a

}

Of course, where I wrote Skynet, terminator and my hex key, change them to reflect your own ones! Now save this.

Using WinSCP (logged in as root), copy this text file to /etc and rename it to wpa_supplicant.conf

8. Using PuTTy, type:

Code:
sudo wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -Dwext -dd

to confirm your WLAN is working.

Hit CTRL-C to quit wpa_supplicant and reboot.

That's it, folks! Worked like a charm for me!

By the way, I had to run the following command to get samba network sharing to work again:

Code:
sudo apt-get install samba

I hope this helps. FWIW, prior to this, I've had zero linux/terminal experience, so if you run into problems, I won't be able to help Sad

I don't even know what all the commands are, but they worked for me!

- Grippen - 2009-12-17

Hello guys I've been using the Revo for 3 months now or more. My primary goal was to view HD content which I can do without any problems. However I also shared in my network some old divx and xvid content. Some movies others cartoons.

I do not know why some of them I just can't seem to watch them properly. Either you get delays or the stream is constantly jumping. If I check the CPU performance I notice that it is always with almost 100% usage and several frames are dropped. I should rephrase that this doesn't happen in all the movies. I managed to watch some without major problems and CPU usage around 40 to 60% but some or many have this problem.

Another weird issue is that a few months ago for a movie this wasn't happening and now it is doing this. My guess is somewhere along the way the codecs used by the XBMC player do not do a very good job in some movies. I do have a single core Revo but I think that should be more then enough to SD divx content. Just one more tip when this behavior started for example if I started from the beginning the same movie this problem would disapeer.

After a while I simply quited because I've been replacing most of the SD movies by HD but still some I can't find and the cartoons series is even worse. I was using previous versions of XBMC and right now I'm with the beta 9.11 and still have this. Anyone experiencing the same problem?

Single core users only please using XBMC live! Big Grin

because I'm sure that even if this happens in the dual core somehow the bigger capacity of the processor e overcoming this and windows users might now experience this

Thanks

mini pci-e not functional? - cliffwells - 2009-12-17

I've tried two different (known working) Intel 802.11g cards in two different R1600's without success. Neither Windows nor Linux (lspci) could see them.

Has anyone successfully installed a card into the mini pci-e slot?

It's starting to appear that the slot is disabled or Acer has really poor QA.

- TiredOldMan - 2009-12-18

cliffwells Wrote:I've tried two different (known working) Intel 802.11g cards in two different R1600's without success. Neither Windows nor Linux (lspci) could see them.

Has anyone successfully installed a card into the mini pci-e slot?

It's starting to appear that the slot is disabled or Acer has really poor QA.

When you installed your wifi card did your system have antenna wires to connect to the wifi card? Mine did not. Apparently, some/all the R1600 units sold in the US did not come configured so wifi could work.

I sent a note to acer earlier today asking about a source for the missing parts - no reply yet.

- schneidz - 2009-12-18

i got a zotac ion board and tired an intel mini-pci-e card in it.
i found out the hard way that the mini-pci-e port on the ion boards are disabled in the bios to not let any card except the one they allow to be plugged into the port ( a waste of about 30 bucks)

- cliffwells - 2009-12-18

TiredOldMan Wrote:When you installed your wifi card did your system have antenna wires to connect to the wifi card? Mine did not. Apparently, some/all the R1600 units sold in the US did not come configured so wifi could work.

I sent a note to acer earlier today asking about a source for the missing parts - no reply yet.

I just pulled a couple from an old laptop I had lying around. Worst case scenario you can get some from eBay for a couple bucks.

- cliffwells - 2009-12-18

schneidz Wrote:i got a zotac ion board and tired an intel mini-pci-e card in it.
i found out the hard way that the mini-pci-e port on the ion boards are disabled in the bios to not let any card except the one they allow to be plugged into the port ( a waste of about 30 bucks)

Any idea of what particular card they support? And how did you confirm that the port isn't simply completely non-functional?

- Qooop - 2009-12-19

I installed the PRC 1 today and was sad to see the major stuttering back in full force. Not sure if I did anything wrong but it is really messed up.

- TiredOldMan - 2009-12-19

cliffwells Wrote:I just pulled a couple from an old laptop I had lying around. Worst case scenario you can get some from eBay for a couple bucks.

I did get several replies from Acer support. They kept sending me to sites, there and others that had stuff like batteries and power adapters for laptops. I am not sure I ever got the point across about what I was looking for.

I noticed that even on the Acer sites there is no mention of either model of the Aspire Revo systems.

I took your suggestion and ordered a set of Aspire wifi antenna from e-bay. $12.95USD including shipping.

- ltnthacker - 2009-12-19

Qooop Wrote:Anyone notice the "hidden" USB port under the power switch. after opening the unit I saw it I't covered with a little rubber port cover. It doesn't seem to work though.

Yes, plugged in an 8gb USB w/ XBMC Live; Works fine for me (AR1600 1G Ram) Big Grin

Eventually I want to mount the Acer to the back of my TV and ust that USB Port for a wireless USB dongle.

- ltnthacker - 2009-12-19

Hi I'm a newb when it comes to XBMC and feel the need to ask these questions even after reading the posts.

I'm running XBMC LIVE off an 8gb usb stick. It is plugged into an Acer Revo 1600 with Win XP on the HD and 1GB Ram. I've been watching HD vid (except mkv) w/o an issue from an external hard drive. My questions are as follows;

1) Since I don't have Cat5 near my Revo, can anyone explain how I can get my wireless-N USB adabter to work via XBMC. (Netgear Rangemax wireless-N USB 2.0 Adapter)

2) When I play music from the same ext HD as the videos, the audio sounds like it is running fast. Any ideas why and how I can tweak this?

Solved: Change "hdmi" setting to "plug:hdmi"

3) Where can I learn more on writing/editing code for XBMC Live. I've never dabbled in linux. i.e where can I get a better understanding of where to past code, what is "putty" etc. When people post code, is this the same as creating a .txt doc and pasting it in a file, or something else?

4) Finally, Does XBMC have it's own media search program? e.g. I've used Azerus to DL torrents from the net. Is there similar functionality in XBMC?

TIA for the education and help.