Any XBMC experts here able to help me set XBMC in Ubuntu?

sastusbulbas

sastusbulbas

sastusbulbas

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As per title, i am having all sorts of problems with Ubuntu 10.04 one of them is setting up XBMC and using it to stream music and movies from my Windows 7 PC downstairs which contains a shared hard drive full of music and movies.

I have no idea what I am doing, being a bit of a noob. I have sort of got most of XBMC installed, up to the bit "Adding the XBMC SVN Repo Installer" and when I start XBMC I have no idea what I am doing with settings, and have managed to get a link in music showing Windows Network (SBM) but no idea what why where for music which would be a start.

As would configuring the audio, M-Audio 24/96 stereo, and later display as I cannot get anything to play DVD smoothly let alone access remote media (even directly accessing the VOB file results in jerky playback via VLC)
 
ok, lets start from the beginning.

What is your hardware?

Ati or nvidia?

I just setup ubuntu up with XBMC and MCE remote support on my dad's HTPC so I should be bale to help you throw it easily.
 
OK sorry for the delay, this was put on hold as I was working on another PC, and getting a new telly.

Current HTPC is,
Asrock 4CoreDUal SataII mobo
Intel E5200 passive cooled
Corsair XMS PC3500LL 2x1gb
HIS IceQ Pro HD3850 AGP graphics
M-Audio 24/96 audio card
Sammy drives DVD and HDD
Corsair 450w modular PSU
Silverstone LC13 case

May end up changing some components with these,
Asus Maximus Gene II 775 micro ATX mobo
Intel E6300
PC-8500 (awaiting)
Powercolor HD5750 passive GPU
 
ok first of all, before launching XBMC, do you have sound?

Have you installed graphics drivers?

If you haven't got graphics drivers installed:

http://www.michaellarabel.com/?k=blog&i=114

If you do upgrade your graphics card, please for the love of cheese buy an nvidia card, nvidia drivers are 100x better than ati on linux.

Having said that I bought a 5870 because I game on windows, I have to use an opensource driver as official ATI support is pants.
 
It may even be worth holding out as a new XBMC release is due soon. Maybe even get an SVN build from a PPA? Is there a reason you are using ubuntu, if not then it may be worth giving the XBMC Live CD a whirl as this will be far less painful to get up and runing quickly, even if it is just to tide you over till the next release when you can switch back to Ubuntu if you so please.

http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=XBMC_Live

http://xbmc.org/download/
 
Hi guys, regarding questions raised,

I seem to have motherboard sound as I can run my headphones from the rear motherboard output, I am assuming the M-Audio card will not be a problem to set up as it is supported bu Linux.

I have only installed the available ATI driver from the Ubuntu Synaptic manager download thingy.

I don't plan on buying a new graphics card, well I don't think I will, unless there is a cheap guaranteed option that is capable of smooth 1080p under Ubuntu?
My powercolor HD5750 is new in it's box.

What is an SVN build from a PPA?

My only reasons for using Ubuntu, my Windows 7 release candidate ran out, I had read that Ubuntu can do everything a Windows PC can do with regard to being a Media center, I will have to save up some cash for Windows 7 as I am currently putting together a few other things inc the hardware for a smaller Micro ATX HTPC.

When you talk about giving the XBMC Live CD a whirl? Can this be loaded with no OS or is it just that the live CD is easier to run? As I could not play a DVD from the DVD drive if a live CD is in there?
 
Playing DVD's:





Ubuntu 9.04, 9.10 and 10.04 (i386, amd64)


  • Install the libdvdread4 package (no need to add third party repositories) via Synaptic or command line:

sudo apt-get install libdvdread4
  • Then open a terminal window and execute:

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.shRebooting may be necessary.



You also need to ensure your media player is set to Xv playback.

I use boxee on ubuntu and not XBMC, I find it better.
 
I found the ATI/AMD Proprietary FGLRX driver was causing issues.

Still not sorted out Ubuntu as I think I will have to start again with that.

I installed Mint, and without the above update it played DVD's from the DVD drive, with the above update I got the same jerky unresponsive playback I had in Ubuntu so I feel that driver is one of the issues?

My current issue is finding out how to install the XBMC SVN Repo Installer? I have it downloaded as a ZIP in my downloads folder, I have opened up XBMC program and closed that. But I cannot find the location xbmc/plugins/programs directory that I am meant to extract the repo file to?

Not sure where I should be looking and how I should then extract it to that location?

I tried the XMBC live CD but could not work out how to get it to access and stream from my PC folder?
 
right ok, lets take this slowly.

So this issue is crappy ATI? Are you running the opensource driver?


Forget about XBMC for now. We need to make sure you are running the opensource ati driver, as it's not as pants as official ATI driver (this is what i run for my 5870)

Then we need to setup samba for file sharing.

Then we need to make sure all the media works before we even think about installing XBMC.

So, lets start... reinstall ubuntu from scratch, then...

Type this in terminal:

Code: 
lsmod

Copy and paste the output in this thread.
 
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