XBMC Live vs XBMC on Acer Aspire Revo?
#1
I don't know a lot about XBMC. I have seen my friends use it on their Apple TV's and Mac Mini's, but I have yet to install it. I am technical (by trade) and am a strong linux user (RedHat Certified Engineer to say the least). Of course like the rest of everyone, I am a strong Windows guy as well (duh).

I bought an Acer Aspire Revo AR3610 with the Atom 330 processor. I plan on hooking this up to my Plasma via HDMI. In addition to using it for XBMC (it's primary 99% of the time role), I like the idea of being able to use it as a PC and occasionally browse the web using the wireless keyboard & mouse.

I thought that if I installed XBMC on the default Windows 7 install, I won't be able to play video smoothly as the version of XBMC for Windows doesn't take advantage of the NVIDIA ION GPU acceleration. So this left me with some other choices, right?

1. Install XBMC Live. This would probably seem the easiest as people have complete howto's already written for installing this on an Aspire Revo. The upside (from what I can tell so far, please correct me if I am mistaken) is that I can still reboot and run Windows 7. The downside is that I am running a really stripped down Linux OS with XBMC. I wouldn't be able to use it as a Linux server for various other tinkering tasks that I may want to do

2. Install my Linux distribution of choice (I could be talked in to Ubuntu over Fedora, why not!), then install XBMC. The downside (but kind of an upside I suppose) is that there isnt as much information tailored specifically to the Revo yet, so I will spend a bit more time getting it working (fun). The upside is that I have a full blown Linux distro I can do whatever I want with it (run squid, apache, mysql, etc. stuff and use the CPU when I am not doing XBMC stuff). I wonder though, could I adequately run X Windows on the Revo? If this is the case, then I could do my web browsing when not running XBMC perfectly using Firefox in X.

It looks like XBMC Live is about 350MB. I didn't add the repo to grab XBMC regular, but I am guessing it is much less in size.

Also, the Atom 330 (dual core) that my Revo has supports 64-bit instructions. So I am wondering if there is any reason I shouldn't go 64bit Ubuntu (but really, with only 2gb of memory, what would be my benefit in GOING 64-bit, hahah).

Do any of you seasoned XBMC users have any suggestions or advice I should consider before making a decision? Thanks for your help!
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#2
I'm using Karmic desktop (32-bit) on my Ion, and works like a dream. It'll run X fine.

If you have a search around you'll find plenty of information on installing, the process for the revo is pretty much identical to every other box. I'd strongly recommend running a later (or latest) SVN release as there was a nasty buy in XBMC 9.04 which could affect the UI framerate.

You'll want to allocate 512MB to the framebuffer in the revo's BIOS.

Worst case scenario, reinstall Windows!
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#3
motd2k Wrote:I'm using Karmic desktop (32-bit) on my Ion, and works like a dream. It'll run X fine.

If you have a search around you'll find plenty of information on installing, the process for the revo is pretty much identical to every other box. I'd strongly recommend running a later (or latest) SVN release as there was a nasty buy in XBMC 9.04 which could affect the UI framerate.

You'll want to allocate 512MB to the framebuffer in the revo's BIOS.

Worst case scenario, reinstall Windows!

Thanks. I read about the 512MB change in the bios, since I have 2GB. I am going to keep my eyes peeled for a black friday online steal for 4GB SODIMM deal for the Revo. Then I can allocate 1GB (hopefully bios supports that) to the display adapter.

I was thinking of installing Ubuntu 9.10 (just came out) and then do as you mentioned with the SVN release. When the next stable comes out, I'll at least be on a more recent version of Ubuntu.

Thanks, I'll give this a go later tonight.
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#4
I got everything running. XBMC is up, got some skins in, got my HDMI sound working, got my NVIDIA Drivers in, etc.

My only problem now is that Ubuntu (with samba client) cannot seem to communicate to Windows 7 systems. It can communicate to Windows XP fine, but not 7. I dont need to go from W7 to Ubuntu, but the other way around (need to access windows CIFS shares from xbmc). I see lots of threads on ubuntu forums about this, no resolution yet. All my terabytes of data is on Windows shares, we'll see about fixing this Smile
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#5
using xbmc-live you can turn on the ssh server to copy stuff thru-out your network. ftp is also an option but has been deprecated by scp/ sftp. you can probably install apache and run httpd from it.

you can also switch consoles (ctrl-alt-f2)
log in as xbmc/ xbmc (user/ pass) and do startx to get a gui (i think fluxbox desktop)
then you can sudo apt-get install to your hearts content.
i have installed firefox, thunderbird, gaim, ekiga, open-office, ...
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#6
This question troubles me as well Wink

I got my Acer Aspire Revo 3610 (linux version) several days ago - fantastic machine for the price.

I tried installing XBMC Live 9.11 alpha2 to start with, but for the love of god, it just didn't work.. I don't have an external CD so I used unetbootin from another machine to install the Live Installer to a USB stick.. Lot's of fiddling around, manually changing text files.. I got to a point where the installer partitioned and formatted my HD, and then got stuck. I'll wait till a more stable release.

Then I installed Live 9.04 which installed easily. Run's nearly perfectly except for the menu being a bit slow - not too worried as I think it's a bug in the 9.04 version which would disappear when I upgrade later. Videos in 720p play without any problems, and iplayer shows better than ever.

Problem is, the XBMC live distribution is pretty much empty otherwise.
No XBMC plugins.
No firefox.
No file manager.
don't even try to man a command (you'll need them for anything you try to do as there are no gui apps installed) - as man is not installed Wink

On the other hand - I really like how quickly XBMC loads with the Live version, and am not sure if installing a full Ubuntu with Gnome will slow things down.

Is there a way to mix the two - somehow install the full ubuntu, but configure it to load XBMC immediately and quickly?

Has anyone tested the two options?

Thanks,

Ariel.
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#7
Had trouble with an live alpha 2 install myself. It just wouldnt boot on my revo. Installed live 9.04 instead and updated to alpha 2 on the command line, works like a dream now.
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#8
arielgr Wrote:This question troubles me as well Wink
...Is there a way to mix the two - somehow install the full ubuntu, but configure it to load XBMC immediately and quickly?
...

there are a few tutorials on this message board.

i think you will get the best milage if you re-read my post right above yours ?
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#9
Silv8rfox Wrote:Had trouble with an live alpha 2 install myself. It just wouldnt boot on my revo. Installed live 9.04 instead and updated to alpha 2 on the command line, works like a dream now.
Would you be able to help us out on how to do that from the command line. I'm having problems with alpha2 also, but can install 9.04.
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#10
Login to tty2 after live has loaded. (ctrl+alt+F2)

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

then install the dependencies for 9.10 alpha 2

sudo apt-get install libenca0 libfontconfig1 libfreetype6
wget https://launchpad.net/~team-xbmc/+archiv...1_i386.deb
wget https://launchpad.net/~team-xbmc/+archiv...1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i libass3_0.9.6-1xbmc1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i libass-dev_0.9.6-1xbmc1_i386.deb
rm libass3_0.9.6-1xbmc1_i386.deb
rm libass-dev_0.9.6-1xbmc1_i386.deb

then

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install xbmc

That should do it....hopefully doing it from memory as at work
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#11
Silv8rfox Wrote:Login to tty2 after live has loaded. (ctrl+alt+F2)

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

then install the dependencies for 9.10 alpha 2

sudo apt-get install libenca0 libfontconfig1 libfreetype6
wget https://launchpad.net/~team-xbmc/+archiv...1_i386.deb
wget https://launchpad.net/~team-xbmc/+archiv...1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i libass3_0.9.6-1xbmc1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i libass-dev_0.9.6-1xbmc1_i386.deb
rm libass3_0.9.6-1xbmc1_i386.deb
rm libass-dev_0.9.6-1xbmc1_i386.deb

then

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install xbmc

That should do it....hopefully doing it from memory as at work
Thanks! That should help me out being a Linux noob. I just installed 9.04 on a stick on noticed how slow it runs compared to 9.11 alpha that I was testing briefly yesterday(couldn't get my settings to save).
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#12
The revo makes an amazing little media system once you get everything tweaked properly. I just wish I could get live to install to a partition instead of taking up the whole drive.
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#13
To the OP: fwiw I have XBMC running perfectly on Fedora 12 on a Revo. If you're a RHCE you'll find it an absolute doddle.

Just rebuild the following SRPM removing "--enable-external-python" from the configure section of the SPEC file. You need to do this because python plugins won't work otherwise with the external python on Fedora 12...

http://hansvon.homelinux.org/fedora/SRPMS/

Then all you need is libvdpau from the standard F12 repos, and the nvidia driver and ffmpeg etc from rpmfusion.org repos. You need to get the nvidia driver from rpmfusion-nonfree-updates-testing (it isn't being pushed to non-testing repo) and make sure to follow the instructions on the rpmfusion.org wiki under the HowTo section.

It works like an absolute dream, and it is so nice having Fedora under the skin for when you want to do things in the OS.

I highly recommend it!
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#14
Oh, and to answer some of your other questions:

Yes, the revo will run X perfectly. I only have the single core 1GB RAM revo and it is perfectly quick enough to run Gnome with Firefox and even OpenOffice if you like. At a push I reckon the dual core you have would even run GIMP. It will also run apache, sshd, and all that jazz with no problem whatsoever. The Atom/ION partnership is truly amazing.

And there is nothing to stop you going down the 64bit route with Fedora as the repos are very mature now with 64bit apps. Not entirely sure it would be any benefit though as even with 4GB RAM you could run the 32 bit PAE kernel which is default now in F12.
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#15
schneidz Wrote:using xbmc-live you can turn on the ssh server to copy stuff thru-out your network. ftp is also an option but has been deprecated by scp/ sftp. you can probably install apache and run httpd from it.

you can also switch consoles (ctrl-alt-f2)
log in as xbmc/ xbmc (user/ pass) and do startx to get a gui (i think fluxbox desktop)
then you can sudo apt-get install to your hearts content.
i have installed firefox, thunderbird, gaim, ekiga, open-office, ...

<--- XBMC first timer here

So i really wanted a low overhead OS with the revo for obvious reasons. I installed XBMCLive using Lifehackers article:

http://lifehacker.com/5391308/build-a-si...-the-cheap

But i am stuck with a dilemma: I want to use the Revo for Xmame and other emulators to play old stuff and i cant spawn X using the above method. I'd also like to use Firefox every now and then.

I'm guessing i could use launcher, but a real gui would be preferable.

Any ideas other than installing a full OS?

Ill add the error i get when i get home.
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