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Wondering if you ever got sorted on this. I have the ATV1 with aTV flash "firecore" and have been experimenting a little with XBMC. I have found many HD (720p and up) rips are very glitchy in XBMC and can sometimes be fixed in the playback setting adjusting between software, open GL shaders and basic shaders. Generally though, .avi files seem to provide the best playback, though there isn't much info on rendering on the XBMC wiki.
I am wondering, without getting into the Crystal card and Crystalbuntu, if certain HD file types have more stable playback on XBMC with a stock aTV? That being said, hooking up a Crystal card seems easy enough, but installing Crystalbuntu sounds intimidating. I am a real novice when it comes to Terminal and Unix, Cyberduck FTP is more my speed.
Also, assuming I did switch over to Crystalbuntu, what would be the best way to hook up a 2TB external drive for music / movie storage? Is there any restrictions on file system compatibility? The aTV is connected via LAN to a network Airport Extreme.
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Installing a CrystalHD card is pretty easy. You lose the wireless option though, if that's important to you.
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1. Wifi works, but the configuration utility isn't done yet from what I hear, so you have to look up how to connect to wifi via the command line (there's probably something on stmlabs.com about it, or just search for how to do it with "Ubuntu Hardy").
2. Good question, never looked into it. If they have a linux client then it should be possible.
3. ATV Flash has no linux version, if that's what you mean (and not Adobe Flash).
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Here is another question for an aspiring Crystalbuntu user.
I currently have ATV flash "firecore" installed on my ATV1. I want to install Crystalbuntu to the HDD so I can use the USB for a portable hard drive until I get a NAS in place. So I am assuming the proper steps would be to uninstall ATV flash "firecore" to the stock ATV settings, update to the latest firmware, switch to RGB High AV settings, install the CrystalHD card, then install Crystalbuntu to the internal drive. Does it make any sense to deviate from these steps? I was thinking of booting up in between the Crystal HD card install and the Crystalbuntu install just to make sure everything still works.
Also, I can't seem to find much on using a USB drive with Crystalbuntu, is it pretty much plug and play through XBMC or are there other configuration steps I need to take through the command line? Will a USB attached Mac OS Extended partitioned portable HDD work with Crystalbuntu or do I need to reformat?
In the Wiki for installing Crystalbuntu, step 2. is "Open Terminal, navigate to the downloaded file, and enter the following command followed by return:" So I understand how to enter gunzip USB.img.gz command after I have navigated to the file, but how do I navigate to the file? Perhaps I need to just go read up on the basics of using terminal. Is it like DOS? CD C:\downloaded file.exe? Something like that? Sorry for such a newbie question.
Once I start to install Crystalbuntu, I need to plug in a USB hub, jumpdrive and keyboard. Does this ever give anyone problems? It says in the wiki to log in using atv as both username and password, is there any navigation required to get to this point? Are there any Linux basics I will need to know other than what is written down in the wiki?
And since it asks you to log in as atv for username and password, I am also assuming this replaces the 'frontrow' username and password I currently use to FTP files to the ATV using Cyberduck. When using Cyberduck, I probably won't be able to connect to appletv.local after installing Crystalbuntu anymore either. What is the method for FTP'ing files to the Linux based ATV?
Again, thanks for all the help, this is a awesome community! Any tips and tricks people have used would be helpful as I am really hoping to plan in out ahead of time to get this done in a few hours and not end up troubleshooting for hours on end when it doesn't work.
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(2012-05-01, 19:53)monrealli Wrote: I meant adobe flash, coz with atv flash you can enable it. I know linux guys they don't like flash but it has it's uses.
Did you configure your wifi? I been reading since 2 days i am a bit fed up. Will dig into it later. Unless you have a pointer.
I tried this in the morning, keeps getting permission errors. Logged in as atv\atv, could no enable root user in config for some reason didn't work.
atv@Crystalbuntu:~$ ifup wlan0
ifup: failed to open statefile /var/run/network/ifstate: Permission denied
atv@Crystalbuntu:~$ /sbin/iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
eth0 no wireless extensions.
eth1 IEEE 802.11 Nickname:""
Access Point: Not-Associated
Link Quality:5 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 invalid crypt:0 invalid misc:0
Flash content works on Crystalbuntu. If you install a browser or use an application that needs flash like Hulu Desktop for Linux, it will work.
I don't use wifi on my unit since I have the BCHD card installed.
If something ever gives you a "Permission denied" message, then just throw a "sudo" in front of the command.
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(2012-05-02, 06:20)primus11 Wrote: Here is another question for an aspiring Crystalbuntu user.
I currently have ATV flash "firecore" installed on my ATV1. I want to install Crystalbuntu to the HDD so I can use the USB for a portable hard drive until I get a NAS in place. So I am assuming the proper steps would be to uninstall ATV flash "firecore" to the stock ATV settings, update to the latest firmware, switch to RGB High AV settings, install the CrystalHD card, then install Crystalbuntu to the internal drive. Does it make any sense to deviate from these steps? I was thinking of booting up in between the Crystal HD card install and the Crystalbuntu install just to make sure everything still works.
Also, I can't seem to find much on using a USB drive with Crystalbuntu, is it pretty much plug and play through XBMC or are there other configuration steps I need to take through the command line? Will a USB attached Mac OS Extended partitioned portable HDD work with Crystalbuntu or do I need to reformat?
In the Wiki for installing Crystalbuntu, step 2. is "Open Terminal, navigate to the downloaded file, and enter the following command followed by return:" So I understand how to enter gunzip USB.img.gz command after I have navigated to the file, but how do I navigate to the file? Perhaps I need to just go read up on the basics of using terminal. Is it like DOS? CD C:\downloaded file.exe? Something like that? Sorry for such a newbie question.
Once I start to install Crystalbuntu, I need to plug in a USB hub, jumpdrive and keyboard. Does this ever give anyone problems? It says in the wiki to log in using atv as both username and password, is there any navigation required to get to this point? Are there any Linux basics I will need to know other than what is written down in the wiki?
And since it asks you to log in as atv for username and password, I am also assuming this replaces the 'frontrow' username and password I currently use to FTP files to the ATV using Cyberduck. When using Cyberduck, I probably won't be able to connect to appletv.local after installing Crystalbuntu anymore either. What is the method for FTP'ing files to the Linux based ATV?
Again, thanks for all the help, this is a awesome community! Any tips and tricks people have used would be helpful as I am really hoping to plan in out ahead of time to get this done in a few hours and not end up troubleshooting for hours on end when it doesn't work.
You can install the BCHD at any time, since it works both under the original modded OS and Crystalbuntu. It doesn't matter when that happens. You also don't have to uninstall ATV Flash, just make sure you are on ATV OS 3.0.2 (the act of updating will flash the HDMI controller chip with new firmware) and do the RGB settings.
USB on Crystalbuntu is plug and play. It will read HFS+ (Mac formatted) drives just fine. When in XBMC, USB HDDs even auto-mount in Files.
Pretty much that (even the cd command is the same).
I use a USB hub on mine and it works out just fine. Never had any issues with it.
For the most part you won't need to really know or deal with anything in Linux. Crystalbuntu will boot right into XBMC, and updates are handled automatically.
You can keep using Cyberduck, but you will use SFTP instead of FTP. Replace "appletv.local" with the IP address the ATV1 gets (you can see this in XBMC's system info, or from your router's settings on your network).
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Thank you Ned!
I keep drifting over to the Crystalbuntu forum and with every problem encountered, the solution is generally something like this "Just ssh in, sudo ~chmod blah blah blah" So I am just trying to do a little bit of preparation on my part so I don't hit any serious roadblocks when I install.
So do you use SFTP for all file transfers or just when you ssh in for troubleshooting?
Do you recommend any other mods to the stock Crystalbuntu install? There is a interesting thread talking about adding code to support a Logitech Harmony One remote I was thinking about trying out.
Thanks again!
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One warning about using SFTP, make sure the permissions are set up the way you need them before transferring any files. You cannot elevate permissions via SFTP. Other than that it works fine. I use it from time to time, you can also use SCP from a CLI prompt if necessary.
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2012-05-03, 02:08
(This post was last modified: 2012-05-03, 02:10 by monrealli.)
Thx Ned, for flash contents do you have any suggestions? Usually, like i stumbled upon with wifi, guides are for different versions of linux nothing specific to apple tv. Any luck with rowmote and remote hd ?
Btw in /usr/local/share/xbmc, addon folder i don't see the addons i installed from zipfile, are they installed in another directory?
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XBMC addons would be stored in, assuming Crystalbuntu, /root/.xbmc/addons