[Locutusweb]

This weekend I was installing a fresh new install with the XBMCbutu wiki page in my hand. I stumbled over some problems since the wiki is somewhat outdated. Here I want to share those problems and how I solved them. Like Sinatra said "I did it my way..." and that won't have to be the best way.

First of all there is a bug in grub; it will aways write to the first disks MBR, in my case the USB stick. This resulted in a blinking cursor at boot time and a not working system. So at the end of the minimal ubuntu install you should set the right properties when Grub asks to write to MBR. In my case "/dev/sdb".

I used also the most recent version of the minimal install ubuntu, Lucid at the time of writing. At paragraph 5.1 it recommends to use EnvyNG for installing your videocards driver. Sadly since Lucid, EnvyNG is no more: http://albertomilone.com/wordpress/?p=477

I experienced that ATI and linux aren't best friends... I installed succesfully and rather easy the ATI video drivers this way:

Code:

sudo apt-get update

Code:

sudo apt-get install fglrx fglrx-amdcccle fglrx-dev fglrx-modaliases

Code:

sudo aticonfig --initial -f

I hope someone will be helped with this.

[Xenomes]

I am using the XBMCbuntu version. The manual for the stable version 9.10 was working for me, i even put updates to the wiki to improved it.

Last Saturday I had try to update my installation to the last SVN version.
I had a similar error, in my cast i boot form CD (Ubuntu Lucid minimal) the grub was installed on /dev/sda. After the reboot I got the blinding cursor with 1 error line something with 'pid' and 'loadval' in it.

I give up and put a backup back.

[vikjon0]

First of all there is a bug in grub; it will aways write to the first disks MBR, in my case the USB stick

Not exactly a bug but it would be nice if it is explained in the guide. I am not sure what you did, but I always run the installation in expert mode to get control this. Didnt know it was possible in another way?

At paragraph 5.1 it recommends to use EnvyNG for

Yeah, I dont know who put that in but EnvyNG was discontinued before it was added to the guide...makes it hard to trust the guide.

also

sudo adduser xbmc --gecos XBMCSet the password to whatever you wish.

Add the xmbc user to the required groups:

sudo usermod --group audio,video,fuse,cdrom,plugdev xbmc

If you create the xbmc user during install and are logged in as xbmc when xbmc-live are installed everything will be fine and you can skip this part.

[Hannes The Hun]

Yeah, I dont know who put that in but EnvyNG was discontinued before it was added to the guide...makes it hard to trust the guide.

this definitely needs to be deleted from the guide. instead, the x-swat repo should be mentioned.

[Locutusweb]

this definitely needs to be deleted from the guide. instead, the x-swat repo should be mentioned.

I found this page about X-swat: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/x-updates
Just adding the ppa to the my sources? and do

Code:

sudo apt-get update

Code:

sudo apt-get install fglrx-installer

That would be too easy (or not?)

Not exactly a bug but it would be nice if it is explained in the guide. I am not sure what you did, but I always run the installation in expert mode to get control this. Didnt know it was possible in another way?

At the time the ubuntu installer asks for information about grub, there is an option to manually set the location where grub must be installed.

[Hannes The Hun]

That would be too easy (or not?)

no, actually it is

but remember that the linux and esp. XBMC support for ATI GPUs is quite bad compared to nvidia, so it might not fix all of your problems

[Locutusweb]

Wow...

I will try that tonight, i'll report back my experience

[Locutusweb]

I removed the fglrx driver and did:

Code:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates

Code:

sudo apt-get update

Code:

sudo apt-get install fglrx-installer

Now, I get an apt-get error: fglrx-installer not found

[Hannes The Hun]

there's probably a problem with the x-swat ppa

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1552069

couldn't find out more

[Locutusweb]

Maybe it will be fixed in the next couple of days...