Login at Kodi Home

chives123 · 2013-10-17, 19:26

Hi everyone

I am wondering if it would be possible to install OpenELEC onto an old Dell xps 710 as I have an old one lying around that is unable to boot to windows as the hard drive is missing I have another hard drive and was wondering if I could install the OpenELEC and solely use the PC for XBMC?

any help would be much appreciated

**black_eagle** · 2013-10-17, 19:30

Try it !!! What have you get to lose ?

chives123 · 2013-10-17, 19:32

Thats was the plan but I'm unsure of what version to install etc and best way to go about it.
any ideas tips etc?

**black_eagle** · 2013-10-17, 19:44

Well, I have no experience of OE, so if it were me, I'd get the live CD of XBMCbuntu, boot off that and see how XBMC performs. If you think its ok, then you can either stick with that and install it to HDD or download OE and install that. I believe its a lighter distro than 'buntu so might show a performance increase. The OE x86_64 generic build should be ok. For 'buntu you should download the 12.2 version for your graphics card. IE if your graphics card is Intel or Nvidia you should download that version.

trogggy · 2013-10-18, 01:33

If in doubt try the openelec generic build (it has more drivers than other builds). Download from the openelec site, follow the instructions to write to a usb install stick, then boot from that stick to install to a hard drive or another usb stick. The install is very straightforward - just follow the instructions on the openelec site.

protocol77 · (This post was last modified: 2013-10-18, 05:50 by protocol77.)

try the generic version of openelec as it says it is a catch-all version meaning they throw all the drivers and stuff in there to support as many different machines as possible

i can recommend a cheap card like a Nvidia Geforce 210 works well i have installed several of these in old Dell's and HP's and turned them into cheap HTPC's running Openelec

The latest version of Openelec has now implemented a Live boot so you can test it out before you install it so there is nothing at all to lose except for a little time to download and put on a USB flash drive and that won't take long as the download is about 150mb and even if you decide to install it takes like 1 minute to install really is a brilliant OS for xbmc that is why it is recommended so much on these forums

chives123 · 2013-10-18, 15:07

Thanks for the replies guys.

A few questions.
Is openlec the same as xbmcbuntu?
I installed xbmcbuntu and works fine apart from the fact that xbmc won't run it flashes up a few times then goes back to xbmcbuntu desktop.
Should I try installing openlec instead?

Bit of a noob when it comes to this sort of thing.

Many thanks

trogggy · (This post was last modified: 2013-10-18, 15:30 by trogggy.)

No.
Openelec is xbmc only.
If you want an xbmc appliance try openelec.
If you want other stuff as well it's not for you.

Having said that trying it is really easy - and probably quicker than waiting for a reply here.

Edit: xbmc not running is not what I'd call 'working fine' btw.

chives123 · 2013-10-18, 16:02

Yea all i want is xbmc to run on it.

And yea by working fine I meant the rest of the OS apart from xbmc.

I will give openlec a try and see how I get on

trogggy · 2013-10-18, 16:07

The only thing I'd say - I don't think it applies here - is that I wiped a hard drive trying to install openelec to usb (happy? no, not really). So ever since I've unplugged every drive before installing.

chives123 · 2013-10-18, 23:36

Ok so I have finally installed openelec onto the xps 710 and is working beautifully.
Valid point trogggy. However the 40GB hard drive in the system was empty the PC had no OS etc so this so far is the best use I have found for it.
Now all I need to do is invest in a NAS so my main PC doesn't have to be switched on to play movies on the xps 710 aka HTPC