hi,
i'm trying to run xbmc from the network in order to avoid having to operate the xbox hard disk (in the interests of silence).
i appreciate that the xbmc default.xbe and xboxmediacenter.xml files will need to be local, but i'd like to map q: (the xbmc install drive) to a network drive rather than a local hdd sub directory. the theory is that skins etc are loaded over the network, avoiding any need to spin-up the hard disk again.
i've tried setting the home tag as follows, in the hope that it might work,
<home>smb://mysmbuser:
[email protected]/musica/xbmc/</home>
but to no avail.
does anyone know how to configure xbmc so that q: is a network drive (ideally smb share)?
thanks in advance (if possible, please send replies to my email address, kenvor at heaven dot li).
kenvor.
not possible.
we need the files local for a number of reasons - basically due to not a lot of memory to deal with, thus things have to be always spoolled from disk.
at the very least:
1. the xbe + all xmls have to be there.
2. the skin has to be there.
3. all dll's (ie entire system folder) has to be there.
4. userdata has to be there.
ie pretty much everything has to be on the local disk.
so, nope, not gonna happen.
what about,in the interest of silence, replacing the hd with a cf drive using an ide to cf adapter. silence is golden...
--dirk
(dirk @ may 24 2006,20:57 Wrote:what about,in the interest of silence, replacing the hd with a cf drive using an ide to cf adapter. silence is golden...
--dirk
then you need at least 8gb of flash......thats too much for me (can you even get 8gb?)
what i'd be really tempted to try is to get an old ipod drive - they are virtually silent, and a 1.8" to normal 3.5 ide converter, and use that. then there would not even be a requirement to spin the drive down.
s.
(jmarshall @ may 24 2006,01:32 Wrote:not possible.
we need the files local for a number of reasons - basically due to not a lot of memory to deal with, thus things have to be always spoolled from disk.
just to clarify - i wasn't suggesting that all the xbmc files could be stored in memory, but that the disk from which the files are spooled be a network share (rather than the physical hdd in the box).
this would allow the hard disk to spin-down, and xbmc should be able to continue functioning by loading skins/xml config/etc from a network drive (in the same way that a diskless workstation works).
all that would be required from an architecture standpoint (i suspect), would be that q: be mapped to a smb://etc device, rather than \device\harddisk0\partition2\etc
i was hoping someone might be able to tell me how to configure this.
thanks,
kenvor.
like you have already been told, you cant. even if it was possible to store it remotly and boot it then the xbox would still need to cache the files localy first on the hdd.
(simonmcc @ may 25 2006,13:03 Wrote:then you need at least 8gb of flash......thats too much for me (can you even get 8gb?)
i've got two boxes, one with a 250gig (that is very rarely used) and one with the standard one. i much prefer having a central media server.
anyways, reading this i thought that running off some kind of flash device would be a really decent solution for me - not sure why it didn't cross my mind earlier.
has anyone tried using an ide>flash converter? i'm pretty sure a usb device wouldn't work without some major source fiddling.
is there any reason it wouldn't work? i'm not using either xbox for anything else other than xbmc, there's no technical reason that you would need 8gig worth of flash like that chap said, right?
i'm guessing the main problem is the cache read/write speed.
off course u need 8 gig he did make up a random number.thats wuts needed for the xbox filesystem layout
pardon?
i don't know too much about the xbox hardware technicalities, but just to confirm...you actually need a full 8gigs to boot?
that doesn't make sense to me, are you sure? :)
([email protected] @ may 26 2006,23:39 Wrote:off course u need 8 gig he did make up a random number.thats wuts needed for the xbox filesystem layout
using smaller harddrives should be no problem if you don't play games. you can use xbpartitioner and setup a lets say 200 mb c: to place all xbmc stuff on a 50 mb e: and 50 mb x: y: z: = 400 mb. but i have not tried it and don't know if it works.
xbpartitioners reamd me only says it's not recommended.
Quote:supported bios's
current bios's which can read the partition table from disk are x2 4976.02,
x2 4977, evox d6, evox m7 and evox m8. these bios's need to be patched with xbtool or evtool for lba48 support before they can read the partition table.
xbpartitioner should run under most any bios, lba48 patch version 2 is supported, but it is recommended that you update to version 3 if you are using a patched kernel.
changing partitions 2, 3, 4, and 5 is not recommended.
changing partition 1 should be safe, but you shouldn't use a bios which doesn't
read the partition table from the disk if you do this. that means all non lba48
bios's and x2 4979 and up should not be used with a modified partition 1.
thanks, thats what i would have thought.
i'm surprised noone has jumped in to say they've tried it/are using something similar. most similar projects are full of people trying to get super quiet machines, i would have thought this would have been looked at.
maybe there's no chance streaming with such slow cache memory, or maybe everyone has their xbox/xbmc for games/emulators or other storage space dependant uses.
will be interesting to test, i'll sort an ide>flash converter some time in the near future (couple of months, planning to buy one for another use anyway) and see.