[MKobe]

Hello, I am new to this software. I googled a media center OS, and came across this. I have a number of movies and media files I'd like to share through the house, mainly on the large TVs. So I have this old dell laptop that I wanted to shove behind a TV somewhere and be able to have my media files right there. I downloaded the XBMCbunto as I don't care to have Windows or anything on this laptop. The laptop would exclusively be used for media purposes.

I ended up making a live bootable USB for the install. Everything said it was made correctly with LiLi. I plugged it into the laptop and it booted fine, to the boot screen. After that, any option I select just locks it up. I figured maybe it was a bad USB stick, so I tried another. Same result. So then I found a blank CD and tried that route. Same thing. I have noticed when I click "Install XBMCbunto" it looks like it works for a second or two, then just stops. I can't change options on the screen, no error appears, it just freezes. I have gone through my BIOS and checked settings, couldn't find anything that would cause issues with the boot.

So if anyone can point me in the right direction, that would be great. I'm not a linux expert by any means, and I have tried searching the forums, but gave up. I would try to find a log, if I knew how to do that. Thanks in advanced for the help.

[mayoman]

Not a lot to go on I'm afraid......
IMO, XBMC is great as a HTPC front end connected to your TV, but not so hot as a media server sharing elsewhere (except to other XBMC devices),
Anyway, a few questions to hopefully shed some light on your install issue. Apologies if I am covering things you have already done/know, but if you don't ask you never know for sure...

1. Can you confirm spec of the laptop? Make, Model, processor, RAM etc. It may well be that there are issues specific to your model.
2. Are you connected to the internet using (wired) ethernet connection? (Linux needs this to install drivers).
3. Is it hanging on inspecting your system or has it started writing to your hard drive (i.e. is whatever was on the laptop no longer working.)
4. Are you failing when you select the "try Ubuntu" option as well? (assume you are saying yes, but just double checking..)
5. Is there any sign of disk activity when you try Ubuntu or install (disk LED etc.)?

[MKobe]

1. Well, its a Dell 700m laptop. It has a Celeron 1.7GHZ with 1GB ram, 60GB HDD. It has Intel integrated graphics as well.
2. At the moment I have a wireless card in there, though I could easily plug it in for a moment while installing, but I want it to be wireless because I'm not running a cable all over the place. I will plug it in for now to get drivers it needs.
3. It is hanging pretty much exactly when I click install. It looks like it's doing something for a second, the USB stick would blink for about a second, then stop, while still stuck at the boot screen. Never gets past the boot screen.
4. When I clicked on try Ubuntu, it would hang for a while, I got frustrated with it and let it sit, then after a while these errors started popping up... saying "EDD: Error 8000 reading sector ####### (insert random numbers here). I thought it was the USB drive I was using, so I swapped. I tried to check HDD but that locked up too.

* One thing I am confused about, when I downloaded the ISO, It has Intel-AMD, and Intel-Nvidia. What is the difference here? I chose the Intel-AMD, mainly because it was the first thing on the list, I have no AMD hardware, nor Nvidia hardware in this laptop. So I was just thinking maybe I have the wrong ISO here.

Thanks again for your help.

And a quick edit here. I do not intend to share media using it, I just intend to view shared media with it. I have a windows box that has my media shared out. All this box needs to do is view the media, on a TV. I was going to plug it in via VGA cable.

[mayoman]

From the Wiki:

xbmcbuntu-12.00.Intel-AMD.iso is for AMD GPU's
xbmcbuntu-12.00.Intel-NVidia.iso is for both Intel and Nvidia GPU's

In your case it should be NVidia iso as you have intel graphics, so it looks like you came up the wrong side of a coin toss
Hopefully that's your problem

You really should use a wired connection during install, as Ubuntu does not (I believe) have sufficient wireless drivers on the CD to start off, and it needs an internet connection to pull down a lot of your hardware specific stuff. Afterwards, wireless is ok so long as you can get sufficient wireless bandwidth to stream across your network.

[MKobe]

I am downloading the Nvidia ISO now. Thank you for your help. I will try this on my USB drive (I'm out of CD's, who uses CD's anymore?!) And I will replay accordingly.

Hopefully I can figure out this Ubunto thing as well. I will read up on it though.

[MKobe]

Yeah I appear to be getting the same results with the Nvidia ISO. I know there isn't anything wrong with this laptop. It currently has Windows installed on it. I just didn't want to run XBMC on top of Windows, well, because I figured Ubuntu would be lightweight and easy for this old laptop. Is there any way to pull a log out of this thing? I will keep trying to mess with it all evening, it is driving me crazy. I can dig up another old box and try it on there.

[Ned Scott]

I know sometimes XBMCbuntu doesn't like certain hardware, but I don't really know the explanation behind it. I would try OpenELEC (wiki), which is just like XBMCbuntu in that it is XBMC + OS, but with some other tweaks. While technically not from Team XBMC, it's considered to be just as good as an official release (and several OpenELEC devs are also Team XBMC devs). OpenELEC has some additional install options that might work better for that hardware. Though I'm honestly not sure why XBMCbuntu would be having an issue.

[MKobe]

It's a pentium M processor, I lied. So there is no way to get a log out of this? I just tried again, and the USB drive flashes for maybe a second, then it just dies. I left it sit here for 30 minutes, and it was still stuck at the start up menu. The laptop is maybe 7 or 8 years old. But from what I've heard, this stuff should work on older hardware. I will try OpenELEC, again, I just didn't want to run windows on it because its a slow laptop, figured Ubuntu would be a lot quicker. Thanks again for your help.

I have an old IBM x31 I'm trying it on now. I will let you know what happens with that.

[MKobe]

I'm trying to remake my USB key, however, it says that "This Linux is not on the compatibility list."

* I tried "unetbootin" and made a new bootable USB drive. This one says "This kernel requires PAE" or something like that. So, apparently this is my problem? This is like Windows 8.

[Ned Scott]

I'm not a Windows guy myself, but I would bet the OpenELEC wiki or forum would have a walkthrough on making the USB flash drive.