Hi,
Running a AMD 4600 with onboard ATI 3200 and 2 GB of RAM. What will run leaner Vista Business (no MCE) or Ubuntu ??
Without the alternate ffmpeg files I see some judder.
Kryspy
I don't think lean and vista anything belong in the same sentence. I would try XBMC Live if I were you. That is an easy way to try XBMC on linux. I would have to say I would throw my hat into the Ubuntu circle. I personally don't run it anymore, but I would say it is pretty speedy. You can really strip it down if you know what you are doing and make it run even faster.
Note: I'm no linux expert. I played with it for a few weeks and it seemed pretty snappy compared to my vista ultimate install on the same machine.
My decision was for Vista Business since I wanted to play some PC Games and use Blu-Ray playback. But if this is a 100% HTPC where you only want to run XBMC then ubuntu is probably the way to go.
The only issue I can see with ubuntu is hibernation and sleep. Some configurations have problems with it while others work nicely. You might want to test this before making a final decision.
From a speed perspective you shouldn't have any issues since XBMC is really well coded and optimized and will run very fast.
Hey Kryspy. Good question, and one that I struggled with as well.
I started off by running Vista Ultimate, because I wanted all the functionality of my HiperGroup HiperMedia case, including the built in IR and VFD display. Pretty cool case with AMD chipset and ATU Express 1200 graphics.
http://www.hipergroup.com/products.php?l...27&pid=124
After installing and using the Atlantis Beta 2 release of XBMC for a while, meaning about 2 weeks, I quickly grew tired of all the Windows "crap" that was constantly processing in the background. By that I mean that the hard drive was always spinning and chugging on something for no apparent reason? What is so important that Windows is constantly reading/writing to the hard drive? Not only that, but I had periodic hangs and crashes of XBMC on Vista. I'm not blaming the code at all since I LOVE XBMC. I blame Windows.
That said, I took the Ubuntu 8.04 plunge. I'm mildly Linux savvy so I knew I could get around the expected hardware specific hurdles that I was sure to encounter. So after installing Ubuntu nearly 6 different times to get as close to perfect version of Ubuntu installed, I now have what I think is a solid XBMC system. Why did I install it so many times you ask? Well, I tried many many different combinations of ATI drivers before I got it down. I tried the restricted drivers, then the 8.10 Catalyst drivers from amd.com and both gave me issues like garbled fullscreen, tearing, and XBMC crashes. I finally found a post suggesting the EnvyNB drivers and that's what worked for me.
I plan on posting a complete tutorial soon that will detail my entire 3 day experience trying to get things just right with this Hipermedia box and Ubuntu. Everyone on this forum was extremely helpful with solving issues. There's such a wealth of knowledge that I tapped in to that I feel obligated to give back, even if just a little.
So that's the long winded answer to me saying, use Ubuntu!
Do you want to playback Hulu and Netflix in XBMC?
You can with Playon, but it Needs Windows, which is why I run Vista.
I just don't want to run on a different PC.
I also have an AMD 780g based motherboard, which I hear is hit and miss under linux at the moment. It might be a different story in 6 months. (HDMI audio)
Have Linux friendly hardware and either a different Windows PC to do transcoding or don't care about Hulu and Netflix? Stick to the live build.
Ubuntu. It does everything Vista does (except Windows games) and more, and it's faster, more stable and more secure (viruses and malware is more or less a non-issue).
Add to that that the money you save by not getting Vista is enough to buy you a cheap computer, say an ASUS Eee or a cheap desktop, and it's a no brainer.
