In the last post I described how you can use XBMC Live on the Acer Revo but as well as that works it seemed a waste to restrict the Revo to just XBMC so I’ve since installed the 64 bit version of Xubuntu instead and run XBMC on top of that.
I chose Xubuntu as it is a light weight version of Ubuntu using the XFCE window manager instead of the Gnome desktop environment so has the advantage of having all the Ubuntu repositories available without the overhead of running Gnome or KDE (in the case of Kubuntu).
I installed the 64-bit version of Xubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) available here.
As with XBMC Live I used unetbootin to create a bootable image on a USB flash drive (actually an SD card in this case). Once this is done insert the flash drive or SD card into the Revo and turn it on, pressing F12 during boot and selecting the USB drive or SD as the boot device.
I installed it into the unpartitioned space on the Revo drive leaving the factory Linpus install in place. Linpus is added as an option to the Grub boot menu allowing you to choose between it and your new Xubuntu install should you need to (I can’t see why you would).
Once you have installed Xubuntu and booted into it you will see a popup within a few minutes prompting you to install the proprietary Nvidia drivers which you will need to use the Revo’s ION GPU for HD playback (you will also need to change the “Render Method” to VDPAU in the XBMC settings later on as with the Live setup).
Earlier this week I bought an Acer Aspire Revo R3610 to replace my original Xbox based XBMC system which has provided sterling service for the last 7 years.
I’ve been a big fan of the Xbox version of XBMC and its predecessor Xbox Media Player (it was the only reason I bought my Xbox) but it’s getting a bit limited now due to its 733MHz CPU and paltry 64MB RAM.
By contrast the Revo R3610 has a dual core Atom N330 CPU and up to 4GB RAM as well as a NVIDIA GeForce 9400 Ion GPU. As a result XBMC on the Revo is capable of playing full 1080p HD video without problem. It makes a perfect media center; it’s small, low powered and if you have a MCE remote control it will work straight off, just plug the USB receiver in.
I’m currently using the XBMC Live release which is a self contained install built on top of a minimal Ubuntu installation. Installing XBMC Live on the Revo is a breeze:
Use unetbootin to create a bootable image on a USB flash drive
Insert the flash drive in the Revo and turn it on, pressing F12 during boot and selecting the USB drive as the boot device
At the menu you can select to run straight from the USB drive (option 1) or you can select “Install XBMCLive to disk”
Once that is done just reboot and it will boot straight into XBMC
You will then want to go into the settings and change the “Render Method” in the video section to VDPAU. This allows XBMC to use the Revo’s NVIDIA Ion GPU for video processing. If you are using HDMI for your audio output you will also need to go to the audio section and change the output to Custom and enter plug:hdmi
It makes a fantastic media center and the Revo R3610 with dual core Atom N330 CPU, 2GB RAM and 250GB HD is currently on offer for £199 at ebuyer which is a great deal.
I’ve been hearing a lot of dissent in the Firefox-using ranks lately and have to say that I have been feeling some pain myself, on multiple machines and different operating systems. Once heralded as the lightweight, reliable, alternative browser, Firefox seems to be becoming slower and more bloated with each release.
As a multi-platform user I was a big fan of the Mozilla Suite for years and was quite a late convert to Firefox, hanging onto Mozilla for a long time after the main development focus had switched to Firefox. Eventually it was the breadth of extensions available for Firefox that finally swung it for me and if I’m honest that is the only thing that is making me cling on now.
I’m finding myself using Google Chrome more and more often, the dev channel version for Linux is now completely functional and is extremely fast, possibly more so than the Windows version. If I can wean myself off a couple of Firefox extensions I will be on Chrome full time and there are more extensions becoming available for Chrome all the time. The latest development version of Chromium (the open source version of Chrome) being able to convert Greasemonkey user scripts into extensions can only speed this process up.
How are Firefox and Chrome shaping up for you, or do you use something different?
I’ve been quite enamoured with my iPhone, personally I don’t think any other smartphone comes close at the moment but I’m no Apple fan boy, just a pragmatist. If something better comes along I’ll be onto it. Unfortunately, I and many many others have been experiencing unpredictable lock ups since the 3.1 OS update. It didn’t manifest itself immediately after the update but once it started I was getting it once a day, Turning 3G and wifi off stopped it for me but some people were getting it much more often and for a lot it seemed that nothing they tried helped other than downgrading to 3.0.1 – not something Apple sanctioned or made easy. When the iPhone coma (as it came to be known) occurred incoming calls just rang out, they didn’t go to voicemail and sometimes the lockup was accompanied by the battery being completely flattened and the phone becoming very hot. Good for it I’m sure!
Shit happens of course, bugs often don’t show themselves until something is made live and used in the real world, you deal with it. What is unforgivable is Apple’s silence on the issue, some acknowledgement of the problem and a statement to the effect of “we’re working on it” would have been much more preferable to the deadly silence we got. There were over 2000 posts in this single thread on the Apple forum alone yet not a single word from Apple on the issue anywhere. The 3.1.2 update doesn’t specifically mention the locking up problem but does say it “Resolves sporadic issue that may cause iPhone not to wake from sleep” and early indications are it does fix the coma bug.
So that’s soured my “Apple experience” somewhat, phone, 3G and wifi are core features after all. Here’s hoping 3.1.2 does fix the problem, so far so good. I can’t see that it can make matters worse.
It is certainly the last update I will be rushing into.
Sadly it looks like I might have another poor customer service tale to tell soon, involving a dead monitor, a 3 year on site warranty and a manufacturer that doesn’t seem to like returning calls or emails. Hopefully they can yet redeem themselves as I’ve had excellent customer service from them on the one occassion I previously had need for it. I’ll let you know how I get on.
I’ve been raving about streaming music service Spotify to anyone who will listen for a while now…
Financed through very infrequent and unintrusive ads or a rather expensive £10/month subscription, Spotify is the latest attempt to save the music industry from piracy, and it’s making a big impact.
The application is available for Windows or Max OS X and also runs flawlessly under Wine on Linux (which seems to have resulted in no ads at the moment) and mobile versions are in the works.
As well as browsing for artists, albums and tracks Spotify also has a radio feature where you can select music by genre and time and it also allows you to share songs and playlists with friends easily.
It’s a brilliant way to explore new music and the range available is staggering with a few notable exceptions being The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin (get with it guys!).
After much umming and ahhing I finally decided to get an iPhone 3G 16GB and wow, what a fantastic bit of kit. Feels so good in the hand (you’d have to try it to understand) and the OS is the slickest mobile OS I’ve seen by a good margin. Definitely the best thing I have bought in a long while!
If I had a complaint, and obviously I was aware of this beforehand, it is that it needs iTunes for syncing etc… I don’t have any recent macs here, I’m a long term Linux guy as you know but I do have a couple of XP boxes around so that’s not the problem, it’s just that iTunes always seems so laggy and unresponsive on windows. Might be getting a Mac Mini before too long though as I want to have a look into iPhone app development.
Saw this in action at last night… it’s good, but not quite as impressive as it looks in the vid – the 45 degree angle of the Wiimote camera is very noticeable up close, you can hardly move before it is out of range. Still an impressive hack though and very easy to set up, give it a try if you have a Wii.
I’ve replaced my main desktop machine, it’s about time too!
Specs are: AMD Phenom 9550 (2.2Ghz Quad core), Asus M3A mobo, 2Gb Corsair PC2-6400 RAM, 500Gb SATAII HD, Nvidia 8600GT dual DVI Gfx, 700W PSU and a nice case + some fans that weren’t 50p each (learnt that lesson the hard way!)
Should have 3 x 22″ widescreen monitors here on Friday. Two for this new PC and one connected to another, linked with Synergy. Play time
I was recently pointed in the direction of XBMC Fox, a useful Firefox extension that adds a new option to the right click menu in Firefox which will send URLS to XBMC (Xbox Media Center) for on screen playback.
Well it might be an IE only DRM’d piece of crap but does it have any redeeming points?
Not that I can find. Had a play with it last night and can’t say I was impressed. 30 mins show at 142Mb, not bad but took ages to download and quality was piss poor on my big telly, loads of artifacting.
With that and the max 28 days to watch (7 days once you’ve watched it once) I will definately be sticking to torrents if that’s all they can offer!
I’ve been raving about streaming music service 
