[netrobot]

After the XBMC "live" distro did a poor job of identifying the on-board components, I wiped it and loaded Ubuntu "desktop" i386 11.04, which is working fine.

Now I'd like to load XBMC on top to get the "media center" features, but I'm not anxious to risk having it undo the install that is there, because the load, updates and extra downloads too quite a while.

If I put in the XBMC media, how do I just load THAT? Do I boot to it?

Thanks

[darkscout]

apt-get install xbmc-live?

Do you want it to not start at launch and just have the normal desktop and have it launched by you?

apt-get install xbmc?

[netrobot]

apt-get install xbmc-live?

Do you want it to not start at launch and just have the normal desktop and have it launched by you?

apt-get install xbmc?

Pardon my ignorance, but is "apt-get install xbmc?" a COMMAND?
Do I type it in somewhere, like a terminal window?

Ideally, I'd like to have XBMC be loaded on the machine with an icon, so I can launch it, but I'd also like to know how to make it auto-load if I find I'm using that environment more than the 'x' screen.

And if you'll take a bit more pity on me, I promise not to by any ATI cards -- I prefer nVidia.
I'd put the distro CD into the drive (with Ubuntu running)...
Would it start or something?
Would I open file manager, or open a terminal window? Mount the CD? I know this UNIX stuff is difficult.

I'm used to Windows, where even the DEAD can successfully install software!

[jhsrennie]

I'm used to Windows, where even the DEAD can successfully install software!

Which is not necessarily a good thing as a glance of the typical naive users desktop and system tray will prove.

apt-get is a command line tool for managing software. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Packaging_Tool for details. It's a command line app so open a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install <appname>

to install an app or:

sudo apt-get remove <appname>

to uninstall it. You need the sudo as installers will usually write to areas of the file system that deny you write access.

JR

[topfs2]

Well he need to add the repository also

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xbmc


Not sure if we package for natty (11.04) yet though.

When xbmc is in ubuntu's normal repositories you could get it from the software center, until that time you need to add the repo and such from terminal

[netrobot]

Thanks for your responses. I did a search and uncovered this link: http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=HOW...Step_Guide
that I had not found on the XBMC site directly (and still can't find directly).
I've added the repo for XBMC. The linked article didn't specify what VERSION of Ubuntu the instructions would work on, and the article isn't dated (apparently they didn't read the link topfs2 provided). I'll work through it and report back with my results.

update: in Synaptics Package Manager I marked the 18 "packages" in xbmc (not xbmc-live) using Ctrl to multi-select. Several would not mark cleanly (red bang) because of dependencies not satisfied. I hit "Apply" and was reminded to "fix broken packages". As I unmarked the broken packages, it unmarked OTHER packages too, and by the time I had the errors cleared, almost nothing survived.
I did learn that xbmc depends on skin-confluence, that depends on xbmc-data, that depends on xbmc-bin, and that tries to load ten libs. There is no hint about which ones are causing that package to break. Here's a screenshot of the possibly-offending libraries.

I also read and typed them, but with no way to distinguish capital O's from zeros, I can't depend on what I typed.
libfaacO
libhal-storage1
libhal1
liblzo2-2
libmikmod2
libpcrecpp0
libsidl-image1.2
libsdl-mixer1.2
libsmpegO
libvdpau1
Is this related to XBMC not being "packaged for natty"?

I'll continue working on this because I'd like to have a good media computer and XBMC seems promising. Details about the on-board (DQ670W mobo) network and video adapters that XBMC-live 10.1 doesn't support: I installed the Gnome device manager and it says the video is 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller and there is apparently no "properties" function I can use to see details on the driver being used.
The network says 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection

To refresh, the XBMC-live 10.1 distro doesn't recognize the on-board network adapter, and the mouse is very sluggish (a problem others are having too), which I attribute to using a too-generic video driver due to non-recognition of it as well.
The mobo is a current product, and Intel isn't particularly obscure. Even though Linux is a popular platform for extending the life of older hardware, there will no doubt be others loading it onto current platforms too.

new update:
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Natty...positories is a Natty-specific URL and it mentions XBMC including the info to go after the repository from another source, and reference intrepid rather than jaunty.

I tried it, but when I hit Reload, it fails due to a lack of availability of a pub key! I get:
W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net intrepid Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 43C0AFF0D7FAE680

I used the url provided by the second link and substituted this newer key number to search and got one.
I authorized the package then tried to install it.
This time it's xbmc-common that is loading libraries that produce the "bang"! (that shoots the install square in the head)
All this trial and error is really quaint.
So now I'm left to wonder...
A) If the unspecified error related to (now) xbmc-common can be corrected.
B) If "intrepid" was a custom build or one that never actually worked.
C) When XBMC will be packaged soon for Natty (Ubuntu 11.04).

The fact that both builds seem to blow up in similar ways is oddly hopeful since the lib names don't seem to be XBMC-specific. That leads me to suspect there is some other package out there I can load that will resolve the issue.

Thanks

[techmad]

Hi netrobot,

There's a good guide on how to get a minimal install of Ubuntu set up with XBMC here. I had to do the same thing over the weekend to get my video card working properly as it wasnt being properly detected using the available Live CD.

The only extra thing you will need to do to install XBMC is edit your repository file, I can't remember exactly what the file is called (maybe someone else could fill us in ) as I'm in work and haven't got access to my machine but I think its located in the following directory, and it should be the only file in there:

Code:

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/

So after the Initial system configuration section, edit the file located in that directory (the file should have xbmc in the name) and change anywhere that lists natty to maverick. So it should look something like:

Code:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc-svn/ppa/ubuntu maverick main

Once you've done that do an update (sudo apt-get update) and continue following the guide, hope this helps.

Edit: I've just seen you'd prefer be able to start XBMC from the desktop, if so you'll just need to edit your sources using the Package Manager and then install XBMC, see here for how to do so.

[netrobot]

Thanks for the help. I saw another thread where someone was running xbmc 10.01 on ubuntu 11.04. Then I read the sticky thread [LINUX] XBMC Ubuntu PPAs (precompiled PPA builds for Ubuntu) On page 126 "The Ross" mentions running on 10.10 (Maverick), so I guess I've been diving into the propeller trying to load it on Natty huh?