[davilla]

Hint's and tips for running XBMC for Linux on Ubuntu 8.04 on the Zotac Ionitx-D-E dual-core atom330 board.

1) Min ram is 1GB, vram is taken directly from sysram so when you up the BIOS vram to 512, the system will have 512MB to run. XBMC will run fine in 512MB but it's best to just plan on installing 2GB and skip any possible issues.

2) ALSA is borked on Ubuntu 8.04 with respect to the HDA NVidia codec. It will work but will be missing the HDMI device and worse the audio will periodically get static/clipping. This is fixed by

Code:

wget wget http://www.linuxant.com/alsa-driver/alsa-driver-linuxant_1.0.19.2_all.deb
sudo dpkg --install alsa-driver-linuxant_1.0.19.2_all.deb

Then you get proper audio devices and the audio is fixed

davilla@zotac:~/tmp$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 0: ALC662 Analog [ALC662 Analog]
Subdevices: 0/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 1: ALC662 Digital [ALC662 Digital]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: NVIDIA HDMI [NVIDIA HDMI]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

3) Power usage. IN WIN BM639 Case with internal 120W Power Supply. 2GB ram, 320BG 3.5" sata HD, 5.25" DVD/CD sata drive. The most I've seen is 35 watts. Least is 32 watts. About 1/2 that is the HD/DVD disks. That's with vdpau enabled.

4) Boot speed. This has the fastest power-on BIOS boot into grub that I've ever seen, 1-2 seconds. Full boot into ubuntu desktop is about 25 seconds. Remember, this is a plain jane ubuntu 8.04 desktop install, nothing fancy.

5) Remote Control. Decided to try the Sony Playstation BD remote. It's a bluetooth remote. Add a BT USB stick and follow this -> http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=28765

6) Audio over HDMI. Works great, change the default and passthrough audio devices from "default" and "iec958" to "hdmi". Run alsamixer and make sure "iec958 1" is unmuted.

[Qroach]

where did you order your zotac board from? i have been looking for one available

[davilla]

where did you order your zotac board from? i have been looking for one available

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6813500030

They have all four versions but the dual-core ones are out of stock right now. They sold out in less than a day. ETA:06/19/2009 for more.

[Qroach]

Nice! I cant wait to get one myself.

[Qroach]

need help! I got my zotac ion board, but I can't get the audio to work. I tried your suggestion above, but nothing changed when i reboot.

[davilla]

need help! I got my zotac ion board, but I can't get the audio to work. I tried your suggestion above, but nothing changed when i reboot.

please open a separate thread about this.

[wardy277]

I am too looking into getting one of these. My main reason is playing HD mkv videos.

What is the hardware like for this? Does it play it smoothly. Will it cope with 1080p with surround sound or is this pushing it too much?

Chris

[prae5]

It plays it fine - plenty of threads on it - search. Single core atom is fine too.