Sam.Nazarko Wrote:Okay, this is what I will do. I will push out a Ubuntu image first of all, and then I will do an Arch one later. As for the UI installer, that can work with both and I can design a simplified frontend that will allow both images to be downloaded and installed with one-click. However I am torn between a UI installer or a script that can be run through SSH to image the local drive.
By local drive do you mean the internal one? It would be nice to have the option of keeping that as OSX and booting from a USB drive/hard drive/ whatever ... A way of selecting which at start-up would really be a luxury
philip
thanks for all you work on this new image, also you old image
- im happy to loose hdmi for a performane boost / dont care about optical audio or hdmi
- id love to see some sort of auto installer to internal hdd
- with the current image, palying a vid raraley it crashes but when it crashes it goes to ubuntu login screen. i found a post wich explaned that you can set auto login after 10 sec. which is good i have implement the tweek (its the only tweek i'v managed to pulloff as im a linux noob) id like to see that set as default in the new image.
thanks
I'd also like to request Harmony support 'out of the box' and DDS enable/disable choice from the UI installer.
Sam.Nazarko Wrote:As for the UI installer, that can work with both and I can design a simplified frontend that will allow both images to be downloaded and installed with one-click. However I am torn between a UI installer or a script that can be run through SSH to image the local drive.
I think many would be fine with a SSH script, it if is a single command to launch. The main issue with being a relative newbie to the ATV platform I faced was there was SOOO much information buried in the forums, but it was scattered throughout many posts.
I don't have an AV receiver and my flat screen doesn't support TOSLINK. So audio over HDMI is my only option.
Well whichever route I take in regards to the installer, I am going to have a Google Code page so everything is consolidated.
If I remember, the last image was about 750MB.
I had to download at work as I am limited to 250MB per day by my provider. (satellite system)
...
Hopefully the entire package will be downloadable, transferred to your home PC and the be installed from there without further internet access (until an update).
I figure that an XBMC update usually weighs-in at 50MB which is doable. Updating Linux I'm not sure of, but when I did it a few days ago along with updating to Dharma 3, I didn't exceed my download access. But, I did just about fill up my stick (8GB) to the point of 105MB free to work with.
I know I'm probably one of the few that has limited internet access living in the sticks, but must think about ways of going about this.
Well as it's going to be auto-updating, the image is going to be core (ALSA, Nvidia Drivers, atvclient, cpufreqd etc) and when it powers up for the first time it will auto-download XBMC and CrystalHD so the latest binaries are received.
Just an FYI - I've got filesize down significantly by removing a lot of packages that are unnecessarily bundled with the minimal install. I'm undecided whether to use a targeted kernel instead of a generic one yet, but it definitely reduces RAM usage, from about 130MB to about 50MB
Sam.Nazarko Wrote:Well as it's going to be auto-updating, the image is going to be core (ALSA, Nvidia Drivers, atvclient, cpufreqd etc) and when it powers up for the first time it will auto-download XBMC and CrystalHD so the latest binaries are received.
Just an FYI - I've got filesize down significantly by removing a lot of packages that are unnecessarily bundled with the minimal install. I'm undecided whether to use a targeted kernel instead of a generic one yet, but it definitely reduces RAM usage, from about 130MB to about 50MB
So, basically, you would download the installer which would include linux.
You would install the image to a USB stick similar to what we did on last image.
Then boot the ATV using the stick at which point it would auto-download XBMC and Crystal HD drivers and then load XBMC.
Thanks, this all sounds great!
At this point, would you ssh in and have option to install to internal ATV drive, or?
Also, would it 'free-up' the rest of unused stick or HD making it usable?
This would be the procedure:
Linux/Mac: dd the image to a USB
Windows: UI installer to USB - this restores one of two images:
- Core System - this will offer Linux for a USB
- Installer interface. This will run atv-bootloader, wget the images from Google Code, untar them and dd them to the internal drive and change the com.apple.boot.plist for the user. Will require a large USB though (4GB minimum)
I will offer a ./help feature through SSH which will offer some basic commands for the user like ./update_on and ./update_off for turning on/off auto updates.
Expanding to use the full disk should be possible for hard drives, but for the USB it's going to be impossible in Windows - I can make a simple copy + paste script for Linux though. For hard drives the disk structure can be as follows:
Code:
sdx1 - 34MB Recovery
sdx2 - 512MB Swap
sdx3 - Xgb ext3 root
The fact that the root of the drive is sdx3 allows it to take any size because if I am correct, it is possible to adjust the End Sector of the disk where the end sector would be drive size / 512 bytes, this sector count is static for 40gb and 160gb drives that are stock.
All of this will take time to put in to practice.
As for space, I wouldn't worry about it. I've just reduced a Ubuntu system and I'm down to a mere 390mb disk space in use, boot time is around 10 seconds.
Sam.Nazarko Wrote:Expanding to use the full disk should be possible for hard drives, but for the USB it's going to be impossible in Windows - I can make a simple copy + paste script for Linux though.
For me, on a Windows machine, the ideal solution would be the capability to install to the internal ATV HD (stock 40 GB) from the USB stick and once done, have use of the leftover internal drive space.
Sam.Nazarko Wrote:As for space, I wouldn't worry about it. I've just reduced a Ubuntu system and I'm down to a mere 390mb disk space in use, boot time is around 10 seconds.
That's great, still 140MB more than my ISP allows me to download per day, but easily downloaded onto a stick from another computer and then transferred at home. Possibly even smaller once zipped...
Thanks again!
fistacorpse Wrote:Maybe I'm missing something, but the ATV has an optical audio output which works fatalistically, as well as component audio out.
HDMI audio sounds like a major issue in the whole scheme of things. If HDMI audio was the only option provided by the ATV then it'd be a must for any of these projects - but there are two other options, which HDMI audio (correct me if I am wrong) is not superior to.
Sure it's great to be able to support everyone with every different configuration, but as the ATV has two other dedicated sound outputs, I see this as far less of an issue than having a newer image build on more recent technology with better performance.
If the trade-off here is that the release is delayed to include what is in my opinion, a "nice to have feature" with reduced performance (again, correct me if I am wrong) as opposed to a faster image with GUI support for installing the image directly to the ATV, my vote obviously goes to a fast distribution.
Not trying to start fights here, just my opinion :-)
Edit: as my first time post as a long time lurker, I'd just like to say that you guys constantly working on these projects in your own free are all fantastic and you are a major reason in the push for better products & hardware with respect to the ATV. It's an amazing testament to your dedication to see the potential in a commercial product and literally push it to its limits. Kudos to all around, the XBMC team, everyone working on ATV images and the community who drives it all! <3
Completely agree with that: HDMI audio could easily be traded for a fast and updated install, provided that two other viable alternatives exist for quality audio.
Thanks for your work!
I do a search and found something interesting.
it looks like the open source Nouveau X.Org driver started to support 3D accelerate.
refer to
solidot news
it may not as fast as the official driver,but if it can run quake,hope is it can run XBMC.
and it should not have the hdmi problem.
give it a try.
I prefer FAST! But, I am currently in the process of getting XBMC-svn working on Arch Linux on my appletv as it is now...
ALSO, many of us have been adding the Crystal HD cards, which is why I am trying to get XBMC-svn working now...
Also, I have not gotten this far, nor do I have the opportunity to check this out, but a new NVIDIA driver came out yesterday on the 11th... And it is already up and going on the Arch Linux repos... Maybe it has HDMI sound support?