# XBMCbuntu



## revlimiter

I'm currently running XBMC on Ubuntu 10 with my Acer Aspire Revo. Should I reinstall with XBMCbuntu, or will I even notice a lick of difference in performance? Also, is there a full fledged OS with XBMCbuntu or is it just XBMC and that's it? (I would like to set up a share of some sort of communicate with my Mac and PC drives)
http://xbmc.org/download/

Thanks


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## Rubers

From my recent experience with LXDE (the desktop Environment under XBMCbuntu) you should notice a difference system resource usage if you're using full fledged Ubuntu with XMBC over the top. It loads with XMBC as the main screen but underneath is the lightweight desktop with Chromium as the web browser and such. I'd totally go for it if I were you.

Oddly enough I was just looking over Ubuntu distro's for my PC and I had been reading about XMBCbuntu!


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## revlimiter

OK good to know - would I just press "\" to exit XMBC full screen and enter the OS environment within XBMCbuntu then? Is it running Ubuntu 11 underneath the core XBMC load up? And will I be able to set up a samba share as well as Transmission app within XBMCbuntu environment, and have them load underneath XBMC at the initial boot up or will that mess things up?

With those questions answered I will have a better understanding if XMBC is better for me on XBMCbuntu or if I should just keep it on my existing Ubuntu 10 installation.

Thanks,


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## Rubers

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *revlimiter*
> 
> OK good to know - would I just press "\" to exit XMBC full screen and enter the OS environment within XBMCbuntu then? Is it running Ubuntu 11 underneath the core XBMC load up? And will I be able to set up a samba share as well as Transmission app within XBMCbuntu environment, and have them load underneath XBMC at the initial boot up or will that mess things up?
> With those questions answered I will have a better understanding if XMBC is better for me on XBMCbuntu or if I should just keep it on my existing Ubuntu 10 installation.
> Thanks,


Quote:


> XBMCbuntu is very similar to past versions of XBMC Live. By default, the user boots directly into XBMC, and if he/she chooses, he or she will never see the underlying OS. However, unlike Live, XBMCbuntu is now built upon a full LXDE desktop environment, which has a web browser (Chromium) with a fully updated (and updatable) version of Flash built-in and *a GUI package manager ready to install and update all of the normal Ubuntu programs a typical Linux user might use.* The user may now toggle between XBMC, which auto-starts, and a normal desktop if he or she chooses. And, perhaps most exciting for many users, XBMC will now be upgradeable, both from command line and from the GUI package manager, without fear of crashing the XBMC experience.


Without any experience in XMBCbuntu I will still says "yes" as I expect it to work the same as you have setup now. Failing that, unless your internets is crappy download the LiveCD and try from there first to see if you like it? unet Bootable USB is a pretty decent app if you have 1GB USB stick kicking around you could stick it on there instead of using a CD-R (which is noisy to boot from imho).

TL;DR? Download the LiveCD and boot from that to try out the Distro, if you don't like it, it doesn't change anything on your HDD so you don't lose your old setup =D It's Ubuntu LXDE so you can install Samba for netowrking and the Transmission app you spoke about =D


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## revlimiter

OK I installed it and have it up and running. I do notice the menus are quite a bit quicker, but haven't tried video yet. No copy of Ubuntu underneath XBMC though. When I click "Exit" on XBMC it takes me to the login screen and I have to enter my password and when I do that it takes me back to XBMC. Any ideas? I would like to move some files over to my Revo's harddrive if possible for viewing on my HTPC.

Thanks


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## Rubers

Downloading it now. I'll try it out and let you know what I find.


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## Rubers

Ok.

I hit the little power button in the corner and chose "exit" which takes you to the login screen. There's a little dropdowqn box that says "XMBC" in it. I'm assuming if you change that to XMBCbuntu and log in that takes you to the desktop. I couldn't get in because I dunno what the LiveCD username and password is but try that and see what that does


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## revlimiter

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Rubers*
> 
> Ok.
> 
> I hit the little power button in the corner and chose "exit" which takes you to the login screen. There's a little dropdowqn box that says "XMBC" in it. I'm assuming if you change that to XMBCbuntu and log in that takes you to the desktop. I couldn't get in because I dunno what the LiveCD username and password is but try that and see what that does


It won't let me select anything other than "XBMC" in the dropdown, that's why I'm thinking there is no Linux distro underneath of it.


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## Rubers

Hang fire, then. Just installing now so I'll see what happens.


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## Rubers

Gah, dunno what to tell you dude. I'm here now...

I clicked exit, at the login screen I chose "other" then chose XMBCbuntu from the drop down. There was XMBC, XMBCbuntu and OpenBox to choose from...


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## revlimiter

Thanks - I figured it out from my TV rather then from my computer monitor and for some reason it worked too. I found a service called "Synaptic Manager" and managed to install Transmission from there. I also found Samba share and installed that, but I can't figure out how to set it up? What version of Linux is this running on? (Distro wise) I'm not even too sure? lol
In Ubuntu I think I was just able to right click on a folder and then "Share" but in XBMCbuntu it doesn't seem to give that option.
Once the share is set up I'll have everything working 100%! (As long as I don't reboot my HTPC.. I'll have to figure out how to get programs to launch at bootup, since XBMC seems to be the program to boot at launch)
I even managed to get XBMC Commander working on my iPhone, it's an extra handy remote control app.


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## Rubers

Yeah Synaptic is the package manager for this distro. I actually prefer it over the software centre, but if you want that back you can install it from Synaptic I think!

This version is 11.10. It's actually pretty barebones so a lot of stuff is missing that you'd usually come to expect but they're all on the package manager!

Gotta dash. Let me know if there's anything else and I'll check it out tomorrow!


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## Krusher33

+rep for thread and discussion. Couldn't find anything about getting to the desktop in the wikis and when I googled, I found this thread.

I'm having resolution issues and figured it's probably something more in the linux than the settings on XBMC itself.


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## svtfmook

isyour resolution issue that the screen fits at the login screen, but is over sized on the desktop?

if so, turn on overscan on your tv. if you do not have that option, you have to go into either nvidia settings and adjust the zoom and save the config or, use display settings to adjust zoom.

if the login vs desktop resolution is not your problem, then idk


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## Krusher33

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *svtfmook*
> 
> isyour resolution issue that the screen fits at the login screen, but is over sized on the desktop?
> if so, turn on overscan on your tv. if you do not have that option, you have to go into either nvidia settings and adjust the zoom and save the config or, use display settings to adjust zoom.
> if the login vs desktop resolution is not your problem, then idk


Thanks for the response. And no, that wasn't the issue I was having. The tv is cheap and doesn't have a lot of options. I had to use the Catalyst to get the resolution set right.

But now that I fixed that... I have another resolution issue. Any type of videos looks like crap. They're looking like the resolution of an old console tv. If I choose "Original", the screen is about 10" and looks great. But stretch it or zoom it and it's absolutely horrible.

I don't know why it looks good on my Windows media center and not XBMC.


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## svtfmook

what is the resolution set to in xbmc > system > video settings?


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## Krusher33

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *svtfmook*
> 
> what is the resolution set to in xbmc > system > video settings?


1920x 1080


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## Proud2BAgeek

I just installed it on a 1.4Ghz celeron M laptop w/ half gig of ram and it runs great! It even plays youtube/hulu flash content somehow.


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## zer0nix

fyi, the hardware accelleration in the linux version of xbmc performs much more poorly (at least on my old system) than xbmc with dsplayer (which unfortunately has been discontinued(!!!)).

for those who don't know: if you care about performance at all, you'll be wanting hardware accelleration for gpu decoding. this is especially relevant for weak/low end cpus.


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## zer0nix

oof. i see this is one of those forums where you can't edit your posts...

i wanted to say also that my observations were done with xbmc-11-dsplayer.exe and xbmcbuntu 11.1 on the following system:

cpu: 2.53 p4 northwood .. 133 x 19 @ 1.459 (can't overclock with this mobo unless it's a software oc)
gpu: 64mb radeon 9500 pro at 4x (mobo limited)
mobo: 07e8h ( intel i845g chipset )
ram: 2x 512 ddr
soundcard: yamaha xg-ymf724f
os: xp sp3
players: xbmc-11.0-dsplayer, vlc
files: mostly 720p stuff

yep, very old, but it handles 720p stuff alright. mostly.

xbmc with dsplayer handled 720p videos FAR better than xbm****u 11.1; i got mostly smooth playback with the former and a slideshow with the latter.

since i am using windows xp, i used vmr9 hardware decoding. those of you with newer windows should use evr.


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## Krusher33

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Krusher33*
> 
> Thanks for the response. And no, that wasn't the issue I was having. The tv is cheap and doesn't have a lot of options. I had to use the Catalyst to get the resolution set right.
> But now that I fixed that... I have another resolution issue. Any type of videos looks like crap. They're looking like the resolution of an old console tv. If I choose "Original", the screen is about 10" and looks great. But stretch it or zoom it and it's absolutely horrible.
> I don't know why it looks good on my Windows media center and not XBMC.


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *svtfmook*
> 
> what is the resolution set to in xbmc > system > video settings?


Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Krusher33*
> 
> 1920x 1080


Fixed resolution problems with re-install. But after watching a couple of DVD's... it won't play them anymore. File manager see's the contents of the DVD but when you try to play it... a X comes up and then goes back to main menu.

Starting to make me wish to go back to WMC if this keeps up.


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## zer0nix

one final note on xbmcbuntu: for some reason, cpu usage constantly hovered around 80-100%, which is strange. i don't think i was connected to the net so i don't think it was updating in the background.

also, in my experience, the live option doesn't work; i had to fully install the os onto a spare hdd for testing.

sorry about all the negativity but i just didn't have a good experience with xbmcbuntu; it took a long time to install and offered very poor performance compared to xbmc with dsplayer.


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## zer0nix

>it won't play them anymore. ... a X comes up and then goes back to main menu.

i'm seconding this; my experience was with some mkv and avi files which played fine with xbmc-11-dsplayer in windows.

in my experience, linux is very finicky about graphics cards; if the cooler isn't sitting just right or if the gpuram is overheating, the screen will just turn black/fail to appear. a similar thing could be happening here.

i also experienced these problems with xbmc installed onto linuxmint 11, so it's not exclusively an xbmcbuntu problem.


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## Stevo

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *zer0nix*
> 
> oof. i see this is one of those forums where you can't edit your posts...
> i wanted to say also that my observations were done with xbmc-11-dsplayer.exe and xbmcbuntu 11.1 on the following system:
> cpu: 2.53 p4 northwood .. 133 x 19 @ 1.459 (can't overclock with this mobo unless it's a software oc)
> gpu: 64mb radeon 9500 pro at 4x (mobo limited)
> mobo: 07e8h ( intel i845g chipset )
> ram: 2x 512 ddr
> soundcard: yamaha xg-ymf724f
> os: xp sp3
> players: xbmc-11.0-dsplayer, vlc
> files: mostly 720p stuff
> yep, very old, but it handles 720p stuff alright. mostly.
> xbmc with dsplayer handled 720p videos FAR better than xbm****u 11.1; i got mostly smooth playback with the former and a slideshow with the latter.
> since i am using windows xp, i used vmr9 hardware decoding. those of you with newer windows should use evr.


Linux and ATI/AMD video cards are not very friends pre 3xxxHD series I believe. A PC like that would only give you issues and very fine tweaking for it to play properly.

I am currently running XMBC live and haven't updated to the XBMCubuntu because I have just been lazy. The live version of the system if fantastic. I managed to get some old 40gig IDE hard drives and thats all i need. Everything is accessed over my network and I haven't had a issue yet.

And Zer0nix you can edit your post.... its the pencil on the bottom left of your post.


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## Pip Boy

thought I'd chime in.
i tried xbmcbuntu and graphics performance was poor on my 5850 ! quite a suprise considering an old laptop of mine with Intel igp 128vram runs slick!

the main issue i have is the login. exit xbmc and it should take you to desktop not a bloody login screen LOL, its for a couch and controllet based htpc, typing stuff and loggin in? might ad well run windows and manually launch! very slick eh?

this is a case of nerds making something great technically but not thinking practically :/


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## Krusher33

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *phill1978*
> 
> thought I'd chime in.
> i tried xbmcbuntu and graphics performance was poor on my 5850 ! quite a suprise considering an old laptop of mine with Intel igp 128vram runs slick!
> the main issue i have is the login. exit xbmc and it should take you to desktop not a bloody login screen LOL, its for a couch and controllet based htpc, typing stuff and loggin in? might ad well run windows and manually launch! very slick eh?
> this is a case of nerds making something great technically but not thinking practically :/


Actually the idea behind it was so that when you boot up it goes straight to the media program... just like as if you have a pre-built htpc box. The whole exiting out to log into desktop thing is so that a not so saavy user doesn't go messing around with the settings. It makes sense to me.

But the graphics issue is what's bothering me. Now that I got the original issue fixed, it's still having a bit of quality issues compared to WMC. What it's looking like to me now is the refresh rate of the TV is not matching the refresh rate of the computer type scenario. Horizontal lines is transparent but noticeable type issue. I have not been able to remedy this yet.

But there are other bugs that are annoying me as well. Once in awhile on reboot... the default sound gets all messed up. I tried using the custom settings but it doesn't work for me.


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## Pip Boy

Quote:


> Actually the idea behind it was so that when you boot up it goes straight to the media program... just like as if you have a pre-built htpc box. The whole exiting out to log into desktop thing is so that a not so saavy user doesn't go messing around with the settings. It makes sense to me.


but im not a 'not so savvy user' and to be fair most people running a custom linux based htpc operating system which does all the things a WDlive box, boxee box or ps3, xbox i could go on... does AFTER lots of configuration are not going to run this distro.

if they DID want straight to xbmc and no fiddling which is what you imply then OpenElec is perfect for this.

no, the reason xbmcbuntu exists is for the complex and lengthy setup of extra options such as media tomb, transmission client, shares..

or in my case the ability to launch straight to xbmc but then exit to a browser or steam then back to xbmc with the flick of a function key.

Shares,
Transmission,
Media Tomb,
browsers

basically anything that needs network credentials (people running over wireless) and root or admin permissions wont work until logged in.. but hang on then you have exited xbmc and err.. well that's the whole point.

unless it auto logs in after xbmc then i see little point to run it

but thats just for my requirements i do kind of get your point.

ohh and AMD drivers with linux at the moment are shocking !


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## Krusher33

AMD drivers are working for me as far as I know.

And basicaly XBMCbuntu is not for you if you're wanting all those things.

Why did I load it instead of buying an already made one? Because I had a spare computer and no money. And Windows Media Center isn't cutting it for my family. My wife is still confused by it because of so many menu options that I can't get rid of. Plus the extremely long loading time.


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