2011-12-10, 00:35
Edit: Changed the title from "Acer Revo USB to SD install experience (XBMC Live 10.1)" since I gave up on the SD idea due to slow boot times.
Installation:
I have an Acer Revo (AR3610-U2002, 1.6GHz Atom, 2GB RAM, nVidia ION chipset, HDMI connection to 5.1 A/V receiver then to 1080p HDTV, Windows MCE remote with USB IR sensor, Acer wireless keyboard+mouse combo) that has Windows 7 Home pre-installed on the internal HDD. I've been happily running XBMC 10.1 on it, but I want to try running XBMC Live from an 8GB SD for faster boot, tighter system integration and access to better remote maintenance facilities than are available in Windows 7 (ssh/sftp/x2go/etc.).
I downloaded the XBMC Live 10.1 ISO and installed it to an 8GB USB stick using unetbootin v563 (the latest at this time). I then powered down the Revo and plugged in the USB stick along with a blank 8GB SD card (the Revo has an SD slot in the front). I powered it back up and entered the BIOS, setting the boot order to USB stick > SD card > HDD, then saved and exited.
The XBMC live boot menu appeared, and I chose the install option. This eventually led to a text-based partitioning wizard. Initially it scarily showed the internal HDD as its installation device of choice, but I think that I was able to choose the SD card instead after selecting the full-disk installation option. This caused the standard Linux ext4+swap partition setup to be created on the SD card, and the installation proceeded.
After following a couple of localization-related prompts and watching some status messages zip by, the installer appeared to get stuck for a good 10 minutes or so at a blank blue screen with a blank white line at the bottom. The USB stick's status light flashed on and off every couple seconds. I actually started writing this post as a call for help, as I believed that the installation was having problems, but a text window eventually showed up saying that the installation was complete. I guess the installer just doesn't bother giving status during the install? It should at least put up some kind of "Please wait while installation occurs" message, as that would be much more reassuring than a blank blue screen.
It then told me that the installation was complete and that I should remove any installation media before continuing. Figuring that it wouldn't expect me to install from USB, I left the stick in to avoid potential unmounting hiccups, then told it to continue. Surprisingly, it then said it was only 78% complete, and took a couple more minutes to finish configuring the installation (looks like it was setting up GRUB, which shouldn't have been needed for a whole-disk install, but I guess it wanted to give me the option of booting to Windows on the HDD while the SD card is installed?) and then powered down (instead of the expected rebooting, but that's okay because it gave me a chance to remove the USB stick).
Boot:
I then removed the USB stick and powered back on. Following POST, the GRUB menu appeared and I chose the Linux install. The screen then went blank for 90 seconds (ouch) before the XBMC boot logo appeared (presumably a replacement for the Ubuntu OS boot logo), and it took another 30 seconds to reach XBMC main menu (during which time a text-mode login prompt briefly appeared, followed by a second XBMC startup logo that was presumably for the XBMC application itself).
The 120-second boot time for XBMC Live installed to a Class 6 SDHC card is a bit disappointing, especially considering that it's not much faster than booting Windows 7 + XBMC from a mechanical HDD. I was actually worried during the 90-second blank screen period that it wasn't activating the HDMI video output or something.
Operation:
The Windows MCE remote seems to work at least as well as in Windows 7 (which was a major pain in 10.0, but much better in 10.1), and video appears to work fine. However, I could not get audio to work no matter what I tried. The XBMC Audio configuration menu lists Analog, Optical/Coax and HDMI audio output options, and Default/iec958/hdmi/Custom audio output device options; I tried every combination of the two settings (except Custom of course) with no luck.
Eventually, I read somewhere that I may need to open a terminal and run 'sudo alsamixer' to check for muted / turned-down outputs, and indeed it turned out that some or all of the SPDIF outputs were muted and/or turned down. Once I fixed this, I got sound in Youtube videos, and the fix seems to persist across reboots. Unfortunately, however, I still don't hear navigation sounds in the menus for some reason (not a deal-breaker, but still frustrating since I prefer to hear them); I again tried every combination of settings to get menu sounds, but no luck.
Questions:
Thanks to those who bothered to read this
Installation:
I have an Acer Revo (AR3610-U2002, 1.6GHz Atom, 2GB RAM, nVidia ION chipset, HDMI connection to 5.1 A/V receiver then to 1080p HDTV, Windows MCE remote with USB IR sensor, Acer wireless keyboard+mouse combo) that has Windows 7 Home pre-installed on the internal HDD. I've been happily running XBMC 10.1 on it, but I want to try running XBMC Live from an 8GB SD for faster boot, tighter system integration and access to better remote maintenance facilities than are available in Windows 7 (ssh/sftp/x2go/etc.).
I downloaded the XBMC Live 10.1 ISO and installed it to an 8GB USB stick using unetbootin v563 (the latest at this time). I then powered down the Revo and plugged in the USB stick along with a blank 8GB SD card (the Revo has an SD slot in the front). I powered it back up and entered the BIOS, setting the boot order to USB stick > SD card > HDD, then saved and exited.
The XBMC live boot menu appeared, and I chose the install option. This eventually led to a text-based partitioning wizard. Initially it scarily showed the internal HDD as its installation device of choice, but I think that I was able to choose the SD card instead after selecting the full-disk installation option. This caused the standard Linux ext4+swap partition setup to be created on the SD card, and the installation proceeded.
After following a couple of localization-related prompts and watching some status messages zip by, the installer appeared to get stuck for a good 10 minutes or so at a blank blue screen with a blank white line at the bottom. The USB stick's status light flashed on and off every couple seconds. I actually started writing this post as a call for help, as I believed that the installation was having problems, but a text window eventually showed up saying that the installation was complete. I guess the installer just doesn't bother giving status during the install? It should at least put up some kind of "Please wait while installation occurs" message, as that would be much more reassuring than a blank blue screen.
It then told me that the installation was complete and that I should remove any installation media before continuing. Figuring that it wouldn't expect me to install from USB, I left the stick in to avoid potential unmounting hiccups, then told it to continue. Surprisingly, it then said it was only 78% complete, and took a couple more minutes to finish configuring the installation (looks like it was setting up GRUB, which shouldn't have been needed for a whole-disk install, but I guess it wanted to give me the option of booting to Windows on the HDD while the SD card is installed?) and then powered down (instead of the expected rebooting, but that's okay because it gave me a chance to remove the USB stick).
Boot:
I then removed the USB stick and powered back on. Following POST, the GRUB menu appeared and I chose the Linux install. The screen then went blank for 90 seconds (ouch) before the XBMC boot logo appeared (presumably a replacement for the Ubuntu OS boot logo), and it took another 30 seconds to reach XBMC main menu (during which time a text-mode login prompt briefly appeared, followed by a second XBMC startup logo that was presumably for the XBMC application itself).
The 120-second boot time for XBMC Live installed to a Class 6 SDHC card is a bit disappointing, especially considering that it's not much faster than booting Windows 7 + XBMC from a mechanical HDD. I was actually worried during the 90-second blank screen period that it wasn't activating the HDMI video output or something.
Operation:
The Windows MCE remote seems to work at least as well as in Windows 7 (which was a major pain in 10.0, but much better in 10.1), and video appears to work fine. However, I could not get audio to work no matter what I tried. The XBMC Audio configuration menu lists Analog, Optical/Coax and HDMI audio output options, and Default/iec958/hdmi/Custom audio output device options; I tried every combination of the two settings (except Custom of course) with no luck.
Eventually, I read somewhere that I may need to open a terminal and run 'sudo alsamixer' to check for muted / turned-down outputs, and indeed it turned out that some or all of the SPDIF outputs were muted and/or turned down. Once I fixed this, I got sound in Youtube videos, and the fix seems to persist across reboots. Unfortunately, however, I still don't hear navigation sounds in the menus for some reason (not a deal-breaker, but still frustrating since I prefer to hear them); I again tried every combination of settings to get menu sounds, but no luck.
Questions:
- Is there a way to reduce the boot+startup time from ~120 seconds (90 boot + 30 start)? Some people were saying that the old 9.x version of XBMC Live may have run slower on SD than from HDD; is this still a known issue with 10.1? I saw some people pointing at guides, but they're very old and not specific to XBMC Live.
- Is there something I'm missing that's causing menu sounds to be inaudible over HDMI even though Youtube videos have sound?
- Should I do a 'sudo apt-get upgrade' in an Ubuntu terminal, or should I just leave all packages at the XBMC Live 10.1 release versions? I see that a couple dozen packages can be upgraded.
Thanks to those who bothered to read this
