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I burned the live ISO to a disk and put it in the computer. I followed the instructions for installation, and told it to just wipe the drive and use the whole thing (previously there had only been a copy of Ubuntu 9.10 on there that I wasn't using). It asked me to create a user name and password, which I did. Then it shut down.
When it powered up again, I took out the disk so it wouldn't try to boot from that. I saw the XBMC logo, so everything seemed to be going according to plan. Then it went to the black screen where I put in my username and password. Then it just seemed to go to the Ubuntu command line.
I'm so confused. What does XBMC have to do with Ubuntu? Is it just a program that runs on Ubuntu? I thought it was basically a stand-alone OS that was Linux-based. I thought there was a GUI involved. Does it not come with one? Did I screw up somehow? Have I made some total newbie mistakes?
I feel like one of those apes at the beginning of 2001: A Space Oddysey, just tossing some rocks at the Monolith and scratching my head.
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McInen
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XBMC live is a program that runs on top of a minimal Ubuntu linux installation.
Yes, it should automatically start off with a GUI.
You should give your system specs here so people have better chance helping you out.
Probaby something in the xorg.conf needs tweaking for your video card?
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Normally it works perfectly but I had this problem with an old PC with an AGP ATI card.
I did not find a solution instead I had to manually install it and that was not without problem either. The previous version 9.04 worked fine and I hoping for a version 10.04 soon!
If you have newer nvidia based computer it should work fine!
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It's an old computer, probably from 2004 or so. I can't remember details off the top of my head, but I know they're not great. I imagine, at the very least, I'm going to need to figure out what kind of video card is in there. I know it's an upgrade from whatever was in there when I bought it, so I might still have the box kicking around somewhere.
How would I go about finding and installing drivers for it? And please, try to explain it in the way you would explain it to a child. I'm almost completely ignorant of all things Ubuntu.
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If it is ATI I am afraid you have to go to the supplier home page and follow the instruction. Perhaps you can find an uptodate instruction in the ubuntu.com forum.
Depending how much time versus money you have available it could be an idea to pick up a cheap nvidia card. Just make sure it is VDPAU enabled.
You cant be sure to play all material on an 2004 computer without VDPAU even if you get it working.
Or do what I did, buy an asrock ION 330 or one of the other Atom ION boxes that you can pickup rather cheap. It will save you a LOT of time for sure.
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Well, first thing would be pasting your specs.
XBMC requires openGL support IIRC, which means your graphics card must support it and have proper drivers installed.
Luckily, installing drivers for NVidia is nothing major in ubuntu, even from command line (assuming you do have an NVidia card).
ATI, i'm not familiar with. You might get away with Intel GMA, but I think you'd end up with a slow UI.
I'm sure whatever happened was logged in /var/log/messages (X server startup failure)
openSUSE 11.2 | SVN XBMC
I'm... dreaming... of a quiet... HTPC
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It's an ATI card. I'm going to search for drivers, though I still don't quite have an idea as to how I'm going to install them.
