[DrPepper]

Hi

Since a lot of us are asking for Linux to run on our aTV , and we do not seem to get the answers that we need, I would like to start this thread and I hope the pro's can help the noob's amongst us.

So where do we start : We all know that for getting Linux on the aTV we need the atv-bootloader. But there it starts already with the complications for most of us noobs. Can we do it directly on the atv , on an usb stick or an external drive What if we do it on the atv and i want to go back due to some cool feature ??

I would suggest we build this upon an external USB Disk.

the question is how ?

How can help me and us , to build a usable XBMC Device on an External USB HDD ?

thanks for all the help contributed to this thread.

DrPepper

[ngok]

My little usb thumb driver is happened to be slightly smaller than cck197's usb stick image,so the normal restore process will not work for me.at last I turn to manually partition it and make it bootable on ATV.I would like to share some knowlage I learn from it.

First of all,why is this so complicated to make a usb thumb to boot on ATV?I blame it to Apple.They don't want us to use the usb port for the first place.this port is reserved for maintenance only,and you may already know that ATV use EFI instead of BIOS to manage low level operations.it will only boot if a usb storage device with a special partition and special files presents to it.The "Recovery" partition.

To make this special partition we need a special tool.

The normal way is to make this tool manually,to do it you can refer to
http://code.google.com/p/atv-bootloader/...tallParted

you need a linux enviroment to accomplish this task.
a ubuntu 8.04 or newer is suggested.

after we got this tool,we can make a bootable partition refer to
http://code.google.com/p/atv-bootloader/...USBPenBoot

now you can use your usb thumb to boot ATV into a command line enviroment .

the next step will be
1) make a ext3 partition and a swap partition for linux,
2) install linux into the ext3 partition,make a script to load the new kernal.
3) install video driver and set it up.
4) install crystalhd driver and lib if needed.
5) compile and install atv-client tool to handdle remote and led.
6) compile and install xbmc.
7) set the login session to autoload xbmc after boot.

You can use the above hints and search the web for your answer,or you can post a specific question here and wait for the good peoples to help.

Have fun.

[BORIStheBLADE]

I have been wanting to load Linux on my Atv too.

I wish we can just load a thumb drive and install straight from that. Maybe eventually it will be like that.

[DrPepper]

Nice Ngok, good start.

But 2 things:

1. When using cck197's usb stick image, i can access my Internal HDD of the aTV, but i cannot copy on to it !! Only Read ! I tried to sudo read write it but it does not work.

and

2. Can you please explain more in detail how to do that.
Let's go from the point that we all have Mac's and no Linux at home.

i have an empty USB Harddrive. What do i do ?

Thanks

DrPepper

[davilla]

Nice Ngok, good start.

But 2 things:

1. When using cck197's usb stick image, i can access my Internal HDD of the aTV, but i cannot copy on to it !! Only Read ! I tried to sudo read write it but it does not work.

#unmount media partition if already mounted
umount /dev/sda4

#make a mount point
mkdir media

# always, always fcsk the hfs+ partition
fsck.hfsplus -f /dev/sda4

# force mount it read/write
mount -t hfsplus -o rw,force /dev/sda4 media

If you do not understand the above command, google for them and start learning about Linux. They are basic Linux commands.

[DrPepper]

i do understand, just did not know how to do it.

Ok , i'll try that.

1 more thing though, i have the same issue when i want to update xbmc on the usb stick read/write error.

How can i do that ?

Thanks

DrPepper

[NineT9mustang]

OHhhhhh thank you for the thread starter I too have been waiting!

I hope someoen can organize a step-by-step noob guide, I'm willing to donate $20-$30 depending on how detailed and noob friendly it is

[banan]

OHhhhhh thank you for the thread starter I too have been waiting!

I hope someoen can organize a step-by-step noob guide, I'm willing to donate $20-$30 depending on how detailed and noob friendly it is

Here is something that I have made just for you:
http://wiki.eple.us/appletv_ubuntu_9.10_xbmc

If it's good enough for you, you should donate your $ to XBMC:
http://xbmc.org/contribute/donate/

It's terrible if somebody was actually going to take your money, for making you a guide to installing something that is open source.

Hope you find it usefull

[davilla]

i do understand, just did not know how to do it.

Ok , i'll try that.

1 more thing though, i have the same issue when i want to update xbmc on the usb stick read/write error.

How can i do that ?

Thanks

DrPepper

Not a clue unless you post the actual command and error mesages, I'm not sitting beside you.

[ngok]

for the first question.
if you read the dmesg,you may notice some lines saying the /dev/sda4 partition is not unmount cleanly so it will be mount readonly,that is why you can not write to it even when you sudo.

to solve this trick,you need to unmount it,then check its file system,the check process will mark it to be clean,then remount the file system,this is exactly what davilla's guide do.

second,
if you have only mac,I will suggest you to install a vitual machine and install linux on it,but you may need to figure out how to mount you usb port into the vitual machine,this process may different from OS,I know how to do it in linux but I have no mac.

another option is to boot your atv with cck197's thumb,that's a linux enviroment.in fact,the usb thumb have two enviroment in it,one is in "Recovery" partition,the magic one to boot ATV,another is in "Linux" partition,a normal one to support everything else.
The "Recovery" enviroment has the special tool we need but normaly it will auto load "Linux" enviroment.we can rename a file boot_linux.sh into some other name to trick it stay in "Recovery" enviroment.

then we return to "make a bootable partition" part.

[DrPepper]

Ok so far so good.

Next problem i run into is that it does not play all the movies.
I have a specific issue with an mpeg movie for example. Under aTV it plays fine, but not under ubuntu.

R their any codec upgrades , perian or so i cann install ?

and

how do i install an update of xbmc to the /usr/share/xbmc ?

If i do sudo dpkg -i xbmc_27150-1_i386.deb /usr/share/xbmc/

i get this:

xbmc@atv:/tmp$ sudo dpkg -i xbmc_27150-1_i386.deb /usr/share/xbmc/
(Reading database ... 118834 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace xbmc 27150-1 (using xbmc_27150-1_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement xbmc ...
dpkg-split: error reading /usr/share/xbmc/: Is a directory
dpkg: error processing /usr/share/xbmc/ (--install):
subprocess dpkg-split returned error exit status 2
Setting up xbmc (27150-1) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
/usr/share/xbmc/



Thanks

DrPepper

[ngok]

no we don't use dpkg that way,you can't specific a directory to install like windows.
the target directory was fixed when the package is created.

use "sudo dpkg -i xbmc_27150-1_i386.deb" is just fine.

it may install into /usr/local/share/xbmc
that's fine,you can use ./usr/local/bin/xbmc to start it.