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I have a Zotac ION 1 based HTPC system with 4 GB ram.
Currently it is running ubuntu 11.04 (Classic) with latest unstable xbmc.

But since upgrades (Ubuntu 10.04 to 11.04 and XBMC 10.0 to Unstable) xbmc is becoming unstable und slow on my system (audio stuttering, 1080p videos extreme lag, scraper issues, several crashes on video files).

Because of that i want to replace my linux installation with the best one suitable for ION 1.

I am looking for a linux distro/live working best for ION 1 based systems.

There was a link some times ago in this forum for a very fast ION XBMC live iso, but i cannot find it anymore (I am not talking about the original xbmc live iso).

Please help,
regards,
Finalspace

Finalspace Wrote:I have a Zotac ION 1 based HTPC system with 4 GB ram.
Currently it is running ubuntu 11.04 (Classic) with latest unstable xbmc.

But since upgrades (Ubuntu 10.04 to 11.04 and XBMC 10.0 to Unstable) xbmc is becoming unstable und slow on my system (audio stuttering, 1080p videos extreme lag, scraper issues, several crashes on video files).

Because of that i want to replace my linux installation with the best one suitable for ION 1.

I am looking for a linux distro/live working best for ION 1 based systems.

Why not simply revert to 10.04 (Long Term Support Release - HINT) and XBMC 10.0 (the "unstable" branch is called "unstable" for a reason) - assuming that you did follow rule #1 in applying major upgrades: make a backup!

There is hardly an easier to install distro than Ubuntu, but on the Zotac Ion you might try XUbuntu, because the XFCE environment is "lighter" than Gnome. I find the Live CDs to limited to appeal to me.

Also, I do not know if you run XBMC without a desktop or with GNOME - the latter is generally not a good idea (video tearing on NVidia). Did you reenable the NVidia proprietary drivers after the distro-upgrade? Is VDPAU working?

BTW: I run Xubuntu 11.04 with XBMC 10.1 on a Zotac ZBOX ID-41. Except for getting LIRC to run as expected, it was really an easy setup.

recluce Wrote:Why not simply revert to 10.04 (Long Term Support Release - HINT) and XBMC 10.0 (the "unstable" branch is called "unstable" for a reason) - assuming that you did follow rule #1 in applying major upgrades: make a backup!

There is hardly an easier to install distro than Ubuntu, but on the Zotac Ion you might try XUbuntu, because the XFCE environment is "lighter" than Gnome. I find the Live CDs to limited to appeal to me.

Also, I do not know if you run XBMC without a desktop or with GNOME - the latter is generally not a good idea (video tearing on NVidia). Did you reenable the NVidia proprietary drivers after the distro-upgrade? Is VDPAU working?

BTW: I run Xubuntu 11.04 with XBMC 10.1 on a Zotac ZBOX ID-41. Except for getting LIRC to run as expected, it was really an easy setup.

This box had of course NVidia propiertary drivers activated and used VDPau in XBMC and i had tearing even with Ubuntu Classic (No effects) and was painfully slow.

Now yesterday i tried several setups (Everytime with a clean format):

- First XBMC Live 10.1

Installation was fine, but after boot to X, Keyboard and Mouse was not working (Logitech MX 5500, USB-Blutooth).
The only way to shutdown the machine was to use the working usb remote control Tongue

As i dont know which Kernel Module i must Download/Load to get the keyboard and mouse working i switched to the next setup.

- Second Ubuntu 11.04

Installed 11.04 from scratch with nvidia proprietary drivers and installed XBMC 10.10 only.

Of course i changed from Ubuntu to Ubuntu Classic (No effects) but even with this setup XBMC is not really so fast as it was in 10.04 Sad

Even small video files (100 mb) takes 5-10 seconds to start up Sad

But, maybe its not because of XBMC... All my videos are stored on NTFS drives (External USB and eSATA), maybe that drives must be Defragmented or something like that (Dual Boot with Win7).
I will give it a try.

Ah and one thing, i installed also XFCE4 but it was not really my liking but i am using now e17 which is extremely fast comparing to gnome Tongue

I will try several other WM`s to get the max performance out for video playback.

The only thing i do with that machine is watch videos with XBMC, Play snes and n64 emus a lot. and using firefox.
Maybe fluxbox or similar would be a better choice.

Btw i like xbmc really a lot, because i tried so much alternatives media players and xbmc in 10.04 was the best so far.

If no attemts try to work for me, i will switch back to 10.04 LTS and try to figure out the keyboard/mouse issue.
Maybe it was only a problem for the xbmc live iso?

I think I can help you choosing the right distribution for your system.
There is a special project, for Zotac systems.
you can find it here
http://www.ztreambox.org
its ubuntu 10.04 TS with integrated xbmc (preeden). After Installation, just start the "Syncscript" all drivers for your system can be installed by just clicking one of the scripts.
Beta 7 will be available in a few days. Unfortunately the script names are in German, but i think understandable.
Even PVR Support is no problem.

Greetings Japga

japga Wrote:I think I can help you choosing the right distribution for your system.
There is a special project, for Zotac systems.
you can find it here
http://www.ztreambox.org
its ubuntu 10.04 TS with integrated xbmc (preeden). After Installation, just start the "Syncscript" all drivers for your system can be installed by just clicking one of the scripts.
Beta 7 will be available in a few days. Unfortunately the script names are in German, but i think understandable.
Even PVR Support is no problem.

Greetings Japga

Oh great, i give it a try =)

Now i can cancel the gentoo installation which i was going to install.

Looking forward to see you there

japga Wrote:Looking forward to see you there

Does xtreambox support Dual Boot?

On my primary harddrive /dev/sda windows 7 is installed including heavy data partitions.

On which harddisk is ztreambox is trying to install?

/dev/sda ? or can i choose the drive by myself?
Normally i would choose (3. alles loeschen, eine Partition verwenden) because i have no problem with that option installing everything in one partition.
But i dont want to loose my windows partitions on the primary drive and want to install on secondary drive /dev/sdb

I think i will disable the entire windows harddrive in bios while installing.

Edit: I cant disable the windows harddrive in bios Sad

Can only exclude it from boot and that wont protect my ntfs partitions Sad

I think this Option will erase the whole harddisk.
ASK in the ztreambox Forum. They will shurely help you there ( http://forum.ztreambox.org/ ). And they speak english :-)

Finalspace Wrote:This box had of course NVidia propiertary drivers activated and used VDPau in XBMC and i had tearing even with Ubuntu Classic (No effects) and was painfully slow.

Tearing with GNOME ("Ubuntu Classic" in 10.04) is a known issue. If you really need the heavy-weight full Ubuntu installed, you should start XBMC as a session (no GNOME or other desktop manager running) - this will take care of tearing.

To give you an idea about the performance requirements to run Gnome or Unity with 3D effects and playback HD video without tearing: my older Core2Duo Notebook (NVidia graphics with VDPAU support, 2.2 GHz) could not do it, only a monster notebook (core i7 quadcore at 2 GHz with Quadro FX 1800m graphics) manages.

That is why I recommend XUbuntu!

Quote:- Second Ubuntu 11.04

Installed 11.04 from scratch with nvidia proprietary drivers and installed XBMC 10.10 only.

Of course i changed from Ubuntu to Ubuntu Classic (No effects) but even with this setup XBMC is not really so fast as it was in 10.04

Even small video files (100 mb) takes 5-10 seconds to start up

Use XUbuntu instead of Ubuntu.... Rolleyes

Quote:But, maybe its not because of XBMC... All my videos are stored on NTFS drives (External USB and eSATA), maybe that drives must be Defragmented or something like that (Dual Boot with Win7).
I will give it a try.

VERY unlikely.

Quote:Ah and one thing, i installed also XFCE4 but it was not really my liking but i am using now e17 which is extremely fast comparing to gnome

I will try several other WM`s to get the max performance out for video playback.

The only thing i do with that machine is watch videos with XBMC, Play snes and n64 emus a lot. and using firefox.
Maybe fluxbox or similar would be a better choice.

I really don't get it. For what you want to do, XFCE is the right choice (XUbuntu, not XFCE installed into mainstream Ubuntu) - you will hardly ever see the desktop anyway. And it still beats fluxbox.

If you want to use your remote (via lirc), Opera is the better choice for a browser, btw.

Quote:If no attemts try to work for me, i will switch back to 10.04 LTS and try to figure out the keyboard/mouse issue.
Maybe it was only a problem for the xbmc live iso?

You may need a more recent kernel than the stock kernel in Ubuntu 10.04. A 2.6.38 kernel is available through the backports repository.

I install xbmclive iso 10.1 update the drivers then compile xbmc from git see my sig, bleeding edge sure better sure, more bugs than stable 10.1 doubt it.

Yes ION 1 here.

I am back, good and bad news:

I had decided to finalize the gentoo installation instead of ztreambox.
Two reasons: Works only with some scripts which may not be work for my case to get Dual Boot working.
Second reason: I want to get max performance out of my htpc, therefore is gentoo the best choice.

But it was a pain in the ass, because it taked 2 full days to get gentoo on my ION htpc running with xfce and xbmc and its running really faster comparing to ubuntu Smile

Unfortunately XBMC does not run very well Sad

I tried one single 720p anime file to test it.
Works if i dont do anything like pausing, seeking...
But after i seek +5 secs it crashes immediately Sad

http://pastebin.com/e4YrV5MT

I have no idea why this happens and how to fix this, please help me.
But as i can read from the crash report, it can be related to audio issues.

Currently i am installing mplayer to test if it is a global issue for all media applications.

What i have installed/configured so far:

- Gentoo with kernel 2.6.39-r3
- Alsa with intel-hda (Soundcard works, but alsaconf does not detect it)
- Xorg with XFCE4
- XBMC 10.1 with the following USE flags: alsa joystick sse sse2 udev vdpau xrandr
- Custom .asoundrc which is recommend on the xbmc linux faq to get spdif pass through working

XBMC uses VDPau Video Output.
XBMC uses SPDIF Coaxial Audio Output with Custom device and IEC958.

Maybe some useful infos:

hdpc@hdpc-gentoo ~ $ sudo uname -a
Passwort:
Linux hdpc-gentoo 2.6.39-gentoo-r3 #3 SMP Sat Aug 20 22:54:19 CEST 2011 i686 Intel® Atom™ CPU 330 @ 1.60GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

asoundrc:

Code:
pcm.dmixer {

    type dmix

    ipc_key 1024

    slave {

        pcm "hw:0,1"

        period_time 0

        period_size 1024

        buffer_size 8192

        #periods 128

        #rate 44100

        rate 48000

     }

     bindings {

        0 0

        1 1

     }

}

k i tested mplayer with VDPau vo and vc and it works fine.
Even seeking works perfectly fine.

So it seems that its a xbmc issue and not a general issue Sad

Hopefully somebody can help me with that issue.

If a sound demon like PulseAudio or something like that would help, i am gladly try that. Even i must rebuild the entire system Sad

so gentoo but xbmc doesnt work?

I said try xbmclive, update the video drivers, see my signature, update alsa, see my signature configure xbmc sound/video settings and enjoy.

NO PULSE, its a ALSA you need.

Perhaps OPENElec might be good for you. They have ION versions.

There is also xbmcfreak.nl , specialized in ION.

I have an ION 1 machine myself. (Zotac ION -a ) and I have had the most fluent experience with early versions of xbmcfreak iso.. I think it was based on Dharma and Meerkat.

Right now I am running with OPENElec as it is such a breeze to try out different builds.. just 2 files that need replacing.

coupas Wrote:Perhaps OPENElec might be good for you. They have ION versions.

There is also xbmcfreak.nl , specialized in ION.

I have an ION 1 machine myself. (Zotac ION -a ) and I have had the most fluent experience with early versions of xbmcfreak iso.. I think it was based on Dharma and Meerkat.

Right now I am running with OPENElec as it is such a breeze to try out different builds.. just 2 files that need replacing.

Oh, that was the iso is was looking for.
I found that page a month ago, but havent tried it yet.

Of course if i dont get it running with gentoo, i will try that.

Quote:NO PULSE, its a ALSA you need.

I dont use pulse, i have alsa running but i was asking if that would help.

But what i can do to get xbmc 10.1 working with gentoo?
Will a full debug log help?

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Finalspace

recluce

Finalspace

japga

Finalspace

japga

Finalspace

japga

recluce

X3lectric

Finalspace

Finalspace

X3lectric

coupas

Finalspace