Revo install
Written by DejaVu77 (on 03/03/11) specific to XBMCLive on an Acer Revo
Wiki Formatting and notes by Archigos (on 07/06/2011)
Please beware - Although most of the information in this guide is correct, if does need revisiting
This guide was sent to me by Deja in a text file (which killed a lot of the formatting) and is being posted here with his permission. At the time I converted the text file over to Github's Wiki format I was pretty new to its syntax, so there may be some formatting errors below, but if you notice anything please feel free to PM me (same Username) on the XBMC Forums. I've also modified some sections for ease of reading, etc.
All Linux commands should be entered on a single line (each) even if the command appears to wrap on this Wiki. If the command was obviously long enough to wrap I tried to make sure there was a blank line before and after to help you visualize them as a single command. Example from article below:
sudo apt-get install build-essential cdbs fakeroot dh-make debhelper debconf libstdc++5 dkms linux-headers-$(uname -r)
sudo sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-260.19.44.run -k $(uname -r) --x-module-path=/usr/lib/xorg/modules --x-library-path=/usr/lib
Although pending on your monitor resolution it may appear as four lines, they are only two separate commands.
Now without further ado, onto the Guide.
XBMCLive is ultimately a standalone XBMC install that runs on a Minimal Installation of Ubuntu and is the recommended way to use XBMC on the Revo to use it at it's full potential.
First things first, although simple, make sure your TV's "Overscan" settings are on their default (it may be called Overscan or Zoom). This is what changes your screen to 16x9 (HD), 4x3 (SD), Subtitle Zoom, Movie Expand, etc. so make sure it's set to 'Default', 'Off' or 'Widescreen'.
My setup is:
- Philips 50" Plasma Full HD TV (1080p).
- Acer Revo R3700 250Gb, 2Gb, Wireless Version.
- Denon AVR-1910 Full HD Amp.
The 4GB Revo will work with this guide, but only 2.7Gb is needed/used. It's a limitation in XBMCLive for some reason (x86/Shared Graphics perhaps?).
- A Windows PC (Irony!)
- A 1GB USB Stick
- The Internet
With this setup you will be able to:
- Use XBMC with full Video Acceleration and DTS/Dolby Surround sound (if needed).
- Install the correct and most up-to-date NVidia ION drivers.
- Share External USB Drives back to a Windows Network.
- Setup your XBMC to be completely compatible with your TV or Amp.
- Download from News Groups (Provider required - Recommended Astraweb!)
- Automatically find TV Episodes & Movies when they are released.
- Rename and Organize them into a decent name convention.
- Surf the internet
- Check your downloads (Movies & TV) with Google Chrome - through XBMC!
- Download and install Skins or Add-ons to XBMC.
- Be able to update & Upgrade almost everything with one single command line command.
- Download the latest version of XBMC Live from XBMC Downloads.
- Grab your 1GB (or larger) USB Thumb Drive since the Revo doesn't have its own DVD Drive and download UNetbootin (For Windows). Make sure to note the drive letter assigned.
- Run UNetbootin and select "Diskimage = ISO" and browse to the Live.iso you downloaded from XBMC's website.
- Mare sure 'Type' says USB and that you have selected the correct one as I (we) take no responsibility for a wiped Hard drive.
- Press OK and your Bootable XBMC Live USB Boot Drive will be created.
- After UNetbootin finishes, shutdown the Revo and leave the USB Drive plugged in.
- Start up the Acer Revo and begin tapping the F12 key as soon as possible.
- You should be asked for a Boot Device (stop tapping F12) and select you USB Drive.
- You should now be asked to run XBMCLive from the USB Drive or install it to the Hard Drive (Warning: Installing to Hard Drive will format that drive)
- Follow directions during install (Full Name, Username, Password, Computer Name, etc.)
- For this guide it is assumed your Username and Password are "XBMC" and the Computer Name is "Revo"
- After install completes the system will shut down, remove the USB Drive and turn it back on to start XBMC.
Once you have XBMCLive installed and running you need to configure a few things, you can do this via the Command Line (Press CTRL+ALT+F2 to get to a prompt/shell from inside XBMC) or via Putty/SSH (Preferred).
Assuming your HTPC (the Revo) is on the same Network/Router as the Windows system you used earlier you can Putty\SSH into it and do the configuration that way.
With Putty loaded, put the name of your Revo server into the "Host Name" setting (Revo) and press "Open" and you'll be asked for your Username (XBMC) and Password (XBMC). If it doesn't connect, you may need to use the Revo's IP Address instead of it's system name.
Now logged into the Revo with Command Line access you can use "Right+Click" to paste info like URL's without having to type them out fully, among other things.
The below assumes you're using Putty on a Windows machine to connect to your Revo.
The Revo uses the Nvidia ION GPU so find the latest drivers and make sure to select:
- Product Type = ION
- Product Series = ION (Desktops)
- Download Type = Graphics Driver
- Operating System = Linux 32-bit
- Language = English (UK)
- Click "Search" then click "Download"
When you reach the page that says "Agree & Download", "Right+Click" on that button and "Copy Link Address" (or "Copy Link Location")
Now back in Putty:
wget ^Right+Click pastes URL^
so you should have something similar to:
wget http://uk.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/260.19.44/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-260.19.44.run
Note: version 260.19.44 is/was the latest version at the time of this writing.
This will download all the drivers that we need, so wait for them to finish and type: sudo apt-get update which updates Linux's Repositories and ensures you download the correct versions. (Thanks to Digital Forums Member Northernbloke for pointing this out.)
Next stop the X-Server and install the latest version:
sudo /etc/init.d/xbmc-live stop
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-dev
Make sure both lines below are on a SINGLE line each (starting with 'sudo'), also make sure in the second line that the '.run' file matches the name from above.
sudo apt-get install build-essential cdbs fakeroot dh-make debhelper debconf libstdc++5 dkms linux-headers-$(uname -r)
sudo sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-260.19.44.run -k $(uname -r) --x-module-path=/usr/lib/xorg/modules --x-library-path=/usr/lib
If all has gone well you should be in the NVidia installer. It pretty much guides you through everything, but just press "Enter/Return" and answer Yes to all the questions. When that's done you'll return to a blank screen.
Then reboot the Revo and it will automatically load XBMC with the correct up-to-date video drivers:
sudo shutdown -r now
Now we'll start to configure some of the audio and video settings of XBMC (we'll cover more later).
Audio
You can configure this to your personal preference, for most people that means using HDMI for the output and HDA Nvidia HDMI for the bottom two settings.
Video
Go to "Settings > System > Video" and enable VDPAU. Ignore Resolution as we'll address this properly later on.
Problems existed with sound in the Dharma beta versions, but with the official release, the issues have resolved.
After the above, you should have your Revo all setup with XBMC and Full Video Acceleration with DTS/Dolby D Surround sound through HDMI. At this point if you use Optical audio you should be able to set that with no problem as well.
Samba may already be installed on the XBMC Live CD, I can't remember, so the following is in case it's not.
Install Samba:
sudo apt-get install samba smbfs
After Samba is installed XBMCLive should appear on your home network but there's one more step:
sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf
Make sure that your "Workgroup" is set near the top and add the following at the end of the file:
[Revo]
comment = Revo
path = /
force user = root
inherit permissions = yes
read only = no
guest ok = Yes
The above effectively does what some thought was not possible and gives you the ability to view the entire Revo's drive (ext4) on your Windows machine and you should have total read access. Write access is only limited to certain areas.
Main areas of interest
/media = This is where your USB drives are attached.
/mnt = This is where you should 'mount' any network drives.
/home/xbmc = This is the User folder for XBMC
You CAN now create Network drives as I have to the /media folder if you wish for ease of access through Windows. Which is what I did.
Automatically download, update and organize your entire TV and Movie Collections with hardly any intervention from you.
SickBeard
I created a clone from the Github. Upgrading is easy. SB is now auto updating by itself.
Installing via git hub is easy.
sudo apt-get install git-core
cd ~
git clone git://github.com/midgetspy/Sick-Beard.git ".sickbeard"
SabNZBd
echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/jcfp/ppa/ubuntu $(lsb_release -c -s) main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:11371 --recv-keys 0x98703123E0F52B2BE16D586EF13930B14BB9F05F
sudo apt-get update
sudo aptitude --with-recommends install sabnzbdplus
I could write out configuration guides for these, but perfect ones already exists. If you followed the above, you have already downloaded and installed Sickbeard and SabNZBd, so start Ainer's tutorials from the 'Auto-Run' part. I followed these (SickBeard & SabNZBd) and it was pretty simple. All credit to Ainer for this!
CouchPotato - I will be creating an in depth guide on how to setup CouchPotato soon.
Note from Archigos: After the 'basics' of this Wiki is setup, I may try to do write-ups for each of the applications that MediaFrontPage utilizes (Capture - SabNZBd, uTorrent, jDownloader. Organization - SickBeard, CouchPotato, HeadPhones)
This is a new program that does the same for movies that Sickbeard does for TV Shows. You add the Movies you want and the Quality you want it in. As soon as it's available 'From the Usual places' it automatically downloads and adds it too SabNZBd's download list. There is also a 'UserScript' that integrates with most well known Movie websites.
cd ~
sudo git clone http://github.com/RuudBurger/CouchPotato.git "/usr/local/sbin/couchpotato"
cd /usr/local/sbin/couchpotato
sudo cp initd /etc/init.d/couchpotato
sudo chmod a+x /etc/init.d/couchpotato
sudo update-rc.d couchpotato defaults
sudo /etc/init.d/couchpotato start
The IMDB UserScript
CouchPotato can also insert a User-Script into Google Chrome and Mozilla's Firefox (Chrome recommended on the Revo) that allows you to Add Movies by simply surfing certain websites and clicking a button to add it to the 'Wanted' List.
You can get to this by loading up the configuration page of CouchPotato in Google Chrome via http://xbmclive:5000. The next time you surf IMDB, TheMovieDB, Sharethe.tv or trakt.tv using Google Chrome, you will see an 'Add to CouchPotato' Widget in the corner which will do exactly that!
XBMC, SabNZBd, Sickbeard and CouchPotato are all installed and should all run upon start in the background when you switch your Revo on! Congratulations.
Surf the Internet, check Facebook/eBay/Forums/etc all from your Living Room TV.
Make sure to do the following one (1) at a time:
Note from Archigos: Due to the way I received the guide from DejaVu that I'm transferring to Wiki format, verification of this section is needed and I'd advise skipping this for now as neither of us will take responsibility for damage to your system by following this section
wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | sudo apt-key add -
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ stable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list'
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install google-chrome-stable
Now we need a script to run Google Chrome via executor.
cd ~
mkdir scripts
cd scripts
sudo nano chrome.sh
Nano opens a blank text file, copy and paste (Right+Click in Putty is Paste) this into it:
#!/bin/bash
fluxbox &
google-chrome
killall -9 fluxbox
Save and Exit Nano (CTRL+X, press Y, then press Enter)
sudo chmod +x chrome.sh
Now, back in XBMC load up Executor "Add-Ons > Executor"
Navigate to /home/xbmc/scripts and select the chrome.sh
For Arguments - Press Enter (leave alone)
For Program name - Google Chrome
Now try running Google Chrome and if everything up to now went OK, you should be able to go to the following URL's for your programs:
- http://localhost:8081 for Sickbeard
- http://localhost:8080 for SabNZBd
- http://localhost:5000 for CouchPotato
To close Google Chrome, press CTRL+F4 or press \ to switch back to XBMC.
If the Font sizes or icons are too small (and they are likely to be) you can do the following:
sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Under the "Monitor" section, add the line: Option "DPI" "100x100" to make the writing larger and more readable. If you still have trouble reading it, follow the above again and this time use higher numbers in place of "100x100", although I found 100 to be perfect and 200 seemed a bit large.
This uses the NVidia X Server and Fluxbox Window Manager to correctly display XBMC on your TV. Although it seems relatively involved, I am going to scratch the surface of this to get the optimum settings for your TV.
First off we need to generate a new xorg.conf file which lives at /etc/X11/xorg.conf
sudo nvidia-xconfig
sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Now add the following lines in the correct section of that file:
Section "monitor"
Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "TRUE"
Section "Device"
Option "ModeValidation" "NoEdidModes"
Now close and save the file by hitting "CTRL+X" on your keyboard, then press "Y" and then "Enter"
Now we need to figure out what kind of resolution your TV supports by asking for its Extended Display Identification Data info:
Kill XBMC if it's running:
sudo /etc/init.d/xbmc-live stop
Now we need to setup a log file with your TV's EDID Modes:
cd ~
X -verbose 6 > ~/xlog.txt 2>&1
After about 10 seconds (any longer will generate a massive Log file) kill X by pressing CTRL+C. The EDID data is outputted extremely quickly.
In the Root of you Home directory (cd ~) you will find xlog.txt which I found easier to navigate to on my Windows
PC as the command line programs Nano or GEdit are awkward to use in this situation.
From the Windows PC, navigate to \\REVO\System\xlog.txt and open it in Wordpad, Notepad++, etc.
Press CTRL+F for "Find" and search for "Frequency information for" this will show the TV. (In my case it is Denon 1910-AVR AMP, the Amp pulls the information from the TV and forwards it.
We are also interested in the following lines:
(II) NVIDIA(0): Frequency information for : Denon 1910-AVR
(II) NVIDIA(0): HorizSync : 15.000-50.000 kHz
(II) NVIDIA(0): VertRefresh : 48.000-62.000 Hz
Write down your HorizSync and VertRefresh values and proceed further for the Validated Modes.
(II) NVIDIA(0): Validating Mode "1920x1080":
(II) NVIDIA(0): 1920 x 1080 @ 60 Hz
(II) NVIDIA(0): For use as DFP backend.
(II) NVIDIA(0): Mode Source: EDID
(II) NVIDIA(0): Pixel Clock : 74.25 MHz
(II) NVIDIA(0): HRes, HSyncStart : 1920, 2008
(II) NVIDIA(0): HSyncEnd, HTotal : 2052, 2200
(II) NVIDIA(0): VRes, VSyncStart : 1080, 1084
(II) NVIDIA(0): VSyncEnd, VTotal : 1094, 1124
(II) NVIDIA(0): H/V Polarity : +/+
(II) NVIDIA(0): Extra : Interlace
(II) NVIDIA(0): Mode is valid.
Make sure that the "(II) NVIDIA(0): Mode is valid." line exists on the one you pick. To create a modeline from this is easy. From my example above the first line would be "1920x1080" and then 74.25 and then 1920 2008 and 2052 2200 and so on, you just read the values from top to bottom. So in this example the modeline that section gives me would be:
ModeLine "1920x1080" 74.25 1920 2008 2052 2200 1080 1084 1094 1124 +hsync +vsync Interlace
You can add as many VALID Modes as you like, I mainly only went for 1920x1080, 1280x720 in 50Hz & 60Hz. My TV doesn't support 24p, so that's pointless in my case.
These are MY ModeLines:
ModeLine "1280x720 @ 50Hz" 74.25 1280 1720 1760 1980 720 725 730 750 +hsync +vsync
ModeLine "1280x720 @ 60Hz" 74.25 1280 1390 1430 1650 720 725 730 750 +hsync +vsync
ModeLine "1920x1080 @ 50Hz" 148.50 1920 2448 2492 2640 1080 1084 1089 1125 +hsync +vsync
ModeLine "1920x1080 @ 60Hz" 148.35 1920 2008 2052 2200 1080 1084 1089 1125 +hsync +vsync
Now that we got both vsync, hsync and the working modeline's, lets put it in our xorg.conf.
Back in terminal
sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Then add YOUR HorizSync, VertRefresh, and ModeLines from what you wrote down earlier.
Section "Monitor"
HorizSync 15 - 50
VertRefresh 48 - 62
ModeLine "1280x720 @ 50Hz" 74.25 1280 1720 1760 1980 720 725 730 750 +hsync +vsync
ModeLine "1280x720 @ 60Hz" 74.25 1280 1390 1430 1650 720 725 730 750 +hsync +vsync
ModeLine "1920x1080 @ 50Hz" 148.50 1920 2448 2492 2640 1080 1084 1089 1125 +hsync +vsync
ModeLine "1920x1080 @ 60Hz" 148.35 1920 2008 2052 2200 1080 1084 1089 1125 +hsync +vsync
Option "DPI" "100x100"
Now we need to remove the line we added earlier to get the EDID's and another (if present) that will override ours.
Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "TRUE"
Option "DPMS"
IMPORTANT - This line must match the modeline you created exactly! In my case I added the Hz into the Description.
Section "Screen" - SubSection "Display"
Modes "1920x1080 @ 50Hz" "1920x1080 @ 60Hz" "1280x720 @ 50Hz" "1280x720 @ 60Hz"
Now close and save the file ("CTRL+X", "Y", "Enter")
Start XBMC by running
sudo /etc/init.d/xbmc-live start
You should get a nice correct screen, make sure to go into "Settings > Screen" and calibrate/adjust your new resolution. Plus make SURE the Overscan is set to Default on your TV!!
If not try another modeline using same methods and see if that works. If all goes completely wrong or you give up, simply generate a new xorg.conf by running
sudo nvidia-xconfig
Further information on this can be found at http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=54685
The Official Repo is added by default and allows you to install a variety of Add-ons, however, the Unofficial ones offer even more. Team XBMC does not offer support for Add-ons installed via an Unofficial Repo and you must seek that Add-ons creator for help if required.
First download these to your desktop, they are all direct links, so you should be able to 'Save Link As'.
- Google Code Repository - General Plugins - Maintained by Nuka1195
- Queeup Repository - General Plugins - Maintained by Queeup
- Luxeria Repository - Swiss Repo - Maintained by linuxluemmel.ch
- Hitcher's Repository - Host of the Alaska Skin - Maintained by Hitcher
- [Passion XBMC](http://passion-xbmc.org/hips/(team-beta\)-passion-xbmc-add-on-repository/?action=dlattach;attach=3507) - French Repo (some English stuff) - Maintained by XBMC-Passion Team
- Bluecop Repository - Music & Video Add-Ons - Maintained by BlueCop
- DanDar3 Repository - Large Repo - Maintained my DanDare
- XOT:Uzg - Online TV Streams - Maintained by Basje
- Seppius Repository - Russian Repo - Maintained by Seppius
- Chinese Repository - Chinese Repo - Maintained by Taxigps
- Adult Only Repository - Adult Only content - Maintained by XBMCAdult
Now, open Network share \\Revo\System\Downloads and copy or move all the downloaded Zip into this folder.
Load up XBMC and go to "Add-Ons > Install From Zip". For each one, load it and add it to your install. All done, you have all the Unofficial Repo's that I know of installed.